Mission

Three Donkeys draws upon its staffs’ extensive paper-based collectible game and tournament design knowledge to generate innovative game and meta-game play experiences.

Studio Profile

Three Donkeys is a game design, development, and consulting company specializing in unique solutions to problems in the areas of both electronic and board game design. Primarily a computer game design company, Three Donkeys draws upon its staff’s extensive paper-based collectible game and tournament design knowledge to generate innovative game and meta-game play experiences.

Spectromancer is Three Donkeys’ first game, with previous project work on Torpex Games’ Schizoid and Hidden City Games’ Bella Sara. Apus Software co-designed Spectromancer.

Developer Bios

Richard Garfield

Richard Garfield (Three Donkeys) is one of the world's best known game designers. For his game, Magic: The Gathering, he was granted the patent on trading card games--now a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Since then, he has created many award-winning card and board games and co-designed Spectromancer. As a former professor of mathematics at Whitman College (before leaving to begin his career in game design), it perhaps unsurprising that his favorite game is poker. His favorite gaming moment? Striking terror into his opponents’ hearts in Warcraft 2 by swapping sound files so that his Blacksmith could make the 'bloodlust' sound, and using it to make them think they had a pod of bloodlusted ogres heading their way.

Skaff Elias

Skaff Elias (Three Donkeys) was a Senior Vice President for Wizards of the Coast, and designed or developed many Wizards' card games. He was the brand and business manager for Magic the Gathering and primary architect of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and the organized play system used for the Pokémon card game. Although he’ loves basketball, what really brings a tear to his eye remembering when the Magic: The Gathering World Championship was first broadcast on ESPN2.

Alexey Stankevich

Alexey Stankevich (Apus Software) created computer games as hobby from the age of 14 in his hometown of Minsk, Belarus. He transformed that pastime into a profession, starting his career in PC game development in 2001, when he founded Apus Software together with Ivan Polyacov. He has worked on a variety of online games, most significantly Astronoid (2001), Astral Tournament (2002) and Astral Masters (2004). He’s a fan of World of Warcraft (especially PVP) and remembers fondly playing Sid Meier’s Civilization for the first time 15 years ago.

Ivan Polyacov

Ivan Polyacov (Apus Software) is likewise from Minsk, Belarus, taking an interest in programming at age 12 and developing his activities to include graphical technologies, computer security, and networking over the next five years. He holds degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the Belarussian State University. While he can’t quite put his finger on his favorite game, Ivan will always happily chat about his experience participating in the Belarussian Open Championship of Virtual Formula-1 racing (BOC F1).