Are You Designing for Users or Collectors?
A while back, my family gave me some Thor shampoo. I was thrilled at the prospect of Hemsworthy locks!
Milestones Along the Open Road
Despite the dust on this blog, a lot has been happening as I stumble towards the end of 2021. here are a couple of key milestones down and a couple still to come.
How Planet Narnia Changed My Game Designer Mind
This summer, I finally read Michael Ward’s 2008 book Planet Narnia, and it blew my mind. It completely changed my understanding of C.S. Lewis, but what I never expected is that it would also provide useful new tools for making games.
Games Played: Q4 2020
I’m hip-deep in my master’s thesis at the moment, but I still want to take a few minutes to write up last quarter’s games played while it’s still “last quarter”. Who says procrastination can’t also be productive?
Hades and My Favorite Game of 2020
I’ve played a bunch of good analog and digital games over the last year — Slay the Spire is particularly notable — but the last few weeks have been eaten by the critical darling of 2020: Hades. If you’ve paid any attention to critics’ best of the year lists, you’ve heard about Hades. Heck, this…
Games Played: 3 Quarters of Madness
At the current progression, the next Games Played update will be in a year. Since my goal is to understand my own play patterns, though, I hope it’ll be a little sooner than that. But are there even any patterns to understand?
Intrepid Layers of Design
Intrepid had me when the cover said “hello”. My first thought was, “a Gravity board game?” followed very closely by “IT MUST BE MINE!” Once I played the game, though, I found a lot more happening than a space station in peril.
How Slay the Spire Fixed Computer CCGs
So, it’s been a few months. Anything interesting happening in the world? I’ve been busy with some things, and one of them is marveling at Slay the Spire. Trading card games and deck builders are a big part of my gaming history. I played and sold them in the 1990s, drifted away from them in…
The Design Problem of Toxic Meritocracy
I’ve been reading some excellent books from the University of Minnesota Press lately, including Shira Chess’s Ready Player Two. But the standout for me has been Christopher Paul’s The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games. How can you not love a book that makes you question your entire skill set?
Games Played: Rest of 2019
School has been a mixed blessing for my ongoing project to play more of my board games. I’ve had more Professional Reasons to play than ever before… but also less time to write and reflect on games played. That said, let’s see how the back half of 2019 went. What did I play?