by Dave Beck

Luthier was released in the second half of 2025, but has quite a storied history! Much like an heirloom violin that is passed from generation to generation, this game has been touched by multiple creative minds, and this diary aims to provide a small glimpse into that story. This will be told in parts from the perspective of the two designers, Abe Burson and Dave Beck, both of whom actually worked on it somewhat separately. Perhaps not that different from instrument makers roughing and finishing out an instrument in a workshop?

Part 1 will be told by Abe Burson, who originally came up with the idea for Luthier. Part 2 will be told by Dave Beck, who signed and published it with Paverson Games.

Part 1: Designer Diary

By Abe Burson

2008-2016 — Blueprints and Roughing In

The concept for Luthier came to me around 2008 after co-designing my first game, Master of the Elements, with Blaine Haagenson. Luthier‘s design idea was just the right fit for me as my dad has his Masters in Piano Pedagogy and I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Music. Though I never built any instruments, in 2007 I did build high-end stereo speakers alongside my friend Matt (who designed them).

Simultaneously, I was getting into the popular Euro-style games of the time: San Juan, Puerto Rico, Modern Art, Agricola, and especially Caylus. Though I don’t remember the specific “a-ha” moment for the idea of creating a game about crafting musical instruments, the synergizing of all of these interests resulted in me starting on the long — albeit extremely intermittent — journey designing Luthier.

My vision for the game was guided by these preferences:

• Euro-style: constructive, competitive, not just multi-player solitaire

• Medium to medium/heavy “gamer’s game”

• 2-5 players, 90-120 minutes

• Focus on theme of crafting/repairing stringed instruments leading the design/mechanisms wherever possible

• Resource management, worker placement, bidding

• Create a feeling of progress/development/achieving goals and awards during gameplay and at the end

• Something that would sit on the same shelf as Caylus, Agricola, Puerto Rico, and Fresco (and later Viticulture)

2009 violin card for Luthier (design mock-up by Matt Knipschield)

In 2015, the design had several static phases each round, as shown in this rulebook excerpt:

The game did not have “patrons” at the time, but it did have “clients”, which were a largely undeveloped portion of the design.

Luthier started out as a more literal interpretation of the word (which is the name of the profession for someone who makes and repairs stringed instruments) and was generally in a more modern setting. The instruments were all stringed instruments: violin, viola, cello, bass viol, acoustic guitar, and mandolin, along with some fun ones like sitar, koto, and viola da gamba (a Baroque instrument). The three materials in the game were all different types of wood: maple, mahogany, and ebony.

A player’s workbench game board from a 2016 prototype

In the image above, note the three benches in assembly-line style, with the worker placement and bidding being separate. Also note that the instrument and repair commissions were for specific clients.

2017-2021 — Chiseling and Assembly

Though Luthier was playtested a few times from 2013-2016, these tests were few and far between, and most progress came in the form of me fiddling around with prototype components on my own and updating a rule sheet in Google Docs.

After playing Forbidden Stars in late 2017, I had the inspiration that cemented the foundational mechanism of the game, fusing the (at the time) separate mechanisms of worker placement and bidding. From here on, a round would essentially be two phases:

1. Prioritizing (planning), and

2. Resolution

This also marks the point when variable phase order during the Resolution phase and the variable market cost for the three materials were introduced. You can read more about how Forbidden Stars and several other games influenced the design in My Top 5 Games That Influenced the Design of Luthier GeekList.

After proper batches of playtesting, early 2019 was when the game started feeling like it was a) playing (generally) smoothly and b) had its own “personality”. I prepped a prototype with placeholder artwork for Stonemaier Games‘ Design Day 2019. I received valuable feedback, both complimentary and constructive, from other designers. It was well received as a prototype, but a little “harsh” and still not yet refined. For example, during the Resolution phase, only the top two bidders got something; there was no alternate choice. Also, the assembly line style of three benches, coupled with the fact that workers assigned to those instruments stayed with those instruments through their completion, bogged things down. Playtesting and being flexible about feedback is the only way for a game to get better and live up to its full potential.

2019 Luthier prototype

I made a few minor tweaks and took it to Protospiel MN in January 2020. I felt the design had some momentum behind it and was excited to continue making tweaks to the core design. Little did I know at the time that Dave Beck would play Luthier and eventually become the co-designer and publisher!

January 2020 Protospiel MN, with Dave Beck (left) playing for the first time

Protospiel MN was right before the pandemic hit the U.S. After that, Dave and I went our separate ways and put our respective games (Distilled and Luthier) on online platforms.

Tabletopia Prototype — June 2020

During the 2020 lockdown and into 2021, Dave and I connected a couple times to playtest each other’s games online. In late 2021, Dave reached out to me about potentially publishing and co-designing the game. I had a lot to think about: Does Luthier get refined more or less as it is and I personally put it up on the self-publishing site The Game Crafter? Or does it begin a new chapter in its design journey and have a shot at being on the shelf with Caylus and Agricola?!

How did I arrive at my decision to move forward with not only a publishing agreement with Paverson Games, but a co-design as well? I weighed several factors:

• Preservation of the integrity of the design/creative control going forward: My design journey had taken it through several different iterations of the game. Still, I knew it needed a fresh look and help polishing out the rough edges. When Dave and I talked through what would for sure stay in the published version of the game, we agreed on two non-negotiable facets: the instrument-making theme and the core bidding-placement mechanism.

With Dave in the role of both publisher and co-designer, plus with developer Richard Woods on board, I knew I would have less than 50% stake in any future changes to the game. I was okay with that. After seeing how much care Dave put into the design and production of Distilled, I had faith that he would not just preserve the essence of Luthier, but make it better.

• Time: Dave and I both have busy schedules. Mine doesn’t allow much time for game design. Dave is not only a gamer and a designer; he is also a game design professor! He was really excited about the prospect of Luthier becoming Paverson’s second release. I knew that this was the opportunity that Luthier needed to give it the time and attention it deserved to reach its full potential.

• Budget/Publishing: I had no budget for publishing games and had no interest in crowdfunding. Paverson, though just getting off the ground, had had a successful Distilled campaign and had the capacity to raise a good amount of money for Luthier.

• Likelihood of success within the hobby: Obviously an officially published game would have a better chance at people hearing about it and buying it. Plus Dave did an amazing job with both the design and publishing aspects of Distilled.

In a nutshell, I knew Luthier was now in the capable hands of a pro team with Dave at the helm.

2022-2025 — Reworking and Finishing

Once it was official, Dave and his team hit the ground running on more playtesting and design tweaks. We initially had scheduled meetings every week or two to talk through ideas, questions, etc., but from here on I transitioned from the creator/designer role to a co-designer/consultant role.

I’m sure Dave will have a lot to cover from here, but I would like to say that the published version of the game, though a little more epic and complex than I initially envisioned, meets and exceeds my expectations from both a design and production standpoint. Everyone involved in making Luthier what it is today should be proud. It is surreal to not only see it alive in the world, but also receiving so many positive reviews from people who have played it!

Part 2: Designer Diary

By Dave Beck

Thanks, Abe — wow, what a journey this has been! As Abe mentioned, we first met at the first Protospiel that I took Distilled to in January 2020.

By the way, in case you hadn’t clicked the hyperlink and wondered what that odd-sounding name is, Protospiel is hands down my favorite event of the year. It’s where a bunch of people get together — in person or online — and simply playtest each others’ games. You don’t have to be a designer to attend these either, so if you are someone who’d like to provide feedback on the development of a game’s design — often in its early stages — consider attending one! If you’ve had an idea for a design of your own bouncing around in your head or on your kitchen table for the last few months (or years!), consider bringing it to a Protospiel. They’re some of the most welcoming and positive environments one could ask for, and I think we could all use more of that these days. Just search for a Protospiel in your city, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ll find one happening at some point this year (or something similar)!

Abe, returning the favor to me and playing Distilled at Protospiel MN 2020

Anyway, this Protospiel in Minnesota was the first time I had brought Distilled into the public sphere for testing, so I had no idea what its future held, nor even the concept that Paverson Games would even exist! I had a chance to play Abe’s game and immediately was intrigued by three things that stuck with me long after that snowy January weekend:

• His focus on the theme was extremely strong. I could tell that he knew about instruments and luthiery, and he cared about detail around music and musical instruments based on his experience as a musician himself.

• His game and mine were quite similar: play as a craftsperson, get resources, craft that thing, and get points and money. Where mine was a deckbuilder (yes, Distilled began as a deckbuilder!), his wasn’t. His was something entirely different, which was the most important thing that stuck out…

• Luthier‘s key mechanism combined worker placement with hidden bidding, and it immediately intrigued me as something I’d never seen before in a game.

After we played both of our games, we decided to keep in touch. The world shut down shortly after that, and we all were forced to take our designs online for testing. I discovered Tabletop Simulator for Distilled, while Abe brought Luthier to Tabletopia. We got a chance to continue to test each other’s games — as peer designers — over the next year. It was during this time I learned that Abe had actually been working on Luthier for over ten years, with heavy revisions and implementation ramping up in 2018. Abe even took it to Stonemaier Design Day in 2019 (a cool event that Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games hosts in St. Louis for prototypes and unpublished games), where it was one point shy of making the coveted “top ten” most popular games list at the event.

Fast-forward to late 2021, and I knew it was time to start thinking about Paverson Games’ next title. Distilled‘s Kickstarter campaign was finished, and we were starting the year-long road toward finalizing localization and manufacturing (while I continued to work full time at the university), and I was itching to get designing again. While I had ideas for Distilled expansions (and an entirely different new game!), I also couldn’t stop thinking about Luthier. Knowing that this idea of publishing games was something I wanted to continue to do — and many people were asking me at conventions, “So, Dave, what’s next for Paverson Games?” — I asked Abe to send me a pitch document and access to his digital prototype.

Now, as a publisher, you don’t decide to take on a new game on a whim. Someone has spent a great deal of time and effort toward creating something special, something that they care a great deal about. Additionally, you are committing to something that will occupy the next 2-3 years of your life, as well as tens of thousands of hours (and dollars!) of your own. This is a BIG commitment for two people: you as the publisher, and the designer of the game — and that’s just for starters!

I played the game, talked for a great amount of time with my developer about it, and went through scenarios in my mind. During this time period it became clear that it would be best to have this be a co-design. This would allow me to have the excitement and investment in the game I wanted and bring it to the level that I knew it deserved after Abe had worked on it for so long, so we signed the contract in the spring of 2022, and the rest is history! As Abe mentioned before, there were certain things that would not change: that killer hidden-bidding mechanism, and that theme of crafting musical instruments.

After signing the contract, I found myself teaching in Scotland during the month of July as I had done for my university in years past. (Fun fact: That’s actually where I first came up with the idea for Distilled in 2019!) During this visit, my wife Emily discovered the St. Cecilia’s Hall & Music Museum in Edinburgh. She insisted that I pay a visit there, knowing that I had just signed Luthier to co-design with Abe.

Now, you need to remember that at this point, I was entirely focused on getting Distilled to print (which would be released the next year) and had not started thinking much about Luthier; at this point, Luthier was still nearly the same as when I had played it in January 2020.

The Gallery of Harpsichords at St. Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland

Just as I acknowledge my time touring scotch whisky distilleries in 2019 as the inspiration for Distilled, I owe much of where Luthier has landed to my experience in St. Cecilia’s in July 2022. Walking through those galleries of harpsichords crafted for royalty, inspecting violins made by master luthiers, and seeing a serpent in person for the first time opened my eyes to what Luthier could be — not just a game about making and repairing stringed instruments, but a game about creating an entire orchestra, spanning hundreds of years of music history.

That was my first realization for Luthier, which allowed for the establishment of the theme to drive new mechanical ideas in the game, paving the way for another epiphany I had while reading the placards in the museum that day.

The Collection of Wind Instruments (including Serpents!) at St. Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland

Over and over again, the informational placards for each harpsichord, pianoforte, violin, cello, and more would talk not just of the instrument maker themselves (often including stories of their family workshop and history), but of the patronage involved with the instrument. A harpsichord might have been commissioned by a specific individual of the upper class, or a violin may have been created for a virtuoso to use in a concert performance in the royal court.

This caused me to begin to think less about these deals as a simple transaction (like selling a whisky or gin for money!) and instead as a patronage, where you can continue to benefit from the gifts of this individual if you deliver what is expected of you. It was right there on the floor of St. Cecilia’s that I came up with the idea of the patrons for whom you have “orders” to fulfill, with compensation coming from staying in their good graces (keeping them happy) and being tracked by a cube that serves as both a marker for their patience over time and also gifts that they give you.

Furthermore, if you can make them happy enough by giving them everything they need, you’ll turn them into a patron for life, permanently contributing toward your own workshop’s engine by flipping them over and tucking them under your board to reflect this newfound power. This idea blended elements of the distillery upgrades from Distilled with the spirit labels and bonus spaces in a new way that got me extremely excited about moving forward with the game.

Original prototype for the patron card (left) and final version [right)

During my time in Scotland, my game developer and good friend Richard Woods (who lives in England) came up to visit me, and we started to brainstorm ideas over drinks at a pub in Dalkeith, Scotland. He helped me better refine the patron idea from above (like he always does with my hair-brained ideas!), and over the next year of development would go on to bring even more concepts to the table that are used in the game today.

Richard is to thank for the great idea of adding dice to the performance element in the game, as well as variable options for players at locations to choose from when resolving actions and some of those awesome tracks you can climb to build your skills in different disciplines. The game was really starting to come together as we invited more people into the workshop to lay hands on Abe’s original creation!

Player board prototype from 2022, with patron spots, one of the tracks (that was eventually moved to the main board), as well as a curious grid at the bottom that is no longer there…

In the fall of 2022 and into the early months of 2023, I took the design to Madison Protospiel and Minneapolis Protospiel with many of these new ideas in place, as well as a few others that didn’t end up making the lacquer room floor.

One of those was the concept of each instrument being represented by a tile of different shape and size. As players crafted instruments, they’d grab the associated polyomino tile and place it in a personal “crate” on their board meant to represent the collection of instruments they were creating. (That’s the grid you see on the above player board!) While short lived, it helped to foster a discussion amongst playtesters around the idea of that “final game state” that I strive to create in Paverson Games experiences, that “photo-worthy moment” that you’ll want to remember, regardless of whether you were victorious.

Someone suggesting moving this polyomino puzzle to the central board to form a group location, which is how the central orchestra and first chairs were born! I find playtesting — and especially the engagement of folks at dedicated events like Protospiels — to be some of the most enriching and memorable experiences of my time as a designer.

First central orchestra prototype from Protospiel MN 2023, in which we used hex tiles to represent crafted instruments

Building off of Abe’s great foundational mechanisms and theme, and bringing in this new sense of history and the entire symphony of instruments was what we needed to start the next stage of playtests with our Discord community.

This also extended to conventions, where we have made a point of always having our “work in progress” games there for visitors to play. At the 2023 UK Games Expo, many attendees had a chance to play what they fondly still refer to as the “spreadsheet version” of the game. Despite having no art at that stage, it was wonderful to see how many people were excited to invest their time at a busy convention to sit down and discover what was coming next from Paverson. We believe strongly in showing our community what we are working on — warts and all — when most other publishers shy from this approach. Looking to our amazing community of players (i.e., you!) to help us develop and refine our games to be the best they can be has made us who we are today, and we continue to uphold that practice today. If you’re attending one of the conventions we’ll be at in 2026 or beyond, I hope you’ll stop by to see what we’re working on so that you, too, can contribute to the future of Paverson Games!

Prototype of Luthier from late 2022

The Art of the Instrument

Of course, if a game is about the art of the instrument and focuses on the beauty of the craft itself, we needed to get the very best to represent that vision visually.

Vincent Dutrait has been my #1 favorite artist in the board game world for some time now, largely due to the hand-drawn, “analog” approach he takes to creating his work. While most artists these days work mainly with digital tools — which is completely fine — Vincent is still sketching, drawing, and painting with pencils, markers, and paintbrushes before he takes the work into the digital realm for final compilation. The authentic, thoughtful, and natural look of his work is exactly what I was looking for in Luthier. I was absolutely thrilled (and a little surprised, I must admit!) that he accepted the invitation to work on the project! You might recognize Vincent’s work from such titles as Heat: Pedal to the Medal, The Quest for El Dorado, Robinson Crusoe, and many other titles. Having an award-winning, highly talented artist and illustrator on board was a huge asset, and a dream come true for me.

Vincent Dutrait

As a studio art major in undergraduate university, I have a background in art and design, so I enjoy the aesthetic aspect of the tabletop design and development process. Working with the artist and graphic designer is very fulfilling for me as the publisher, and I’m probably a bit more “hands on” than most — which they probably don’t always appreciate due to me asking so many questions!

While I’d normally be meeting with Vincent about the project over video chat, he is not only French (so English isn’t his first language, just as French isn’t mine!), but he lives in South Korea with his family, so the chance of video calls was almost impossible. Even so, the communication cycle that Vincent and I developed was great. I would provide information via an email in the evening before going to bed in the USA, then wake up to find images he had created overnight in South Korea that I could then react to in the morning. It was a wonderful pattern that felt like we were board game art pen pals of sorts, writing back and forth about Luthier! Vincent’s illustrations and eye for authenticity and details were phenomenal, and his idea to bring in the map and environment artist Guillaume Tavernier to help create the main building was a great addition as well.

Sketch of a patron card by Vincent (left), and the full painting of the famed Madame de Pompadour

Many don’t realize it, but a board game often will have TWO different creative contributors to a project: an artist and a graphic designer, although sometimes that is the same person, as with Erik Evensen on Distilled.

For Luthier, we worked with Matt Paquette & Co, a studio of designers who help to bring a number of different talented people together to contribute to a project. Matt and his team were integral to bringing Luthier to life, developing the iconography, typeface, card design, and rulebook layouts, among other things.

As you can see, while this might be called a “designer diary”, making a game as big as Luthier involves much more than just the designers to make it successful. One could say a full orchestra was needed to pull off a performance of this magnitude!

It Takes a Stack of Worker Chips!

If you’ve played Luthier, you know that over the course of the game, your available workers increase from three chips to five. I like to refer to this as “your family” growing in number over the course of the game.

Well, just as I described the above folks contributing to the project, I have had others join Luthier that I don’t just consider “one and done” apprentice chips that return to the market after they’re finished with a task, people like Richard Woods, the developer for Luthier, who I mentioned earlier. He is hands down the #5 worker chip of the bunch as the game wouldn’t be what it is today without Richard’s keen eye for design and development, knowing exactly what screw to turn and lever to pull to make that engine hum. When I see an idea with patrons, patience, gifts, and cubes moving along a track, Richard helps to balance it so that it doesn’t become too powerful, broken, or weak. He’s able to test much of this through the dozens of playtests we conduct, both in-person and online, with many of those tests being co-ordinated by our playtesting lead, Neo Teng Whay, who helps to teach the games, observe them, and gather feedback and data for us to crunch and react to throughout the game’s development.

Once the game felt it was at a state that it wasn’t changing anymore, it was time to begin the solo design. We take solo design seriously at Paverson Games, always making sure that it has a dedicated ruleset and components, usually with a separate designer focusing on this experience for the game itself. As with Distilled, we turned to David Digby for Luthier‘s solo design, and due to Richard having lived and breathed the game for so long already, it became natural for the two of them to co-design the solo mode of Luthier, resulting in an automa that appears to learn and evolve over time with an organic deck of cards that reacts to the player and game.

Prototype of the solo cards and board for Luthier in Tabletop Simulator, 2024

Now, to bring all of this home and to make sure that these mechanisms that stretch across both multiplayer and solo game experiences are consistently presented to the player, I work with Cody Reimer, who holds a PhD in technical writing and games, and who co-teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Stout with me. Cody helps to edit the rules for all of Paverson Games’ titles and also works with Richard and me to create the “beginner guides” that Paverson Games has become known for in our titles.

In the case of Luthier, this took the form of The Rehearsal, which is a guided first round of the game, teaching players nearly all the rules while they play through the first round (after which they can continue on their own, of course). That round — aptly called The Rehearsal — is meant to be led by one person referred to as the conductor, who is instructed to take hold of the included cardboard baton as well.

The rehearsal beginner guide in Luthier, with included baton (and fancy baton!)

While Cody helps to refine the rulesets, I hired musicologist Kevin Ngo, who holds a PhD in music, to help consult on the dozens of individuals and instruments in the game, as well as write the mini-bios for all of them in the rulebook. Kevin also helped me to identify the tracks I commissioned for Luthier‘s official soundtrack (also linked via QR code in the rulebook), which was recorded by a quartet in British Columbia. I feel that this extra layer of theme and authenticity is important in games as it demonstrates to the players the gravity of the experience they are having. It is rare to gather around a table with friends and family these days, and it should be an important occasion when one does so.

The official soundtrack for Luthier

It’s amazing, really. What started as an idea by one person almost twenty years ago in Rochester, Minnesota has now resulted in something that took a whole group of people to finish!

Best of all, it is now being enjoyed by thousands of people around the world, including (perhaps) you. This hopefully demonstrates to you that no idea should be ignored or considered as having a “shelf life”. It just takes the right combination of people to have the vision to believe in its success, and it too could someday become a reality.