Once, in a group of other game designers working to get our first designs signed by publishers (i.e.: unpublished designers), someone asked “what do you all call yourselves, since you’re not published? I’m struggling with what to call myself when people ask.” Ever the smartass, I quipped “I think all of…
Category: board games
“Hidden Mechanics” in Video Games — and in Tabletop Games?
Last week, a video game designer I’ve been following on Twitter for a while now, Jennifer Scheurle posted asking game developers to post tricks they use to optimize for fun, versus coding a perfect simulation of an environment: Hey #gamedev, tell me about some brilliant mechanics in games that are…
Potemkin Empire Designer Diary #2
Potemkin Empire was one of the designs I took with me to Protospiel Ann Arbor earlier this summer; one of my newer designs. It’s been on the table a few times in a previous iteration that crashed and burned spectacularly. After rebuilding essentially from the ground up, I felt it…
Protospiel Ann Arbor 2017
Protospiel Ann Arbor, the testing event that launched a thousand other testing events, is an easy stop on the annual circuit for me, (though I sometimes end up missing the anniversary party for one of my favorite Colorado breweries 😟), since I can combine with a visit to my hometown and…
Origins 2017 Roundup
I got back from Columbus (a tough destination for a Wolverine alumnus…) last week from the Origins Game Fair. Earlier in 2016, I set some ambitious goals for Origins with regards to ‘designs ready to pitch’. I didn’t hit every goal, but aiming for the ambitious targets ended up landing…
“COVER ME!”: Convenient covers for things you don’t know how to do
This is a second little anecdote about game design I absorbed during undergrad, while studying video games, which I think have some crossover consideration with board game design. See the entry “Bonus!“ for the first. My takeaway from “Bonus!” was that even if you can’t make something work, or there’s a technical hurdle…
Socializing with a purpose
A few weeks ago, Andrea and I were sitting at a brewery discussing the ‘why’ of various things — when she asked: “Well, how often do you stop to think about why you like the things you like?” and she threw out board games as an example. Luckily for the conversational repartee,…
“BONUS!”: Clever game deceptions
I’m going to talk a little about video game design today, but think there’s a lesson in it for board game design as well. An anecdote that I think about at least once a month: It’s my senior year at UMich, and I’m one of the apex classes of the computer science…
Player Experience 8: “Feelings”
This is the final installment of our survey of board game “Player Experience” or “PX”. Definitely pop back and give the previous chapters a read, we’ll be tying them all together here! Feelings is a pretty tough subject (as it turns out), and I found myself quite a bit out of my…