Did you know that Knitting Circle is Emily Vincent’s first published game? She started designing games in 2022, working on multiple designs at once. In March 2023, she took three prototypes to Unpub, one of which was Knitting Circle. Randy Flynn (Cascadia) played Knitting Circle and suggested to us that we should check it out. We enjoyed it a lot and decided to sign it to expand the Calico universe! Since then, Emily has formed her own publishing company, Pink Hawk Games, been a GAMA Horizons Fellow publisher, and is getting ready to publish some of her other designs starting with Pirates of the High Teas. We asked Emily a few questions about her process and her interest in board games.
What are some of your favorite games? And why?
I’m a huge fan of Pandemic, specifically the original game and the legacy games. I love cooperative games and for me this is just a classic that I can play over and over again. I always get to feel clever playing Pandemic. I also really love Sagrada, both because of the puzzle and just the beauty when you see it on the table. And I love the game Aftermath, which is a cooperative storytelling game. It’s got a lot of the awesome moments of playing an RPG but you don’t need a DM and the sessions are pretty consistent in timing. It opened my eyes to how you can inject story into a board game experience. Also, you get to play as adorable rodents in a post-apocalyptic world where you break into vending machines and use household items as weapons, which is just a ton of fun.
What games got you into game design?
It’s probably a combination of Pandemic, Aftermath, and D&D. The goal of my first game design (that I’m still working on) was to create a cooperative board game experience with the memorable story moments of an RPG. It’s a game of house cats trying to take over the world when their humans are asleep each night. As I was working on that game, I knew I wanted to hone my game design skills so I started working on all sorts of other designs. Which is how I eventually got to puzzley tile placement!
Do you start with theme or mechanics?
I always start with theme. I either start with a story I want to tell or a specific table presence I want to create. I’m personally drawn to games with beautiful table presence - I like lots of colors, things that are glittery or translucent, and components that feel great to hold and manipulate. So I tend to start from brainstorming themes that will lend themselves to the kind of table presence or story that I want to play.
Do you have a favorite theme?
I’ve been really interested in games about crafting and creating. I’ve prototyped games based on knitting, cross stitch, and weaving, and I’ve got a notebook full of game ideas about other crafts. I just find the idea of creating something beautiful to be a really satisfying concept for a game. I’ve also tried my hand at games around cooking and baking. Again, I’m just intrigued by creating a game in which your goal is to be creative and build something that you want to share with others.
Do you have a favorite mechanic?
I don’t think I do! For me, mechanics are just the tools in my toolbox to achieve the game’s thematic goals. I usually start with a vision for the story that’s going to unfold in the game and then dig around for mechanics that achieve that goal. When I’m early on in a game design, I often put some sort of simple draft into the game in order to be a placeholder for “this is how you’ll get your cards or tiles.” That usually gets changed later in the process when I’ve got an inspiration from the theme.
What is something unusual/cool about you that people might not know?
I’m an amateur circus performer and dancer! I performed regularly on my aerial hoop before the pandemic and I’ve been working on getting to performance level on the cyr wheel. I also recently co-founded a contemporary dance company called Pluto Return. We’re working on our first show, currently scheduled for May of 2025.
