Cult Leader
Page 1 2 3 Jeff Tidball, a 24-year-old resident of Minnesota, has two board games published and works for Atlas Games, handling Internet queries, most rules questions and general editorial inquiries. He's also a successful game designer, with two published games already under his belt and more ideas floating around his brain, waiting for the day he actually has time to work on them.
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| Cults Across America cover art. |
CAA, subtitled "The Game of Cthulhoid Domination," puts players in charge of "insanity-inducing factions of frothing fanatics." Jason Driver's review of the game at RPG.net provides a nice overview.
Thunder's Edge, according to the description on Fantasy Flight's Web site, is a science-fiction boardgame of politics, strategy and giant mecha. Each player controls one of Earth's factions, each of which is trying to excert power over the planet Thunder's Edge.
CAA is available now; Thunder's Edge, the third in a series of hexplay games from Fantasy Flight, will be available soon.
When did you first think about designing board games?
Right after I first played Dungeons and Dragons in 5th grade. I've wanted (and planned!) to work designing games since then. I actually wound up doing it professionally much sooner than I would have thought possible!
Is Cults Across America your first finished board game?
It probably wasn't, but I don't really remember the specifics of any other designs. I did a lot of creative tinkering in high school, but it was never seriously for publication. Just a kid having fun with games.
"It really is all about who you know, as it turns out." --Jeff Tidball |
I was struck during my freshman year at Hamline with the idea for Cults Across America. I wanted to play something like Axis and Allies, but set in the Cthulhu Mythos, and with a seriously irreverant attitue. Call of Cthulhu's always been a favorite RPG of mine.
How long did it take you to develop the first version of the game?
About two days. I stopped doing school work while I designed the board, cards, rules and counters. I think I had the idea on a Tuesday night, and we played the first playtest game instead of our regularly-scheduled Shadowrun campaign that Friday.
How long before you had a finished version ready?
About four years. Cults Across America was actually originally to have been published by Pagan Publishing. They had trouble dealing with financial realities of boardgame manufacturing, though, and so the project remained basically in limbo between 1994 and 1997. It finally occurred to me to just publish it through Atlas in 1998, when I did some revisions based on playing it off and on in the interim. The final changes were made a couple of days before we sent the components off to be printed in the summer of 1998.
This interview continues with Tidball's thoughts on the process of developing Cults Across America and more.
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