The salt air stung my eyes as I awoke, tied to the mast of an anachronistic sailing vessel. Five pirates, with about 7 eyes and 8 legs between them, stared back at me. “Please don’t kill me,” I begged them. “Haven’t I praised Libertalia enough?” “Yarr,” the oldest one said…
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Colonialism in board games has been a frequently touched-upon topic. Many mainstream hobby games like Puerto Rico and Catan have colonialist themes in varying levels of subtlety, and part of the progress towards a more open and inclusive tabletop community is excising these themes from future designs. While most discussions of…
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Monopoly is one of the fundamental pillars of American board gaming. It’s what every non-hobbyist thinks about when they’re asked to name a board game, and its enduring popularity (along with the difficulty of copyrighting a board game) has inspired a slew of imitators. But why is this? Furthermore, while…
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Welcome back to my 2-part article series about various methods to disguise the variance in your game to give your players an illusion of control. You can read part 1 here. There’s a very understandable revulsion to “being manipulated” that makes this subject a little strange to write about. After…
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About a year ago I went to Reno on vacation. While there, I took a look at some of the slot machines that were located in the casino-hotel where I was staying and in the airport as well. One thing I noticed that every modern slot machine had in common…
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This is not a game analysis. Game analyses cover both the positive and the negative an an effort to create a more holistic view of the game, and I have zero interest in writing anything negative about Sentinels of the Multiverse. This isn’t to say that Sentinels doesn’t have flaws – it has…
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As of now, I have not been lucky enough to experience demand for a game that pushes me to create an expansion. However, I’ve certainly played many games with expansions, and the idea of releasing expansions for successful games is universal enough that I decided to put effort into thinking…
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The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. – Albert Camus Games create a unique dynamic between the designer and the players. With most design, the designer and audience have aligned goals: For instance, with an app layout, the audience…
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Territory control games like Risk or Game of Thrones and take-that games like Red Dragon Inn face a common issue. At various times in the game, especially right at the start, all the players are roughly equal, barring starting powers and whatnot. But the game encourages you to be mean to people, whether it…
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This post was inspired by the game Glory to Rome, in particular its Colosseum card. When you play the Colosseum, you can steal some of your opponents’ “patrons” and throw them to the lions for points. It’s a crushing play and one that will frequently win the game for the player who…