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…
Category: Games
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…
PX 7: Theme v. Mechanics
This is the seventh entry in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX”. The earlier installments set up some an awesome baseline we build on below, so head back and check them out! I’ve written before about how I like to approach designing — and I know that there’s a spread of opinion…
PX 6: Player Experience Beyond the Time Box
This is the sixth entry in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX”. We’ll reference a few earlier installments below, so maybe peek back at them before coming back here! During early research of this topic (the Player Experience / PX) I discovered an earlier research paper by a group out of…
PX 5: Determinism, Information, and Hedging Against the Future
This is the fifth topic in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX”. This entry references several key concepts from earlier installments, so you’ll either want to start at the beginning, or else drop back as they’re linked! Beyond all the things we’ve discussed so far, players will all be…
PX 4: Neuroscience and the Thinky Bits
This is part four in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX” The earlier posts aren’t prerequisites for this one, but I recommend checking them out anyway 🙂 This week, we’re going to tackle brain chemistry, neurotransmitter hormones, and some of the deeper psychological aspects of what’s going on…
Player Experience is Other People
This is the third topic in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX” You don’t have to read the others first, but it does reference several concepts from before, so I highly recommend it. [pullquote] “L’expérience, c’est les autres” — with apologies to Sartre[/pullquote]When designing a game, there is one major factor…
PX #2: The Familiarity Spectrum
This is an installment in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX” I highly recommend you start at the beginning, but it’s certainly not required 🙂 The experience a Player has with your game is going to vary based on a lot of factors. Imagine someone brand new…
Player Experience (PX) Series #1: A Primer on User Experience and Interface Design
This is an installment in a multi-part essay covering board game “Player Experience” or “PX” feel free to start at the beginning, or just jump right in! To begin our exploration of Player Experience (PX), I feel it’s important to take a step back, and understand some underlying concepts. Luckily, there have…
Designing the Player Experience (PX)
When designing, it’s easy to get hung up on the details in front of us — the mechanics, the theme, the components. But ultimately, the point of designing games is for others to play them. And why do they play them? In my view, it’s to facilitate a rich human-human interaction,…