Today’s article is going to be a little different from previous weeks. The reason for this is, for the first time ever I am going to be talking about the design process of Vitae Quest, which is my first serious board game design, and my current primary design focus. Because this game is still in…
Read MoreCounters and Removal: The Importance of Interactivity
Several weeks back I began a series in which I dissected and comparing Magic: The Gathering sets, with an emphasis on drafting. In the first part I take a broad overview of the sets and set up the foundation for the rest of the series. In Part 2 I take a closer look at linear…
Read MoreGame Design in Real Life: Lessons from a Disney Vacation
I believe that, at it’s core, game design is about creating an experience. Many of the principles of game design – pacing the experience, creating an atmosphere, and drawing out emotion and suspense – can also be found in numerous places in the real world. In the same way, I believe that there is a…
Read MoreHut, Hut, Hike! Tackling the Quarterbacking Issue in Cooperative Games
Hey y’all! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to write an original article for this blog, but I am finally back. I really enjoyed my wedding and my honeymoon, but I also really missed writing for you guys. Luckily, I am back in the swing of things so you can expect new…
Read MoreHunting Whales: The Problem with “Free-to-play” Games
Hey everybody! I am currently enjoying my honeymoon, which means no new article this week. Instead, I hope you can enjoy this article from a few months ago. While I would probably have done a few things differently if I wrote it today, I have reposted it here in its unedited form for your consideration.…
Read MoreLinear? I Hardly Knew Her!
An Important Announcement Before I begin today’s article, I just want to say that I will not be posting any new articles for the next two weeks, because I am getting married! Next week is my wedding, and the week after that is my honeymoon. After that, I will continue to post every Thursday as…
Read MoreDesigning The Ultimate Draft: Part 1
In today’s article, I am going to be examining card drafting, and how to design a set to draft well. Normally I try to make my articles applicable to as many different games as possible, but today I am going to try something a bit different. Today I am going to be focusing entirely on…
Read MoreA Re-Source of Pride: Designing Resource Systems in Collectible Games
Last week I started a new series of articles diving deep into various topics dealing with game design. Today’s topic continues this series with a look at designing resource systems. This article will be mostly focused on collectible games, especially trading card games. In this article I will be looking at why to include a…
Read MoreDigging Deep with Power Creep
This Time For Real! A few weeks back, I wrote a pair of articles where I gave my thoughts on the basic game design of Yu-Gi-Oh, which you can find here (part 1 and part 2). I originally wrote those articles with the intention of providing a comprehensive look at the positive and negative aspects…
Read MoreDeep Dive: Is Yu-Gi-Oh a Bad Game? Part 2
Last week I started talking about the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading card game, in order to figure out why it has grown and changed the way it has. Since it’s creation, Yu-Gi-Oh has steadily become more and more convoluted, difficult to learn, and less user-friendly. In this series, I hoped to uncover why this has happened –…
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