THE HISTORIANS
TRAVIS HANCOCK
& HOLLY HANCOCKGAMES: SALEM 1692,
TORTUGA 1667,
DEADWOOD 1876tabletopgaming.co.uk 39THE STONEMAIERS
JAMEY STEGMAIER & ALAN STONEGAMES: VITICULTURE, EUPHORIAHow they met: e couple rst
met in college but it wasn’t until
they were married when Travis
revealed his passion for board
game design. “Holly was a little
bit, ‘What did I get myself into?’
but mostly excited,” he says.
How they got started: “Holly
had done some graphic design
work in the past, so it was a
natural t for us to start working
together – me on the business
and rules, and her on the
visuals,” says Travis.
e Hancocks launched
their rst game, Salem 1692, on
Kickstarter in 2015. Both were
working day jobs at the time:
Travis in digital marketing and
Holly as a school teacher.
“Somehow the game raised
£80,000 and opened our eyes to the
possibilities of making more games.”
It was a solid hunch. e
following year they launched the
Kickstarter for their next game,
Tortuga 1667. It went on to raise
four times as much as Salem.
“ at was when we realised
we could make a career out of
this and continue doing what
we loved full time,” says Travis.
How they met: “Alan and I
have been friends for awhile,
mostly through board games,”
says Stegmaier. “Alan was the
rst person in our gaming
group to learn Agricola, so that
really opened up the world of
Eurogames to the rest of us.”How they got started: “A few
months into the playtesting
process for Viticulture, I played
it with Alan and his wife. Alan
contacted me the next day and
asked if he could work with me
on it,” says Stegmaier. “I realised
it would be really helpful to
have a go-to playtester who
wanted to be involved instead
of pestering di erent friends all
the time.”
With the help of a successful
Kickstarter campaign (and
many more to follow) the two
formed their own board game
company, Stonemaier Games.How they work: “It’s all very
collaborative. We de nitely
have areas that each of us focus
on,” Travis says. “Holly heads
up the visual side of everything,
including the look of the games,
the website, the rulebooks and
our ads, and I’m there to bounce
ideas o of. en I handle rule,
mechanics and balance and run
a lot of it past Holly.
“It’s nice that each of us feel
ownership over certain aspects
of our games. It’s never been
tempting to design a game totally
on our own since we both really
value the other’s feedback.”What they like: “Both of us
have always enjoyed social
deduction games,” says Travis.
“Something about lying to
each other is just a lot of fun!
Holly tends to enjoy the more
puzzle/word type of games, so
I imagine that down the road
we’ll dabble into that world a
bit more.”“I wanted to combine my
entrepreneurial spirit with my
passion for designing games,”
says Stegmaier. “ at motivation
has evolved over the years, from
wanting to run a Kickstarter
project for something of my own
creation to a mission of bringing
joy to tabletops worldwide.”
As for the clever portmanteau
company name? “We both love
Eurogames and we wanted
something that sounded German.”How they work: “I designed
Viticulture and Euphoria, but I
wanted to give Alan credit for his
significant involvement as a playtester
and developer,” says Stegmaier. “In
addition to playtesting and o ering
fantastic feedback and other ideas,
Alan reviews all submissions we
receive and co-ordinates our
replacement parts helpers, while
I handle everything else.”What they like: While Stegmaier
enjoys having Stone as his
primary playtester and business
partner, he ultimately prefers to
design games alone.
“It would be very challenging
for me to try to share a new
design with someone else,” he
says. “ ere’s so much that
forms in my head that’s
hard to communicate,
and there’s so much grunt
work involved in turning
feedback into actual
changes in the prototype.”THE HISTORIANS