On a recent podcast episode, Brett “BrickroadDX” Lowey and I discussed the property of “playfulness” in strategy game design, and a lot of conversation over on my stream and Discord have taken place since then. I thought it would be good to first lay out my cleanest explanation for the term, and then indicate the … Continue reading "Achieving playfulness in strategy game design"
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A conversation with Elizabeth Hargrave
Today I spoke with Elizabeth Hargrave. After playing her game Wingspan and reading some interviews with her, I thought she’d be a great person to have on to talk about some of the stuff I’ve been exploring in terms of strategy games and their relationship to violence, both mechanically and thematically speaking. She had a … Continue reading "A conversation with Elizabeth Hargrave"
Read MoreImproving readability in Dragon Bridge
Dragon Bridge development is going really well! As of this writing, we’ve got four days left on the Kickstarter, and during the time it’s been running I’ve gotten a ton of feedback about the layout, design, things like that. We’re still in the process of upgrading everything, but I have come across a bunch of … Continue reading "Improving readability in Dragon Bridge"
Read MoreWhy it’s important that we push back on Auto Chess being a “genre”
Another title of this article could be, “what it says about videogames that we consider Auto Chess to be a genre“. Because of course, the way language works is that if enough people say a word means X, that’s simply what that word means. But it’s worth noting that if we’re calling Auto Chess (and … Continue reading "Why it’s important that we push back on Auto Chess being a “genre”"
Read MoreFive cool things about the design of Dragon Bridge
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the game design of Dragon Bridge. Dragon Bridge is a two player competitive card game. I originally designed it very quickly—in a matter of a few hours—as part of the #18CardStrategyJam, and I had never had the experience before of making a game that kinda “worked” … Continue reading "Five cool things about the design of Dragon Bridge"
Read MoreBuilding Blocks of Tabletop Game Design – interview with Geoff Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
I can’t believe I went this long without interviewing one of my biggest game design theory heroes, Geoff Engelstein. Together with designer, game design writer and fellow game design podcaster Isaac Shalev, they’ve written a book that seems like it might be kind of a big deal in this field. To quote a bit of … Continue reading "Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design – interview with Geoff Engelstein and Isaac Shalev"
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