All Games Big and Small

One of the biggest challenges of designing games is scoping. We’re often inspired by big games and strive to make them ourselves, but bigger does not necessarily mean better. Today I’ll discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of big games and suggest methods to help you control the scope of your game.

Fixing Magic

Magic: the Gathering is a 20 year old behemoth. Each year, it seems to get more popular and make more money. Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes the game, must be doing something right, right? It turns out they’re doing a lot right. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing everything right. Magic is […]

Betrayal in the Game from the Box

Not long ago, I discussed schadenfreude and how you can manage it in your games. But somehow, I managed to miss one of the most effective ways to get players at each others’ throats: betrayal. Today, I’ll talk a bit about the psychological underpinnings of betrayal, the many forms it can take in games, and […]

The Path of the Game and the Path of the Designer

Last week I had the privilege of speaking to students at Cal Poly in beautiful San Luis Obispo. Many of the students are just beginning their journeys to become game designers, so I took the opportunity to share my own experience from consumer to creator. I also talked about how game designers of various skill […]

The Holy Grail of Simultaneous Action

Young game designers quickly learn the importance of engagement. Basically, a player is engaged when he or she feels like a part of the game. An engaging game will make a player forget his or her real world problems. It will completely capture its players’ attention. In the early 21st century, a good indication that […]

The Cost of a Board Game: Time

Not long ago, I discussed the monetary cost of making Corporate America, an awesome political satire board game. Today, I want to pick up where I left off by discussing how much time it took to make Corporate America. I’ll get into the details in just a minute. In the mean time, this timeline will […]

Living with Schadenfreude

People play games for lots of reasons. One particularly dangerous reason is schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a positive emotion (something like happiness or fun) that people get from the negative emotions other people feel. Those negative feelings don’t have to be caused by the person experiencing schadenfreude, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Today, I’ll mostly be […]

Design Analysis: Diamant

It was a cool, dark March night in the financial district of San Francisco. The club was also dark, but it was anything but cool. I had come to the IGDA GDC party with a prototype of my own game, Corporate America, not quite realizing yet that playtesting it in party scenarios like this one […]

Mechanic Analysis: Drafting

I’ve been thinking a lot about drafting lately. So today I thought I’d try something new: a close analysis of drafting as a mechanic. To start, I’ll define drafting and explain the different forms it takes. After that I’ll discuss what it adds to games. To wrap things up, I’ll cover the requirements of including […]

Fungus Design Decisions

Last time, I discussed the design goals that have guided my latest project, a drafting board game about fungus releasing spores from a pile of rotting logs (tentatively called Fungus). Today I’ll describe how those goals have helped shape the game through the iterative design process.