Gallery: SimCity Designer Lovingly Crafts Handmade 'Christmas Games'
01stone-librande-roboball
*Roboball, from 1998, started out as a simple marble shooter, but evolved into a more sophisticated card game as a way to balance the chaos of kids shooting marbles at tiny plastic robots. For Librande, the design surprise came when his sons, then ages 6 and 3, started making up stories around the dinner table based on the characters on the cards. “All of a sudden, these robots had a life of their own,” he said. “The lesson for me was that you can make stories out of games and have those stories live on past the game.”*
02stone-librande-maze
*Of all the Christmas games, 1999’s Maze Game has seen the most polish and refinement, Librande says. Starting life as a simple cardboard prototype...*
03stone-librande-maze-2
*...it has since evolved into a finely handcrafted set of tiles and boxes, with intricate handpainted miniatures to match. The game’s modular design means new rules can be added in the form of new characters -- though Librande only lets someone add a character if they bring a painted miniature to play with. The game has even seen its share of piracy: After a few friends made copies of the game, Librande got a compliment on the design from a stranger -- a friend of a friend who had made a copy of a copy, and was enjoying the game unbeknownst to its designer.*
04stone-librande-junkyard-bots
*Junkyard Bots evolved as an exercise in making a game using only dice -- though in this game, each die has a robot part printed on one face, and your character is the sum of the dice you draw. To fire your laser, roll the die with the laser on it. Or roll your rockets to blast out of danger: Librande’s Christmas games all come with a non-violent option, to satisfy his wife.*
05stone-librande-kongzilla
*2001’s game grew out of Librande’s desire to make a game that featured the gigantic Kong-Zilla figure he spotted in the window of a toy store. One lesson Librande learned early in his Christmas game career is that, contrary to what most designers are taught, the pieces are more important than the rules. Kong-Zilla’s goal is to knock over plastic buildings and toy soldiers. Librande fitted the military vehicles with laser pointers and mirrors, and tasked the army with hitting Kong-Zilla with a laser on the rebound. Six-year-olds with laser pointers? No problem!*
06stone-librande-monster-hunter
*An attempt to clone* Diablo *as a card game, “but without all the disemboweled harem girls,” Monster Hunter is the game that landed Librande his first job as a designer. Part of what impressed Blizzard execs was Librande’s heavy reliance on Excel spreadsheets to balance the design. With some 400 cards, the game takes as long as five hours to complete, but it remains a Librande family favorite.*
07stone-librande-nanobots
*Nanobots took its inspiration from Librande’s desire to convert* Spore*’s cell stage, which he worked on at Maxis, into a board game. Like the Junkyard Bots, it features a modular design in which players construct their own units as they play, a favorite feature of Librande’s. The game had an unusual impact on Librande’s professional life, itself serving as inspiration for the Xbox Live Arcade title* Microbot*.*
08stone-librande-race-city
*Race City started as a tabletop version of* SimCity*, but “the theme turned out to be too boring,” Librande says. “Who wants to play a game where you are a person that gets up in the morning, goes to work, makes money, buys stuff, and goes back home?” Instead, it became a different kind of contest, and a different echo of real life: players first build the streets of a city, and then race through them to see who will fill the limited number of jobs available.*
