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We asked the questions to both separately, so they didn´t know what the other would say..

cliquenabend.de: Hi Fraser, hi Gordon could you give us a brief introduction about yourselfs, for the people who didn´t have the chance to meet you until now?

Fraser: I´m Fraser and one half of Fragor Games. I´m the younger brother by around 6 years. I live in Dunblane, Scotland with my lovely wife.

Gordon: Hi, I’m Gordon Lamont one half of Fragor Games. I’m the good-looking one. I’m 41, married to Judi for 15 years. We have 2 playtesters (sorry I mean children) Iona and Glenn aged 13 and 9. My wife is a vet so our house (near Glasgow) also has 2 dogs, a cat, 1 goldfish, 2 Giant African Land snails and a Coral snake.

cliquenabend.de: Three words which best describe your brother?

Fraser: "Almost", "as", "talented"? :)
No, just joking. I would go for "Confident", "bold" and "fun".

Gordon: "Enthusiastic, thin, balding” or “almost as tall”.

cliquenabend.de: What are your regular occupations?

Fraser: I work part of the week as a Countryside Ranger (just like Aragon in Lord of the Rings), and the rest of the week is devoted to Fragor Games.

Gordon: I am an advocate so I get to wear a wig. It is the Scottish equivalent of an English barrister. My workload involves aviation cases and major disasters. One of my cases is stopping me getting to Essen until Friday this year which is not good!

cliquenabend.de: So you are Scots, tell us something about bagpipes and is this rumor with the kilt true ;-)?

Fraser: Bagpipes can actually produce good music, really!! The rumour with the Kilt? Well, we´re all sworn to secrecy on that one.

Gordon: Bagpipes are only used to frighten foreign visitors. What is under the kilt is also used for this purpose ;-)

cliquenabend.de: You also like games, when did you start to like them and how did you come up with the idea to make the first (Leapfrog in 2004)?

Fraser: Gordon and I have played games from a young age, but I would say I got heavily into euro style games from around 2000 onwards. I remember playing Dragon Delta by Roberto Fraga and thinking how new and exciting it was compared to the games we had played as children.

I was traveling around a lot during this period and had some time to come up with some game ideas. On my return to Scotland, I showed Gordon the prototype of what would become Leapfrog. It was themed as sheep racing, and was basically the core mechanism. We decided it showed promise and so began work on it. Gordon had the idea of the frog theme, and also thought up the tadpoles and the dreaded plate. We knew it was light, played quickly and could accommodate a large and varied number of players (1-6). This was an important factor in having it as our first release.

Gordon: I can remember being 5 or 6 years old (some 35 years ago) and pushing cars around Waddington’s Formula One. I just rolled the dice and moved the cars. I did not understand the rules ! I loved board games from this moment on.

In relation to Leapfrog, Fraser had the basic idea for the movement in the game when he was in living abroad in Japan. When he returned home, we chatted through the game and developed the different types of races and the tadpole scoring system. The dinner plate was also added at this stage – I can still remember the laughs we had in Essen when we explained the rule that if you ended up in the dinner plate in the last race then you lost no matter how many points you had scored. Frogs that have been eaten cannot win – a motto to live your life by!

cliquenabend.de: Since 2004 there is every year a new game of the lamont brothers in Essen, which is sold out very quickly... why do you think that is?

Fraser: We get a lot of repeat orders, and this grows every year. I think our games have a wider audience than some of the other small publisher releases, which tend to cater towards the heavier end of the gaming spectrum. Our games are also very popular with woman as well as men, due to the themes and production style.

Gordon: Maybe the short answer is the low print runs and the sheep pieces ! I like to think that the design of our games are different, have new ideas in them and are fresh.
Over the years we have built up a fanbase – because we only make 1 game a year and publish a limited number of games we can do whatever we please. We do not have to worry too much about selling large numbers of a game and this gives you freedom to be a bit more creative in what you do.

cliquenabend.de: Do you like Essen? Why?

Fraser: Essen is the best place on the planet during the fair. It is hard to find the words to express how much we enjoy Essen. Scotland is a bit of a void when it comes to boardgames, so to come to the fair is a bit like going to boardgame heaven.

Gordon: Like? I love it! Essen is my spiritual home. Every year I walk in I think to myself that I am where I was meant to be. When I die, I want my ashes to be spread in the Gruga Halle (and I am not joking). In the UK the board game hobby is underdeveloped. It can be difficult to get hold of games or find game shops. To go into halls and halls of games is just an unbelievable experience. I am getting emotional just thinking about it .

cliquenabend.de: Where did you first hear of Essen?

Fraser: From Gordon who was a regular attendee before we started publishing.

Gordon: I first attended Essen in 2001 and also in 2002 and 2003. Fraser’s first Essen was to in 2004 to sell Leapfrog ! I must have first heard about it in Counter magazine and on the web.

cliquenabend.de: Can you tell us a funny anecdote about your stays in Germany?

Fraser: In our first year we had two young kids come to our booth and sit down, attracted by the bright frogs. It quickly became apparent that they didn´t speak any English (and we don´t speak any German). What was really funny was that they were totally undeterred by this. My wife (who speaks a tiny amount of German) sat down, with a German dictionary in hand, and tried to teach them the game. Despite the sheer willpower of both parties, they eventually conceded defeat. We did like the fact that German children will try and learn a board game whatever the obstacles...

Gordon: Germany is a wonderful place to be. It has board games, beer and sausages. The people are full of fun and very welcoming. The very first year we made the mistake of selling Leapfrog at 14 euros. This meant me spending 2 hours in Essen trying to get 1 euro coins to give out as change. The banks refused to give a kilted Scotsman 1 euro coins ! Every year we also forget that the bus timetable on Sunday is different from the other days of the week. We have a lot of laughs with the people who visit our stand – we hope that we are now established as part of people’s Essen experience. Too many to mention !

cliquenabend.de: The first game (2004) had plastic figures with it, than with shear panic you changed the design and put cute 3D figures in it... why?

Fraser: We simply found the most suitable pieces that we could for each game.

Gordon: With our first game Leapfrog (2004) we had no idea what to expect. Costs were a significant issue. We were doing production ourselves and everything was new. We managed to find the frogs in Leapfrog for a cost that meant we could do the game without a huge financial commitment. The use of video boxes meant a significant saving as well. We made 500 and sold about 350 at Essen. The rest were sold out within 2 months.

Once we came to our second game (Shear Panic 2005) we knew that our first game had been well received. We had a better idea of how many to make (or so we thought). It meant we could put more expensive components in the game and still be reasonably confident of covering our costs. Anyway, as soon as we saw the sheep we knew we had to have them in our game. They were just too beautiful. We are gamers as well as publishers and we take a great deal of care over how a game looks. A number of times we have put in more expensive components simply because we want the game to be as beautiful as possible.

cliquenabend.de: The gamers (me too) love these bits, but your new Essen game "Snow Tails" will not have them in it, why is that?

Fraser: The new pieces were simply not suitable for the new game. The track is too small for them and they are of no use on the sled mat. While people enjoy the pieces (as do we), it´s important as designers not to compromise on gameplay simply to accommodate them. There is certainly no question of us simply cutting costs, as Snow Tails is our most expensive production yet.

Gordon: We had problems with the figure maker in China last year. Despite agreeing to make a small number of deer pieces for Antler Island (2007) they decided that their minimum order was to be 10,000. This meant we had to make 2,500 games. For us, publishing a game is about fun. It is more fun for us to publish 1,000 games and sell out than to publish 2,500 games and have 500 left over after a year.

So, we wanted to go back to our traditional approach of making 1,000 games. There were other reasons too. The pieces would have been too big to fit on the tracks – the tracks would have been too big for a table if the pieces had fitted on them. There was really no place to have pieces other than on the track. Also, there was no piece which was readily available and we did not have much negotiating power because of the low numbers we were ordering. I did point out that 750,000 sheep had been made because of Shear Panic but this did not seem to help!

Snow Tails is a strong enough game to make it without the animal pieces!

cliquenabend.de: Please tell us something about the new game...

Fraser: Snow Tails sees the player in control of a team of huskies, racing around a snowy course. It includes 16 double sided track pieces, allowing for hundreds of different combinations of courses. The movement is something we are particularly proud of as the sled can slide left or right depending on which dog is pulling harder. The corners are set up so you have to slide to get round them, if you travel straight ahead you will hit the side..

Gordon: It is the most expensive game to produce so far ! The movement of the sled is very clever with the speed of the sled the combined value of the front 2 dogs less the brake value. However, the sled also drifts left or right towards whichever dog is pulling the hardest. You can risk entering a corner too quickly but this will mean you will draw dent card which will limit your hand size for the rest of the race. The game includes a variety of different tracks allowing players to build up many different races – it plays quickly and is simply great fun. I love race games and I am extremely proud of this game.

cliquenabend.de: How did you come up with the idea of the theme?

Fraser: We were on a Lapland holiday together and went husky sledding. Gordon´s dogs almost took him on a detour to Russia, but that´s another story....

Gordon: About 4 years ago we visited a Husky farm in the Arctic Circle in Finland. It was an unbelievable experience. The dogs were so enthusiastic rolling in the snow to cool down despite it being -40 degrees ! It was fun to design a game around the fact that the dogs on either side of the sled might be pulling at different speeds and this would cause the sled to slide instead of moving directly forwards. The movement mechanism we have come up with works really well and is completely original.

cliquenabend.de: You also have another new game in Essen, which will be sold from "Bewitched Spiele" and "Rio Grande Games" - Die 3 Gebote - please tell us something about it?

Fraser: It is fast, light and fun, as you might expect from the design team :)
Each player plays a novice, learning about the other players´ religions. Each round a novice becomes the high priestess, and decides on the rules of their religion (through a choice of cards). There will be 2 ´do´ rules and 1 ´taboo´ rule! These can be related to pawn movement in the ´holy circle´, but also the behaviour of the player when taking their action. The novices move pieces in the holy circle in an attempt to please the high priestess and gain Karma.

Gordon: Now this is also a fun game ! When we played the initial design I was helpless with laughter for 5 minutes. The game involves one player being the High Priestess and the other players are novices. They are trying to please the High Priestess with their moves on a board but only the High Priestess knows what is good and what is bad. Sometimes points are scored for moves on the board, sometimes for things which are unconnected with the board and pieces ! It is a good social game with the emphasis on fun.

cliquenabend.de: It´s a cooperation with the game designer Friedemann Friese (known for 2F Spiele) and you, how did this cooperation happen?

Fraser: We attend a gaming convention in Helmarshausen every year, and meet up with Friedemann there. This year, we were sitting discussing gaming prototypes that we each had and the gaming concept behind them. The discussion moved on to a game which could be taught in a single sentence to a new player - "Move a pawn". The players would learn, or try to discover, the rules as they went. We started to throw ideas back and forward and around an hour later had a prototype going. We sat a passerby down, told him the one line, and started playing. He moved his pawn, was awarded 8 points, and the group laughed for about five minutes!
It was clear the game worked at this early stage, so we started working on refining it.

Gordon: Ah, the great Friedemann Friese ! We knew each other from Essen and for the last few years we have also met up at a gaming convention in Helmarshausen in Germany. It is organized by the fantastic Henning Kropke. On one of our visits, we were discussing 2 different designs (one of his and one of ours) and whether you needed a definite mechanism or whether it was enough to have a person in control at a specific point making a decision. This gave us the seed of an idea. We tried to design the game around being able to tell a new player just one rule….move one pawn from one area to another area. We grabbed a new player, sat him down and told him the one instruction. He made a move and was awarded 8 points ! The look on his face was very funny.

cliquenabend.de: Where will the visitors find the game "Snow Tails" and where will they find "Die 3 Gebote", will you sign them both?

Fraser: We are at booth 9.19, I am not sure where Bewitched Spiele are at the fair, it will be posted at http://www.bewitched-spiele.de soon. We are always happy to sign any of our games. We are usually at our booth, or you can see us wandering around in our kilts. Gordon will not be there on thursday, or sunday after midday, so if you want both signatures make sure he´ll be there!

Gordon: Snow Tails will be at Fragor Games stand 9-19 in Essen. Die 3 Gebote will be at Bewitched Spiel – it is a big pleasure for us to have a game published by Andrea Meyer / Bewitched Spiele. I do not know their stand number at the moment. We are always delighted to sign our games – we even take special pens for that purpose J

cliquenabend.de: Every game of fragor games is with an animal, is that the plan or is it just hazard?

Fraser: Animals give rise to many ´gaming situations´, so I think we´ll be using them for sometime yet. We do have some non-animal gaming ideas kicking around, so we´ll just have to wait and see. Animals are universally known so players already have an idea how they should behave. Take the frogs in leapfrog for example, a player can better understand the rules because in their mind frogs can jump over one another, I find it an interesting topic, linking themes to game mechanics to make the rules easier to understand.

Gordon: There is something about animal movement which helps players understand our games (e.g. frogs leaping, sheep being unpredictable etc). Not all our designs involve animals. We did not really have a plan to release only animal themed games – it just seems to have happened ! It works and the buyers of our games seem to enjoy the themes. However, I cannot promise that all our games will be themed around animals !

cliquenabend.de: So this year "Snow Tails" will be the fifth game of fragor games, how does that feel?

Fraser: It´s still as exiting now as it was in our first year, so it´s funny to see people regard us as part of the old guard. We´ve had publishers come to us and say that we inspired them to release their own game in Essen, which is really nice.
Going to Essen and selling our game, is still the highlight of the year, . To still be doing it in our fifth year feels reaaalllllllllyyy good!

Gordon: It feels fantastic. I think it is a real achievement to have designed and produced a game every year for 5 years. It makes me very proud. There are very few people who have managed this.

cliquenabend.de: How long does it take to develop a game of yours? A year or do you work on different games simultaneously?

Fraser: We do work on games simultaneously, but devote most of our time to the Essen release. We usually decide on this by the start of the year and then get cracking. It´s a huge amount of work to get the game ready by the end of August (when we have to have our files finished), so there isn´t too much room for other designs during this period.

Gordon: It really does take us the whole year to design and produce 1 game. Normally after Essen we have a period of about 2-3 months where we are mucking about with 4 or 5 designs. By January, we will have chosen 1 design to run with and there will then be constant design and playtesting for the next 5 or so months. By April we really have to start thinking about production and the months of April to August are spent dealing with game design, playtesting and production issues. From August through to October (just now !) we become more focused on letting people know about the game and setting up the pre-orders.

While we are doing this we quite often have ideas for other games which we are sometime able to work on during the course of a year. However, our main focus is ensuring that we have a game for Essen each year.

cliquenabend.de: How is the gaming work with your brother? What do your wives say about your crazy ideas?

Fraser: Designing with Gordon is as perfect as I could imagine. We really bounce of each other, bringing hugely different ideas to the table while, at the same time, being able to take on board each others ideas and criticism. A lot of our ideas would not come about if we designed separately. It´s always about the game and never about egos.


Our (long suffering) wives are well used to putting up with odd working hours and long phonecalls between the brothers. They are very supportive of our games, and are partly responsible for our continuing animal themes, which they like also. But yes, they think we are a little crazy :)

Gordon: The gaming work with Fraser is fantastic fun. We work extremely well with each other. Some of our best ideas have come when one person is trying to explain something causing the other to have an even better idea ! We always work on the basis of what is best for the game. There is no place for egos. If it is good for the game it goes in, if not it stays out regardless of how much one of us might like it. The nights we spend designing pass in an instant. The only downside is we do not get to play as many other games as we used to !

Our wives are very patient with us ! They are very good at playing the game with us and helping us with comments. We often run things past them to understand a different point of view (which may be a raised eyebrow !). They are wonderful support when it comes to artwork, booth design and operating the booth at Essen. We do not appreciate them enough. They are the other half of what we call “Team Fragor”.

cliquenabend.de: Perhaps there is also a funny anecdote with the game snow tails?

Fraser: Well, with the cards, we initially thought about having different artwork on the low numbered cards. At the husky place in Lapland, our guide explained to us that the dogs run in a pack and won´t stop for a single dog. So, if a dog needs to go the toilet it.....well, it just has to go. Apparently, the dog will get up onto it´s hind legs to make it easier. For a long time we planned to have a picture like this on the ´1´ card, but thankfully, in the end, we decided against it. Gordon still moans that we didn´t put it in :)

Gordon: No. Only joking J We had to introduce a starting set up for the sled to slow it down as too many playtesters hit the first corner at top speed and then wondered why their sled did not make it round the corner…….!

cliquenabend.de: One of your games was published by Zoch after Essen (Fragor Game: Shear Panic --> Zoch: Haste Bock?), how did that happen? What is different between the two versions?

Fraser: The biggest difference is that Haste Bock has a board, while in Shear Panic the sheep roam free. This means that the German version has edges, but the sheep do not have to stay in a group. Zoch made the changes (with our input) to make it more suitable to their market.



Gordon: We visited Zoch in December 2006 at their invitation – they are wonderful people and it was a dream come true to have our game published by them. To go to Essen in 2007 and see our game get the full big publisher treatment was simply fantastic.

There is a comment at boardgamegeek which details the differences between the versions. The main one is that the Zoch version has the use of a board – the advantage is that it is good for families to have a board in front of them, the downside is it limits the movement of the flock to some extent. Both versions have their advantages and disadvantages.

cliquenabend.de: Will another game also be picked up by other publishers?

Fraser: There are always things going on behind the scenes, but I think I can safely say that it will not be our last game to be licensed by another publisher.

Gordon: Leapfrog has been very close to being picked up on a number of occasions. We may release an anniversary set ourselves at some point. We have signed a deal with 1 publisher for Antler Island and are waiting to hear from another. I hope things will become clearer after Essen when we meet up with the big publishers again.


cliquenabend.de: Which games of other publishers do you like and why?

Fraser: There are very few games that we do not enjoy, and the quality has been very high the last few years.
Last year, Agricola was a big hit for me and I also enjoyed Cuba a great deal. I thought Galaxy Trucker was especially nice, as it was different from the usual, more serious, small publisher games.
We also like to have a crazy game that we buy in Essen every year, which so far have been Weykick, Zopp and Affentennis (I know I am missing a year, but it escapes me). All of these have been excellent.

Gordon: A recent favourite is Die Macher – we only recently learned it and have enjoyed very long sessions playing it. Also, Turfmaster is a wonderful race game – highly recommended. I thought Galaxy Trucker from last year was very good. Return of the Heroes and Squad 7 are family favourites. Affentennis is a guilty pleasure as well ! Fraser and I often play crokinole to wind down from a design session. Vikinger is also very good.

cliquenabend.de: Is there anything else you like to tell our readers?

Fraser: Gordon snores....very loudly.

Gordon: Ignore all Fraser’s answers. Pre-order our game at www.fragorgames.com before we run out …! Visit our stand in Essen (9-19).

cliquenabend.de: Thanks for your time...

Fraser: It was a pleasure….

Gordon: It was a pleasure….



The Interview was held by Andreas Buhlmann for cliquenabend.de.

Thanks to Fraser and Gordon for the support.