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| Photo from Facebook |
SethJaffee, an everyday man with glasses, short brunette hair and a
slender build was one whom had no idea what he wanted to be as a kid.
He continued school and stuck with classes he was good at, ones that
revolved around math and science.
“My
dad said 'Oh maybe you'll be good at engineering,'” Jaffee said, so
he did.
He
received a bachelors degree in civil engineering from the Universityof Arizona in December of 2000 and went on to work in his field,
unaware of his true calling.
In 2004
Jaffee stumbled upon what he wanted he truly wanted to do as a
career. He came across The Board Game Designers Forum online. It is a
website that allows people to share their game ideas with fellow
gamers and designers while fine tuning their projects and potentially
being seen by manufacturers.
Jaffee
remembers as a kid doing Games Magazine puzzles, especially on long
car rides to California to visit family. He also played board games
with his family like Spy vs. Spy, Monopoly, RISK and Survive. As he
got older Magic: The Gathering was one that he enjoyed playing and
would enter into tournaments, occasionally winning. His favorite part
of the game was building his decks, finding different combinations
and ways to counter attacks.
Friends
then would introduce him to games that really peaked his interest:
Settlers of Catan which he and his friends once played for 34 hours
straight and Puerto Rico.
“The
first time I played Puerto Rico I hated it,” Jaffee said. “Everyone
else understood it and I was kind of lost, I didn't know what to do
or how to make any progress and it was a miserable experience.”
After
trying out some different games his friends eventually talked Jaffee
into giving Puerto Rico another try. With a better understanding the
second time around, it is now one of his favorite games.
The
Board Game Designers Forum showed him that he could take his favorite
part from Magic: The Gathering, creating decks and apply it to board
games. However, in creating board games he wouldn't be limited to
rules because he would be the one creating them.
A
friend of Jaffee's, Michael Mindes, wanted to publish games and was
also responsible for introducing Jaffee to Magic: The Gathering.
Together with some help they created Tasty Minstrel Games. Now Jaffee
is the head of development, and he creates games and seeks out people
who have a developed concept, but no way of publishing it.
For TMG,
Jaffee has created the games Terra Prime and Eminent Domain along
with the new expansion for Eminent Domain, Escalation, due out soon.
Eminent Domain was ranked 276 on boardgamegeek.com. He also helps
develop other games for the company, such as Homesteaders, Jab: Realtime Boxing,
Belfort, Ground Floor and Kings of Air and Steam to name a few.
For now
Jaffee continues to work his structural engineer job at Mooradian and
Associates, then helps bring board games to life with TMG in his
spare time.
“This
is kind of the perfect job for me,” Jaffee said.
Thank you for taking the time to read my profile story on Mr. Jaffee and hopefully you enjoyed it.
Be sure to check out the fundraiser for RinCon '14, which will be held at the Holiday Inn on Palo Verde on February 22. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and will have open gaming and a poker tournament.
As always, be sure to check out my brother Will's "Let's Play" channel on YouTube, where he has been playing Civilization V. Also be sure to check out my YouTube channel as I will be hopefully adding some new slide shows soon.
For more gaming information be sure to check out The Dice Tower, Geek and Sundry's TableTop and Watch It Played.
Thanks and play well,
MYLO
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