Matthew Dunstan

All the PNP fans would remember the buzz that 52 Realms created during its Kickstarter campaign in 2025. After learning about the game’s creator, I was delighted to explore more of his creations, including Voyages, Aquamarine, and others.

Let’s dive into Matthew’s journey in game creation!

What inspired you to start designing games, and how did your journey begin?

I’ve always been interested in the space ‘behind’ my various hobbies – for example as a child and teenager I played a lot of sports (pretty common for Australians!). But beyond playing sport, I got very involved with being a referee for many of them – I was even a linesperson at the Australian Open for tennis. So when I got back into the board game hobby around 2009, I think my mind immediately went to thinking about what goes on behind these games and how they are designed.

I seriously started designing games in 2010, although my early prototypes weren’t anything special (and have been long abandoned). I moved to the UK from Australia in 2011, and I started to meet weekly with Brett Gilbert, another designer, to playtest our designs. This was when I really made progress with my craft, and over the next year or so I would design what would become my first published game, Relic Runners. Being in the UK was a huge benefit – there ended up being a very vibrant designer community in Cambridge where I lived, and I was able to go to big conventions like the UK Games Expo and Essen every year without too much hassle.

Can you share the biggest challenge you faced while designing your first game and how you overcame it?

The biggest challenge with designing Relic Runners was just keeping motivated to keep iterating and developing the game. Early on in my career I definitely had a problem of not sticking with any prototype for very long, and if you don’t persevere you have no chance of discovering what game could be lurking inside! It was also a game of medium complexity, with a lot of different parameters to test and balance, so that took more time too.

Entering the game in competitions was a great remedy to this challenge. They gave me firm deadlines to work to, and also meant that at different stages I just had to say the game was ‘good enough’ and enter it, to avoid perfectionism. I entered the game in two different competitions, and I was a finalist in the second one (the Europa Ludi), which directly led to the game being published.

What's your design process when creating a new game?

That’s a very broad question! I make games of varying complexity, theme and mechanisms, so the process is different every time. These days, I need a good idea to even start thinking about a game seriously, let alone making a prototype. I’m certainly not short on ideas, and the skill I had to develop was being able to assess these ideas for their potential before sinking a lot of time into them. Usually I’m looking for a key hook – an interesting theme twined with mechanisms that support that, or something which has a very clear product identity.

Once I have the idea, I try to move to making a first prototype as soon as possible – it’s one of my design strengths, the ability to go from blank page to first game – and that lets me start testing it, mainly to see for myself if I enjoy playing it, or if there is at least one moment or element that still excites me about the project. Once it gets through this stage, then it goes through the stages of playtesting, iteration, repeat, until I pitch it to a publisher and hopefully it gets signed!

52 Realms had a magical Kickstarter campaign last year. What key factors contributed to its remarkable success?

52 Realms Adventures was a bit of a different game for Postmark Games, the publisher I run with Rory Muldoon. Our previous games, especially Voyages, Aquamarine and Waypoints, are reasonably similar to each other – slightly whimsical multiplayer roll and writes with dice. But ever since we had launched the company, we knew that we wanted to make a game with a deck of standard playing cards.

We tried a lot of things, trying to fit the mold of our previous releases, until I had the idea for a solo dungeon crawler where the cards could be anything – Equipment, Items, Enemies, and then it all clicked. I think it succeeded in part because that mechanical core hadn’t really been done before with playing cards, and the result is a really smooth and repeatable solo experience. But another huge part is Rory’s incredible graphics and illustrations – inspired by the traditional themes on playing cards – they create a really rich and evocative world for 52 Realms.

At this point, Postmark also has a proven track record and a great community that has grown up around us, and these factors are also a huge contributor to the success of our new games. We’re very lucky to have the support and generosity of our backers who keep coming back and trying our new games.

Are there any upcoming projects or games you're excited about?

I have an officially licensed Dungeons and Dragons board game coming out in July – the Builders of Baldur’s Gate, which I am especially excited about. The game is a strategic game of building up Baldur’s Gate and I think is a great meld of engaging Euro style mechanisms and the rich theme of the city from the roleplaying lore.

What advice would you give to aspiring game designers, especially those interested in print-and-play games?

I have 2 main pieces of advice – firstly, aim to finish a game. You don’t have to publish it or sign it to a publisher, but you learn so much once you go through the whole design process and get to the end. Too many new designers get stuck in constantly giving up on game ideas early, and continually starting new things. Just finish something, even if you end up putting it back on a shelf – you will learn so much that you can put into your new projects.

The second piece of advice is to have the confidence to be yourself in your designs. We each have our own unique set of experiences, perspectives and interests that we put into our designs, and that variety is what makes games so wonderful. There is a lot of advice and recommendations that get thrown around the game design community, and while it is meant to be helpful, I think it sometimes makes designers doubt if they are really doing it ‘right’, and feeling a pressure to conform to the set ‘way’ of designing a game. There is no one way to design a game – tread your own path and make something that you love and has all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of you, and the board game world will be all the richer for it.

I would also say – watch my Youtube channel – I share a lot of advice and thoughts for designers there.

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Tasliman

Tasliman is a board game developer based in Bangladesh, with the dream of exploring the world of games and introducing it to anyone new to it. He is the founder of Kraftz, a brand that develops board games commercially, as well as with reputed entities like BRAC and The Gates Foundation.