Game Designer Wannabe

So today marks two weeks since my meeting with the (hopefully) publisher of Battle Stations. Now if you go back and read it, you will note that I was told to expect an answer in a "couple of weeks". Any rational human being would realize that this did not mean exactly 14 days. Sadly, I am not a rational human being. Therefore, I have begun nervously fretting while I await a response.

I posted that I was optimistic about my chances after the meeting. This was true. However, I am, as noted previously and as can be verified by anyone who knows me, quite neurotic. In accordance with that, my mood has shifted from optimism to anxiousness and will soon be making stops at fear, dread, anguish, dissappointment, and depression. Join me for this wonderful ride, won't you?

So what to do in the meantime? It has been suggested to me that I start preparing to alter my design to remove elements of this particular license from it. I could convert it to another license that is owned by another company I can approach. I could convert it to generic science-fiction. I could even convert it to a generic pirate theme (the mechanics are really flexible that way). These are all sensible ideas. I am silly enough to think that beginning such a backup plan will ensure my failure with the current company, for reasons that defy all logic.

I will eventually do the conversion when the inevitable rejection occurs. But I can't bring myself to do it just yet. So, any suggestions for how to prevent myself from scratching up the walls of the padded room to which I shall soon be conveyed in restrictive garments?

 Categories: Battle Stations, publisher, submission

With my playtesting series I saw a spike in people visiting the site and I would like to take this opportunity to learn something about who reads this. It is towards that end that I have set up a Frappr group for readers of this blog. Join so I can better get to know you!

 Categories: Black Market, playtest, Playtesting Series

I will attempt to try to organize my beliefs about playtesting in a chronological order over a series of posts. That will be more useful as a reference for when you run your own playtests. If you do use it, just remember that you are taking advice from someone who has never been published. Kids, don’t try this at home.

Part 1 - Create a Playtest Team
Part 2 - Organize a Playtest Session
Part 3 - Introduce the Game
Part 4 - Play the Game
Part 5 - Get Feedback
Part 6 - Make Changes

Something else to keep in mind during playtesting: know when to shut the hell up. As I’m sure many people will tell you, I have a fondness for . . . debate. Though I try my best not to do this, I sometimes become so sure that my design is correct that during feedback sessions I substitute explaining why I’m right for listening to learn if I am wrong. I have heard countless stories from friends who have playtested various CCGs and board games about their exasperation with trying to get a designer to admit that there is a problem that requires a fix. This is especially true with the biggest problems that are in dire need of action.

I’m not saying that your testers will always be right. Remember that their evaluations will always be from their own limited perspective. You would be surprised at how often I can predict someone’s response based on whether they won or lost and how much they lost by. Those evaluations should be part of a formula for assessing the problem.

Design flaws have two elements: magnitude and probability of occurrence. As the magnitude of the problem rises, the less probability is required for action to become an imperative. If a flaw would completely and utterly break a game, it has to be dealt with even if it happens only one time in a thousand. On the other hand, if a problem is going to show up at least once a game, it doesn’t have to have a large impact to deserve attention.

Use individual testers to measure the magnitude. Use your own observations over the course of many tests to determine the probability. There are also times when a complaint is not really a complaint. The question is whether if the complained-about event had been the deciding factor in the game, would the beneficiary feel as if he or she had gained a hollow victory or would the victim of the flaw feel cheated. Those are the red flags to look for with complaints: hollow victory and being cheated. If those words ever come up use a highlighter on your notes and then tattoo a reminder to your forearm.

You may be tempted to think that problems will occur so infrequently that the magnitude is unimportant. But think of it this way: if you were taking a 45-minute to an hour-long demo of a game at a convention and that problem occurred, wasting the time you invested in playing that game, would you still buy it just because the guy at the booth said, “I swear, that almost never happens.” There are far too many games waiting a few feet away in the next booth, games that people have heard of on Board Game Geek or from their friends and have been told are good. Why should they take a chance on some new one from a completely unknown designer when the one time they tried it the game fell apart?

This is a tough thing to be sure about. I believe you should err on the side of caution. If the game feels too bland or fiddly later, you can always change it back.

 Categories: playtest, Playtesting Series

I will attempt to try to organize my beliefs about playtesting in a chronological order over a series of posts. That will be more useful as a reference for when you run your own playtests. If you do use it, just remember that you are taking advice from someone who has never been published. Kids, don’t try this at home.

Part 1 - Create a Playtest Team
Part 2 - Organize a Playtest Session
Part 3 - Introduce the Game
Part 4 - Play the Game
Part 5 - Get Feedback
Part 6 - Make Changes

When Norm told me that the reason I was so surprised by what occurred during the Z-Man playtest of Black Market might be that in all my previous testing I had myself been playing the game, it was like a light went off in my head. I asked if I should just not allow myself to play any of my games, Andy said that that would be an equally monumental mistake.

The key is balance. As a designer, I need to remember that I look at my designs with a certain set of assumptions about how players will behave. While those assumptions are true more often than not (I use my talent for economics quite a bit when creating mechanics, something that has proven invaluable), when they are wrong the results will be as disastrous as what happened on Saturday. By playing in all of the playtests myself, I was influencing my testers who all assumed that I knew “the best” way to play my own games. In essence, I was playing against several copies of myself. So I can’t participate in every test.

However, never playing myself is not an option, as Andy pointed out. There are events that happen to players while playing games of which I need to be personally aware. As a CCG playtester there is a term that gets thrown around when cards have a particularly large effect on an opponent: negative play experience. NPEs are where some event during a game creates such a negative emotional impact on a player that it overshadows the rest of the game experience. The emotions could be frustration at being unable to execute a particular strategy (or any at all in the case of infinite loops), annoyance at a luck factor (hence the terms “dice screw” or “mana/color screw”), or anger at another player for his or her seemingly unwarranted aggression or poor play that benefited a third party. As the designer it is important for me to experience these NPEs so that I can accurately assess their importance and determine a course of action to prevent them if I deem it necessary.

Whether or not you yourself are playing, always take notes. Make sure to record who is playing, what version you are on (which should later be combined with version notes for your game that track changes), and how long the game takes. That is the essential raw data, but there is much more you need to keep track of. Pay attention to non-verbal audio cues. Yelling, cheers, groans, and ponderous “hmmm”s should be noted with a short analysis of the player’s probable mood and what was special about the game state. Table talk need not be recreated word for word, but the subject of discussions concerning the game and strategy should be recorded. If players spend a non-trivial amount of time discussing what’s on television, or what movie they saw, or their plans for later that week, it is a sign that the game is not engaging enough or has too much downtime for the non-active players. Mark down the percentage of time these ancillary conversations take up. Players who seem disinterested should be watched for changes in mental involvement and the results taken down.

If players become anxious at someone else’s slow play, start recording the amount of time used by each player for each turn or phase. You don’t need to be precise, 30-second or 1-minute increments will do. Rules questions are almost inevitable during any playtest (indeed, most published games will end up causing numerous rules questions when played). Do not just answer these questions. Write down the question and the exact wording of your answer. If there are follow-ups, do not leave those out.

If you are playing yourself, taking notes will be much more difficult. Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to play because you need to test the game with N+1 players. When playing you will be far less naturally aware of the other players and their moods. Make an effort to stay aware, even to the detriment of your own result. Remember that you are not in this to win. Don’t lose on purpose if you can help it, as that will pollute the sample. But remember that winning is not your primary concern at the moment.

When you do play, try not to bog down the game with your note taking. Restrict it to when you are in personal downtime. Wait until after the game to record your own thoughts, because those are more memorable.

When the game is over, record the length of the game, both in terms of time and rounds/turns. Include the final scores, as they can help you decide on whether rubber-band mechanics (rules that have the effect of helping those who are in last place or at least far from first place) are necessary. If there were wild swings in player positions, add intermediate scores as well as a quick notation on any specific causes (events, luck, mechanics, and/or diplomacy) of those swings.

 Categories: playtest, Playtesting Series

I will attempt to try to organize my beliefs about playtesting in a chronological order over a series of posts. That will be more useful as a reference for when you run your own playtests. If you do use it, just remember that you are taking advice from someone who has never been published. Kids, don’t try this at home.

Part 1 - Create a Playtest Team
Part 2 - Organize a Playtest Session
Part 3 - Introduce the Game
Part 4 - Play the Game
Part 5 - Get Feedback
Part 6 - Make Changes

This will be different depending on whether this is the first time all (or some) of your testers have tried this game; even if they have, there is also the consideration of how much it has changed since they last saw it.

Let’s assume for the moment that this is a completely new prototype. You want to begin with the “hook” of the game. Specifically, what is the theme of the game, and how is that theme represented in the broadest strokes by the players’ actions.

In addition, it is helpful to tell them up front what the goal of the game is, as everything else should be thought of in relationship to that goal. If you wait until the very end to tell them what the goal is, then they will then have to go back in their minds and try to fit the steps previously described with the goal. This will usually prompt a series of questions that basically has you reviewing everything you said up to that point. Save yourself the hassle and present the goal up front.

An example is in order. Here’s the way I plan on introducing one of my designs that is currently in preliminary prototype construction:

“Theme Park: (my prototype titles are always unimaginative, I figure I’ll let the publisher come up with one)
In this game you are all trying to create the most successful section of a theme park. You will do this by building rides and amenities represented by structure cards and try to attract customers represented by visitor cards. The first person to simultaneously have five customers in their section of the park wins.”

At this point take a moment to gague the response of the players. Remember, this is almost all that most people who consider the game will ever know before deciding whether to move on or take a closer look. The best of games can live or die by the hook. One publisher’s submissions guidelines that I have gone through specifically asks you for the hook of your game. Another asks you to begin by sending them only your concept and the rawest of logistical information. Companies know how important the hook is. Be sure to refine yours during the development process.

Following the hook I like to ask a series of rhetorical questions in anticipation of what my testers want or need to know at that stage. Usually it launches from the specific way that the goal is achieved.

“How do you attract customers to your section of the park?
Each customer has both requirements, along the right side of the card, and preferences, listed by number in the middle of the card. The vertical title on the left just tells you who they are. Each turn a die is rolled and the customers will attempt to go to the nearest structure that matches the preference indicated by the die.”

I feel that at this point, and not before, it is finally time to describe the game’s initial conditions and the turn structure.

“You each start with $50 and four structure cards. On your turn, you first flip over . . . and then it goes to the next player clockwise.”

Then you go over special conditions.

“Now, if you have a Roller Coaster structure at the beginning of your turn, you get to . . .”

You then finish by reminding them of the goal and asking if there are any questions. If someone looks as if they’re thinking about something but doesn’t speak up, prompt them gently. Most of the questions at this point will be reminders about the order of actions or how certain situations are resolved, but also be prepared for strategy questions.

Handling strategy questions at this point is difficult. You don’t want to spoon-feed strategies to your testers, because if you do then they’ll assume you know what you are talking about and do exactly that and you won’t have gotten any real testing. Respond to strategy questions with a range of alternatives and their potential implications in both the short-and-long-term. If you did your job right as a designer, there shouldn’t be any single “right” or “best” answer to a strategy question anyway.

“So, is it best in the early game to build the structures you have in hand or to research for new structures?
Well, researching new structures will allow you to see what preferences the customers have before committing money to potentially unwanted rides. However, having a ride or two out before anyone else will guarantee that you won’t lose customers just because they are too far away from you and will give you the money to research and build more and better structures later. Of course, building early might mean that your rides overlap with your neighbors in the kinds of customers they attract, so you might just want to hold back altogether to ensure that you can have a monopoly on certain types of rides.”

Now, if some of your testers, but not all, have played a previous version, this is when you want to go back and highlight the differences between the versions. This is critical. Far too often have I had testers complain in the middle of a game that I hadn’t told them that I’d changed a certain rule which will now screw them over. Of course, I did mention the new rule, but they were not paying attention because they assumed it was the same and zoned out while I explained the entire game to the new players. You must make sure to address the changes seperately and directly to the experienced playtesters.

If all of your testers have played a previous version, then start by asking if anyone needs a refresher and then proceed with the changes.

Now you’re ready to test.

 Categories: playtest, Playtesting Series, Theme Park

I will attempt to try to organize my beliefs about playtesting in a chronological order over a series of posts. That will be more useful as a reference for when you run your own playtests. If you do use it, just remember that you are taking advice from someone who has never been published. Kids, don’t try this at home.

Part 1 - Create a Playtest Team
Part 2 - Organize a Playtest Session
Part 3 - Introduce the Game
Part 4 - Play the Game
Part 5 - Get Feedback
Part 6 - Make Changes

The first step is deciding which prototype you want to test. This will affect how many and which of your testers you should invite. Some people are just more attuned to certain themes and mechanics than others. Eventually you want a broad range of testers, but be aware of who you are inviting and why. You also want to be careful about numbers because you don't want to invite two testers for a prototype that requires four. And you don't want to invite six testers if you're looking to get a reading on how your game plays with only two players. After you choose your prototype, then decide what your testing goals are with respect to numbers, skill level, and depth of testing.

Your schedule will then be dictated by the invitee that you want who is least available. Work backwards from that person until you reach a day/time that everyone is available. It is best to choose days when people don't have must-leave times. Even if you think a test will only take two hours, that doesn't take into account lateness, rules questions, restarts, slow play, etc. It is also best if everyone arrives at the same time. If someone is going to be late, it means you'll need to re-read the rules when they arrive, creating downtime for everyone else.

Have a plan in mind for food. Whether your location is within walking distance from fast food, you plan on ordering pizza, or you have snacks on hand, you need a way to satisfy random hunger, even for a short gaming session. You also want to create the proper atmosphere. The fewer distractions, the better. Good gaming tables are clean and smooth, usually plastic or wood. When playing with cards, a surface where they can slide smoothly can prevent the aggravation of trying to pry them up with fingernails off.

 Categories: playtest, Playtesting Series

I will attempt to try to organize my beliefs about playtesting in a chronological order over a series of posts. That will be more useful as a reference for when you run your own playtests. If you do use it, just remember that you are taking advice from someone who has never been published. Kids, don’t try this at home.

Part 1 - Create a Playtest Team
Part 2 - Organize a Playtest Session
Part 3 - Introduce the Game
Part 4 - Play the Game
Part 5 - Get Feedback
Part 6 - Make Changes

One of the side benefits of attending Dreamation is turning out to be playtesting. Specifically, in addition to adding Matt and Joy as playtesters, a couple of guys I hadn't known previously but met and played with at the convention turned out to be living in my area. When one of them found out that I was a game designer he asked for my blog's address and e-mailed me letting me know he and his friend would be happy to join my playtest team.

This is good because before the convention I had two very distinct groups. My local and primary group was unfortunately non-gamers as I use the term. They play Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, and occasionally a board game, but none of them have ever been to a convention and if I talked about Board Game Geek or Tigris and Euphrates their eyes would go deer-in-the-headlights.

My other groups is definitely far more experienced with respect to games, but it is smaller and they all live quite far away from me, meaning I usually have to drive to them and spur-of-the-moment tests are quite out of the question.

It is a good thing that I have groups of different skill and experience levels, but I wish I could meet with my gamer group more often.

Finding good playtesters is difficult. From my (continuing) time as a CCG playtester, I know that it can be a tedious process. Testing a game can suck all of the fun out of actually playing. Finding people who are willing to deal with the testing process requires diligence, screening, and luck. It is not just willingness that testers need, they also need the ability to quickly learn to rules that can (and will) change mid-game. They need the ability to deal with losing because of poorly designed mechanics. They need to understand that you have a goal that is not necessarily their immediate enjoyment.

And of course they need to be reliable. Having a scheduled playtest session fall apart because a couple of people fail to show up not only wastes the opportunity to test that day, but it makes it far less likely that those who did show up will agree to set aside their day for you next time. Everyone has emergencies, but some people are just flakes. You need to make sure that a successful playtest does not depend on the flakes' presence.

I have some unfortunate experience with this. When I became a CCG playtester, I had to assemble a team of satellites for me to test with. There was one particular person who lived near me that I wanted to join my team. I had to hound him for weeks to get the signed non-disclosure agreement. When he finally showed up to sign it, I told him that I needed reliability from my team members and that if he was going to be as hard to reach and fail to show up to playtests that I would rather not have him at all. He assured me that radical recent events had prevented him from meeting me at designated times and from returning my numerous phone calls.

Well, he was my friend so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I gave him the NDA to sign and never saw him again. I’m sure he thought he meant it when he said he’d be reliable. All flakes do.

Don’t assume your friends will all be good testers. Even if they say yes, it might be just because of a feeling of personal obligation as opposed to actual interest. Uninterested playtesters can be a hindrance. On the other hand, interested playtesters are worth their weight in gold. Well, not gold. How about foamcore board?

 Categories: playtest, Playtesting Series

10:26am
At 11 I'm gonna play in the B-Movie championship round. Later on I'm gonna try out Shadows Over Camelot. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to play Louis XIV because I was busy for more of yesterday than I thought, but otherwise it has been a good convention.

11:03am
I met up with Matt and Joy Hull and talked to them a bit about Decipher (they're also former LotR TCG players). I saw them yesterday but was busy and we didn't really get to talk. I invited them to join one of my playtests since they live near me. It's time for the B-Movie finals. We're playing the Bell-Bottomed Badassses version. The title of the movie is "Cool Mack Dawg Hittin' Mama with a Rock".

I got screwed by my opening hand. Two characters, one of which will discard the other at the end of my turn. 5ux0r.

11:27am
Final Scores:
Michael Keller 7
Nicholas Stember 16
Benjamin Kaplan -5

Game ended on the third round. Annoying. Now I have nothing to do for three-and-a-half hours. Turns out the winner also got a seat at Nationals and a free con badge for DexCon. That badge would have been nice, saved myself $50. Frankly, I might not even go to it at this point just because the expenses at that time of year pile up.

1:00pm
Matt and I played a couple games of Programmer. Then he and Joy had to head out. No one else has signed up for Shadows Over Camelot yet, so I might just play in some other earlier game.

1:39pm
I'm just gonna wait for Shadows and if it doesn't get run, oh well. When Matt and I played Programmer, I tried incorporating a couple of suggestions from yesterday. The first game your code cards only affected you and all players on the same track, while logic gates affected everyone. However, in a two-player game, after the initial couple of turns, I managed to stay off his track on his turn so that I sat on a +2 and just got free points. I don't want the free-for-all that was yesterday with 5 players making it impossible to track the effects of moving everyone, but I don't want interaction to dissappear with 2-3 players either. For the second game I just decided the code cards should affect the active player and any one player of his choice. I think this will ensure interaction while preventing some of the analysis paralysis seen yesterday. Especially when it was Andy's turn I could see the other players start to fidget and lose concentration, because he actually plotted out all the possibilities. I also shrunk the size of the program and made it so that you have to play code cards in sequence, with the order returning to the beginning when the last empty spot is reached.

I still need to decide on the specifics of the changes to Black Market. Even though Zev wasn't interested in it, Andy and Norm both said they preferred Black Market and all I should really do is tweak the mathematics and it will come together. I am tempted to add additional complexity, something like you can use two body parts and one drugs to create a zombie or some other silliness like that, but I'll wait for the math changes to be tested before ramping the game up.

This week I'm gonna be busy with school-related stuff. Next weekend I've been invited to a gaming night. I have to find a weekend before PrezCon to set aside for implementing and testing these changes. Not to mention trying to write rulebooks for these new versions.

2:54pm
I approached the guys at Slugfest earlier, but they told me they already had several in-house projects waiting in line. I went to watch a game of Pirate's Cove while waiting for Shadows to begin or not. I like the interations in Pirate's Cove. It has a nice mix of building (collecting treasure and upgrading your ship) and conflict (battles). I don't like the actual battle mechanic, it appears to allow wild swings in game position based on luck alone. However, it does inspire a good conflict of different strategies for upgrading your ship. I also like that battles occur not just as the result of a choice to screw a particular opponent, but as a result of natural competition for resources (the plunder cards). I like to think of this as the "hallway effect". When two people are walking down a hall towards the same room, they both want to avoid contact as it will surely slow them down, but it is unavoidable as long as one does not allow the other person to reach the room first and gain the spoils.

This type of interaction avoids "early-leader syndrome", as it is not always possible to target the person who is in front. Of course, that might itself be a problem, "runaway leader / slippery slope". I like the destination wheels as a physical component. They look sort of fun to play with. I wonder how much the Pirate Ship really affects the game. It seems kind of trivial to wait a turn when you know for a fact that the Pirate will be off to the next island in the sequence by then. Maybe if the Pirate had a random location it would make your choice of island order less pre-determined. You wouldn't want to let him always occupy a single island just because it came up, but there could be a mechanism for changing probabilities. Perhap if there was a bag with tiles depicting each of the islands, with like 5 of each island in the bag. When a tile is removed randomly to select the Pirate Ship's destination, it stays out of the bag, making it that less likely to return. This would tend to balance out the Pirate Ship's destinations without it being completely predictable. It would add a bit of "player vs. the board" to a competitive game, which can add some fun.

5:06pm
No one else showed up for Shadows, but some of the GMs were nice enough to teach me the game and play a couple of rounds. It is not as complex as it seems at first. However, I can see how particularly bad shuffles of the evil deck could make the game unwinnable, even with no traitor.

10:06am
I arrive just as a RoboRally game is starting. I'll play this while waiting for Andy's call.

Michelle Martin 6th
Bob Murphy 4th
Herman Jurist 5th
Robert Martin 3rd
Jennifer Howland 1st
Michael Keller 2nd

We're playing the old copy of the game. These pewter pieces are a million times cooler than the cheap plastic ones from the copy I bought at GenCon 2005. I'm playing my favorite character, Twitch, a.k.a. Johnny 5. It seeems there are also rules differrences between the old and the new versions. I like the rules for the new one more.

I immediately met Zev afterwards and while waiting for Andy we're testing someone else's game submission. It's okay, but we spot at least one game-breaking mechanic.

3:43pm
We finished that playtest, had lunch, now it is time to test Programmer. I also want to show Zev Black Market, so I'm gonna not play so there's only five of us and reduce the victory condition to 8 points.

4:22pm
Programmer is going well. Everyone learned it fast enough. Only a couple of confusions. Also, I forgot to remove some cards from the previous version that don't work in this version. That was embarassing.

They had alot of suggestions at the end. I am definitely going to implement a couple of them. Zev said he sees this as a filler game, but that right now it requires too much thinking for a filler game.

5:01pm
They've started playing Black Market.

7:33pm
Okay, Black Market did not go well. They all overbid early in the game, were losing money left and right because the price wasn't going up fast enough and went down too fast when anything did get sold. It appears I sorely overestimated the strength of the market rules I came up with. One of the playtesters, Norm, suggested a possible reason that this group overbid while my others didn't was that I wasn't playing this time. In my other groups when I played the other players might have taken their bidding cues from me. This time they were taking their bidding cues from the current market price, which is a terrible strategy as you are not likely to make much money if any. Also, they said the game moved way too slow for a filler game, which is what Zev felt this would also turn out to be. That was a bit of a dissapointment. I felt that this would be a more serious game. Not Die Macher serious, but not fluff either.

Some changes they suggested included selling the goods each turn as a single lot, increasing the odds at which plutonium appears, changing the bidding from secret to once-around, and lowering/altering the special abilities of the goods and not requiring three goods to use the ability, but just one or two. Andy also suggested changing the way accomplices work. Someone said that maybe when a robbery occurs, a player could discard a gun to get the proceeds of that robbery. Also, maybe brining an accomplice increases the total proceeds from the sale, so that the accomplice fee isn't such a big deal.

Some of their criticisms hurt alot. At times it felt like I was being personally attacked, even though I know that is not at all what they were doing. While I've gotten feedback from my two regular playtest groups, it never felt this rough. I do greatly value this feedback and will without a doubt incorporate their suggestions into my next version. But still, it did sting to hear such stark evaluations. It's something I'll have to get used to, I suppose. I should probably encourage my playtest groups to be more forthcoming about problems with my designs.

Zev had to leave at 6, and he said that he was more interested in Programmer than Black Market, unless I made major changes to it. I guess it is a good thing that he is at least somewhat interested in Programmer. And it was nice to not have to wait forever to get a response of some sort, like the three months it took Out of the Box to turn down Programmer and the at least two weeks it will be taking Deciper to decide on Battle Stations.

I showed Andy my unnamed moon colonization game. He liked alot of the concepts of it. He said he'd like to play it sometime. Right now he's off somewhere, but they're coming back later to play some games, maybe Reef Encounter. I talked some with one of the testers tonight, Paul Gerardi, who works for Zev. Turns out he was the very first level 3 judge for Magic: The Gathering.

9:08pm
We're in the middle of Caylus, 3rd round, which came out of nowhere to dominate the BGG scene for some reason.

10:09pm
The game seems alot better now that I kind of "get" the strategy. We're almost done, and I'm far in last. But I do understand the flow and I'm glad about that.

10:27pm
I decided to abuse the Favor victory point track and am now in third and the spread is only 7 points between first and last. I'm thinking about my moves now, but I still don't understand the massive hooplah.

11:24pm
Final Scores:
Emma Strowger 62
Norm Hill 61
Andrew Parks 67
Jeff Englestein 68
Michael Keller 69

I can't believe I won. Especially after I essentially wasted my first round and then didn't build a single wood, green, or blue building (and only one stone building) the entire game. Take that, Caylus!

12:55pm
Alright, home now. It was a good day. I'm grateful Andy got me that meeting with Zev, even if it didn't turn out the way I wanted. At the very least it will help me improve my games. I've also become conscious of the relative simplicity of my games. Perhaps I should add some sort of technology tree to Black Market. I plan to add one to the colonization game.

 Categories: Black Market, conventions, game designers, game ideas, Moon Colonization, playtest, Programmer, prototype, publisher, submission

I'm really more mentally fatigued than physically tired right now. Cons always take a toll on me. The one thing that recharges my brain's batteries at conventions is talking to friends. Unfortunately, no one I know has been there. The few people I tried to talk into going (including a couple of non-hardcore-gamer friends) were either busy or didn't want to go. It wouldn't be so bad if there was Internet access and I could check in online with some of them periodically. However, I essentially haven't spoken to anyone since Monday morning because I've been doing one thing or another. I know you can make friends at conventions. I think a big reason I like gaming is that it provides a structured method of interacting with people, especially ones you don't know. I've always had difficulty with that. However, talking to people at cons that you don't know at all outside of the events always results in shallow, unsatisfying conversations about what just happened in the game, what game each of you will be playing next, etc. At least with friends even the shallow conversations have the added signifigance of applying to someone you (theoretically) care about. That's it. I'm going to sleep now.

11:16am
Playing Amun-Re
after round 3
I did a 6 farmers + 1 free range + farmer bonus when the nile was a 4 plus my other provinces made 47 gold for that round, the next person made 40 with a bunch of farmers.
Then I bid 6 for chosen one, won it, used the three to build a pyramid completing a set. Everyone at the table said I made a really good move. However, when scoring was done, I had 6, with the other players at John Woods 6, Matt Kaminsky 14, Edward Balyka 19, and Kieth Bobash 24 (last guy fufilled a bunch of bonus card conditions). The GM says I'm in a good position to win because of my monetary advantage, but it doesn't feel like it. We're takng a short break before the new kingdom.

This game is amazingly fun and interesting. I like the stategies that I'm considering. This is soooooooo much better than any of my designs. I'm quite humbled. I guess I need to get more experience with euros to see the full range of stuff out there. Unfortunately, most of my convention time up to now has been spent playing ccg's. I will rectify that this summer. I might have to give up my judging duties for Star Trek. I'd rather not, but cons are incredibly long and yet still end too quickly.

1:05pm
Final Scores:
Kieth Bobash 45
Michael Keller 41
Eddie Balyke 40
Matt Kaminsky 38
John Woods 28

I didn't win, but I didn't get blown out of the water. It was a good game. Very glad I played. I spent a couple minutes talking with a couple of the other players, one of whom is a former 1e player. There is a Mario Kart session starting but I haven't eaten today and need some snacks and a respite before Louis XIV begins.

There is another Louis XIV tommorow so I think I'm gonna try Mystery of the Abbey.

2:00pm
So far there are three other people playing this game. Half of the players are girls, quite an unusual result for a con from my experience.

4:00pm
Final Scores:
Shadia Zaman 4 (made accusation)
Michael Keller 4
Camille Guidal 2
Kristina Evanouskas 0
John Woods -3

Playing B-Movie again, this time Cannibal Pygmies. The title is "Captive of the Bloody Cult Escapes to the City Tomb".

5:27pm
Final Scores:
Stephen Buonocore 5
Neal Steed 2
Timothy Burrall 6
Amy Farina 0
Brian Billisitz 0
Michael Keller 6 (won random tie breaker)

So I made the championship round on Sunday. Don't know if I'll actually play in it. I have a two hour break before either a paned with Eden Studios or Cosmic Encounter. Not sure which I want to do.

6:14pm
As much as I want to learn Cosmic Encounter, it runs parallel to two industry panels. I need to actually do what I came here to do: meet with publishers.

6:27pm
I talked to a couple of artists here. One of them was Jennifer Rogers, who did the art for two WARS cards, including Well-Concealed Charge, which was by far my favorite Shi card and a draft all-star. I'm gonna bring some hard sleeves back tommorow and buy a signed set of the two cards. I got her business card as well. Andy told me I should try to have a nice-looking prototypes as possible. Even though it shouldn't matter, he says it does. So I figure if I need to, for instance, strip the trek off of Battle Stations and come up with new ships/races for the prototype, I'll also need some conceptual art at the very least to give the publishers an idea of what the game might look like. I could just make basically very boring boxes with hit counters, but that could impact the "flavor" of the game and prevent their reps from getting into the game the way X and Y did.

9:10pm
Met with Alexander Jurkat. Talked a bit about sending him a submissions package. Played an Army of Darkness card game. The game seems deeply flawed. For one, there is no guarantee that it will ever end. Second, the choices at any given point are extremely limited. Third, the game is based far too much on luck. Dice rolls are everything. There are modifiers, but whether you have them is based entirely on the luck of the draw. A lucky draw can also net you the Necronomicon early to end the game prematurely. Lastly, if you have met the victory conditions, there are a number of instants that can prevent the win, but having these is again entirely the luck of the draw. Having one of these played against you when you have actually worked towards setting up a win is frustrating. There is some minor strategy in setting up a good-evil conversion for the win, but that's about it. I guess you have to be a big fan of the series to enjoy this game.

I tried out Vanished Planet. I was worried at first because it resembled a space colonization game I have been developing. However, once the demoer took me into the meat of it, the similarities Vanished. The game is interesting. I like the goal cards. The completely collaborative effort leaves me wanting. Collaborative games can be good, but there should be SOME reason for at least one of the players to not always do what is best for the group. Otherwise you might as well be one person playing all the sides by yourself. It is the same reason Axis and Allies is a failure as a game for more than two people. Since there are two distinct sides and each member of each side never has a conflicting goal, playing with more than one person per side is a waste of time. The technology tree for the game was impressively laid out, with multiple layers of depth. For me, it seemed like there were too many different options in terms of locations, goals, events, resources, technologies, etc. And that is without the expansion rules.

I need to be consciously preventing "idea drift" from these games I am trying out. I don't want my games to be nothing more than a mish-mash of rules from better games. Mechanics will inevitably be used. Look at Twilight Imperium versus Puerto Rico. However, I need to remember to justify exery design as distinctly mine in some way.

There's a panel at 10 that's about innovations in gaming. That should be interesting and provide more opportunities for networking.

10:12pm
Not enough people showed up so the panel was cancelled. While waiting I "talked shop" with a couple of real designers. We were talking about collaborative boardgames and how to introduce an optional competitive element into them, specifically relating to a Zombie survival game that one was working on. It was quite an engaging conversation, brainstorming with other designers. There is a game of Arkham Horror at midnight but I'm burned out and will try to get to sleep early (relatively speaking).

I know these posts have deviated from my announced purpose of describing the process of becoming a game designer. I'm sure tommorow's will be more on point. I'll have an extended description of my meeting with Z-Man Games.

 Categories: Battle Stations, conventions, game designers, prototype, publisher, submission

Sorry about the delay in posting. I just crashed when I finally got home and then had computer problems today.

I arrived at the office at 9:20 am yesterday. I spot my contact, from here on known as X, and he ushers me into a conference room and goes to get another person, Y, at the company. I laid out my prototype and set up my laptop. When they come in, I gave X the signed submissions agreement I'd been e-mailed in advance. I asked them what they would like to know and was told to just say what I wanted. I had been hoping to start off with a question-and-answer session, so that I could gauge what concerns were biggest with them. Did they just want to hear the rules? Did they want to focus on the marketing aspects? Did they want information about my playtests with it? I took and breath and decided to just go through it all and try to watch for visual clues that I should expand on a topic.

I began by talking about how I was inspired to try to create this game. I felt that their current use of the license was incomplete and that when looking at how it was used in video games, it was clear that half of the property was currently being ignored in a way by their current product. I said that current attempts to do this type of game with the license were either unsatisfyingly simple or maddeningly complex.

I tried to gingerly mention the fact that their current product's attempt to incorporate this aspect came off as very shallow. This was a tricky area to tread because one of the original designers of that game was sitting across from me. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for this guy and I think the game they make is great. It is impossible to ignore this one weakness of it though. I'm certain I wasn't telling him anything he wasn't aware of.

Finally I mentioned what my design goals for the game were and began to list how the mechanics met those goals. I went through the basic concept of the game. Next I laid out the phases of the round. Then I explained how the order cards worked and that the order cards and special effect cards would be fixed with each ship. I showed them what all the numbers meant and how they were strategically important. I went through how firing of weapons was resolved and how the different numbers on the cards affected it. At this point X said they should play a game.

In the interest of not worrying about balance I gave them both a copy of the same ship. This would turn out to be a mistake. In the interest of time I also gave them the smallest (and hardest to hit) ship. This would turn out to be a bigger mistake. The reason the first decision was a mistake was that in worrying about making sure one of them was not overmatched and exposing a potential balancing issue I neglected to worry about a much more frightening possibility: boredom. An asymmetric battle, even if it was slightly unfair to one of them, would have showcased the possibilities with respect to diversity of play and expandability after the initial edition. The reason the second decision was a mistake was that in wanting to make sure the game would end fast by having a ship with a low threshold for damage I forgot that one of the ways I balanced the smaller ship was by making it hard to hit. These errors on my part would play out in their game.

Y insisted that his copy was a specific version of that ship from the franchise, as he refused to captain the other.

So the game began, and they immediately set about playing without a need for rules rehashing. At first I was surprised. Every time I teach someone the rules of a new game (mine or otherwise) they always forget the first part by the time we get to the end part. Then I realized that obviously they would be quicker to pick up on it; they did this sort of thing for a living and are accustomed to quickly processing and memorizing rules. I went around to their side of the table to watch them choose the order cards and make sure they understood what they were doing. They did need a reminder of what the special effect cards did, but other than that they were fine. After they chose their cards and revealed the first I realized that I had neglected to remind them of something that EVERYONE has forgotten the first time they played the game. I told them to check the costs of the cards to make sure that they did not exceed their respective limits. After looking at them for a few seconds X said, "I'm fine," and Y said, "I'm not even close," and laughed.

I was glad to hear that laugh even though it was in response to a mistake. It meant that Y was in a relatively lighthearted mood and not suffering from early-morning disconnectedness. So, they played out the first round and the only issue was they each used one card when they meant to use a similar card because I had not adequately reinforced the difference between them. They each just got the intended card when it came up and we moved on. I explained some of the special rules (healing, for example) when time came for them to be put to use.

I feel this is really the best way to teach a game. Start with a complete run through of the most important actions that must be taken, then add in the conditional actions when it is necessary to implement them.

Anyway, another good sign came when they crashed into each other. I explained what happened when ships rammed, and at that point they started making jokes during the course of the game in the form of stories. For example, Y said something like, "[character] is drunk at the wheel," when the ships collided. This continued during the game, with them relating the game state to the franchise's real storylines in humorous ways. I was extremely optimistic at this point, as games are first and foremost about having fun. Even if the humor was not directly created by the mechanics, it created a positive mood that likely tilted their mental evaluations of the game in my favor. The worst sign of a game evaluation is silence. I learned this while working as a volunteer at conventions and demoing games. I could always tell the likelihood of purchase before the demo was even halfway through. The mathematician in me would now say that purchase probability was a function of words spoken by the demoee during the game. Luckily he's not in control of my brain right

P(purchase) = f(w,t,ds,ms) = (k*words*(1/time)*((demoee's score) - (my score))+c)/100

Damn, spoke too soon. So, the game continued with almost no interference from me. In fact, I became conscious of the fact that I was awkwardly silent so I explained the possibilities for diversity in ship design that were not necessarily evident because their ships were identical. I specified ways that the game could implement different factions within the universe. I also came up with examples that could change the scale of the game from tactical to strategic with only minor special scenario rules. I even came up on the spot with a way to make it possible to play the game single-player, something that had unfortunately never occurred to me before that moment. I'm actually quite impressed that my design allowed for such a thing. Single-player games basically have to be designed that way and I've never found one with much replay value. I'm sure there are some out there, but they haven't come across my radar screen. My point in all of this was to show the possibilities that the core mechanics came with.

I also told some stories of playtest games that were particularly remarkable and talked about the diversity of my testers in taste, experience, and age and their overwhelmingly positive response to it. I emphasized that even those who hated the license and its genre still liked the game a lot.

At a certain point (just as I felt the game was coming to a head, unfortunately), Y said "Alright, we've got the idea." This was disheartening. You usually want to see a person finish a game. They'd played it for awhile, but if I'd chosen different ships it probably would have been closer to a natural finish. X was somewhat ahead at this point. So he claimed that Y wanted to quit because he was losing. At this point Y boasted that he would have made a stunning comeback that would have perpetually shamed X and have been known as "X's-folly". I perked up at that point. It showed that even though they didn't come to a natural finish, they had internalized some level of personal investment in the outcome. This may just have been a symptom of a friendly personal rivalry that manifests itself at any opportunity, but it's still a better sign than complete detachment from the outcome of the game.

At this point I talked more about the marketing of the game, focusing mostly on the miniatures market this time and contrasting it to the current crop of miniatures games by aligning them all along a spectrum of unit complexity and dropping my game at the upper, unoccupied end of that spectrum. I also pointed out the large number of board gamers who are venomously opposed to playing a CCG because of the perceived cost but are still willing to spend significant amounts on board games and how my design could be marketed to them.

Lastly I turned back to the future of my design and how easily I've been able to express the different eccentricities of the franchise with relatively few rules. For a bit they talked amongst themselves about how you could do this or that and pointed out to each other opportunities for design. I took this as the bright spot in the presentation. By engaging each other instead of just questioning me it meant that they were actually thinking about the game and not just getting ready to shove my unwanted ass out the back door.

We then spent a few minutes talking about other matters than my game. Things like trade shows and other designers they'd seen. It was a very casual conversation that made me feel quite comfortable. Finally we wrapped it up and they said that they would be discussing it with the other people at the company and that if I had any questions or needed anything from them I should feel free to call.

As I was leaving I asked what kind of time frame I should expect a response in, making sure to note that I was not in any rush, just that waiting was an excruciating process. X said he knew what I was talking about, and that I should expect an answer in a couple of weeks.

I figure that I'll wait until the second week of February before assuming that they don't care about it. At that point I will explore some suggestions of options that some friends of mine gave me for this design. In the meantime, I have other designs to show off to publishers at Dreamation and Prezcon in mid-February that I will spend time polishing.

I will be at Dreamation starting tomorrow. I don't know what time the halls open / tournaments begin, so I'll just try to show up around 10am and if they're still closed get some brunch. Hopefully the hotel it is being held in has wi-fi. If so, I will make periodic posts during the day.

 Categories: Battle Stations, prototype, publisher, submission

But I can't sleep nonetheless. After laying restless for half an hour I managed to get maybe half an hour's sleep before being awaken by a combination of adrenaline and a dry throat. Sadly, the only thing palatable from the vending machine was Dr. Pepper, so it looks like I'll be up for a little while. I'll take this opportunity to link to this interesting bit about texture.

When I read this I was surprised. I had just been thinking about changes that could give my games more kick. My designs tend to be on the antiseptic side, especially at first. This isn't completely awful, I tend to personally like games that are calculation-oriented. But I am in the minority, and for my testers the games would seem to drag on towards the end even when they were lasting under an hour. This was because the rounds tended to be quite robotic.

One of my games is Black Market. In it you are trying to acquire 3 rods of plutonium for the purpose of building a bomb and holding the world hostage. There is no board, really, it is just a simulation of market forces. You don't move pieces to different places or anything like that. In addition to buying the plutonium, you can buy guns, organs, and narcotics. These four are all generated according to a set of dice, and their market values change through a formula affected by the players' actions. Anyway, other than plutonium, which wins you the game when you acquire three, the other goods to purchase had no purpose whatsoever except as tools to make money. Buy low, sell high, and hope you don't get robbed. The game was pretty much done. I'd finally found a set of rules that made the market work well without bogging down the flow of the game with lots of crazy adjustments. However, it still needed that kick. So I decided to add special abilities to each of the other three goods. Now you can trade N number of good X to get effect Z. I haven't had a chance to test this yet, but I think it will definitely be an improvement.

Anyway, the article I linked laid out exactly what I was trying to achieve: texture.

I was talking to another designer tonight who is familiar with everyone involved about my meeting tomorrow and he asked me what I hoped to get out of it. I'll paste some of the conversation here, edited for privacy:

Designer Friend: what are you hoping to get out of this meeting?
GDW: well, my ultimate goal is them saying "Let's make it!"
Designer Friend: ok
Designer Friend: but I mean
GDW: failing that, them telling me to fix a, b, and c and resubmit it will do
Designer Friend: you are looking for a check cut
Designer Friend: or a portion of the amount sold
Designer Friend: a job
Designer Friend: ?
GDW: as I understand it, it's usually royalties in boad games
Designer Friend: hmm
GDW: *board
[PORTION DELETED]
GDW: I'd settle for either
Designer Friend: just be prepared to answer that question (what sort of compensation are you looking for)
Designer Friend: do you have a dollar value in mind?
GDW: but I;ve been told companies prefer royalties because it lessens the risk
GDW: hmm, no, I don't
GDW: I guess I should start thinking about that
Designer Friend: can you call andy and ask him how he handled it?
Designer Friend: even if it was royalty based, you should have a value in mind
GDW: i talked to andy parks earlier today, all of his board games have been royalties
GDW: a book I read said standard was 5% of msrp
Designer Friend: has he had a value in mind when going into the meeting?
GDW: but it's licensed so that might drop to 4 or 3
GDW: I haven't asked him that, I'll give him a call about it.
Designer Friend: that's another reason why they may go the purchase route

So I called Andy, and he talked me through it. I expressed that my main concern was not money, just getting published. However, I still needed to have a number ready. He suggested a number for both royalties and flat-fee that there is no way I should get less than it. It is more than I actually require. (Hell, I probably would take $1 if that's what it took to get published.) But I'll take his judgement.

There's also the issue of expansions. This is a very expansion-oriented design. I need to think about securing the right to design the expansions and whatnot.

This may all sound like putting the cart before the horse. Indeed, the reason it never occurred to me to think of money is that I didn't want to think about it before I knew they were interested. But if my friends who are published designers tell me I should be ready for the possibility, then I guess I should listen to them.

 Categories: Battle Stations, game designers, publisher, submission

Okay, so what is this trip about? Tommorow morning I will be presenting Battle Stations. This is a tactical-level space ship fighting game. The company I'm presenting to hasn't made a board game in years; they've been focused on CCGs. However, their license includes the rights to make a miniatures game. Battle Stations was designed to be that miniatures game. Players interact with the game in three ways. Primarily there is the board on which the ships maneuver. Players also have a ship card for each of their ships on which they track damage. It will be interesting to see if they actually end up getting back into publishing board games. As any frequenter of BGG knows, there is a non-trivial segment of the gaming population who refuse to play CCGs because of their cost. So I think it would actually be good for them to tap a new customer base.

I spoke to Andy again, let him know about my meeting. He was a fan of this company too, so he asked me to find out for him if they really are serious about publishing board games again.
In addition, we hashed out the details of the meeting I'm having with Z-Man Games at Dreamation. Andy has a game he's showing Zev, the owner, and then they're gonna meet me at the con. Andy got me the meeting with Zev, who he knows really well and who published both of Andy's first two games.

Andy, btw, is Andrew Parks. His games so far include Ideology: The War of Ideas, Camelot Legends, Parthenon: Rise of the Agean, and The Nightmare Before Christmas TCG. I met Andy back during his CCG-playing days. He ran tournaments that I attended and used to go to a chatroom for the game (#lotrtcg on SorceryNet). I became a regular at the chatroom and when I started going to conventions we became friends. One night he invited me to join a bunch of them for a game night.

At this point in my life I was playing nothing but CCGs. My knowledge of board games was limited to the obvious: Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Scrabble, Connect-4, etc. I kind of knew that there were other games out there, but I didn't bother to check them out because the ones I knew bored me to tears. The geekiest games I played were Chess (high school team), Axis and Allies, and Diplomacy.

So imagine my surprise to learn that we would be playing a couple of games that Andy himself made. These hadn't been released yet, but they were really well-done prototypes. It turned out that Ideology was in the final stages of playtesting and would be printed soon. I don't remember who I was that first game, but Doug Faust won it playing as Communism. (It would turn out to be one of the very few Ideology games I would ever lose. ::wink::) I immediately loved the game, and it was responsible for turning me on to the broader world of board gaming and especially eurogaming. Next we played Camelot. I was not a fan. I just felt like I was reaching around in the dark and didn't know what I was trying to find. That was probably just because it is the type of game where it helps to know what all the cards do in advance. I also have never been big on midieval stuff. Everyone else liked it, though. Camelot would go ont to outsell Ideology, to my chagrin.

The reason I'm recounting this is that I was astonished that someone I knew had invented a board game unlike any other I had heard of and it was going to be sold in stores. To me, board games were like the oblelisk: they were things whose existence were unkown and true purpose not explainable, people just used them and hoped for the best. It didn't cross my conscious mind that actual people, living nonetheless, went out and made them. That was the day the seed of desire to design was planted in my mind. To be continued . . .

 Categories: Battle Stations, design stories, game designers, publisher, submission

I'll be leaving for Virginia in a few minutes. In case I end up needing some gaming to relax me, does anyone know of a FLGS in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area that has open gaming tonight? A Mapquestable address or phone number would be greatly appreciated.

I feel the post below deserves a response here, because it raises a good point.

know_nothing said...

Interesting, but I think an electronic game, computer game, can still have it's value in the game and not in the graphics. The screen can be viewed as a means for distant people to be brought together to play. If you can translate the dynamics, the mechanics, the stratagies into electronic screens, a well designed game can still shine through the graphics. Actually, if it's a well designed game the graphics can be minimal and crude.

I agree that that CAN be the case. I can name dozens of electronic games that I thought have been brilliant. Most of these come from Nintendo (Pikmin, for example), who has consistently innovated in actual game mechanic design to their detriment in the American video game market. I feel that Americans have been responsible for the degradation in design. We refuse to buy the innovators. We're only interested in the latest FPS or this year's incrementally changed version of our favorite sports game. It's not EA's fault (evil as they are) that I find little joy in video games these days, it is our collective fault.

On Monday I'll be leaving for Virginia. Tuesday morning I have a meeting with a publisher there to show them Battle Stations. I have an "inside track" with this publisher, they know me for other things and I've met many of the people there at conventions. Knowing them is probably what got me the chance to show my game, but it is a double-edged sword. If they hadn't known me but liked my design it would speak very highly about my chances of getting published. As it is, they know almost nothing about the game yet, so there's every chance they'll end up laughing at me.

I'm really proud of this particular game. My testers have said that it is my best so far. If they reject it I will certainly take a solid hit to my confidence. This design was conceived in the first place with this company in mind, because they hold the license I want to attach to the game. If they decline, I can still create a new fiction to base it on. The game is good regardless of the license, but having it will make it so much more appealing on the shelves. Not to mention the magnitude of work necessary for creating an original science-fiction universe to paste onto the game is daunting in and of itself.

I want to be published on the strength of my work, but I can't help hoping that my relationship with the company will be to my benefit when it comes time for them to decide. I've been attempting this game design thing for over a year now, and I am someone who is easily discouraged.

Andy (who inspired me to try in the first place) told me that I really should not expect to be published so soon. He's been very helpful to me so far, and I greatly appreciate all the advice I've received. In addition, Andy has helped me to get a meeting with another publisher, the one that made his first game. That'll be next weekend at Dreamation 2006 in East Brunswick. I shall try to talk to some other publishers while I'm there, but my focus will be making a good presentation.

After my meeting Tuesday I have to drive straight home, which Mapquest puts at 6.5 hours but will likely take me 8 or 9 due to rest stops and traffic. I'd stay an extra night, but I have my first day of the semester on Wednesday.

I've borrowed my sister's laptop to use for the presentation. I'll make sure to post updates on the trip whenever there's a convenient hotspot.

 Categories: Battle Stations, game designers, publisher, submission

I've been told I'm pretty boring. I attempted to convince people it was a medical problem, but it turns out nothing bores people more than hearing about someone else's medical issues. So, I did what any responsible boring person would do: I created a blog.

The way I see it is thus: every piece of information about me holds an infinitecimal amount of interest for someone else, which can be described as 1iiu(international interest unit)/infinity. And, as all non-mathematicians will point out, infinity/infinity = x/x = 1. So, all I have to do is keep typing and I will at some theoretical point in the future (hint: Social Security will be a distant memory) have created 1 iiu.

I already have a website which I rarely update because I never have the time. So you can imagine just how long I expect this awful experiment to last. However, I wanted some easy way to catalogue my attempts to become a professional game designer, hence the title.

My primary focus is on board games, but I'm not totally against trying to make a computer game or a collectible card game. I just find those other ones to be far less interesting than designing a board game.

Video game design these days is more about your programming and artistic skills than actual game design (take a look at the endless stream of WW2 first-person shooters whose differences year to year are mostly cosmetic).

As for CCGs, I hate the idea of having to lock yourself into dealing with a set of mechanics for such a long time. Sure, the idea behind CCG expansions is that you add new mechanics, but the basic flow of the game has to remain stable or players will quickly be overwhelmed. As I've learned as a playtester/assistant unpaid designer for a particular CCG, it also becomes increasingly difficult to balance the game as the number of pieces grows.

Mostly, though, I just have too many ideas to be able to express in anything other than the board game medium. Literally all day long as I look at things I come up with ideas for games. For instance, if I'm driving to Blockbuster for some DVDs, I might think about a new kind of racing game, or one about city-building, or constructing a machine, or movies, or retail sales, or a game that employs a spinning disk or lasers or motors in some way. I would think about how to express drivers' actions and conflicting goals through mechanics, and how that might be applied to a game about single-celled lifeforms. You get the idea.

The vast, vast majority of these are immediately discarded from my mind. But the small percentage that manage to capture my attention get jotted down into a Notepad file on my computer for me to take a pass at them when I have the time. Currently that file has 43 ideas for games listed. The ideas might be a theme, or a combination of mechanics, or a mechanic that I think is completely original (but probably isn't, there are ALOT of games out there) and should be used in one of my other designs or maybe build a new one around it. A week hasn't gone by when the list hasn't grown.

It will be somewhat of a challenge to talk about this, as there is much about what I am doing that has to remain proprietary information. You can't copyright an idea, only the expression of that idea. So most of my ideas will remain unknown to you in any but the broadest of strokes. However, this will not be a blog about the games themselves, only about what it is like to be a Game Designer Wannabe.