Diary #57 – Plan A

Another monthly meetup, another dysfunctional prototype tested, another friend (Jim) gearing up for Kickstarter and, crucially, another successful playtest zone at Beachhead 2023 (click here). I wasn’t particularly creative this time, happy to just build on the good stuff from last year (click here). On arrival at the Bournemouth International Centre on Saturday morning we…

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Diary #56 – The Man who would be Euro

A bit of a theme has developed on this blog: eurogames. What are they? Am I making them? Should I be making them? On Tuesday nights at Entoyment I’ve been playing them a lot. Thanks to some excellent teaching I’m getting better at them too: quicker to grasp their economies; more able to plan ahead…

Diary #55 – Collaboration

“I may still be crazy but I’m no longer working alone”. I wrote those words on this blog a few years ago, but was I ever really working alone? Collaboration in game design is much more complex than simple co-design or designer-publisher relationships, and in an effort to understand it better I asked my friends…

Diary #54 – Chinese Takeaway

The missing link between Greek mythology and a Chinese takeaway has been found at last: it’s a game mechanic in which players shout things like “Special number 50” and “Move, 32” at each other. I’m going to attempt to tell the story of this (flawed) mechanic here. For those of you looking for a sense…

Diary #53 – Expo People

To understand this entry I’d recommend looking at my adventures during UKGE (UK Games Expo) 2021 by clicking here. For UKGE 2022, which finished today, I resolved to have a quieter and more relaxed experience. This was a good move and has done wonders for my motivation. My priority was to catch up with the…

Diary #52 – Someone Else’s Problem

Today I’m going to answer a question you may have been asking for nine months: what on earth has happened to Test of Time? Sadly, none of the publishers I met at UKGE followed up (click here). On my return home I searched through back issues of magazines (click here) for more likely targets to…

Diary #51 – Magpie

The art of designing a game about art when you are unable to produce said art. “It’s Codenames meets Dixit but it’s a dungeon crawler.” I was worried I would have to commit an act of sacrilege and chop up cards from existing games. Instead I used magazines with previews of published games in them.…

Diary #50 – What We Found on the Beach

Beachhead 2022: though battered by wind, waves and the pandemic this young convention was back at the Bournemouth International Centre over the weekend. It was organised by the team at Entoyment, a local “wargaming and hobby centre”, and on top of their usual miniatures games there were board games, nerd merchandise and cosplayers. I was…

Diary #49 – Seat of Power

Westminster. A gathering of game designers. My cousins hired a bike and pointed me in the direction of the Thames; getting there involved dodging Battersea Park’s go-kart riders, e-unicyclists and skiers (yes, seriously). I arrived at the pub within the 30 minute timeframe and prepared for some playtesting. This was the monthly meeting of the…

Diary #48 – Host with the Most

Here’s a picture of me in my new job: Front of House at a posh restaurant. The challenge is to make people feel welcome and ease them towards an enjoyable experience (I find the trick is to talk about the weather). I’ve come to realise that “hosting” has its place in tabletop gaming too. When…