This is the first post in a guest series on One-Shot RPG adventures. This week’s post comes to you from Ian F. White. Ian can be found online at his site. Without further ado, I turn you over to him! – jw Introduction: In my time as both a Player and…
Category: board games
Designing from First Principles
I’ve written before about different tools for running play-tests, ideating on designs, and interpreting feedback, but none of those have ever really covered how to develop a framework around implementing that feedback. After I sent my proto off for publisher review, I started mentally projecting myself into a future where I…
Collaboration
My friend Eric tweeted an expression a few weeks back that has been on my mind recently. I’m not sure where it came from, or I’d source it: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” Frequently, I’m reluctant to bring in…
One Step to the Epiphany
During a quarterly goals check-in with Andrea, I talked over the status of several Flightless projects, and she asked a question I didn’t have a ready answer for. “Who exactly are your customers for each of these?” I had a vague idea who I was designing for in each case,…
Short Story RPG
An unexpected side benefit of sending off Valour to a publisher for evaluation, is that I got a chance to turn my focus to a project I’ve had cooking for a while but has been stalled (much to the chagrin of my collaborators) while I worked to push my board game across the…
Valour’s “Divine Mandate”
Last night, I headed to Denver to see one of my favorite bands live — Eluveitie. Their “Folk Metal” brings elements from Celtic tradition into the metal genre; for real: There’s a woman in the band who can simultaneously play the hurdy-gurdy and headbang. No joke. One of their most popular albums, Helvetios, was my soundtrack when training…
After A Publisher Comes Knocking
As a first-time designer, one of the big questions I’ve always had is what the publishing process looks like once a design is picked up by a publisher. This summer, I got my first glance into that world. This year’s Protospiel event in Ann Arbor was a pretty big success…
Get Out of the Game Room!
There’s an aphorism in the ‘startup’ world, where I spend most of my non-gaming time. “Get out of the office!” The point is that if you get bogged down in what you think is cool, you won’t actually build something that’s useful to others. I think the same concept applies…
Playtesting Tips Round Two — Lessons from Protospiel 2015
Not long ago, I wrote a post with some baseline strategies for running a successful playtesting session. I just got back from Protospiel 2015 in Chelsea Michigan (full conference write-up to come soon!) and had a few new observations for this helping to tune this process.
Facebook Stole My Money
I’m taking a quick hiatus from my philosophy of positivity to share my observations around a distinctly non-positive experience I had recently. I ran a “Boosted Post” from my Flightless.co Facebook business page, as a little experiment. I had new content, I’m working to build my audience as I gear up for…