From teeth to the tabletop: Kyle Spackman on the origins of Bitewing Games – and the key to successful designer partnerships

Kyle, thanks for making time. What’s the origin story behind Bitewing Games?
Nick Murray and I knew each other in our Undergrad and then we ended up at the same dental school. Nick mentioned that he had a game he’d made and I told him I’d love to try it out. We had a dream of designing and making our own games and after dental school we decided to start Bitewing Games.

And bitewings are…
Bitewings are the x-rays you get at the dentist. We loved a dental tie-in since that was how we really knew each other and dental school is where this all started.

Of course! A nice nod! And are there any surprising overlaps in skillsets between that world and game publishing?
To put it simply, no.

Ha! Ask a silly question…
Haha! Well, dental school, among other things, taught me to work hard and efficiently which is necessary in the world of board games. It’s a world of relatively small margins, so knowing how to efficiently allocate time and work your guts out at moments – yeah I’d attribute some of that to dental school. But my ability to hold miniscule files during a root canal has not yet come in handy during board game publishing.

Ha! The key word there Kyle is ‘yet’. Let’s not rule it out. And did you launch Bitewing with a game you and Nick had designed?
We had a few game ideas, but going to market with a game from two random guys seemed difficult, so we thought it would be good to start off by working with a well known designer. Enter Reiner Knizia.

Wow! Not a bad place to start!
Absolutely. We were lucky enough to kick things off with three of his games. From there we kept working with other designers, learning that we loved bringing games to life.

Some of the biggest bottlenecks for us were time spent playtesting and getting ideas from a concept to a prototype. Many other designers love that, but we don’t have the bandwidth to do the behind-the-scenes publisher things. And we both found as much satisfaction in bringing games to life that weren’t our own, so we have continued to work with amazing designers trying to bring their great ideas to life.

Fantastic. And how would you descibe the types of games you’re interested in publishing?
We’re most interested in publishing games we love. Yes we try to look at market trends and see what’s hot and what’s not… But when we play a game that we just love, if we think there is a market for it we’re going to try to find room in our schedule to get it published.

For the most part we love games that are light in ruleset and heavy in interaction. We love a good puzzly game. We published Trailblazers from Ryan Coutney and that is one of my all time favorite spatial puzzle type games. But for the most part we really try to emphasise games that are rich in player interaction.

Take Ryan’s other game, Spectral, where you are doing area majority and kicking other players out of their spaces in the haunted house. In almost all of our games we look for high interaction, because to us that is what gaming is really about.

One of your latest launches is Bombastic, a smart tension-filled take on tic-tac-toe from designer Robert Hovakimyan. What appealed about this one?
There are certain games you play where you think: ‘Why didn’t I think of this?’ That’s how I felt when I played Bombastic. It was so intuitive and simple. It created such big moments in under five minutes. This was a no brainer when we first played it. And that was trying it online. As soon as I got it in person and could really interact with my opponent, it really just hit that sweet spot of providing moments of strategy and cleverness, but also giving my brain that hit of wackiness that’s so fun in games.

Did the game evolve much during development from pitch to final product?
There weren’t a ton of changes. The basics of the game stayed the same. Try to connect three in a row and avoid the bomb. Some of the action cards were added and slightly adjusted, but the game itself was pretty much born as the beautiful final result we see today.

You’ve worked with many different designers. What’s the key to successful designer/publisher collaborations?
We try to be very open and communicative with our designers. We don’t really make any changes to gameplay on our own, which I know some publishers do. If we think there is something lacking or off about a design, we go back and forth with the designer until we get the game to a spot we both love and are proud of. We want the designer to believe in and love the final product as much as we do.

Do you work with both established and new game designers these days?
It’s a tough world for game design. There are a lot of designers and a lot of games being put out. We have our established designers that we’ve worked with: Reiner Knizia, David Thompson, Trevor Benjamin, Brett J. Gilbert, Ryan Courtney… And we have, in many ways, set our brand up working with prolific and established designers. The exception is Robert.

How did Robert find you?
Well, he was a big part of our community. He would playtest games we were considering publishing, he interacted with us and really got to know us. So when he asked about us testing one of his games, it made sense for us to give him a shot. And we have loved continuing to work with him – he is a phenomenal designer with great ideas.

So for any designers reading that would like to pitch to you, what’s their best route in?
As far as cold emails and pitches and sell sheets, we do look at those and we consider them. People are always free to email me at [email protected] to send sell sheet. But to be frank, I get a dozen sell sheets a week. There’s no way we’re going to be publishing that many games.

Do you have any advice for how designers can ‘break through the noise’?
I’d say with us, or any publisher, get to know them. If you are blasting 50 publishers with your pitch, I get it and think that’s fine. But when I can tell someone has played our games and that they actually think our company would be a good fit for their game – because they’ve analysed our style of games – that goes a long way. And getting involved and being a part of the community – volunteering at conventions – that can open doors.

Last question! What is Bitewing’s most underrated title? We can shine and spotlight on it and show it some love here!
I would say Bebop is our most underrated title. I don’t know what it is, but I see many other games that are way more complicated and convuluted that people just love.

I don’t know if the theme tricks people into thinking it will be a silly turn-off-your-brain kind of game, but it’s a thinky, crunchy game with great interaction and some really fun ideas. The artwork is top-notch from one of my favorite artists in the hobby, Weberson Santiago. For us it checks so many boxes of what makes game fun and I think Robert did an amazing job with the design.

Kyle, a huge thanks for taking time out. Congrats on all of Bitewing’s success so far – let’s talk again soon!

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