Andrea “Liga” Ligabue: Cosa Bolle in Pentola ? #36 - Giacomo Santopietro

Dear gamers, here again with my interviews to Italian’s designers. Essen is coming close and so it is time to reveal new talents and new games. Luckily it seems that design games is something enough fun to keep a lot of people involved in Italy. Today I was able to catch Giacomo Santopietro, a “new generation” author (his father is also a game designer!) that designed Death Note, a card game of deduction based on the manga and anime of the same name.

Before starting here is the complete list of all my “Cosa Bolle in Pentola ?” interviews with the links to the BGN pages.

[Liga] Hi Giacomo. Was nice to have you here on BG. Please, tell us something about yourself

[Giacomo] I was born in Lugo (Ravenna) in 1985. For my dad’s “fault” I’m in the world of gaming since I was 6, when he starts to play Dungeons & Dragons. In a short time I was playing also, and then I start playing role-playing games and boardgames regularly. Then, my father (Gianluca “Giasbro” Santopietro) begun to work with Stratelibri, at the time of the italian release of Magic the Gathering, so I remember very well the years of “excitement” about that. Now, years have passed but my love for games doesn’t changed! So, I’m working with eNigma, where we design and develop games, and in La Ludoteca, a game bar in Ravenna.

[Liga] You are still very young Giacomo and I hope yuor designing carrers could be really long. eNigma is developing several really good games in Italy and I’m happy to know there is a young man in the staff. Now, Cosa bolle in Pentola ?

[Giacomo] As an eNigma team member, I worked on several game projects. First of all Garibaldi: The Escape, a great success for us, also because it leads to MrX in Europe, our project for Ravensburger, the official “following” of Scotland Yard that will be released in October. For New Media Publishing I lead the R&D department of Wizards of Mickey CCG, and at that time I first met Andrea Chiarvesio (ndr. Kingsburg designer). That leads to my first project as an author: Death Note Investigation Card Game. I was a great fan of the anime/manga (one of the most popular of all times) and Andrea too, so I show my prototype to him to have his thought about… and he just loved it! So, he taked the project “under his wing” and so the game will be released in may 2009: I’m really happy about it! The game is a deduction/bluff card game, were players try to fulfill their secret objective, like the characters in the japanese anime. I studied two levels of the rules (Light/Kira), so the game can be played either by casual player (like the fan of the story who never played a game before) and by gamers (in which I hope they can find a good deduction game).

[Liga] I’m impressed about how many projects and games are you been involved in only 24 years of life. Tell me now your projects for the future

[Giacomo] As eNigma we have a lot of projects for the future. First of all, Prodigy. It’s a “secret” project so I can’t tell to much, but I think it’s just great. As an author I’m developing JusticeDuel, a card game for two players about lawyers, Coming Soon, a boardgame about Cinema and other projects, which they are still in a “design phase”. So… a lot of things to do!

[Liga] Great Giacomo. And now, I’m really curious to know the 10 games you like to play most

[Giacomo] Only 10? :) Alphabetical order:

* A Game of Thrones BG (I’m a great fan of Martin, and the game is really good)
* Daimyo (one masterpiece from a big friend, Piero Cioni)
* Gift Trap (great to play at birthday parties!)
* Kingsburg (not just because it’s from Andrea, but because it’s a wonderful mid-range game!)
* MotoGrandPrix (I play-tested it for years, but it’s still so good!)
* Niagara (one of my favorite spiel-des-jahres games)
* Perudo (I love simply-bluff games)
* Shadows Over Camelot (nice cooperative game, maybe a little too simple to win)
* Time’s Up! (one of the best party-game ever)
* Villa Paletti (never-ending classic)

[Liga] It’s nice to hear you define a “classic” a game from 2001 ... but probably it is now really a classic. Thank you very much for your time and your kindness Giacomo. Good play and good luck!

Comments: