I have been busy this past week working on Space Port (or sometime Space Dock, as I interchangeably call it). I can’t remember the last time I’ve worked so hard on playtesting and revising a game in so short a time. I think it may be a by-product of my new schedule for game design this year. Now that I know that I only have a fixed amount of time to work on this game, I guess I am putting more into it up front. I work better under pressure, and it shows. My current year’s calendar has me working on Space Port for four months starting in January. By the time March rolls around, I should be heavily playtesting it with whoever I can find. By the third month, I’ll have a polished copy of the rules to begin blind playtesting. In the end, I should have a publisher friendly game box with a nice prototype and rules.

Starting in February I will begin work on my war game for four months. So, the two games will overlap for awhile. This will allow me to have something to do when I’m frustrated with the other game. We’ll see how that goes. I plan on entering both of these games into the Hippodice game design contest at the end of October. I’l probably have to retheme them since they are both sci-fi themed, but that’s another issue for another day. So, February is my unofficial mini-deadline for Space Port since at that time my attention will be divided in half.

The rest of my year is also planned out with new games and old ones that need revisiting. One new game is for the Lucca contest, which I wont start until they announce the rules for entry. Another new game is just left wide open. I wanted to give myself an “elective” game of sorts. That way I can come up with a cool idea and rest assured knowing that I’d have time set aside to work on it. The old game I’ll be working on is Venture Forth which has been received with glowing indifference. I basically need to inject some pop into the game because I think it is worthy of it. I also have my group of finished (or 99% finished) games that are “on” all the time which means that I should be always actively dealing with them by sending them to publishers or refining that one extra piece. It is comforting to have this plan because I feel that I’m in more control over where my games are headed. While the past two years my games were in pre-school running rampant and doing what they pleased, this year they are in college with a nice schedule to help further them along to “graduate”.

So far, my plan is going smoothly. At the very least I feel more relaxed and focused.