Born in the back woods of Maine and living without electricity until I was 6, I learned at an early age to entertain myself with little "projects". I taught myself how to sew (hey, leatherworking
is cool), built tree forts, and generally wreaked havoc with ropes, knives, and saws (+ axes and fire when I got older).
When my little brother got old enough we started playing games, the usual connect-4, monopoly, sorry! fair. When we got a little older AD&D took over as the weekend game of choice. Having the best handle on the rules and the desire to invent imaginary worlds I was the DM, but was never a good enough actor to move far beyond hack&slash.
Then Magic: The Gathering came along and took over for most of high school. Being geographically isolated there was never much competition, but I did venture into the nearest "city" and win myself a Black Lotus tournament. Sometime during my senior year I forced myself to quit. I was too addicted and couldn't continue spending every waking moment on the game. I still go back and play that computer game by Microprose sometimes, and maintain a website devoted to keeping that little bit of nostalgia alive. Once an addict, always an addict.
OK, back to high school. In 1995 (around my freshmen/sophomore year) I was doodling with a compass on a piece of cardboard and came up with this game board design. The theme came easily, we would play dragons circling around each other fighting. And thus Dragon Duel was born. The mechanics were (are) a little slower to come together. Originally dragons had stats that you maintained via paper and pencil. It's grown up a lot since then.
In 2001/2002 I devoted my senior thesis project at Hampshire College to further design and development of the game. I introduced a deck of cards (based on a Tarot deck) as the core mechanic, providing life, combat resolution, spells and flying maneuvers. Then I let the game rest for a couple years while I moved to California with my girlfriend and joined the workforce.
Now, in 2006 I've gotten back into playing games regularly. One of the guys from work introduced me to Looney Labs games, which hooked my girlfriend (and her friends) on the idea of getting together and having game nights. Then he brought out Settlers of Catan and opened up a new world. Now I'm standing at the base of the mountain that is BoardGameGeek, and taking a careful approach lest I buy too many games and not give my gaming groups the opportunity to fully enjoy each one.
I've also gone back to Dragon Duel, which has yet to find an audience that didn't like it, and have been adjusting it for better multi-player gameplay. I've gone back and re-written the rules, inspired by Looney Lab's less-linear approach to teaching games. And, while it has retained it's rather violent and random nature, I am in the process of removing player elimination. It's shaping up into a solid little game, and I'm considering self publishing (not to make a profit, just to bring it to completion and have loads of christmas presents for people).
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Nils T. Devine
Personal Website:
http://nilsdevine.com/Magic: The Gathering circa 1997:
http://shalandar.com/My Board Game:
http://dragonduel.com/Professional Portfolio:
http://divinentd.com/
