HOW WE MADEHOW WE MADEHOW WE MADE HIVE
46 February 2019
“ e idea was to be able to pop the game in
a bag and just take it anywhere. Because of
this, it becomes very close and focused, and
creates a game where the pieces jostle for
prime positions and keep the contest tight all
the way to the end. is makes it fast to play
and keeps players thinking long after the game
is played; what strategy to improve on, how
they could do better or how to better use each
of the creatures in future games.
“ e physical design is also very important;
it was always part of the plan to have really
luxurious production and presentation.
“I’m also a Christian, and I truly
believe the idea for Hive was
God-given; Jesus’ way of
blessing me and my family
and providing for us, and
giving us a hope and a future.
“ e biggest thing I’ve
learned in these years of
creating Hive is how amazing
its fans are. ey have taken to
this game in such an awesome and
unexpected way, creating a community,
running tournaments and coming up with
all sorts of fan-made variants. e fans are a
big part of Hive’s success, and without their
support it would have been a lot harder.”ADULT PHASE
ese days Yianni continues to promote Hive –
although, when it comes to his own game nights,
his tastes lean in a decidedly di erent direction.
“Surprisingly enough, my favourite games
over the years haven’t been abstract games,”
he says. “Most people assume that because
I design abstract games, I like playing them,
but that’s not entirely true. Apart from my own
games, I would rather play things like King of
To k y o, Camel Up, Escape and Xia: Legends of
a Drift System – games that are easy to play,
but that come with a really strong theme. But,
saying that, there are some abstract games
that I do admire for their simplicity and
elegance, like Kamisado, Yinsh and Blokus.”
As for the future, Yianni is wary of adding
too many new elements to Hive, mindful of the
need to maintain its clean and elegant appeal.
“I’m very happy with the game as it stands,
and so I’m also very reluctant to add any
more expansions to it,” he says. “I won’t say
never, but I will say that I have no plans at this
present time to add any.
“In the last year or so I have been feeling
that we should start to add other products
to our line of games that are not necessarily
designed by myself. I feel the company hasgrown to the point
that we could start to
bring in other games
from other publishers
for the UK and maybe
also look at other designs
from other designers, not just
the kinds of abstracts we’ve done until now.
“ e rst game we have just added to our
line is a game by Italian designers SpartacoAlbertarelli and Davide
Ghel , who I met at the
2018 Essen game fair.
It’s called VektoRace, a
boardless car racing game
based on a vector movement
system. It’s really fun, and I’m sure
it will do well for us. We’ve got other games in
the pipeline that could also be added this year,
so watch this space!”Hive has made its way to digital platforms, including PC