Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A LOSS FOR WORDS
Last night Ian, Toby, and I played my prototype for A Loss For Words, a party word game. The game involved getting your teammate to guess your randomly-chosen photo from an array of stock photos using only one word. That one word must start with a letter from a card in [...]
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
At BGG.CON, both Ian and I participated in the Proto Alley, where designers tested their prototypes. Here are some snippets about my games:
Venture Forth
I taught Venture Forth to Patrick, Ben, and Gil. I was still a bit rough on the explanation of this game, but before you knew it we were up and playing. The [...]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I was feeling a little concerned about my game prototype Stellar Underworld. This feeling came from some of the feedback from the guys from Oklahoma, and from a botched playtest with some “improved” rules based on that feedback. All of that, and I feel pressure to get this game ready for the Protocon design contest.Well, [...]
There are two main states of game development:
Exhilaration – You have a list of some issues in your game that need to be addressed. You’ve come up with a solution to one of the problems on paper. You think it is so elegant and will solve all of your problems. You, sir, are a genius! [...]
Today I received some feedback from Mike and the guys at the Royal Steamwork Society about Stellar Underworld. Here are some of the main points I pulled from it:
Rules Clarifications
Can contraband assets be delivered in multiples?
Yes. This will have to be explicitly stated in the rulebook. Contraband assets are different from other assets in that [...]
Ian’s Unnamed Space Game Playtest
Ian, Jon, and I played a newer version of Ian’s unnamed space game. This game is your basic 4X game: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Actually, the “explore” aspect isn’t really there because the board is pretty much open information from the beginning. So, I guess it’s a 3X game. Anyways, [...]
Dan and I met Tuesday night for play testing. We each brought a new game design to the table. Dan had a dice game based on the video game Rampart. We each had a Castle and had a stack of gold placed inside. We were able to build up the walls to our Castles, place [...]
Last night Ian, Jon, and I met.
Chit-Chat
We started a bit differently by chatting about games on the couch. We talked about our games being published, and all of the details that go along with that.
Ian told us about his newest game idea involving dice, Chun-Li, and fireballs. We were very taken with the idea [...]
My first full fledged attempt to design a game started about two years ago. It began when I read a description of a game on some webpage. The game was Light Speed by Cheapass Games. The game sounded awesome. So awesome that on my lunch break that was all I talked about. In my mind [...]
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tonight we will be able to continue with out weekly design meetings on our regular night and regular time. I’m stoked!
Exceptions
I have been playtesting Stellar Underworld at my local game store and with other gamers here and there. At one of those playings, I had one especially “thorough” playtester who offered more advice than I [...]