We were lucky to catch up with Tanner Simmons recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tanner, appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

I started board game design in late 2018 and had almost no experience at the time. I was only playtesting projects of mine with close friends and being far too precious about what were frankly bad ideas. It wasn’t until I was suddenly unemployed due to the covid pandemic that I realized how I needed to focus all my extra time and energy into my craft and find communities online to help me kick into high gear.

I joined an online Discord game design group based in Grand Rapids, Michigan (GRUBS – Grand Rapids Unpublished Boardgame Society) on the opposite side of the state from me hoping to get some feedback on my first serious game design project. I met up with them on their regularly scheduled Thursday night block and I’ve been going almost every week since.

If it hadn’t been for the sudden forced change in my environment, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to finally “level up” my pursuits of being a board game designer and go through the steps to seek out similar minded-folks who cared about it as much as I did.

Tanner, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I graduated from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan with a BFA in Illustration in 2016, with my original goal to pursue a career in comics. A few years went by and while I loved the medium and the passionate, creative people in that industry, I discovered that I wasn’t hungry enough for it myself.

In that time, I finished a series titled “This Is Jim,” which is a meditation on memory and stories told in different points in time from a stick-figure like man named Jim. I’m also still working on an ongoing webcomic series titled “The Whatever Chronicles” which I still release strips for to this day. It’s a fantasy/comedy chosen hero story that I started writing back in 2014 as a self-imposed creative exercise but eventually became something much grander. I’m getting close to 900+ strips and I’m hoping to finish the series out in the next few years.

Comics aside, it wasn’t until 2018 when I started to think fondly about the board game experiences my roommate had shared with me while I was in college. I loved them and reflected on my interest in video-game design theory. I didn’t have the skills needed to make video-games, but I loved hearing people talk about the craft and the reason certain design decisions were made. With that in mind, I thought “Well, maybe board games are a good middle ground for someone like me!” Almost 6 years later and I’m still constantly tinkering away at a new design, I can’t get enough of it!

I work on my own personal board game designs both mechanically and artistically, but have also done commission work for other designers’ games as well. A lot of those art skills really come in handy in a medium where good graphic design and strong visual communication can be the missing link between a good game and a great one.

At the moment I’ve got one game fully published game titled “Inside Job” which is a blend of classic trick-taking card games like Hearts with social deduction games like Werewolf. Everyone is a secret agent and is given a hand of playing cards and are trying to play certain cards onto the table to fulfill “missions.” If enough missions are completed, everyone at the table wins! The only problem is one of you ISN’T a team player and secretly wants to sabotage those missions without looking too suspicious in the process. That player is The Insider, and they’re able to win by either flying under the radar the whole game or winning enough tricks with the most powerful cards to steal an early victory.

I take a lot of pride in the things I make and spend many months (years, even!) refining and perfecting the way the games are played to get the most enjoyable experience possible out of the final product. Not only do I try to push what games are capable of on a mechanical level, but I strive to find unique and compelling themes that will make the act of playing the game that much more harmonious and immersive.

Another game that I still have in development is called “Gobble-Ins!” where players take the role of goblins who can literally swallow and digest magical treasures and items. In a standard fantasy game, you’ve got to manage your loot in your inventory, but in this game, your digestive system literally IS your inventory, which leads to plenty of funny table talk and lots of interesting game play implications that you wouldn’t get out of any other fantasy themed game.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Seeing people literally PLAY with the projects that I’ve put so much care and effort into. Being a game designer is incredibly humbling for a number of reasons, and it takes a lot of swallowed pride and hard work to take a simple idea and turn it into a finished product that’s not only playable, but fun.

Speaking more broadly to being an artist in general, I love giving people stories that they can walk away with and tell people about later. Whether that be through a game of mine they’ve played or an illustration I’ve done that stuck with them. I love having those experiences myself and it’s a pleasure to be able to give that feeling back to others.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

Anyone who supports NFTs (and AI art, while we’re at it) can, respectfully, go jump in a lake.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tannersimmons.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TannerOSimmons
• Other: The Whatever Chronicles (ongoing webcomic): www.thewhateverchronicles.com This Is Jim & I’m Sorry Jim (finished webcomic): https://tapas.io/episode/585576