So, the things I learned over this two campaign process. The first pass at this was my first KS ever as a creator. It was a learning journey and I learned that it's not my strong point. Mostly because it requires a LOT of attention getting the word our and growing a crowd requires constant care and feeding. This means…
What is it In this Shop Talk I want to discuss Action / Movement Programming in games. Action / Movement Programming (or programming) is a core concept of games like RoboRally. The core idea is that all players select the actions or moves that you want to do, usually in secret. These actions or moves are then locked in. You…
What is Iconography In this Shop Talk we discuss iconography in board games. I was on one of my frequent business trips and I noticed that We have icons everywhere. Since my trip was to Japan, I also noticed that icons have this quality of universal expression without the need to know a particular language. This makes them perfect for…
Randomness in board games is a hallmark of Ameritrash games. Some Eurogamers won't play games with elements of randomness because it is believed that it makes sill useless. If implemented poorly, they are correct. So what is it an how does it work? Randomness in board games introduces an element of chance that we potentially see in the real world…
Shop Talk Movement Patterns for board games. In this Shop Talk I want to talk about Movement Patterns in board games. In all games where the pieces move from one point to another to represent the piece actually traversing the space, there are some kind of movement rules. The play surface is used in a way to represent that movement. I've…
Current Definition Area Control is currently defined on Board Game Geek as: "The Area Control mechanic typically awards control of an area to the player that has the majority of units or influence in that area. As such, it can be viewed as a sub-category of Auction/Bidding in that players can up their "bids" for specific areas through the placement…
The Plan They say that lesson learned hard are lessons learned best. When anyone goes into a new endeavor whether it’s creative, a new business, or anything else, they never go into it with the intention to fail. They may expect it and may even keep chanting the mantra “Fail fast fail early” but they never intend to actually fail. …
I’ve been working on a pirate themed game that uses probability to determine damage inflicted by cannons. When it came to dice I wanted to know if re-rolling or rolling more was more preferable. Now before you just say Ameritrash and discount the inclusion of skill let me set the context. In this case it’s a game about the Golden…
One of the things I've noticed is that many of us tend to start down a career path, or even a role in a career and fall into a groove. This has been mentioned so many times that it's a cliche now. 'In a rut'. Recently though, I realized that I can reset many things in my life. I can…
It's clear that the world is moving to online commerce. I'm not suggesting we should abandon the Friendly Local Game stores (FLGS) because after all you can't play the games on Amazon but you may be planning to sell on Amazon. That being said, it can be hard to get your games into the FLGS. They buy from distributors. They…