Game designers should play board games in to help improve their skills. That’s the view of The Creative Assembly lead designer James Russell, who was speaking about making the mechanics of Total War and game design at Develop Conference 2012.

“Playing board games is fantastic training for game designers,” he said. “Everything a player does is raw gameplay.”

It formed part of a wide ranging session in which the Total War lead designer discussed subjects ranging from the key game design pillars of Shogun 2: Total War, to how, ultimately every single video game is based around player choices.

“Gameplay is all about choices and trade-offs. Games present players with interesting decisions with pros and cons.” said Russell, adding that weak gameplay is generally down to weak design choices.

The session concluded with The Creative Assembly man showing off pre-Alpha footage of Rome 2: Total War for only the second time. The game is scheduled for release towards the end of 2013.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news from Develop Conference, while there’s more from The Creative Assembly here. That includes information about their recently released Shogun 2 map editor.

How important do you feel board games are for game designers? Are you a board game player?

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