Bezirk Design

“You know the Brothers Grimm?
Yeah. Just like them.”
—Andrew Welker
President of Bezirk Design

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were social scientists before they were storytellers.

Their original collection of fairy tales was just a study on what makes people tick.

When it turned out they were great at making social science research results fun, they kept doing both.

Bezirk Design does both.

Bezirk Design is home to the research, design, and creative production services of Andrew Welker.

Bezirk Design LLC is a one-man game design studio based in Austin, Texas

Andrew Welker is a multiplatinum, top 1% bestselling author and producer of Dungeons and Dragons expansion packs.

He writes stories, balances mechanics, builds worlds, makes them pretty, keeps it organized, and even speaks German. He can’t program video games, but that’s okay because video games hire him anyways. He’s just that good at his job.

Here’s some facts and figures to prove the point.

$250,000

Royalties Andrew earned under the pen name QL Games for himself and other stakeholders.

First Choice

As new mid-level game designer at Pixels, an MMO farming sim and one of Web3’s most popular video games.

$4.4 million

Total crowdfunding to Kickstarter campaigns Andrew helped other companies develop.

Confidential info for
High-Profile IP

Offered by Roll20 with an art stipend and free PDF to VTT conversion. The two resulting titles headlined for months.

Attention: Details

PRO TIP: Don’t want to read all of this right now?
Skim the headings and go from there.

Game design is secretly just policy analysis in a t-shirt and jeans. Haven’t you heard of “playing the system”? Both fields follow one guideline: make the rules, change the outcome.

Andrew’s background is in economics, political science, and program evaluation. It’s the highly technical and practical skillset of developing systems to make the world a better place. It’s the science of how quality, quantity, the bigger picture, and tiny details all define each other (or not) once actual humans get involved.

It’s just the magic of making systems worth playing. When it turned out Andrew was great at doing that for games too, he kept doing both.

Bezirk Design makes games better because of Andrew’s unique education, work, and specialized skills…

Education

Brigham Young University, April 2022

BA in International Relations (Political and Economic Development, German)

It’s literally a degree in game theory and worldbuilding.

This program is 90% each of: a BS in Economics, a BA in Political Science, and a foreign language minor. Andrew’s studies focused on research methods, statistics, program evaluation, Africa, and German-speaking Europe.

“Cliffs and large bugs scare me.
Spreadsheets and public speaking do not.”
—Andrew Welker
President of Bezirk Design

Clear Writing and Systems

It’s incredible how many more newbies reach the first boss after a good technical writer gets involved. Save players and save time – answer questions before they’re asked. Andrew makes complex info clear, intuitive, and user-friendly.

Localized and revised the user manual for Repuco’s specialized research software into English.
Revised BYU Engineering’s Student Services website, filing system, and helpful client handouts.
Developed and maintained the internal lore and mechanics wiki for Pixels.xyz.
Evaluated (“playtested”) Bookshare’s volunteer registration and training program, with prototypes of suggested changes.

Research, Data, and Math

Andrew conducts research, analysis, and modeling as a fully qualified social scientist. He’s worked with databases of over 20,000 observations and can scour thousands of pages of source material.

General: true experiments, prototypes, evaluating intention vs. outcome (“playtesting”), and reporting findings clearly.
Qualitative: surveys, firsthand reports, interviews, case studies, literature reviews.
Quantitative: surveys, data analysis, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and statistical modeling.
More Computation Skills: mathematical modeling, optimization, linear algebra, matrices, graphs, data reports, and making custom calculators.

Creative Writing and the Arts

Author, artist, and performer: Andrew’s a natural storyteller. He makes experiences that grab you by the jaw, electrify your soul, and whisper into your future.

Writes short, medium, and long format narrative and dialogue.
Wrote over 180k words across his Platinum-bestselling works, around 2.5x the length of the first Harry Potter book.
Layout and graphic design of all his books.
Trained comedian with over 30 live performances.
Unifies writing, art, performance, and pacing as a collective whole for many different genres.

Easy to Work With

While meeting strict deadlines and style guides, Andrew brings commercial creative projects from good ideas to bestseller lists. He works well with a team: even his negative feedback leaves people excited to keep going.

Trained in constructive peer review. Looks for and offers both positive and negative feedback.
Managed teams of 5 to 30 people while running a small business for over 5 years.
Takes notes. Keeps records. Remembers details.
Plans ahead with room for revision and surprises.
Coordinates across departments with working multidisciplinary knowledge.

Cultural Competency

Andrew has spent years working with and for widespread demographic groups that people sometimes accidentally forget about. Would you like to remember them more, too?

People with reading disabilities and the tech that helps them use devices with text.
Families, communities, and nations in poverty, plague, or aftermath of war.
Survivors of child maltreatment and family violence, and rehabilitating perpetrators.
Queer teens and young adults from traditionally conservative homes or communities.

German

Er spricht Deutsch.

Lived and worked in downtown Vienna, Austria, as an intern at Repuco GmbH.
Localized and revised the user manual for Repuco’s specialized research software into English.
Advanced coursework in German language, literature, folklore, film, art, history, and culture.
Actively studies and practices using grammar, vocabulary, slang, and pop culture.

Softwares

Andrew has advanced skills in specialty programs for computation, graphic design, and documents. He once got an unsolicited 80% raise because his employer was so surprised and grateful how useful these skills are in an office. Plus, he was already just really good at his job.

Stata, a statistical software for data analysis and visualization.
Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat.
Microsoft Word and Excel.
Natural Readers, Kurzweil 3000, and other text-to-speech programs for people with reading disabilities.

Fascinated by…

Some themes, patterns, and topics won’t leave Andrew’s attention alone. Here’s some of his specialties (so far).

Alternate realities and how they interact. He (very literally) wrote the book on it.
Faction politics, buying votes, and resorting to violence.
Puzzles, challenges, hints, and surprises that need you to notice, interact with, or explore your surroundings.
Variety and balance in playstyles and character classes.
Games as interactive essays on philosophy, morals, or humanity.