Play-Testing, Mechanics, and Localization: Board Game Publisher Kilogames on Making Board Games

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An interview with Kilogames founder Oleksandr Polikarpov.

Back in 2008, when the world of contemporary board games was just starting to open up to Ukrainian audiences, Oleksandr Polikarpov already dreamed of becoming part of it. His first interest sparked after reading an article in a computer magazine, and from there, the hobby gradually grew into his life's work.

With experience running a small online store for his own game production behind him, the developer, publisher, and seasoned player shared with DeTalks the story of how Kilogames came to be, the finer points of board game development, and the particulars of localizing foreign titles.

Ukrainian board game publishers will also be at the FANCON 2025 festival! The event takes place June 7-8 at the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv. Details here.

At what point did you decide you wanted to tie your life to board games — and go so far as to start your own publishing house?

"It all started with the online store I created in 2008 to work with board games. Back then, almost no one knew what that even was. There was no audience, so it was really hard. We even opened a board game club... But then I went to work in IT, since I needed to make money, not play games.

Then, sometime around 2012 or 2013, I randomly saw a post on social media from someone I knew — he was going to a play-test («testing») for a board game made by a guy from Chernihiv.

And I remembered how much I'd liked all of it. That's when I realized starting my own publishing house was a good way to go. Eventually, I found a guy who had a prototype for a game called «Crown Defender». That became our first original game — and that's how we started working".

Do game developers come to you and pitch their own games, or how does that collaboration usually work?

"First, authors send us a short description of the game or its rules by email. At that stage, you can already tell whether it might be interesting. Then we invite the author to show us the game — they need to already have a first prototype you can actually play, make a few moves with. After that, we do the design work, and often, we tweak the game itself a bit: cutting what's unnecessary, changing things, adding things, since the publisher is the one responsible for the final product. It has to be good."

The problem often isn't the game itself, but its rules and how hard they are to figure out. Does that come easier to you as a publisher?

"Actually, it's not so much as a publisher, but as an experienced player, since when you read a lot of different rulebooks, you develop a knack for spotting what's essential and understanding a game's structure faster. But usually, not every player in a group reads the rules — there are one or two people in a group of friends who do that and explain it to everyone else. Still, if you read and work through the rules yourself, it trains your brain more."

Are you one of the people who reads, or one who listens?

"I usually read and explain, but I don't love doing it. So this time, when we finally get together with friends to play the recent, complicated new release «SETI», I'm going to be the one listening."

How does a game idea come about?

"There are two paths games get made through: the first is when you come up with an interesting mechanic and then add a setting — the world where it all takes place: fantasy, sci-fi, the present day, and so on. The second path starts the opposite way, with the setting — and the game mechanics get built on top of that."

What kinds of game mechanics exist, anyway?

"There are countless ones. It could be set collection, meaning gathering certain sets of game pieces, area control, meeple placement — placing a player's pieces on the board, and so on. But if we're going to categorize games, it's better to do it by genre, since mechanics in games usually get mixed together. In our game «Intryhy ta Kapusta» ('Intrigue and Cabbage'), for instance, two mechanics come together. First, you have to randomly draw cards from the deck — that's the «push your luck», mechanic. Then we collect those cards for ourselves — that's «set collection»."

And if we're categorizing games by genre?

"There's ameritrash, for instance. That's a game with a ton of randomness, where everything is built around atmosphere. There are deck-building games — usually entirely card-based. Eurogames are games focused on victory points with minimal randomness, where you need to think about how to efficiently manage the resources and options the game gives you."

How is an age rating set for games? And what's the difference between, say, 10+ and 12+?

"The rating depends on complexity. By age 12, kids are interested in a lot more, and they understand games better, whereas at 10, that might not be the case yet. It all comes out during testing, but of course there are exceptions. For instance, at one of our game expos, a mom and her kid came four days in a row to play «Kapusta» ('Cabbage') [the board game «Intryhy ta Kapusta» from Kilogames]. And the mom said: «My son doesn't want to read at all, but here, he reads every card — he's interested!». And he was only 7, while the game is marked 8+."

"That's more the exception, though, because if a game has text in it, it's automatically 8+, since younger kids can't read yet."

You mentioned testing games. How does that work, and are there special clubs for it?

"We usually test games «on our own» — meaning on kids, friends, or people within the team. Sometimes we make a prototype literally out of scraps of paper, sit down, and play, just to see if everything works. And once the game takes on a more «official» look — with proper design, for instance — then we can start trying to show it to people. For instance, «Kapusta» ('Cabbage') only came out in December, but we started showing it at expos as early as August-September. We let people play it and watched what questions came up."

"There are basically two paths for testing. The first is trial and error. The second is developing a formula to test a card's «balance». For the game «Crown Defender», for instance, we developed it with a full set of parameters — we figured out how they'd interact with each other and ran them through a formula. If we saw that a card was too «strong», we'd raise the cost of its ability. That made the card more expensive, in turn, and it would earn you more coins if you managed to beat it."

Among your own original titles is a game about today's war — 'ZSU. Armed Forces of Ukraine,' where, just like in real life, our army fights against the Russians. Why did you decide to turn this into a board game?

"We first saw this game when the full-scale war had already been going on for about six months, and at first we weren't planning anything at all. But we were really struck by the design from the game's author, Vova Semeniv — and before long, we were printing an English version of the game to show at the Essen expo."

"Actually, author Vova Semeniv created this game for his son, since the boy would say: «Dad, I want to beat the Russians!». So now we have a «board game» where you can fight the Russians either solo or cooperatively with two players. And really, we didn't set out to create it specifically as a game about the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There was a need to create a historical game that depicts real events, since all the units inside it are labeled, real ones."

We've talked about our own side of things — how does the localization process work for a foreign game? Do they send you the game box with English text, or files for translation?

"It varies a lot from publisher to publisher. The publisher behind «Terraforming Mars», for instance, gave us only the finished rules and the box itself. We didn't have finished cards — just the text from them. Once we translated it, we sent everything back to the publisher, and their own team inserted it into their layout and printed it themselves.

In most cases, though, we're sent the source files: the box, rules, cards, game components. Our designer opens it up and gets to work.

Sometimes we pick out fonts ourselves that don't support Cyrillic. And once, we even commissioned a Ukrainian logo for the game «Mystic Vale» from a design studio. That was a whole new, separate piece of artwork.

But usually, the design doesn't change, to preserve the game's recognizability. People should get the same product, just adapted into Ukrainian."

And how much creative freedom do you have when localizing a game?

"Sometimes we translate literally, «word for word», and sometimes, on the contrary, creatively, adapting it for our audience. It depends on how much room the game gives you to do that. For localizing «Epic Magic Battle of Combat Wizards» — which was pretty trashy in the best sense — we reached out to the absurdist theater «Horobchyk» ('Sparrow')."

"We didn't really give them a request to 'translate' — we just sent them the cards with the artwork, and they came up with names for those cards themselves. That was a case where the game's whole style demanded local humor. So people would understand what made it funny."

"For the game «Root», we also didn't do a literal translation — you could have translated the word «dawn» directly, but we translated it as «third roosters» (a Ukrainian folk expression for the crack of dawn). That gives the translation more local flavor, and rights holders are usually fine with it — what matters to them is that the game sells. But for most games, the translation stays close to the original, without major changes."

Let's go back to 'ZSU. Armed Forces of Ukraine' — your website lists it as a 'bestseller.' What game, in your view, has been unfairly overlooked instead?

"«This Amazing World». It's a wonderful game, but it just had bad timing — it hit shelves right around the start of the full-scale invasion. Understandably, people had other things on their minds then... Later, new games started coming out and simply «overshadowed» it, which is a shame, because it's a really interesting game!"

One last question: if you were stranded on a desert island, which board game would you bring with you?

"Probably «Terraforming Mars», since it's interesting both for beginners and for people who've already played it many times."

DeTalks is the official information partner of the FANCON 2025 festival — Ukraine's largest festival of contemporary pop culture, taking place at Kyiv's International Exhibition Centre on June 7 and 8. See you there!