I know I promised a continuation of last week’s article this week, but unfortunately I will have to postpone. I will also not have any article next week due to Thanksgiving, but should be able to resume regular posts the following week. Instead, I hope you enjoy this article from a few months ago about…
Read MorePutting the ‘C’ in ‘CCG’: Does Being Collectable Help or Hurt these Games?
Collectible card games are some of the most divisive types of games out there. There are those that love them dearly, and amass huge collections consisting of thousands of cards. On the other hand, there are those who refuse to touch them with a ten foot pole. While there are many reasons for this divide,…
Read MoreWelcome to The Galaxy! The Design of Vitae Quest Part 1
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 MoreOoh Shiny! The Power of Rarity in Collectible Card Games
Hey y’all, it’s Caleb from the future. Due to the fact that I am getting married in 2 days, I am not able to write a new article for this week. Instead, I have decided to re-post this article from a few months ago that not a lot of readers have seen. Next week I…
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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