Luís Brüeh is a game designer and illustrator originally from Brazil, currently living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. We first wrote about Luís’ work in the “Publisher Focus” article on Vesuvius Media. Since that time, Mr. Brüeh has branched out to self-publish two games for which he is responsible for both the design and artwork, the second of which is currently funding on Kickstarter – Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai.

Amidst the business of managing that campaign, Luís took some time for an exclusive Little Thumbs, Big Thumbs interview. Join us below for the conversation!

LT: Thank you for joining us for an interview, Luis! For those who may not be familiar, can you tell us a bit about Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai?

Luís:  Night Parade is a very light (almost gateway) asymmetric, engine building game, where you make monster scrolls and parade with them through the lands to increase your influence and become the next king of all Yyokai. Keep in mind that this game is heavily based on Japanese mythology, so the creatures we call Yokai are supernatural beings: ghosts, harvest gods, ogres, animalistic deities, etc. And the Japanese have registered encounters and painted scrolls on the subject for the past 1000 years. So the amount of research into this game was huge! but so much fun!

LT: The adorable wooden critters in Night Parade will inevitably remind players of other games with small animals such as Root and Everdell. Are there any gameplay similarities between Night Parade and these other popular titles?

Luís: Due to the engine building nature, no game of night parade will be the same. Also, the learning curve in night parade is way smoother I would say. There’s not that many rules or icons to keep track of.

LT: All of your previous releases have been both illustrated and designed by yourself. Are there any particular challenges that come up, working as a one stop shop?

Luís:  It’s a lot of work. And a lot of fun. Especially into research, and character creation. To me, the theme always comes before the mechanic, so there’s a few themes I want to talk about and already have a ton of material on these subjects but I haven’t created the mechanic to it. I also like to work in increasing scopes. Each game starts small and grows slowly after I see the core mechanic is solid. 

LT: Many of your previous games, including the Dwar7s series, have been published by Vesuvius Media. What inspired you to go out on your own to self-publish Night Parade?

Luís: I love everyone in Vesuvius Media. Konstantinos is more than a brother to me and given the opportunity I will continue publishing with them forever. That being said, Vesuvius has many projects other than the Dwar7s Series, and so do I. Konstantinos and I talked about me publishing some projects on my own for a few years before this decision was made. But we will keep working together! Expect more from Dwar7s on 2021!

LT: What is the one piece of advice you’ve learned that still impacts your design work today?

Luís: Keep it simple and be open to criticism. If you are having issues to teach your game to a casual gamer, maybe the issue is in your game. 

LT: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. Best wishes as the campaign rolls on to its ending date on October 15th!

Luís: Thank you for this amazing opportunity!