Predictability amid the horrors – How board games can provide relief for a country at war19 min read
Ukraine has been facing a war of aggression for over four years. Despite facing relentless assaults, indiscriminate bombings, and daily loss of human life, citizens of the country have been able to find moments of normality. One way this is accomplished is through playing board games. In an interview with Lossi 36, board game designer Volodymyr Kuznietsov sat with Ukraine Regional Editor Daniel Jarosak to discuss his newly designed game, what role board games play in a country at war, and Ukraine’s cherished diversity.
Please note, this interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
Daniel Jarosak: First off, would you mind introducing yourself? How and why did you become a board game designer?
Volodymyr Kuznietsov: My name is Volodymyr and I am from the most eastern region of Ukraine – Luhansk. When the war began in 2014, there was a short-term occupation of our home city, but it was liberated by Ukrainian forces. So up to 2022, I lived there since my birth. But in 2022, everything changed. I had to evacuate with my family, and that led to a drastic change in my career. Before that I was the department head in an engineering company, designing and constructing oil refinery plants, power plants and all that kind of stuff, the heavy machinery.
But also, I am a professional writer. I am a fiction writer, [and I write] sci-fi, fantasy and horror novels. I have several awards from Ukraine and even a small one from Europe. So, I’ve always had my creative side. I also had some experience in translating world-famous board games for Ukrainian publishers, like Wingspan and Witcher’s Old World. I translated at least 10 [board games] before the war.
And then when the war started, we evacuated to Lviv and, for some time, we didn’t have a clue what we will do next and how we will make a living. I’m not capable of being recruited into the army, I had an eye trauma in high school. So, I decided to help out as a volunteer by providing help, gathering aid for Ukrainian forces, and buying the stuff they need. And that’s where we met our Boardova CEO and founder, [Zholud] ‘Acorn’ Dobrovolskyy.
Volodymyr Kuznietsov
[There was one] evening where we all were kind of tired, and all the emergency work was done. It was that lazy moment where you are not ready to go home, but don’t really have anything important to do. So, I just opened some website for board games and started browsing, and Acorn passed by and asked, ‘Oh you’re into board games?’ [I replied,] ‘Well yes, I had quite a collection in my hometown. Now I don’t, because we evacuated with only backpacks and with only what we could carry. So, the board games were, unfortunately, the last things we could carry with us.’ And he said he’s also into board games and he’s even working on one now. And that is how it all started. Then he decided to make a board game studio. I started [there] as a consultant, and pretty soon I became one of the game designers and the [game] Aridnyk was born.
We started working on it in late 2022, and in late 2023 we already started printing it and the first Ukrainian print run was out in January 2024. It was a crazy experience making it during constant blackouts because Russia bombarded our energy system heavily that year. And late autumn, early winter, of 2022 we had blackouts, we worked with flashlights, but then we, all of Ukraine, quickly adapted to that. [We] Quickly found a way to get through it, using generators, gas generators, giant power banks. And you can see we have power now. But still that was a bit crazy. We provided [aid] for our military, for the evacuated persons, and for the [displaced] people. But, through it, we built a team which survives to this day.
We had a Kickstarter campaign for the international print run for Aridnyk. And now we are waiting for it to be printed and shipped. We are already almost finished [with] our next game, and we really hope that we can manage to put it on the shelves worldwide in late autumn of this year. We have a lot of quite interesting projects actually. We only are sorry that we don’t have enough time, enough hours in the day, to manage all that we wanted to. But we will, sooner or later, let’s say that.
From left to right: Zholud Dobrovolskyy( founder & CEO), Maryna Pinkevych (СMO), Yaroslav Kifor (game designer), Volodymyr Kuznietsov (lead game designer), Maryana Yankevych (SMM)
DJ: You touched on the challenges of creating and designing games during wartime. So, my next question would be, what role do you see your board games playing in a country at war? Some people might say Ukraine is facing an existential threat, do people have time to play board games? Are board games or other forms of recreation appropriate to be doing at this time?
VK: That’s a very common question, and I am not just hearing it as a board game designer, I am also hearing it as a writer. Especially as a writer that writes horror novels. They say to me, ‘how could you write a horror novel in such a horrific time, haven’t we had enough horrors around us?’ Yes, we surely do. But I can say that even the horrific stuff, even the dark stuff in fiction, is more comfortable because it’s controllable. You can skip it at any time and just put it away. That is what the country at war, the country in constant threats, misses the most – predictability.
The problem is not that we are facing risks, the problem is that we cannot predict those risks. Maybe some ballistic missile, which takes just a couple of minutes from the start to reach the target – they often just aim at civilian buildings, just terror tactics. So, this unpredictability is the worst that you can face. The constant stress through uncertainty. Meanwhile, the certainty of some minor but predictable and calculatable things [in a board game] are actually very comforting and very soothing.
The board game is an activity where you are limited by some set of rules. When you play a certain model of reality, an easy and often comfy and cozy model, [it] allows you to understand that you are in control. And even if you are not, even if things don’t go your way, even if you are losing the game, it is just a game. And that is also one of our approaches to designing a board game, to make people enjoy the process [of playing] itself rather than winning. ‘Oh, I created some scheme, I built the chain of moves that gives me some profit, some victory points,’ all that kind of stuff. And you are already happy with it even if it’s not the way to win the game. You are maybe still losing, but figuring out some clever move, you are already feeling happy.
So, I think that is very important, to have some everyday joys in life. It’s very important for civilians as well as for guys and girls on the front line to relax, to escape for at least a little from that uncertainty and impossible horrors.
Actually, I spoke with my [book] publisher in the middle of 2022 about the book. I asked, ‘Should I even finish it? Should you ever consider publishing it during the war?’ And he answered, ‘You know, people buy more books now than before the war,’ almost twice as [more] before the war. They feel the need to support the culture, to be a part of that culture which is facing this threat. That is the maybe unconscious way to protect the culture. People started to have much more interest in Ukrainian products since the war started.
Boardova
DJ: Speaking of culture, the game Aridnyk is based largely on Hutsul culture. Can you tell me a bit about the process of designing the game, and specifically the reception you received from the Hutsul community?
VK: Well, as I said, I am from the east [of Ukraine]. I am the furthest from the Carpathians (the traditional homeland of the Hutsuls – editor) as a Ukrainian could be. I lived and grew up in a very different region [than the Hutsuls], in the Steppe in the prairies where it’s like a plain field as long as I can see with only a few small forests and hills here and there. But I was always fascinated with Carpathian culture, with Hutsulian culture. Partially because we have a lot of classical literature and classical cinema about that. First and foremost, [there is] Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. It’s an absolute classic, and an astonishing book about the Hutsuls, their world view, their legends, and their habits.
As with any highlander, they have a very unique culture because it’s [somewhat] isolated. It’s not easy to mix and assimilate them because they are hard to reach in their mountains. And so, this culture was always fascinating to me – the way they interpret the basic Christian myth of the creation. I don’t know if you know this, but Aridnyk is actually a Hutsulian Satan. And, [our] game is not about Satanism, Hutsuls see it quite differently than any other Christian culture does. They see Aridnyk as some evil spirit.
[The Hutsuls] said that before the world was created, there was only a God and he stumbled upon some log, and that log was Aridnyk. God gave it legs and a mouth and gave it form and they became brothers and they had very strictly separated responsibilities. Hutsuls said that God was the one who knew it all but cannot do anything and Aridnyk was the one who knew nothing but could do anything. So, to create the world, they had to cooperate. And there’s quite a lot of that, small fascinating details in the Hutsul worldview and cosmology which always fascinated me.
When I came to Lviv, I met a comic book author, Lyudmila Samus. She created a comic based on Hutsul mythology and it was called Aridnyk and that was the basis for us creating the game [of the same name]. She created all the visuals, all those cute guys which didn’t have any concrete visuals in Hutsulian culture itself. She just used some traditional art and ornamentals to create them. And the comic was fascinating; I loved it very much. And then actually when Acorn came to me and said he’s designing a board game, it happens that he was designing a board game based on that comic book.
We found a great ethnographical work called Hutsulschchyna, which was written in the early 20th century by Volodymyr Shukhevich, the Lviv [ethnographer]. It’s quite fascinating because he lived maybe 100 meters from our office… So yea, he lived, he walked the streets and for me that is really a thing to be inspired by. Because [the city] I lived in previously was less than 70 years old. So, ending up in Lviv which contains sometimes some buildings from the 18th century, is quite fascinating for me. I really love history. I feel very inspired here.
So yes, we started working on that game. We significantly expanded the universe, we added also a lot of stuff from everyday Hutsul life, the traditional life, the tools they’re using, the food they are cooking, and all [that] they wear. For example, quite an unusual thing, in Hutsulschyna, [those who smoked pipes] were mostly women, older women. They love pipes and there are a lot of actual historical photos of these old grannies with large pipes. All that fascinating stuff, I was so immersed in it, I was so excited about it. We certainly put some soul into [the game].
And then when the game was already out, we looked for the guys that represent and promote Hutsulian culture in Ukraine. We found some bloggers, then we found a stand-up comedian who is a Hutsul [herself], and we gave her the game. They put up a stream where they played this game online and [it received] all these comments.
Also, we co-worked with a museum. We have a large museum in Lviv called Shevchenkivskyi Hai, it means Shevchenko’s forest. It’s a park where [there] is collected and rebuilt a lot of traditional buildings from all over western Ukraine. So, you can just walk through this forest and visit different wooden churches, old houses, old windmills and all that kind of stuff and it is really actually authentic as far as it is possible. And we have there usually fairs on some religious dates, or traditional fair days and we participated in those fairs and presented Aridnyk there, and a lot of the people played and liked it.
So mostly it was very positive and a lot of Hutsul people who managed to play the game were very excited and joyful about it. And even people in Ukraine who didn’t know a lot about the Hutsulian culture were also excited to learn more, to dive deeper into it. We praise our diversity in Ukraine, we really love to celebrate, show our regional differences. Southern Ukraine, it’s very different from the eastern or the northern part, and central Ukraine has its own distinct features.
Boardova
DJ: Coming as a writer who creates his own worlds in his mind and then writes them on the page, was it harder to [create] this game when you’re basing everything off someone else’s comics and previously written rituals and cultures, or did you find it just as easy or even easier?
VK: Well, my personal ideology is that you cannot write everything from your head. You have to base it on some real facts because those facts will be like a waystone for the reader to navigate through your book. Like Steven King, he has a lot of real facts. He’s constantly mentioning some TV shows, trademarks, stores, and all that kind of stuff which are instantly recognizable by the American reader. So, it’s easier for [them] to believe all that is happening in Stephen King’s novels is real.
In writing, I am a very solitary person, I prefer to work [on] my own. But in game design I am a very collective, social animal. I need feedback. I need someone to do it with me, to share my ideas, to provide their input, and to put it all together to create something bigger and more powerful than my single idea. So yes, for me it was a different experience than writing. But still, I love researching, I love historical facts, I love history as it is. It’s my favorite academic discipline. So, for me it is a very exciting and very joyful process.
I am also enjoying being part of a larger movement and Boardova, for me, is a very important community. We are not a large company, but we are here in this office, and it is very important to feel that we are doing something together. Acorn is from Lviv. I am from the Luhansk region. Maryna, our marketing manager and communication manager, is from Kyiv. So, we are gathered from all over Ukraine and that is great. We have very different views and that allows us to create something really strong and exciting.
DJ: I was reading an article from your CEO, and he said that in the early 2000s, board games were not so popular in Ukraine. Through the years, have you seen a shift? When people think of games in Ukraine, I think they’ll think of the Metro series, STALKER and other video games.
VK: Yeah, yeah definitely. The main shift was when, finally, some Ukrainian localizations started to appear. The more games in Ukrainian we have, the more people became involved in [them]. There is a language barrier when you play the board game in English. A lot of Ukrainians are pretty good at English, but they would rather prefer it to be in Ukrainian. When you play a video game like STALKER or like Witcher, you don’t need I guess to know the language so well, well you do if you wanted to like to get involved…into a dialogue and all that stuff. But the big games are often localized.
For the board games it wasn’t so until recently, like starting from 2014-2015. The reason was quite simple: Russian board game companies often put it that you shouldn’t give rights to Ukrainian companies, because all the Ukrainians know Russian. But the games that we received from Russia actually were those that [could not] sell there. Those that are sold well in Russia, you wouldn’t see them because [they would be sold in Russia].
So, yea. Before that time there [was a] pretty small board game community in Ukraine. And now since we have our own publishing, we [are] publishing in Ukrainian and translating the world famous board games or creating our own, the market is spreading and growing very fast. I may be mistaken but, 600-800 board games a year are published in Ukraine. For a country of our size, it is a significant market. And those guys who publish games in Ukrainian manage to have a good business.
Also, a lot of people, especially after Covid, started to cherish the time spent together around the table. The thing with board games is that they are about sociability [and] communication, when you spend time together and you see each other in the flesh. That is what a video game can’t provide. Maybe it would be fun to play [videogames] after work and speak with another friend by Discord. But, if you have a chance to sit in front of each other, to have some snacks, to have some candies and play a game to joke around, many would prefer that.
DJ: I hope that I am not spoiling anything, [but] looking at your website, it looks like the next game that is lined up [to be released] is based on the novel 1984. Why 1984, and what future does the company hold right now?
VK: That wouldn’t be a spoiler. That is actually the game I told you about that we are really aiming to put on the shelves in late November this year. The game is almost finished. But, why 1984? That is a complex question. We published Aridnyk and it was a family friendly game; it was bright and humorous. We decided that, should our next game be also like bright and easy and comic and all that kind of stuff?
We can be like in a certain way a hostage to our own created product. So, we decided we will do something drastically different, with a more mature theme, with more social weight on it. It was a very interesting challenge for us as designers because any good board game is about development. About you step by step making something bigger, something more efficient, something more expanded. That is not what is happening in the dystopian world of 1984 where everything tries to oppress you and make you miserable.
We had a discussion with our 2nd game designer Andrii, he’s now serving in the military, he said that the main thing in the game is mechanics, the way the game runs. And I said, he is a mathematician, and I am a writer, a humanitarian, ‘No. People enjoy games because of what it is about. The mechanics [are the] supporting stuff to make the theme more bright and more understandable, so that the player can feel it.’
We discussed it a bit and then we started to think, ‘What would be an interesting and recognizable theme for Ukrainians?’ And, by browsing a bit, we learned that one of the best-selling books in Ukrainian in recent times was 1984. You learn about it in school in Ukraine. And we decided ‘why not?’ Already 50 years passed since his demise, so 1984 is now royalty free and we can use it without paying royalties. Well, that was a very straightforward calculation, and we are quite fascinated with the results.
It’s not that the game is about misery. The game is about: how do you respond to a totalitarian push? The players are all facing the oppression of the totalitarian system. But each of them still can make some moves to improve their fate, and there is always a conflict. Should you pursue your personal interests, or should you play along with the team, knowing that if you will not, it will hurt everybody.
And this social conflict is quite interesting. It is fascinating to behold and to be a part of. Should I get along with all, or should I do something for myself? Also, we somehow managed to show the absurdity and stupidity of the totalitarian system. If you look at how totalitarian systems work, past and modern, they often have that stupidity embedded deep inside because nobody within them wants to be efficient. Nobody wants to do their best. Everybody just wants to do something for them not to get hurt. And so, this irrationality, this stupidity, is also very widespread.
And we somehow managed to show that the system is like a very bulky and stupid machine that just trumps forward and often gives orders that contradict each other. And you, as a simple person within this grinder, should find a way. It was a very interesting experience and I hope people who play this game will like it and will enjoy it. Because [it] can help us sort out what real freedom is and how it works. Because sometimes we take it for granted.
DJ: For anyone reading this interview in America or the European Union or anywhere else, who wants to purchase Aridnyk, where and how can they do so?
VK: As soon as it hits the shelves! I guess it will be in the summer, you can buy it directly from our website, from Amazon, and we are also working now with distributors and I’m really hoping you can find it in your local board game store. At least we will put our effort into it!
