There are two (and sometimes three) ways that games tell stories. There’s the theme, which is the conceptual framework given to us by the game to understand it and give us motivation. For example, in my game Get Bit!, you’re told that you are swimming away from a voracious shark. This gives you the prime […]
Negotiation and Wacky Futures
Nearly every multi-player game has some aspect of negotiation, whether overt or implied. Many games boil down to “attack the leader” which is a form of negotiation. You give up something- your turn- to gain something in return. This is the essence of negotiating. However, some people object to these kinds of negotiations, and in […]
Fantasy! Adventure! Boardgames!
It’s one of the most frequent requests, debates, and lists on Boardgamegeek, behind “what can I get my girlfriend/wife to play?” It’s fantasy adventure boardgaming, and it’s coming to a shelf near you. Why is this so popular? Many, many people play or played D&D. Unfortunately, as we grow up and get out of college, […]
From Screen to Board: Translating Properties into Boardgames
Here’s a pretty solid rule of game design: any game you design in your dreams is likely to be crap. (That’s not to say you can’t get inspiration from dreams, but you’re unlikely to get a good game out of one you made up in a dream.) A friend of mine brought this up recently […]
The Case for Fourth Edition
Wizards of the Coast has gone and done it. They’ve announced that Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition will be released mid-year 2008. And I’m totally pumped. Marketing and digital stuff aside, looking through what the announcements are consisting of, it’s clear to me that Wizards is concerned about game design. And not just about fixing […]
A Compedium of Critical Threat Worthy Posts 8/10/7
Here’s a few articles that I’ve been reading over the past few weeks that I highly recommend for any of you in the field of thinking about games or even just those with an interest in games.
Who You Calling Heavy?
Over on Boardgamegeek, you’ll see plenty of references to weight. And I’m not talking about the size of the players. Games tend to be divided in a spectrum from Light to Heavy among the BGG ratings. Something like Coloretto, or the great Loopin’ Louie is in the light category. Light-Medium includes such favorites as Ticket […]
Hidden Trackable
As often happens, I found myself involved in a minor argument online. This is one of those arguments that can’t entirely chalked up to different tastes. “Hidden Trackable” refers to any element of the game that could be tracked by a player with a perfect memory (or pencil and paper) but is supposed to be […]
Boardgame Design (Graphically, Of Course)
With Origins out of the way, and none of us going to Comic-Con, we can get back to actually playing games and blogging. Of course, silly things like life are taking their toll on those two pursuits, but hopefully soon we’ll be back up and running at full force. One of those silly distractions has […]
Review: Tales of the Arabian Nights
Tales of the Arabian Nights (hereafter refered to just as Tales) was originally published in 1985 here in the US. It was reprinted recently in Germany as Geschichten aus 1001 Nacht. Tales is one of the most famous of the “paragraph games”. A paragraph game, essentially, is multi-player choose your own adventure. The similarities are […]
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