Welcome, Mom’s Choice readers! Today we have with us Magnus Karlsson, a designer with Fireside Games, who recently designed the Mom’s Choice Award-winning game Zoomies. In the highly competitive gaming industry, designers are known to need a strong creative vision, which Magnus clearly possesses. But he’s quick to say that getting from idea to finished product is really a team effort. He also views board games as a medium for bringing people together. Read on to discover his role in accomplishing that.

MCA: Magnus, we’re so glad you could join us today. Please, tell us a bit about yourself.

I am from Sweden, close to 50 years old. I live with my wife, two young adults, and two cats. Professionally, I work as a software engineer, but most of my life I have been a gamer and a game designer. It started from a young age, playing a lot of regular card games, and then moving into more of the classic games of the ‘80s. In my early teens I also had developed an interest in history, which made me read a lot of historical nonfiction and fiction.

These two things combined into a desire to create war games with my LEGO pieces. Drawing large maps with regions or hexagons, putting together rules for how the pieces could move on the map and decide the fate of history. Being a computer geek also led me to play and create games on my computer. But in the last 15 years, the interest of playing on the computer has been replaced by an urge to create fun experiences in the real world.

I find that designing games combines a lot of things that I enjoy. I use computers to create content for my prototypes, I use paper, glue, tape, scissors, and knives to make it playable, I interact with a lot of people, both for playtesting my games but also other designers, players, publishers, and media creators.

My own personal taste in games is very group related, I want to play a game where everyone enjoys themselves. When I design games, I try to keep the rules simple, so that the focus can be on how you apply them, not spending hours on interpreting them and always having to go back to the rule book.

If you want to explore new games, there are a lot of geeks like me in the industry, so make sure to ask around. If you venture into your local game store, they will most likely be able to recommend something to you that you might not see in the larger stores.

MCA: Can you tell us about the journey that led you to create your award-winning product? What inspired its development?

The game Zoomies started almost 10 years ago as something completely different. I read a book trilogy called Paksenarrion by Elisabeth Moon, and that triggered a new idea. Mercenaries are a big part of the Paksenarrion universe and I wanted to create a game where you were forced to make temporary alliances and work with and against the other players through the game. I created a prototype and it got played a couple of times before it was shelved for other projects. Six years later I re-read the book and got a new interest in creating a game on that subject.

Being a more experienced designer than the previous iteration, I quickly found that I wanted something more dynamic to be at the core of the game and found that Domino tiles would make it more interesting. At that moment another board game called Kingdomino appeared and showed how you can use domino-style tiles to create interesting worlds.

The first prototype was heavily focused on combat, rolling a lot of dice trying to finish missions. The new tile-laying game instead focused more on drafting tiles and putting out missions on the map, trying to score glory. With this change, the mercenary theme felt as a mismatch. At the time the nature theme was on the rise, so I decided to change it to Caribous—a winter scenery where you put out herds in different terrain and try to find lichen.

When Fireside Games signed the game, co-owners AnneMarie and Justin De Witt had two requests: Simplify the tile drafting and find another theme, nature themes being plentiful at the time. As a designer, I want to make sure that the publisher can make a product they believe in, so it was not hard for me to accept the requests. In hindsight I think both of them made Zoomies a much better game, finding a more clear target audience.

As the publisher, Anne-Marie and Justin had the product design as their focus. It is really important to make something that can catch people’s interest, because in this crowded market there are a lot of new releases every year. With the theme set, they found Snow Conrad, who made fabulous work with creating vibrant illustrations to complement the mechanics.

MCA: Tell us about the research involved in the development of your game.

Zoomies is not a very advanced product in itself, although the theme of dogs was researched to make sure that it included dog breeds that are among the healthiest—not cross-bred to the point of having facial features or bone structures that create hardships for the dogs.

MCA: How does your game address a need or solve a problem for families?

Zoomies focuses on having a good time in the real world—creating an opportunity to put the digital devices aside and interact with other people. You can start playing this game from a young age, but it will not fade away as a trivial kids’ game. Instead, the experience will grow and allow you to play it many times.

MCA: What sets Zoomies apart from similar products in the marketplace?

Zoomies is a game that will be easy to start playing, but the more you play, the more you will find new challenges and strategies. You know, there is so much content out there that can be consumed without interacting with other people; I really like board games as a medium to bring people together.

MCA: Can you share any memorable stories or feedback from customers who have played Zoomies?

At first glance the game looks simple and kid friendly, and it is. However when you play it, you will encounter situations where you can make really interesting decisions. A lot of players have been a little surprised by the solid experience that the game brought to them.

I have a special memory from the Spiel fair in Essen 2024, where Zoomies made its debut in Europe. I walked around the fair with a Zoomies game on my backpack, and a woman approached me on the first day of the fair. She asked me for my opinion and where she could buy it. Little did she know that she actually caught the designer of the game.

MCA: As a designer, how do you ensure safety and suitability for your target audience?

During the development process, Anne-Marie and Justin focused a lot on finding a good theme that would suit the target audience. We discussed a lot of themes, but nothing felt good until we landed in the happy land of dogs.

A funny story about the theme was that the first time they messaged me on the Zoomies theme, I read Zombies … and could not understand how they thought it was a family-friendly theme. Being a Swede, the concept of Zoomies was nothing that I instantly knew of so my brain took the most likely word instead.

MCA: What challenges did you encounter during the development or launch of your product, and how did you overcome them?

For me as a designer, the biggest challenge with Zoomies was to get publishers to look at it. As I mentioned earlier, a very well-respected board game called Kingdomino was released a couple of years before I started pitching the game. They are mechanically very different, although every time I showed the Zoomies game, publishers shook their heads and said that it was too similar to Kingdomino. It was really good that Anne-Marie and Justin took the time to test the game and see that it had a lot of other qualities that made it into its own experience.

As a Swede, there are some difficulties getting the game into shelves here in the Nordic countries. Fireside Games is an American company and the focus is and should be on the American market. But that fact makes the distribution a little bit trickier when trying to break into smaller markets, such as the Nordic one.

MCA: Looking ahead, what are your plans or goals for expanding or improving your product?

Personally I wish that there might be a follow-up product or expansion, but it is a crowded market and we need to make sure that Zoomies performs well first. Anne-Marie and Justin are looking for partners to see if Zoomies can be translated into other languages, increasing the target market. They are also investigating the possibility of making a digital version on one of the Digital Board Game platforms to make it more accessible for people from different geographical locations to play.

MCA: What a great idea—a digital platform that anyone, anywhere, can play. Magnus, it was a pleasure speaking with you today — thanks again for joining us!