— 1/3/2025 1:41 PM
Unfortunately there is already a published card game called Influence, but whatever. This is early design, so ...
— 1/3/2025 1:25 PM
I just dug Influence out of the moth balls and played it with my 18-year-old. In this 2-player 18-card game inspired by a Button Shy contest, players try to exert influence over card values to claim victory. We both loved the layers of strategy within it. I think there may actually be a game here. I will need to test this out a bit more. Soon.
— 12/26/2024 4:52 PM
Games I played for the first time (on BGA) in 2024:
Draft & Write Record - Fantastic game
Tokaido - missing the nuance on this; seems like just stopping at every place possible is the goal
Faraway - love the planning for the reverse scoring; more thinky than I expected
A Feast For Odin - liked it a lot
River Valley Glassworks - love this game
Cartographers - Fun, like this game
Gnome Hollow - I like the idea more than I like the game; disappointed
Turncoats - very interesting twist on the closed economy concept
Harmonies - I think I liked this game.
Panic Lab - Not a fan
Sea Salt & Paper - I really enjoy this game
— 12/26/2024 8:44 AM
Slides made and script written for Community Park. Now just need to record the video. Then, I will post it on YT, post the sell sheet and rules on Google Docs, and curate my publisher list. Then… submit submit submit.
— 12/26/2024 8:41 AM
Gave Three Topic Timing a spin last Wednesday in person. Four people played one round of it. It was such a quick “we have time and I brought it” test that I did not take notes, but the main questions were:
Is this something worth pursuing? Is this a game?
Is it competitive or cooperative?
It definitely feels like a competitive game, which is my want for it anyway. And all four [players think the foundation is in place for a fun, competitive word game. The mechanisms around the timer/timing is broken, but there is lots of design space for it. And the power chips/tokens is a good idea but needs work. The actual word game portion, of having topics and a specific letter from which to provide a word is sound and the heart of the fun.
— 12/18/2024 6:49 AM
Well, I guess I no longer need to have this in my game design queue: https://parade.com/tv/survivor-official-card-game-the-tribe-has-spoken-jeff-probst-exploding-kittens
I lost my notes on this long ago unfortunately, but I was thinking of a half-cooperative, half-competitive game where players played to advance their tribes until the merge and then tried to influence their specific survivor toward the Sole Survivor win.
— 12/17/2024 12:48 PM
I did a practice teach the other day of Armory and played 5-player by myself and thought “Why have I not been pitching this? It is done and ready.”
— 12/17/2024 9:25 AM
Community Park had three plays during BostonFIG on Sunday. Two 2-player games and one 4-player game. I think my teach had gotten pretty good for it. The players jumped right in and engaged immediately. They all seemed to enjoy the game and complimented me on it. I gave out my information, including QR code to my mailing list and to my website. Two takeaways from the games themselves:
I gave the players the option of scoring their highest scoring park feature or totalling all three features. And scoring the total was the choice in all three plays. I am including both options in the rule book - let the players decide how they want the scoring to be before the game begins.
The game has table presence and I hope that translates to publisher interest when I begin sending cold emails out in January.
— 12/12/2024 11:34 AM
Designed the sell sheet for Community Park, finally. The first two designs were too cute and busy. The third is much better. Almost ready for BostonFIG on Sunday.
— 12/3/2024 6:37 AM
12/2: 3p playtest with the latest scoring and rebalanced tiles. Players: Tony Tran, Aaron Cooper, Mike Sprague Everyone liked the game. Overall sense from everyone that there was little interest in what the other players were doing, outside of the cooperative requirements and the meeples and tokens should matter more.
The new scoring did put emphasis back on the installation cards, which I wanted, but the other modes of scoring seem almost inconsequential to me. While they generate interest in the map-building, the scoring unto themselves do little, which would be fine if it led to tension and decision-making, but there was not enough of that in this iteration.
After sitting for an hour postgame breaking it down and asking myself What If? I at least have the scoring set for the next playtest: back to my initial instinct with an adjustment.
With the current point breakdown for installation cards, players will select 3 of the 4 cards dealt to them at the beginning of the game. Then the component that scores the most points for them is their score, along with the bonus winner-take-all approach for the meeples and tokens, being 3 points each.
Thus, maybe the desired push and pull of whether to play certain tiles will return along with the push to have more meeples and/or tokens than the opponent(s) for those bonus points.
— 12/1/2024 5:10 PM
Played with the fam. Kids liked it. My wife thought it was much better, but scoring still needs a tweak. Gotta figure this out.
12/1/2024 1:04 AM
Ok, after six more hours finalizing cards and then printing and assembling the new iteration for playtesting, I am excited to see it in action. The new scoring should help with game play and now opens the game to 4 players. I wonder if I can get the family to play 4 player in the morning…
— 11/29/2024 12:32 PM
So, I have spent probably 7-10 hours over the past 5 days on Excel and Inkspace rebalancing Community Park after committing to a scoring change to increase player decision-making and enhance theme. Next step: print revised game and assemble a new prototype for Wednesday in-person playtesting.
— 11/22/2024 9:30 AM
Playtest #7 Last night, Brooks and Jason playtested Community Park; the first Screentop test. Brooks won 9 to 5 in a really quick (19 minutes) and low-scoring game.
Feedback Brooks likes the theme and really enjoyed what I did with it. The "tiles are weird, not traditional" with the diamonds and chevrons but "fit together well." At first, Brooks thought the tiles felt a bit chaotic with everything going on and how multiple elements can be on an edge. But he appreciated "the realistic finished picture" of the park as it evolved.
He thought there were too many icons - many that he did not care about at all. He also felt like bringing a tile to his hand was almost meaningless and something he had to do rather than wanted to do. The installation cards had little impact on the game, as he pursued getting meeples on the map and building a cohesive park. Plus, there was lots of "unintentional placement" of the components on his card, as Jason put most of them on the map for him.
Jason liked the game, especially the tension between selfishness (installing your components) and selflessness (fulfilling the park requirements). He liked the meeple dynamic and the disk (cohesive park) dynamic.
Jason felt that, graphically, the ability to match partial edges is weird. Not his preference. At first, he also thought there were too many icons, but then really liked how the narrative develops as the park builds and people come to the park.
Brooks' and Jason's feedback was exactly what I needed, as I was specifically testing a new scoring element - the cohesive park. Ultimately, the incentive to complete the park requirements and also make the park cohesive pulled the game away from where I want it played. As Jason alluded to, the installation cards and the park requirements is where some tension lies. The point-counterpoint of selfish and selfless. Another part of the tension should be not knowing what your opponent is installing and trying to figure that out as the game progresses so that players have those tough decisions of "Do I install this tile that has a tree and a barbeque? I want the barbeque, but player X might be installing trees. Is it worth it to get the barbeque?"
The incentive to match tiles for park cohesion for bonus points pulled their attention away from installing stuff into the park.
Designer Reaction and Notes Brooks is onto something with his thought that maybe the value of installations is based on scarcity. So, trees are plentiful and are 1 point, while gazebos, for example, are fewer (a park does not need as many) and are worth more for each. I will be pursuing this idea, which could make card selection smoother during setup and generate more incentive on installing the components.
Other than adjusting icon counts based on the installation cards, which will affect total icon counts on tiles, I do not intend to change this. There has been a recurring comment about the plethora of icons, how they seem too much at first but then feel right as the game progresses and the park evolves. This is correct. This is not only thematic, but it "hides" players' desired components, making it a little tougher for opponents to know what a player is trying to install for their score.
As for Brooks' comment about tiles in hand feeling almost meaningless, this was a direct result of the cohesive park scoring element, as emphasis was on matching tiles and less on the components on them. So, pulling a tile to hand for a later placement (scoring) or to prevent a player from placing was no longer a desirable action.
As for Jason's comment about the multi-component edges, this is entirely intentional. Having played many tile placement games, I want this one to be unique in multiple ways: diamonds and chevrons (instead of hexes or squares) and multiple connection points. So many tile placement games match a color or connect a road or building. Not saying those are bad, but I want this to be part of the interesting map that develops. So, the combination of multiple icons and multiple components on an edge makes for a unique design (game and graphically).
Ultimately, the game was working almost perfectly before the attempt to add a third scoring element, not necessarily saying the third scoring element is bad. But, this brings me back to the issue I was having about matching tiles. When the rule was: a tile must match at least one component on one edge (regardless of how many edges are touching) to place the tile on the map, this took away from the desired puzzle of trying to make things fit. However, the end park result was still fairly cohesive and interesting to look at.
When the rule was: a tile must match at least one component on all touching edges to place the tile on the map, this led to what one player called the "starfish." Players simply built outward, one edge at a time, and the park was not cohesive.
Hence, incentivizing cohesion as a third scoring element.
Next Steps Adjust the installation card values and scoring and revise tiles based on any icon count changes. Playtest this with cohesive park scoring and without. Playtest this with 1-edge matching and with all-edge matching. There is a sweet spot here somewhere.
11/10/2024 10:50 AM
Got in two playtests of Community Park yesterday at the Upper Valley Game Designers all-day playtesting.
Pros: Well received. Love the theme and mechanisms. Pacing and game time seems perfect.
Cons: Iconography needs improvement. Want more puzzle feel from tile placement (made rule change for playtest 2, which was better). Need a better way to explain tile selection and placement (“better” explanation from designer who playtested both times did not work). Players wanted a third way to score points.
Next steps: New rule of matching all sides when placing might lead to more starfish-like maps. However, a third way of scoring could be to gain a point placing a tile that matches on 3+ sides, which could mitigate the starfish possibility.
— 10/28/2024 11:18 AM
So, B-FIG will be selecting 21 tabletop games for the showcase out of the 31 submissions. Now I am stressed. Meanwhile, upcoming to-dos for City Park:
Write and post Rulebook
Create sell sheet
Screentop implementation
Add to website
— 10/25/2024 9:30 AM
Three-diamond turn: Players can move three total diamonds (two = 1 chevron) on their turn from the pool to the map, from the pool to their hand, from their hand to the map. But no more than two diamonds' worth can be added to the map. Two-diamond turn: Players can move two total diamonds (two = 1 chevron) on their turn from the pool to the map, from the pool to their hand, from their hand to the map. These feel cleaner, but I wonder if one will emphasize playing chevrons and one will emphasize playing single diamonds. Testing will uncover this.
10/25/2024 9:05 AM
Recap from Wednesday playtest: Core part of the game is essentially perfect. Semicoopertive constructions of the park with diamonds and chevrons, with end game trigger of completing the city's park requirements, and scoring points from players' individual installation goals. I had adjusted the balance and distribution of components throughout the styles better; I could see the difference.
[9:09 AM]
In rough protoype, there was white space that could not match itself. So, with the new gravel/dirt in those spaces, I kept the rule to see how players reacted. It was unanimous, myself included, that exclusion felt weird. So, gravel/dirt can match moving forward. I played it four time that way since Wednesday and it is much better.
[9:11 AM]
Tested new way to track city's requirements that includes awarding the biggest contributor 2 points at game's end. Players place meeple(s) on the tiles to show contribution toward the requirements. Meeples thus also represent people patronizing the park - more people in the park, the closer it is to being complete.
[9:11 AM]
Also tested new approach to procuring and placing tiles. And tested new iconography.
Mike's feedback: Drastic graphical improvement. Adding meeples is cool; familiar and welcome; not an overwhelming addition. The game is heading in the right direction, but the acquisition and placement of tiles is still confusing and clunky. The park at the end is visually appealing. Gavin's feedback: Get rid of exceptions to the rules as much as possible. There has got to be a better, cleaner way to know what tiles I can take and place. Meeples on the map give it a real feel of people in the park - was not sure about that at first, but as the map grew, it looked great. "I would pay for and get this game." "First game of yours I have played that I would bring home and play with my wife." "Fits my gamnig group" Mike won 14 to Bill 11 to Gavin 10. Mike installed 12 trees + 2 point bonus for contributing the most to the city's requirements. I installed 11 picnic tables. Gavin installed 10 rest rooms. I also had 9 points from my other installation goal: 8 BBQs and 1 fountain. Gavin and Mike each had 7. Mike had 5 athletic spaces and 2 monuments, while Gavin had 5 garden and 2 ice cream stands.
Progress on testing goals: Iconography was good. Gavin commented on the mix of top-down and side views, but I see that as an aesthetic issue - low priority. Meeples tracking city requirements: Perfect. Familiar, comfortable concept (even my wife said "it's like farmers in Carcassonne") is welcoming; easy to grasp; adds to the thematic feel of building the park; collecting the meeples at the end to count them for the bonus points leads to quick clean up or set up for replay Gravel/dirt matching gravle/dirt is a go. Getting and placing tiles needs work. This is the one area I feel needs the most attention. Two new ideas to test: Three-diamond turn and two-diamond turn concepts.
10/6/2024 7:18 PM
Played City Park with my wife today. She liked and would definitely play again, which is a win. I did notice a little imbalance in some of the park element counts in terms of on chevrons vs on diamonds. But I think that should be an easy tweak. The new turn action choices confused her (and me at first), but I think it is a matter of teaching and how I wrote them down that muddy it. Otherwise, it felt much cleaner and natural a few rounds into it.
— 10/1/2024 3:06 PM
Revision: Players have 3 choices on their turn - a) draw a chevron from the pool and place it on the map or put it in their hand; b) draw two diamonds and place one on the map and one in their hand: c) place two diamonds or one chevron from their hand onto the map.
— 9/27/2024 4:19 PM
So, after lots of thought, reflection on the great feedback from the other night, some math, lots of “What if?” and a skosh of “ew that is not what I want,” the next playtest will include:
Players receive a token (preferably a meeple to represent people patronizing the park) when contributing to the common goal
At end of game, the player with the most tokens earns 2 points toward their installation count
Players have 3 choices on their turn - a) draw a chevron from the pool and place it on the map; b) draw two diamonds and place one on the map and one in their hand: c) place two diamonds or one chevron from their hand onto the map.
Players can have no more than 3 tiles in their hand. Immediately discard (and remove from game) when hand exceeds three
Game ends when common goal is satisfied or when the tile pool is exhausted
Can’t wait to try this out!
The big thing is trying to keep it simple and quick. The other night, the players averaged 10 turns, with 31 turns taken plus scoring in 25 minutes. It is meant to be fun, quick, puzzle-y, and thematic while presenting enough decision-making and semi-cooperative banter.
— 9/26/2024 8:23 AM
I was very pleased last night to confirm that the core of the game works as is. It is fun, with cool tiles and puzzle feel, a natural integrated theme, quick play (25 minutes), and already a table presence. The biggest pain point was for discarding too many tiles. This could be addressed with different tile selection methods, which I will need to test a bit to find the right approach. I also want to test the idea of a built-in timer of running out of tiles, this might add just enough tension as the park grows and the tile pool decreases. All in all, I really could not have been happier. I have never felt like one of my games was this playable and sound at a first playtest. I want to play again right now!
9/25/2024 9:47 AM
City Park is a 2-3 player tile-laying, semi-cooperative game about building a city park and installing the needed components to complete the project. The city park is built by the players as they place diamond and chevron tiles onto the play space. There is a common set of criteria that the players are working together to complete for the park. Once the criteria are filled, the game ends. However, in the meantime, players have their own agenda of components they want to install in the park before the park is complete. The player to install the most of their components by the time the game ends wins. Everything except for each player’s required components are visible throughout the game. Players can discuss what tiles should be placed toward the common goal, maybe even trying to persuade placement of a tile that has their desired component(s) on it. The subterfuge and deception is dependent on the level of social, cooperative play of the players, allowing for the game to be more deceitful and subtle or quiet and plotting
— 3/10/2024 8:38 AM
Phew! Over a 34-hour span: 15 games, 20 plays, including playtesting two prototypes of mine and playtesting five from other designers. I will sleep well tonight.
— 3/9/2024 1:15 AM
Playtested Cattycombs of Rhyorr tonight with a Game Makers Guild member and Gil Hova. I was a bit flustered to have Gil play my game. One of my favorite games is his (The Networks) and he used to own and run Formal Ferret Games. His feedback was amazing, so insightful and fueled with experience and knowledge. Of course, I have to tweak a few things before showing the game at 2 pm tomorrow at this con.
— 3/8/2024 9:59 AM
After many late nights revising and updating rules, cards, game boards, etc., the prototype of Cattycombs of Rhyorr is ready for presenting during Designers Alley at the Granite Game Summit. I even threw together a rough first draft of a sell sheet at midnight last night. It ain't great, but it does the job for now. It is missing some elements I want to show, such as the character board with backpack, but it will suffice for the weekend.
— 2/29/2024 11:49 PM
Tested Three Topic Timing with my wife and son the other night. It was good. My son loved it. My wife won all three games. We never ran out of time, which has me thinking—in a good way. I won’t have time to really test this for a while, but I look forward to doing so.
— 2/26/2024 9:37 AM
Spent a couple of hours at Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine yesterday. And halfway through, I was like “There is a board game here. Absolutely a game here. With the way the land ownership changed hands from Spain to England to Spain, the principles involved, the balance or failure of defense against opponents… I don’t know what mechanisms and such would work best. And I have never delved into designing historical games, but I bought a small book on the history of the fort and took a ton of pictures.
— 2/23/2024 11:54 AM
I will actually be focused on Cattycombs of Rhyorr for all of March. I am showing/testing it during Designers Alley at Granite Game Summit.
— 2/23/2024 11:02 AM
Meanwhile…. I am bringing a brand new design with me on vacation. A party word game I am calling Three Topic Timing. There are three decks of topic cards. The decks are organized by broad topic, moderate topic, and narrow topic. One from each is placed on the table for all players to see. Players set timers on their phones to 3 minutes. Beginning with the first player and proceeding clockwise, players turn on their timer, provide a word related to one of the topics, going in alphabetical order and not repeating the topic chosen by the previous players, and turning off their timer. Example: Topics are: Nature, Games, Appliances Player A says “Ants, Nature” in 3 seconds Player B says “Brain, Games” in 5 seconds Player C says “Coyotes, Nature” in 11 seconds Player A was ready to go with “Deciduous trees” for Nature but now must think of a D word for Games or Appliances and finally says “Dishwasher, Appliances” in 27 seconds and so on. Each player also begins the game with four tokens that have special abilities, such as forcing the next player to respond with the next 2 letters or being able to respond without using their timer for a turn. Game ends when: the players have gone through the whole alphabet or only one player has time remaining. Players add :10 seconds to their time for each token they did not spend and subtract :03 seconds for each turn they missed due to their timer running out. Player with the most remaining time wins.
— 2/5/2024 12:18 PM
So, to follow part of my 2024 plan, I am bringing extra attention and focus to Cattycombs of Rhyorr. After some fall in-person tests, I finally conjured some solutions for the game's major flaws. I updated my physical prototype and, since it is a light euro, have taken a couple of nights recently to self-test at varying player counts. Most of it felt good, so I asked my HS senior son to sit and play with me yesterday. The test brought a couple minor in-game issues to light plus a major endgame flaw. So, after dwelling on it for a few hours, I implemented a new endgame and self-tested last night. I like it much more than the previous, but it is not quite there as it feels fiddly. Meanwhile, the game is mostly on track for my personal testing gauntlet. I will get a couple more in-person tests done before March and then publicly playtest at Granite Game Summit, an all-day intensive the following weekend, and hopefully at UnPub at PAXEast. Then I will take all of that information and any revisions made between each of those events, and let it all ruminate for the summer. Come fall, I will then get it online and tested through numerous channels, with the goal of Cardboard Edison, speed pitching, etc., next winter. Much like I did with Armory in 2023.
— 1/27/2024 8:35 PM
Feedback Frenzy was fun!! The pitch feedback was excellent.
— 1/24/2024 2:43 PM
I have been selected to pitch during the Nonepub Feedback Frenzy on Saturday night on UnPub’s Twitch channel. Meanwhile I am in the middle of a very busy week at work, which will likely require some night hours, though I am hopeful I can fit my Frenzy pitch presentation preparation amongst it all.
— 1/18/2024 8:31 AM
I got Armory installed on Screentop last night and then played out a 5-player game with all the recent updates. I found issues at 5p but came up with an easy solution at 11:15 pm. So I quickly revised an element and installed it too. I can’t wait to try it again to see if my instinct was right. The game plays perfect at 2-4p, so hopefully the tweak makes 5p nice. This is version 7.6. The last version of Armory for online playtesting was probably around version 5 or 4.
Gotta hit testing a few times leading up to my hopeful appearance at Feedback Frenzy, to refine my pitch.
— 12/27/2023 11:36 AM
For 2024, I was planning on submitting a game to Cardboard Edison, but I am not in the right place with any of my games to do so. Plus, to be honest, while I received some great feedback on Armory last year, I was also unimpressed with the overall thing. I entered assuming I would not advance but looking forward to the feedback. Unfortunately, some of the feedback was useless. Certainly, there is an art to knowing what feedback is helpful and what is not, and what to use as actionable. But among the useless feedback was a named gam publisher's entire feedback being "unoriginal and uninteresting." I am also almost certain that the publisher watched less than one minute of my video.
So, instead, I am focusing on preparing for Granite Game Summit and PAXEast again this year. I want to playtest Cattycombs, Armory, and either Not Me! or Power Up! at these events while seeking publishers for the first two.
Also, I want to reseach publishers for Udder Chaos, my family game about hyperactive cows on a farm. When I made this one, I wanted to design a roll-and-move game that has the excitement of randomness but a level of strategy and player agency often missing from those types of family games. I wanted it to be a good game for 6-year-olds, with lots of pieces to touch and manipulate, with age-appropriate mathematical skills and higher-order thinking skills while also having elements that keep adults engaged. The game has been well playtested and is final and ready for a publisher.
I hope to work on a new alphabetical topic-centered party game, plus a couple other word game designs that need to be dusted off. And if I ever encounter anyone who wants to collaborate with me on a heavy part-cooperative part-competitive board game version of the TV show Survivor, I'd be ecstatic.
— 12/27/2023 11:00 AM
In 2023, I was more visibly active, as opposed to virtually active. I submitted games to publishers, attended more cons, attended more in-person playtest nights. That said, I also entered Cardboard Edison for the first time, built my own website, expanded my networking, found more friendly colleagues (mostly in and via the Boardroom). I have over 30 games in some form whether as a working prototype, components toward a prototype, notes, or a listed concept or idea for future exploration. In the past year, I have done work on seven different games.
[11:00 AM]
Armory - Begins and ends 2023 for me. After significant growth and revision, Armory became pitchable in January, This market-driven draft and set collection card game about equipping your warriors ahead of a medieval battle was submitted to the Cardboard Edison Awards. I presented it during Designers Alley at Granite Game Summit and during UnPub at PAXEast in March. In December, I finally playtested the revisions that spawned from Edison and those public tests. Now, version 7.6 is ready to test to begin 2024.
[11:03 AM]
Snow Day! - Feb 2023 - This was my first real attempt at an 18-card game. I was trying to emulate Marvel Snap's head-to-head battler but with 18 cards. I still believe in the idea that is the foundation: cards that have three different ways to play them (out of four card sides) to maximize playability within a limited card set. I have some more ideas to make this work after the initial battler idea really did not.
Castle Walls - Early 2023 - This massive resource management, worker placement game began around 2006. Every so often, I think of the game and another way to improve it. This time, I added the concept of a closed economy to it, which on paper seems like it will work, but who knows when I will actually put some real time and energy into this one again. The main parts of it (with walls, turrets, land tiles, etc.) have been begging to be something for years.
[11:10 AM]
Not Me! - May 2023 - A trick-taking game where not taking tricks is most beenficial. I wanted to take a tab at a trick taker where everyone has the exact same cards to start and there is no trump. It has some potential, but plays a little weak right now. I have put it on screentop for virtual testing but have not done any yet.
Cattycombs of Rhyorr - A light euro about mice recollecting their stolen trinkets (and eating cheese) from an underground labyrinth run by cats. Players place tiles to build the labyrinth as they go, play cards for extra abilities, collect and eat cheese in order to use tools and special abilities, and try to evade the cats roaming. Players get points for thr trinkets they collect, the cheese they do not eat, and the extra things (scoring tracks) they do along the way such as pulling and using tools and evading the cats. This played extremely well at Reunity Games convention, but then playtesting with designers (as opposed to the public) in November uncovered some flaws. To better iterate, I will need to get this built online for more playtesting.
[11:17 AM]
Power Up! - Dec 2023 - This is a set collection game with a unique cycling draft mechanism about energy. It works already but has a foundational flaw that I need to remedy before testing more.
Enemy Lines: Millenium - Sept 2023 - No design or development work was done on this, because it is a completed game. So, I researched viable game publishers who might be interested in a tri-hex tile-laying abstract strategy two-player game. I submitted rules and sell sheet to two publishers. I need to follow up with them, actually.,
— 12/22/2023 12:36 PM
I think I may have the “push it over the edge” element for Armory that it was missing. And I think I have also been able to remove an element that worked but was, when isolated, rather unnecessary. Can’t wait to update the prototype and get it on the table to test! All I will say right now is: Mercenaries!
— 12/21/2023 1:04 PM
Playtested Armory in person last night for the first time since PAXEast. The slight card balance changes worked and, when asked, the testers identified specifics where I knew something was not quite 100%. They all liked the game, but their game designer minds gave great insight into potential fixes or needs to push the game across the finish line.
— 10/28/2023 6:54 PM
Ok. So, I had an idea for a card game the other day. Now, a few days later despite very limited time to do anything with it, I have a 52-card rondel-like drafting, set collection game where you choose from taking the card you placed your token by and discarding to a face down deck, or taking the top card from the discard deck. And most cards have choices between using abilities or saving for points. Plus there are end game bonuses for different sets.
— 10/16/2023 1:37 PM
I spent about three weeks hot and heavy working on Cattycombs of Rhyorr in order to playtest it in person at ReUnity in Nashua, NH, in mid-September. The game was received far better than I anticipated. Other than a couple of minor tweaks to the rules (I wrote the rulebook during this time too), I now just need to really test the heck out of it to find any breaking points. Unfortunately, I have not even begun to develop a digital version of it yet. And I have done no other game design work for any game since then.
댓글