From music theory to board game design

12/6/2023

Born in Cedar Rapids, Tim Ferry grew up looking for, and finding, creative outlets. Beginning with piano lessons at 8 years old and drafting his own music in his spare time, Ferry quickly realized what he wanted to pursue.

“For a long time, I just wanted to make music for video games. So I ended up going to UNI for music composition and theory,” said Ferry.

Ferry ended up changing course on the fly and ended with a bachelor of arts degree. He and his wife, whom he met at UNI, decided to move to Austin, Texas, to pursue their music dreams after he had successfully written music for several indie video game projects. They were performing up to four shows a week while also working full-time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic put a hold on live musical performances across the country, it gave Ferry an opportunity to make waves in another creative direction.

“During that vacancy of no music, I was like, well, I kind of really want to pursue this board game idea that I’ve had for a while. And that was the first time that I was able to really ramp it up,” said Ferry.

A failed Dungeons and Dragons campaign took Ferry toward developing his first board game — Old Salt, a naval strategy game.

“That naval system that I made in that homebrew campaign ended up turning into a prototype, and my friends were like, ‘Hey, let’s play it,’ ” said Ferry.

Never imagining the game would get its sea legs, after years of play testing and tweaking, Old Salt became a reality.

“Since designing the game and kind of trying to figure out how to make it the best, I’ve studied a lot of other games and played a lot of other games. That’s how I got into it,” said Ferry.

The adage of “never judge a book by its cover” expands into most every side of the creative world, which is something Ferry considers during his process.

“If it’s going to be at a store, it’s gotta grab the person’s attention. One of the stats that I learned a couple of years ago is, there’s between 5,000 and 7,000 board games published every year around the world. That’s a lot of games. And if your game is even just suboptimal art, it’s not going to get the attention that it needs,” said Ferry.

The story and overall playability of the game is still vital once the art has captured someone’s attention and they’re enjoying the game with friends and family.

“If you have a game that has sold a lot really quickly, and then you get review bombed because there’s no story or the mechanics are bad, that’s not good. You have to have both, but I would say in order to give your game a chance, visuals are going to be more important,” said Ferry.

Being able to see your hard work become a tangible reality for others to experience is something Ferry has been able to enjoy.

“My favorite part is when they (players) all erupt because of a single dice roll or a single outcome. They’re that invested and that excited about the game and that immersed into the game. That’s my favorite because not only did we have a good game going, but I put them through an adventure,” said Ferry.

He also enjoys sending the next generation on their own adventure through the Little Creators Club, a board game design class for kids. The summer program is five days long, and kids go from a blank slate to a completed board game.

“I’ve had kids tell me that it’s their favorite part of the week. A parent had a kid that loves baseball. We get to recital day, where you pitch your game to the parents. The kid had a tournament on recital day. The parents asked him, ‘Hey, do you want to go to your tournament, or do you want to go to the board game camp recital?’ The kid says, ‘Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t miss the board game day for anything,’ ” said Ferry.

Ferry also recounted one of the students, a second grader, who created a sonar mechanic that was wildly impressive.

“That’s brilliant. If I had time and money to explore that idea, I’d make him a business partner,” said Ferry. ♦