To pique even more curiosity with the Nosferatu, we did an interview with the author of the game, Pierre-Yves Lebeau, who was very friendly, helpful and happy that his game was coming to Brazil! See this chat below:

Conclave Publisher (CE) – Pierre, is Nosferatu your first work with a game? Or at least your first professional job or have you worked on the production of other games?

Pierre-Yves Lebeau (PYL) – Nosferatu is not the first game I created. I previously worked on a tactical game that hasn't been released yet. However, Nosferatu is quite an old story. I started working on it in 1998! During the design process, I took several breaks and worked on different projects. But Nosferatu is my first published game.

EC – Nosferatu is a great game, with a surprising simplification of rules. How was the process to get to the final rules? Did that require a lot of playtests? How long did it take from the first experience with Nosferatu to the publication of the first edition of the game?

PYL - Thank you for your kind words. Well, the process was long and required many playtests! Between 1998 and 2001, I did a lot of testing and the feedback from players was good, but there were some issues that I couldn't resolve. So, I left the project “resting in a coffin” for many years…

In 2009, I decided to take up the project again. I made a kind of “tabula rasa”: Nosferatu would have a new base and its main ideas: Renfield (solving different issues for the Vampire) to the Clock (a mechanism to bring clues to the Hunters and put pressure on the Vampire). So I worked hard on this new system for three years. I did over 100 playtests! The feedback from players was so surprising that I decided to contact the publishers. Three French publishers were interested. I chose Grosso Mode Editions. It's really cool to work with them, they're really nice guys.

EC – What was the inspiration for Nosferatu (setting and rules)?

PYL “Speaking of setting, when I was a teenager, I was a fan of gothic vampire stories. Bram Stoker's Dracula is, of course, the main source of the game. I also love the movie called Nosferatu by German director Werner Herzog (1979), which is perhaps the most beautiful and mysterious vampire movie.

Regarding the rules, I believe that Nosferatu lacks any inspiration! I hope this doesn't sound pretentious. I actually started working on the game in 1998 when hidden role games (hidden-role games) were not yet popular and plentiful. My goal during the design of Nosferatu was to translate classic vampire stories into game mechanics. For example: the Clock (which can cause the vampire to die when the sun rises) and the bites (giving the Vampire a sort of influence over the Hunters' choices).

EC – Speaking of inspiration, what are your Top 10 games, and why?

PYL – Here is my Top 10, but there is no No. 1 and no No. 10, it depends on the mood of the day!

• Diplomacy – Probably the board game I played the most as a teenager. This game is perfection in radicalism and psychological tension. I also enjoy playing it online, because I love writing long diplomatic messages, including role-playing and sneaky tricks too!
• Rome&Carthage – A 1954 strategy game my dad played with me and my brothers when we were kids (well, I wasn't born in 1954!). So this game has sentimental value for me. And he is the link between me and Grosso Modo Éditions, which re-edited Rome&Carthage shortly before publishing Nosferatu.
• Squad Leader – The wargame I played the most, for hours and hours…
• Donjons and Dragons (Dungeons & Dragons) – My first RPG, in 1984! Wonderful memories…
• Call of Cthulhu – The RPG I played the most times as a GM. What an atmosphere!
• Android Netrunner – My game of deck building favorite. I love its bluffing dimension and the pace of the games. Lately, I've been playing several times a week!
• Dixit – Perfect to play with friends after a good lunch… A game with poetry and subtlety.
• Ghost Stories – My favorite co-op game. I played this several times with my wife!
• Junta – Because it's a game for bad and hypocritical people!
• Scrabble – Yes, I like to play Scrabble… but only with the rules duplicated.

EC – Back to the first question, are you working on another game project at the moment?

PYL - Many! Many!

EC – We know that you are also a musician and have a band called Hide & Seek. What kind of music do you do? Is there some kind of relationship between making music and developing games?

PYL – That's a nice question, I didn't expect it! I've written songs for many years with my wife, like a duet called Hide&Seek (www.hideandseek.fr). Our music is something in between coldwave is music pop. My main influences are The Legendary Pink Dots, Talk Talk, The Nits, Minimal Compact, Depeche Mode etc. There is a direct link between writing songs and creating games: creating atmospheres and developing mental mechanisms to have fun with it. In both activities, I spend time worrying about the details.

There is another link. The band Opera Multi Steel (good friends of mine who play with me) has a lot of fans in Brazil. They told me beautiful memories of the shows they played in São Paulo.

EC – How is the experience of having your game published throughout the world, in particular, here, in Brazil?

PYL – Of course, it's wonderful to imagine my game crossing borders, seas and oceans, being played in different languages. Nosferatu has already been published in several countries, but Brazil is the furthest from France!

EC – The Brazilian version of Nosferatu will be like the new French and German version, with revised and updated rules. What was the motivation for the rule changes. How was the process to arrive at these new rules?

PYL - After a year of publishing and having gone through several conventions and festivals, we've received a lot of feedback from many players, so of course my editor and I looked at ways to improve the quality of the game. We wanted to listen to the players. These are just subtle modifications; the game remains the same.

First we decided to remove the letter Darkness. This card is a reference card: it quickly shows when one or more bites have been taken since the Library was formed. Its purpose is to prevent the Vampire from going long periods without taking a bite and waiting for the Hunters to end up killing themselves. So I replaced it with a new mechanism: the evil team loses if the Hunters perform the 5 Rituals. It's quite difficult to do that, so the game balance isn't really changed. It's just a new sword of damocles in the Vampire's head! On the other hand, Blood Transfusion no longer cancels bites: it only returns a card to the player's hands.

Last but not least, a new Ritual has been added: Holy Water. It allows the holder of the Ancestral Stake to discard all of a player's cards and replace them with two Rumors. This can be a smart way to target Vampire's stock!

EC – We saw the following message on Facebook from Grosso Modo the other day: “Pirre-Yves Lebeau, creator of the game Nosferatu, will soon be in Brazil for an autograph session”. So, can we prepare to welcome you here? It would be great!

PYL – Well, this is still a dream. And it would be great, really. When I saw the videos and photos of people playing Nosferatu in Brazil, I would love to go and play with them. I hope the dream comes true!

EC – Finally, say a few words to the Brazilian players!

PYL – Have fun playing Nosferatu! I am very happy that you can have a very special version of the new one in your beautiful country!