The Art of Design: interviews to game designers #19 – Donald
X Vaccarino  I’m going close to the 20th interview but, luckly,
there are still interesting designers to interview. Today I’m
gone to interview Donald X Vaccarino, mostly know for his
Dominion series but with a design history going back in the end
of the last century. Donald X brings to my attention the fact
that games are not only theme and mechanic, but also data “I
think of games as having three main pieces: mechanics, flavor,
and data. And usually I make them in that order. The mechanics
are, you know, what you do, the main part of it anyway. Flavor
is the theme. And then data is just the information in the
game.”. During the interview we discussed about the meaning of
art and Donald X cited Frank Zappa “art is what’s in the frame”.
Now I think it is time to go on with the interview.  [Liga] Dear
Donald, with this series of interviews I’m trying to explore the
world of game designers with the idea that designing games is a
form of art, no more o