Bears and Board Games: A Dive Into the Creative Process With Board Game Designer Sam Barmettler

Outrun the Bear was the second game we featured in the Daydream Games Board Game Society, way back in August of 2024. We met the creator, Sam Barmettler, at Origins Game Fair that year. I was able to do an exclusive interview with him, to discuss his experience as a small game designer. My goal with this interview was to learn about the game design process, and gather information to help future game designers.

Beginnings

Getting into game design can be intimidating, but Sam told me that he had always enjoyed it. In fact, the first game he created was in the third grade. In eighth grade, he went on to make his first prototype of a game, based on a TV show he liked. He said that he created games both out of a love for the game, but also sometimes because of a lack of access to board games.

Sam got the idea for Outrun the Bear in the midst of designing a different game. He told me that he had been speaking to his dad about this game he had been working on, and noticed that he didn’t seem all that interested in the idea. He thought back to an episode of the Board Game Design Podcast, where they were discussing racing games. Suddenly, he thought about the age old joke: ‘How do you outrun a bear?’ ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than your friends.’ 

He began telling his dad about this new game, where you are trying to escape a bear, while using your friends to slow it down. His dad, a non-gamer, was very excited about the idea, and Sam knew that was the game he wanted to start with. He set everything else aside, and got to work.

Design

Sam’s biggest problem during game design was playtesting. It was a challenge for him to get enough players, but the hardest part for him was adjusting to the wide range of feedback he got. “It is a humbling experience to have other people play your game, and it can be hard to process the emotions sometimes.” Sam recalled, relaying a specific experience that occurred at PAX Unplugged in 2021, where a man sat down to play, and then brought his friends back to play two more times before the end of the weekend. Contrasting this, a different person played, and then told him that he would not be able to sell Outrun the Bear anywhere except a gift shop, because it wasn’t a ‘real game’. Sam had to learn to take whatever positives he could from really critical feedback, and learn that sometimes people just don't resonate with your game. That doesn't mean it's a bad game.

Despite his troubles with playtesting, Sam feels like everything went as smoothly as it could have when designing Outrun the Bear. There are some small things he wants to change in his second printing, but he is mostly satisfied with his experience when printing Outrun the Bear.

Don't let him catch you!

That doesn’t mean he didn’t have to change from beginning to end, however. He did make some fairly large changes to his game since his first prototype. Namely, the bear standee started out at 13 inches tall. It, unfortunately, fell over far too frequently to be plausible in the full game.

He also had to make changes to some of his action cards, and the way reactions worked. Reactions, which can now be played out of turn, used to only be playable during your turn. They had to be played face down, and acted as traps. After playtesting, Sam learned that this slowed down the game to a point where it didn’t feel like a race anymore, and it had to be changed.

There was also an action, Car Keys, that got very bad feedback during playtesting. It originally made it so that if you were holding the car keys when the bear ate you, everybody lost the game. Although Sam enjoyed this mechanic, playtesters made it clear that it was not fun to lose to something that was outside of your control. In the end, he reworked the item.

All of these changes worked for the benefit of the game, even if they were mechanics or items that Sam himself enjoyed. Sometimes, as a game designer, you have to be willing to listen to others' feedback, and change things you might like. Knowing how to take peoples' feedback in stride and when to change things versus when to respectfully disagree, is one of the biggest challenges in the industry.

Marketing

Sam did a Kickstarter for Outrun the Bear, and during his time with this, he learned that it’s incredibly important to grow your community ahead of going to Kickstarter. People really want to feel involved, so it’s important to know your community and communicate with them, to give them what they want. Sam said that, from his first conversation with his dad about the game to when Outrun the Bear was ready to print, the entire process took two years.

Sam advised that, when designing your board game, you should think very carefully about if you want to be a publisher. Although it seems like the logical path forward for new designers, it will eat up a lot of your time that could have been used for game design. Having creative control over every aspect of your game is nice, but running a business is not worth it if you don’t equally love it. Many people get burnt out just because they’re game designers, and they didn’t realize that they didn’t want to be publishers until they were too far in. 

Board Game Society

When asked about his time working with the Board Game Society, Sam said that he had a great experience. If it weren’t for the connection made at Origins in 2024, he may not have been at Origins 2025. He said it helped him keep the ball rolling, and keep on the right track.

We enjoyed working with Sam and demoing Outrun the Bear in store. Our customers all had a lot of fun with the game, and we hope to be able to work with Sam again one day. 

You can purchase Outrun the Bear here, or you can sign up for the Daydream Games Board Game Society to get games like Outrun the Bear sent to you every month!

If you are a small game designer, you can submit your game for consideration into the Board Game Society here.