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?

Magic: Pretty popular. Image from Modern Myths.

Magic: Pretty popular. Image from Modern Myths.

It turns out they’re doing a lot right. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing everything right.

Magic is an extremely fun game, but it’s not perfect. A large part of its success comes from its position as the first collectable card game, a much loved and very profitable genre. That innovation made players willing to overlook some of Magic‘s less than ideal qualities.

Today, I’m going to take a look at one of Magic‘s biggest flaws and explain how I would try to fix it. In doing so, I’ll show how to approach challenging design problems and encourage you to take a critical, honest look at everything, even games you love.

Before I get into the details, I’ll cut the suspense: the problem I’m going to address is the land system, one of the fundamental pacing mechanisms of the game.

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by teale on November 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Design

Posted by teale on November 11, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/fixing-magic/

The Price is Wrong

Corporate America costs $40. What could be simpler?

Corporate America costs $40. What could be simpler?

Publishing Corporate America was a big learning experience for me. I had previously designed games, and I’d even released digital games, but I had never handled so much of the responsibility myself. Manufacturing, shipping, distribution, marketing–frequently, I was in over my head, so it’s not surprising that I made mistakes. Today, I want to talk about one specific decision I didn’t quite make right: how much the game should cost.

There are a ton of factors that go into a decision that might seem pretty simple. Today I’ll go over those factors, why I made the decision I ended up making, and why I now think it wasn’t the correct decision.

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by teale on October 31, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Business, Corporate America, Non-Digital

Posted by teale on October 31, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/the-price-is-wrong/

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 how those forms can affect players’ emotions and psyches.

Betrayal and You

Betrayal: it's just a part of the human experience.

Betrayal: it’s just a part of the human experience. Image from Benoit des Ligneris.

Betrayal is a fundamental part of the human experience, one that can affect us in profoundly emotional ways. Some of us are more insecure when it comes to trust than others, but discovering that a friend was using you like a pawn never feels good.

Games give us a safe space to explore these issues, right? While games may be a more ethical venue to release Machiavellian impulses than, say, places of work or high school proms, don’t forget that your players’ emotions are very real. Betrayal in particular can be an extremely touchy and emotional experience, so it is very important to know how your game allows or even forces betrayal amongst your players.

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by teale on October 21, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Design, Psychology, Theory

Posted by teale on October 21, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/betrayal-in-the-game-from-the-box/

The Path of the Game and the Path of the Designer

A very warm welcoming from the Cal Poly Mustangs!

A very warm welcome from the Cal Poly Mustangs!

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 levels conceive of games and approach game creation.

No matter what level of game designer you are, I hope taking a broader look at the process will give you some insights on how to make your next game even better!

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by teale on October 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Basics, Design

Posted by teale on October 4, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/the-path-of-the-game-and-the-path-of-the-designer/

The Holy Grail of Simultaneous Action

Game designers: when you see this during a playtest, you've got work to do. Image from the Baltimore Sun.

Game designers: when you see this during a playtest, you’ve got work to do. Image from the Baltimore Sun.

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 players aren’t engaged is the dreaded smartphone.

The worst culprit for disengagement is player elimination, but the most common culprit is players having long waits between turns. Long turns can be caused by any number of things, and I’ll go over a few common problems in a bit.

If long periods of downtime are one of the worst culprits, no downtime is one of the best ways to keep players engaged. Keeping all players active at all times, or maintaining simultaneous action, is one of the holy grails of game design. It’s something we as game designers should all aspire for. Today I’ll discuss how simultaneous action can work in board games.

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by teale on September 16, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Design, Non-Digital, Theory

Posted by teale on September 16, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/the-holy-grail-of-simultaneous-action/

More Lessons from the Corporate America Kickstarter

Since the Kickstarter campaign ended, I've been working to get Corporate America into FLGS (Friendly Local Game Stores).

Since the Kickstarter campaign ended, I’ve been working to get Corporate America into FLGS (Friendly Local Game Stores) like EndGame in Oakland, California.

The Kickstarter for Corporate America ended successfully in November 2012. In January 2013, after finishing the game and sending it to the printer, I wrote up some lessons from my Kickstarter experience.

It’s been 7 months since those last lessons, and a lot has happened. I saw the printing process unfold and found a distributor. In July 2013, I posted a Kickstarter update announcing the that the campaign was over… everyone had their games! And since that point, I’ve been working to get the game into local stores and promoting it online with reviews.

Given how much has happened, you won’t be surprised to hear I’ve learned a few more lessons along the way. Today I’m going to share some with you.

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by teale on September 3, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Business, Corporate America, Kickstarter

Posted by teale on September 3, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/more-lessons-from-the-corporate-america-kickstarter/

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 show you the key milestones that Corporate America went through between its initial conception and when it was released in stores.

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by teale on August 19, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Art, Business, Corporate America, Design, History, Kickstarter

Posted by teale on August 19, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/the-cost-of-a-board-game-time/

The Cost of a Board Game: Money

Corporate America: now an actual thing.

Corporate America: now a real thing.

For those of you who don’t follow the blog regularly, I kickstarted my first board game, Corporate America, way back in November of 2012. It’s now July 2013, and I just posted an update to my Kickstarter supporters announcing that the project is complete!

I chose to self publish Corporate America for a number of reasons. I want creative control, especially with a topic that might be too controversial for an established publisher with a reputation to maintain. Publishers can sometimes drag their feet in getting a game released, and I’m impatient. Finally, and most importantly, I want to learn. I want to understand how to make a game from start to finish, and I think the best way to learn is to just do it.

Today I’m going to share one aspect of my experience with you: how much the whole ordeal cost. I could not have made Corporate America without the generous articles other game designers and publishers have posted online. Especially useful for me were Byron Collins’ Game Design & Self-Publishing – A Resource for Game Designers and Brent Povis’ Game Design and Self-Publishing: A Primer for Self-Publishers, both on Board Game Geek, but there are countless useful articles out there. By sharing my experience, I hope to help other aspiring game designers achieve their dreams… or at least know what they’re getting themselves into.

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by teale on July 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Business, Corporate America, Kickstarter

Posted by teale on July 30, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/the-cost-of-a-board-game-money/

Living with Schadenfreude

People play games for lots of reasons. One particularly dangerous reason is schadenfreude.

The concept of schadenfreude was popularized by a bunch of puppets. Image from ThirdCoastDaily.com.

The concept of schadenfreude was popularized by a bunch of puppets. Image from ThirdCoastDaily.com.

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 discussing schadenfreude caused by one player picking on another player.

Games offer players a relatively safe space for people to experience schadenfreude. If you feel joy from other people’s real life misery, you might be called a “dick” (or worse!). In a game… well, you still might be called names, but at least you’re only feeling joy from someone’s artificial pain, right?

I actually believe schadenfreude is quite dangerous, even in the relatively safe space of a game. Today I want to discuss why I think it’s something that should be carefully controlled, if not avoided all together, and some strategies for containing it.

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by teale on July 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Design, Psychology, Theory

Posted by teale on July 5, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/living-with-schadenfreude/

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.

Diamant cover image from the Board Game Geek.

Diamant cover image from the Board Game Geek.

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 was just asking for trouble. Of course, once I got to the basement, dominated by its dance floor and accompanying music, where board gamers were squeezed into tiny, dimly lit booths, I gave up on playing Corporate America almost immediately. By that point, I was focused on simply finding a spot to play any game–after all, I definitely wasn’t there to dance.

I managed to find a nearly empty table and sat down, soon to find out why it was empty: the already dim lighting was made worse by a dead bulb directly above us. Thundering atmospheric noise and almost total darkness–my hope of playing a game was not looking good. Thankfully, I discovered that the game at our table was Incan Gold (the American version of Diamant), and the evening was saved.

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by teale on June 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Design, Review

Posted by teale on June 27, 2013

http://nothingsacredgames.com/design-analysis-diamant/

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