I had the privilege of talking to Haakon Gaarder of GEM Games recently, designer of gorgeous-looking new game DECKO, and also its artist. I’ve already taken a look at the game and now it’s time to meet the person behind it.
Welcome, Haakon.
Thanks for inviting me to this interview!
We’re here to talk mainly about DECKO. What was your inspiration for the game, and how did it get from idea to successful Gamefound project?
After doing several tableau builders I really wanted to try making a deckbuilder. As many would guess, I was inspired by the computer game Balatro. I loved the depth of it, and it’s amazing how strong the theme feels, I can see why it became a massive hit. But the whole beating high scores thing isn’t really for me, I’d rather play a game where you play something like real poker against opponents, doing cool tricks with the hands and bets as you do so. Which is what you do in DECKO.
You’re no stranger to gaming and crowdfunding with, for example, a great Kickstarter campaign for Villagers behind you. What made you decide on Gamefound this time?
Gamefound seems to be the future of crowdfunding to me. Better user experience for both the creators and the backers. Kickstarter has been great for my previous games, but Gamefound seems to be attracting more and more of the Kickstarter crowd. I think anyone going to crowdfunding with a game now, particularly if they don’t have a big following, should give Gamefound a try. One of the hardest things to do is build a following before launch, and Gamefound solves that with the prelaunch phase, where creators can recruit new followers for a long time. This is important now that getting visible online is harder than ever.
DECKO is rather different to your previous work—do you have a particular game style that interests you most, and perhaps DECKO is a separate itch that needs to be scratched, or do you favour experimentation and DECKO is the start of something new?
I think all my games are quite different from each other. Moon my take on 7 Wonders style card drafting, Yonder is my attempt at the ultimate worker placement game and DECKO is my pure deckbuilder. In the future I want to do an area control game, a pure economic game and even an epic 2 player campaign wargame. Typically I spend about a year working non-stop on a game, so it’s nice to switch things up after each game and try something different.
You’ve said there won’t be a retail version—I’m interested to know why, and might this change in the future?
My business philosophy is to make something I would buy myself. Backing something on crowdfunding should be something you do to get the best deal possible. I wouldn’t back something on Gamefound if essentially the same thing would be available for less in retail, or if I felt I didn’t get the whole thing without going for a very high pledge level in several boxes. I also don’t like paying more for shipping than the product itself. The DECKO campaign ticks all the boxes for me. You get a game with clay poker chips and a playmat for a lot less than it would usually cost, all fitting in one box, and the shipping is less than 25% of the price for most backers. As Gamefound is the only place to get it, you don’t have to worry about a better deal coming later. There is also another angle to having it Gamefound exclusive, keeping it simple as I’m doing this as a one-man company. This simplicity will lead to faster production and fulfilment, and more time for me to do what I love, designing games.
I confess I first came across DECKO when someone told me about ‘this new board game version of Balatro’—now, I’ll be quick to point out there’s little in common between the two, as I explained in my blog article, but at superficial glance, you can perhaps see why people would say that. What would you like to say to people who think they’re similar?
I think the best answer is to explain what it’s like to play DECKO. Let’s imagine we’re in the midgame. It’s like poker but you have been building your own deck of 15 cards between the bets. The deck is 50% clover cards making it likely you’ll get a flush. You’ve been winning a few bets with your flushes, but there’s another player that has a really small deck with five sixes in it now, and he’s consistently getting four of a kind which is tough to beat. Which is why you want to pivot to scoring your tens, no other player has any tens. You have two tens in your hand, and a queen with the ability to copy the top card of your discard which happens to be a ten. You can do three of a kind. You have a joker that lets you draw a card every time you raise the bet. You raise the bet and draw an ace. This ace can adjust the value of a card up by one. Betting continues and you raise again, you draw a nine. Perfect, you can now use the ace to turn a nine in your hand into a ten. That’s it, you now have four of a kind with tens. You win the bet. Because you won all players except you now get to buy cards. There’s a player who is really close to doing consistent straight flushes. They buy the mulligan joker and burn a card to reduce their deck. The next round is a wild round with the special rule that only one card is scored. Hopefully you’ll be able to draw your ace again next round… So that story should give you an idea of how the games are different.
The campaign ends on November 10. What happens then? Is the hard part over and it’s ‘merely’ managing production and distribution, so you get a bit of a rest?
There will be a late pledge phase where more people can get the game. But it will be a big change in focus, right now my job is very extroverted, working to attract new backers and communicating with campaign followers. After the campaign ends things will become a lot more quiet, and the focus will be on manufacturing and fulfilment rather than advertising. While that goes on, I’ll also start working on new games.
The world’s economy is a bit wobbly at the moment, with prices of everything hurtling upwards (and let’s not mention the T-word)—what impact has that had on your ambitions for DECKO and beyond?
There’s been so many big events in the years since I started making board games, like the pandemic, Brexit, the shipping crisis and now the tariff situation. But board games seem to be invincible, people keep buying and playing games no matter what happens.
What’s next for you—are there more game ideas waiting to burst out of your head? Can you give us any hints?
I have high hopes for my worker placement game Yonder when it comes out soon. There are also plans for a Villagers big box collecting all existing content along with some new stuff for the game. As for new games, I don’t know yet what I’ll be making after DECKO.
What else can you tell us about Haakon Gaarder, the person outside the game industry? What do you do in your spare time, if such a thing exists?
I’m dabbling in designing computer games, and find coding surprisingly fun. I might well try publishing a computer game on Steam at some point. I’m not making a computer version of DECKO, but I have this neat turn-based war game. It will be interesting to see if my experience with board games and crowdfunding will be useful for that.
Thank you, Haakon Gaarder. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.
My pleasure! Looking forward to reading the interview!
About the Author:
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
