After about a month’s worth of effort putting it together and a couple of serious revisions, Jason and Graydon were finally able to take Mr. Card Game for a test run yesterday at KoLCON 8. Reports from the table indicate that it was well received by the players. Not only did the game manage to [...]

Nottingham version 4.5 was tested by six (then seven) players this past weekend at Spielbany. Results were disastrous; without direction from the designer, the organization of the gameplay required to manage all the interdependency of cards and actors quickly broke down. After two hours, the board advanced four seasons, five gold and one outlaw captured [...]

A revised Nottingham was playtested at Enigma’s Maxicon XI this weekend. A full complement of seven players new to the design played a heavily modified version on Saturday afternoon in the upstairs guest room. With a simplified set of card effects, location based bonuses and a geographic component added to the game, the Usurpers successfully [...]

Marbles: The Brain Store has selected Castles as one of the three finalists for their inaugural game design contest.  In order to qualify, entries had to redesign one of the four classic games of Tic-Tac-Toe, Checkers, Connect 4 or Venetian Solitaire for a more cerebral audience.  Castles, co-designed by Brad Phillips and Richard James, is a variant [...]

The very first prototype for Nottingham was tested this past weekend at Spielbany. On both Saturday and Sunday, Nottingham fielded a full complement of seven players in the front game room. Responses varied, but a couple people played both times, everyone was excited about the theme and most people liked it. After some rules adjustments [...]

Cubic has been shortlisted for Concurs de creació de jocs 2011. Based upon the design document submitted in December, Cubic was selected to be one of the 40 games playtested during this year’s competition out of the161 entrants. Selection of finalists for the competition will be held in May with the winner(s) announced at jugarXjugar [...]

My former roommate and I are teaming up right now on a Black Swan game design. At the moment, it’s a(nother infamous Richard) card game that tries to parody the Survivalist mentality while simulating the collapse of global society as a consequence of the collective exploitation of Earth. I’m not exactly sure whether its supposed [...]

I think that Stones is my version of Mancala or Backgammon. It is a cafe game which requires a certain casual atmosphere and relies upon its tactility and portability. It could definitely work as a gambling game like Backgammon where people use the stones to represent real money, or as a quick multiperson activity for [...]

So, I’ve decided to rethink the game. I don’t have a new design yet, but I do have some thoughts. I have been thinking about the game more teleologically, asking myself what I want it to do… how I want it to feel… what kind of experience I’m looking to create. These questions have gotten [...]

Any type of strategy where you try to prevent other people from winning is going to fail in a multiplayer environment. It is far better to focus on winning yourself and let other players make the mistake of expending resources to deny another player resources. Of course, such a calculation when understood by all will [...]