Why is it important to pen-and-paper these things first, to essentially make a board game before we build it?

To save time, to see as long as we can actually simulate the computer game with the board game. If we don't, then we're spinning our wheels. But as long as we can simulate the computer game with the board game, then we can get a much better idea of how the computer game will run. And we will know, guess we need to emphasize this more in the computer game, know we need to stop doing that. We find the fun things, we emphasize the fun things. It's what you do in any way of making a computer game. You find the fun things and you make them important and more fun.

And then you minimize the things that are just noise, so to speak.