Speaking & Writing

This is a work in progress! It will be added to as time permits.

Game Design Live Chats

Join me every week for the Game Design Live chats! They’re hosted in my discord server and the calendar is here: http://www.weirdgiraffegames.com/carla/wordpress/game-design-live-chats/

Blog Awards

Best Board Game Design Resources of 2021

Chosen by Cardboard Edison

Panel and Convention Appearances

Winter Nonepub 2022

  • Nonepub After Dark: F**K 2021
    • Carla Kopp, Avonelle Wing, Erick Yurko, Katie Khau, Xoe Allred
    • A discussion on the impact of COVID-19 from different perspectives in the tabletop industry (retail, content creator, publisher, designer). The good, the bad, and even worse and how we’re all coping or not coping so well with it from personal experiences to the overall impact on the industry.
  • Networking & Conventions during a Pandemic
    • Raven Mackenzie, Carla Kopp, Corinne Yeager
    • Networking is hard enough as it is, but during an pandemic, there’s another layer of stress added. Some things have changed, some things haven’t, and there’s also conventions to talk about! We’ll be discussing all the new and interesting ways we’ve learned to network in since the pandemic changed so much.
  • It takes 2 (or more!) | Co-designing Board Games
    • Carla Kopp, David Bruglia, Raven Mackenzie, & Clarence Simpson
    • Looking to embark on your first co-design? Been at it for awhile but want to shake things up? This panel of seasoned and new co-designers is sure to have a takeaway for you! Join us as we talk about our experiences, lessons learned, and best practices for creating board games collaboratively with others.

Metatopia 2021

My Design Fell Off The Rails – Now What?

  • Featuring Carla Kopp and Nikki Valens
  • Game Design is messy and weird. Sometimes you look at everything you’ve doodled for the last 3 months and realize that you’ve designed 10 games about birds. You decide to roll with it and create a 12-month Bird Anthology, but your brain suddenly refuses to think about birds, and will only think about unicorns. Or you sit down to refine your latest abstract strategy game, and end up with a first draft of a trick-taking game. Our designer guests talk about how they adjust (or cope) when their design-brain refuses to cooperate with the practicalities of making and selling games.

Crowdfunding with Chip Theory Games, Weird Giraffe Games, Good Games Publishing, & DeadAlive Games

Winter Nonepub, 2021

  • Publisher Lessons Learned During a Pandemic
    • Featuring Carla Kopp and Omari Akil
    • Publishing means wearing a lot of different hats and requires a ton of different skills, but what about publishing board games during a pandemic? We will discuss the differences from pre-COVID publishing to publishing during the pandemic. Many lessons have been learned; from marketing to fulfillment to community management and everything in between, let’s talk about what we’ve learned!
  • Virtual Playtesting Tips
    • Featuring Carla Kopp, Fertessa Scott, Raven McKenzie, Tim Blank
    • Learn how to ease the learning curve of digital playtesting. Using tabletopia and TTS is definitely different than playtesting in person and requires a different way of preparing, setting up, getting feedback, and more. We will discuss what we’ve learned to make digital playtesting work smoother and what definitely does not work.
  • The Benefits of Working with a Developer & Project Manager
    • Featuring Carla Kopp, Brenna Noonan, Brian Neff
    • Game developers and project managers can take your game and make it into a fantastic product. They can make a game more suited to a certain audience, widen the player count, retheme it, make it more accessible, and MORE! Game development can be anything from balancing to cutting or adding content to making the game more thematic.
  • F*CK 2020 AGAIN!
    • Featuring Banana Chan, Carla Kopp, SoLee “Triune” Shin, & Eric Yurko
    • A discussion on the impact of COVID-19 from different perspectives in the tabletop industry (retail, content creator, publisher, designer). The good, the bad, and even worse and how we’re all coping or not coping so well with it from personal experiences to the overall impact on the industry.
  • Learning how to Co-Design
    • Featuring Carla Kopp, Sarah Graybill, David Bruglia
    • While it’s fine to design games on your own, there’s a ton of benefits to codesigning! We’ll talk about how to find a codesigner, when to look for a codesigner, and tips for making the codesign last!

Summer Nonepub, 2021

  • The Developer’s Role
    • Featuring Carla Kopp, Brenna Noonan, Nate Murray, Daryl Andrews, Jessey Wright, Jessica Cassady (She/Her)

Protospiel CLE, 2021

Shipping and Fulfillment as a Board Game Publisher

Interview with Carla Kopp of Weird Giraffe Games and Galactic Raptor Games and Jacob Way of Ox Eye Media/Deepwater Games talking about shipping and fulfillment as a board game publisher for Proto CLE.

Nonepub, 2020

Tabletop Content Creation featuring AnnaMaria Jackson-Phelps and Carla Kopp

NONEPUB After Dark Series: F**K 2020: A look at how CoVID has impacted the tabletop industry (CW: COVID, politics, language) featuring Avonelle Wing, Nicole Amato, Carla Kopp

Metatopia 2020

Alone, But Not Lonely: Solo Games with Liz Davidson, Carla Kopp, Krin Irvine, and Alexis Allard

Even in the Before Times there was a lot to love about solo games, and it has become especially relevant in 2020. Our panelists will be sharing what they love about this style of gaming. We will be talking about one-player games and games with a solo mode, from the perspective of both designers and players.

Pax Unplugged 2019

Networking As An Introvert with Anya Combs, Adi Slepack [Co-Founder, Gather Round Games], Maya Coleman (they/them) [Certified Badass , Professional Sole Employee, INC], Nicole Amato [CEO, Cardboard Fortress], Carla Kopp [Owner, Weird Giraffe Games], Adriel Wilson [COO, 9th Level Games]

  • Yes, we know it’s important to make real connections but how do you start? I have business cards but when do I hand them out? I’m shy and need time to recharge so how do I meet people when I’m nervous? Get tips one how to brave social situations as an introvert with our panel of introverted-but-doing-our-best panelists! We’ll go over what to do and what not to do to “network” properly along with our own survival methods when it’s all just too overwhelming.

Resources that Changed my Game Design Life with Liz Roche, Nicole Amato, Carla Kopp, Jessica Creane, and Gwen Ruelle

Pax Unplugged 2018

Building a Playtesting Community with Carla Kopp [Owner, Weird Giraffe Games and Galactic Raptor Games and game designer, Weird Giraffe Games, Galactic Raptor Games], Nicole Amato [Co-founder, Cardboard Fortress Games, Cardboard Fortress Games], Emma Larkins [Tabletop game designer, Emma Larkins], MaryMartha Ford-Dieng [Founder, Mot & Dot, Mot & Dot], Misha B [Co-founder and Marketing Director, New Agenda Publishing, New Agenda Publishing]

  • You’ve made a game, but no one has ever played it. Now what? In this panel, we will talk to designers about their experience in playtesting and building a community of playtesters for their games and others. Hear about our trials and errors in building a playtesting community, and what we’ve gained from it.

Rocket City NerdCon 2017

Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign with Carla Kopp

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fest 2016

Game Design with Carla Kopp and Latt Vines

Book Appearances

Board Games as Media

Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World

Interviews

More will be added soon!

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016