TEDxPennQuarter 2011 - Dominic Crapuchettes - Reinventing Board Games

Dominic Crapuchettes has always been passionate about designing board games. One of his early games, Kabloogi, was banned from 8th grade because classmates played it during class. In high school, Dominic designed a trivia game called Conceptual Pursuit, which was later turned into the wildly popular Wits & Wagers. During college, he won over $30,000 playing on the pro tour of a card game called Magic: The Gathering. In 2001, Dominic co-founded Protospiel, an annual convention of game designers which focuses on a European design style that is growing in popularity.

Upon graduating from the MBA program at the University of Maryland in 2004, Crapuchettes founded a board game company called North Star Games with $10,000 in seed capital. Their flagship product, Wits & Wagers, has gone on to win more awards than any party game in history. It is now available at Target, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, Barnes & Noble, the Xbox, and 13 European countries. Previously, Dominic spent 12 seasons working as a captain of a commercial fishing vessel in Alaska, 3 years as a programmer at an internet company, and 2 years as a consultant to entrepreneurs.


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Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• TEDx
• TEDxPennQuarter
• English
• USA
• reinventing

[psyjam]

I don't believe that the emergence of boardgames to a technology-based medium is a "catalyst" of change by the virtue of the fact that social, pliable, and tangible boardgaming is, by essence, the beauty of why we "game". I agree that while we may be on the "cusp" of an emergence of computer & board gaming hybrids, I don't believe that the end result will intrinsically change the way that interested individuals will approach and take part in the board gaming hobby. It is a social experience.

[applejack1963]

If any of this has piqued your curiosity, I'd recommend you delve into the IMDb of board games, boardgamegeek[dot]com

[blightygamer]

Interesting for non-gamers, nothing new for gamers but I applaud spreading the news. I would challenge the notion that boardgames on a tablet will rival traditionally produced versions. Compliment? Yes. Rival, unlikely as the tangible and tactile difference of playing a traditionally well-produced board game with all the art, components brings a level of satisfaction that ios versions cannot replicate.

[ryhi07]

Good overview... but he should have included some specific examples of games that have come out in the last 15-20 years (Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, etc). He could have broken down more characteristics, through these examples, that show how game design has changed/progressed (e.g. player decision vs random dice rolls)

[brucecrapuchettes]

Very informative! ...and easy to understand and follow. Well done! I will be looking for the North Star Games brand, and Dominic Crapuchettes, designer, in particular.

Francine Beauvoir, Ph.D., Psychologist