Greed and Pillaging: An interview With Pillage the Village Designer, Jesse Stone

Jesse Stone created our third board game of the month, and one of our all-time best sellers in the shop: Pillage the Village. Jesse is a long time friend of mine, and reached out to let me know he had finished creating his first board game in mid-2024, the same time we were getting the Board Game Society off the ground. The rest of the Board Game Society Review team approached the game with a fair amount of skepticism, but everyone agreed his game perfectly matched what we were looking for, and we were eager to have the opportunity to work with him.

I was able to conduct an interview with Jesse, where we spoke about his experience designing his first board game and his time working with the Board Game Society. My goal with this interview was to learn about his game design process and gather some helpful information for new game designers.

Beginnings

Jesse is a long-time fan of Dungeons and Dragons, a tabletop roleplaying game where you work with your friends to create a world and a story. He greatly enjoys the creativity of it all, especially making encounters and scenarios to test the party. The idea of Pillage the Village began to form for him when he was thinking of ways to take his D&D knowledge and apply it in other places. Would the encounters he was creating still be fun outside of the realm of Dungeons and Dragons?

He also noticed a problem in modern board games: most of the time, when you play as a dragon, or any monster, games like to set you up to be a nicer version of that creature. You rarely get to be the villainous reptile that attacks people and sits on a hoard of gold. The key things you think of when you hear the word dragon: ferocious, violent, and greedy, are nowhere to be found. Most games (i.e. Wyrmspan, Spyro) have you play as a gentle dragon, neglecting the fear that inspired these mythical beasts.

With these two things in mind, he began creating Pillage the Village.

Design

Pillage the Village began as a very different game. It had a board, upon which you moved miniature dragons. It was intended to be a much more intense, resource management game. You’d have to hunt sheep and cattle to fuel your dragon on the way to the village. However, upon playtesting, Jesse learned that what the players enjoyed the most was stealing a ton of gold and creating their hoard. 

He began cutting away at the game to find what people actually wanted. He had a version of the game that was very similar to the release version, but still had miniatures included. After extensive playtesting, he realized that he could replace the miniatures with cards without impacting the game, which saved him a lot on production cost. It turned from a big box game to a game that can fit on your bookshelf and only costs $30. 

Challenges

For Jesse, creating a board game was an entirely new experience. He knew he had the  creativity, but designing your own board game also requires a completely different set of skills. He had to search for an artist to hire, file for a business license, and learn to file business taxes. He also had to learn all of the legal requirements for what had to go on the game’s box, and had to do chemical testing. 

Manufacturing is a challenge on its own, as there aren’t many board game manufacturers based in the United States. After a lot of research, he finally found a manufacturer in China, and had to put his trust in the game making it safely overseas.

Jesse said that if he could do anything differently, it would be the box design. While it fits on shelves well and attracts attention, the box doesn’t really communicate what’s inside. If he had the opportunity to do it over again, he said he would add the QR code for the rulebook to the back of the box, so people could scan it and see what the game is like while checking it out on the shelf. He also would include pictures of the game being played or pictures of the components on the back of the box.

Marketing

Jesse didn’t use any crowdfunding for Pillage the Village. Instead, he used his severance check from the Navy, as well as some business. He said that there are many pros and cons to putting up your own capital instead of crowdfunding.

Putting up the capital himself allowed him to learn slowly over time. Jesse had his game and was able to go to conventions to sell it, and practice his pitch for the game while standing in front of the customer. It gave him time to figure out the best words to describe Pillage the Village and what actually captures people’s attention and makes them want to purchase it.

However, Jesse did realize that he missed out on an early marketing lesson he could have gotten if he had crowdfunded. With his second game, he’s learned that crowdfunding is all about marketing, and letting people know that your game is being made so that you can get their support to print it. You have to hit the ground sprinting, and don’t have the time to familiarize yourself with the final product ahead of time. With this in mind, Jesse said that if you have the skill to market your game, even if you do have some or all of the capital, you should crowdfund first.

Publishing

Jesse enjoys going to conventions to demo and sell copies of Pillage the Village. He loves seeing people’s faces light up as they begin to understand the game, and he loves when people walking by his booth say they already have the game and enjoy it. He also enjoys traveling around to see new people and go to different conventions. 

The logistical side of publishing his games, he said, is a wash. He doesn’t love or hate it. When he was in the Navy, even though his job wasn’t in logistics, he still had to deal with logistics over the years. Supply chain work isn’t new to him, but he doesn’t particularly love it either, so it’s neutral. The part he does dislike about publishing his own game, though, is the online marketing. He doesn’t enjoy using social media or trying to figure out what he needs to put on a post to make it garner attention. 

From the time he started working on Pillage the Village to when it went to print, Jesse said it took him about a year and a half. Once he decided that this was what he was going to do, he focused all his time and energy on producing the game.

Advice

Jesse said that, when designing your own game, there will be things about it that suck. There will be things about it that people don’t like, or that just don’t work, and there will be people who hate your game or certain aspects of it. That is okay. That’s why you playtest, to find the points of contention and fix them. Then, once you’ve developed and published your game, you will continue to find people who absolutely loathe your game. Your game wasn’t made for those people. Your game was made for the people who like it. 

“I don’t believe that you can make a game that everyone everywhere will like, it’s not possible. It will never be great. It will only be okay or kind of good, and a great game inevitably has people who are on the opposite side of its spectrum, who absolutely hate it. If everyone likes it, you made a pretty middling game.”

Board Game Society

Jesse said he had a very good experience with the Board Game Society. We bought a lot of copies of the game from him, and were very straightforward to work with. We always see each other at conventions, and feel like we’re part of a family.

We enjoyed working with Jesse and demoing his game in the store. Pillage the Village is a game that draws your attention, and is incredibly easy to pick up and play. His game was so beloved by our customers that it won Board Game of the Year, with 88% of our subscribers voting for Pillage the Village. 

Jesse is currently working on a brand new, tarot-inspired strategy card game. You can sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter launches here. 

You can purchase Pillage the Village here, or you can subscribe to the Board Game Society to get games made by small creators like Jesse sent to your door every single month!

If you are a small game designer, and would like your game to be featured in the Board Game Society, you can reach out to us here.