With only a week left in round one of the contest, I finally put together a video on how to judge. It's still useful for round two and for next year. So still worth the effort. And if you have a few minutes free over the next week and would like to help by judging … Continue reading How To Judge
Category: Game Design
Writing Short Game Descriptions
A few days ago @AlexandreUboldi asked if I had ever written an article about writing short descriptions for games. I haven’t, as far as I can recall. But it seemed like a great topic since one requirement for the upcoming The Board Game Workshop Design Contest is a short description of your game. It is … Continue reading Writing Short Game Descriptions
Why Am I Bad at My Own Games?
I like to think I’m a decent game designer. Players seem to enjoy the experiences I create. And when it comes to playing published games, I’m a pretty competent opponent. But I am usually terrible when I play my own games. People may think I’m letting them win because it would be bad for the … Continue reading Why Am I Bad at My Own Games?
What’s the Meaning of This?
I started working on a trick taking game and it reminded me of when someone said trick taking games are auction games. I have to agree with that statement. In a trick taking game each player puts a card into the center and the highest value wins. That’s an auction. When I was trying to … Continue reading What’s the Meaning of This?
Island Chain Update
Island Chain is a two player card game focused on making big combos to get maximum value out of your turn. It started as a village building game 2 years ago with the main focus being an overflow mechanism that caused villages to become overcrowded and made some villagers leave and start a new village. … Continue reading Island Chain Update
Scattered Thoughts
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me so I’ve been having trouble focusing on game design. It’s not that I haven’t been working on it, but when I can’t focus I move from topic to topic. So I’m getting a bit done on a few projects. And because this lack of focus extends … Continue reading Scattered Thoughts
Live Streaming a Play Test
Last night @BeatdaRobinsons played my prototype of Island Chain on their Twitch stream. It was an interesting way to experience a play test. It wasn’t quite a blind play test. I was watching the live stream and answering questions, but there was some delay and not physically being in the room made it feel different than … Continue reading Live Streaming a Play Test
The In Vino Morte Story
In Vino Morte was my first published game. I actually promised to write about it here a long time ago before I was posting regularly. So I’m finally fulfilling that. It has a somewhat unique story of how it came to be a Button Shy Wallet game. I recently came across my first notes on … Continue reading The In Vino Morte Story
Unpub 8 Recap
Last weekend I attended Unpub 8 in Maryland. It was my first Unpub and I had a great time. Unpub takes place over 4 days and its primary focus is having the public play board game prototypes. So it seems to work better for very developed games. I had a lot of trouble focusing on … Continue reading Unpub 8 Recap
Short-Term Goals
Short-term goals are important in life and in games. In my experience, people are extraordinarily bad at long term planning and “seeing the big picture”. Perhaps it’s an evolutionary hold over from the immediate need for survival. For whatever reason people can get lost if the goal is too far away or too immense to … Continue reading Short-Term Goals