Free-range thoughts about design, writing, and play
I usually review books on my Goodreads account, but I’m kind of pleased with how this one turned out. So here are my thoughts on Nudge, a book I’ve been aware of for years but finally got a chance to read for myself. As it turned out, he said hoity-toitily, the timing was fortuitous.
When I wrote up last week’s list of great summer vacation games, I dug into the archives for a past review of Tokaido. Alas! There was none, which is an injustice to one of the better light games of the last few years. Let’s fix that now with a little trip down the Tokaido Road.
Summer is in full swing! It’s a great time for biking, hiking, and swimming in the pool. Here in San Marcos, it’s also 98 degrees on a cool day, so biking and hiking are sweaty affairs and there’s only so long you can spend in the pool before you get all wrinkly. With that in…
Last week I wrote about a game that uses mobile mechanics in some unexpected ways. But what happens when a more traditional game company brings its intellectual property into the mobile space?
My family and I saw Inside Out a few days ago we loved it. My 11-year-old daughter pronounced it the “best Pixar movie EVER!” for obvious reasons. Me? I laughed, I cried, and I wondered why game writing can’t be as good as a great family film. It’s not as if the bar is that high….
Our game group had a fun opportunity at yesterday’s meetup. We got to play Molecular, a new chemistry-themed game that will be launching on Kickstarter on June 28. So… did we form a strong chemical bond with it, or is it a little too free radical?
Paid apps are a tough sell. There are enough good free games being released every day to keep any gamer entertained, so how does a game like You Must Build a Boat beat the odds?
It should come as no surprise that my daughters love Minecraft. With over 60 million copies sold, it’s hard to find a kid who doesn’t. But I was a little surprised to see how just one “little” thing could make them love it even more.
When I reviewed Capitals a few days ago, I commented that it “may not be earning a lot of money for Nimblebit.” Looks like I was right, because yesterday’s update signals major changes in Nimblebit’s monetization strategy.
For a guy who doesn’t much care for MMOs or RTS games, I think about Blizzard a lot. Some of that is Diablo, which is one of my favorite games. Some of that is Hearthstone, which is the game I most wish I had designed. And most of it is my fascination with how Blizzard…