Whew! It’s been quite a year – a little over a year since I decided to take Roadtrip! beyond the living rooms of my family and closest friends. I mean really, that’s the true test of a game. Most experienced game designers, as I discovered, blatantly laugh at you if you speak to them enthusiastically about your…
Category: Game Design
As I decompress from the wonderful time I had at Double Exposure’s Metatopia, I thought I would share the top 3 insights I learned from my experience. Admittedly, I don’t have a time-turner; I couldn’t be everywhere and meet everyone (to my sadness). Like most cons this one was overflowing with panels, events, LARPS, tabletops, and…
A lot goes into the making of a board game! Though I could easily devote several thousand words to the process, I thought a visual perspective of the components might prove equally as interesting. Here’s the four year evolution of my game Roadtrip!
For the last several years, I’ve attended many game design workshops and playtest events at a variety of conventions from Gencon to Kublacon. In them I have taken notes diligently (like any proper engineer and/or Capricorn would). In hopes of finding some sage advice for new-to-the-industry designers, considerable time was spent frittering over and re-re-rereading…
There are many ways for a designer to have a game playtested at Gencon. Your goals for playtesting (and you need to write them down, not just contemplate them) and your resources will determine what avenues you follow. Stonemaier Games just put out a great lessons learned from Gencon 2015 that encompasses broader concerns for exposure….
Naming a board or card game can be a tricky thing – one I had not remotely experienced until time came to finalize my 60’s summer vacation game’s name. Though I eventually settled on Roadtrip!, the agonizing process brought about a good deal of reflection on the subject. Not that I expect a name alone…
Roadtrip!’s Game Board Kludge – When Flavor Dominates, Everyone Cries Well, I’m nothing if not obstinate. Perhaps it’s the Capricorn in me; maybe it’s because I’m the first child; possibly it’s just because I don’t like the word impossible. Whatever the reason, I recognized that it took me entirely too long to fix some of…
Roadtrip!’s Theme Mechanic – When Flavor Drives Rules To Ruin To continue the discussion from the last two posts, if you want to design more robust games and design them faster, I believe it’s crucial to analyze your game design process. I admit that the impetus to undertake this discussion arises from my program management…
Last week, I asked the Chicken and Egg question of game designers: What comes first? Mechanic? Theme? Component? Audience? In other words, I asked how do we each design. Clearly, there is no single correct answer to this inquiry. Every individual is, in fact, individual; and so everyone has his or her own style. Nevertheless, I asked…
I recently saw a tweet about the site Boardgamizer. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s intended to stimulate the mind and challenge the skills of game developers, by randomly providing theme, mechanics, victory conditions and constraints for a yet-to-be-designed game. Needless to say, it got me thinking about how we designers dream-up…