Subject: Do you surround yourself with interesting people?
Do you surround yourself with interesting people?
October 24th, 2023 at 12:13 pm BSTHello Friend, I love spending time with other game designers. The best way to spark my own creativity is to be surrounded by people who buzz with ideas of their own. Playing other people’s game in development or just talking and pondering concepts ...
How to choose which game to play
September 19th, 2023 at 8:57 am BSTHello Friend, I have a new system for choosing which game to play with the family… and I love it. Some of the games on the shelf hardly ever get played because if I ask the children to pick, they usually gravitate towards tried and tested favouri ...
You don't have to like parties to like party games
September 5th, 2023 at 10:03 am BSTHello Friend, I’ve noticed that ‘Party Games’ can have a ‘marmite effect’. People either love them or hate them… or they think they do. Some party games require players to be clever or funny, perhaps even with everyone watching. So, it’ ...
Managing Cheating
August 23rd, 2023 at 12:31 pm BSTHello Friend Cheating in games is widespread in many families… and it’s not always the children. Whether it’s a gentle nudge of an unlucky die or full on bank robbery, it should be addressed. So how can you reduce cheating and reinforce the ide ...
Using house rules to adapt the length of a game
August 3rd, 2023 at 5:33 pm BSTHello Friend, Regular readers will know that I love to create House Rules for games. You might want to create house rules to manipulate starting conditions, to level the playing field, to keep everyone involved in the game, to make gameplay slicker o ...
Playing Solo
July 19th, 2023 at 9:42 pm BSTHello Friend Do you ever play games by yourself? There is something of a solo board gaming revolution happening and there are far more options than there used to be. Your ultimate aim may be to play games with others, but other people are not alway ...
There's a Game for Everyone
July 6th, 2023 at 6:00 pm BSTHello Friend, I’m a true believer in the opinion that there is ‘a game for everyone’. Different people certainly have different ideas about what is fun… but everyone likes to have fun. Ok, there may be a grumpy old man somewhere, who’s on ...
Getting children to teach games
June 23rd, 2023 at 10:55 am BSTHello Friend, On my blog I posted about family games and complexity - which got a lot of feedback. I noted that a ‘family game’ is often one that has very very simple rules and hypothesised that this isn’t for the benefit of the children, but f ...
Board game mash up
June 8th, 2023 at 9:53 am BSTHello Friend, One of my favourite game design exercises is to mash games together… and it’s a great activity for kids too. Find a game that has an interesting board. Then choose a second game with an array of fun components. What happens when ...
If this was a game...
May 26th, 2023 at 7:23 am BSTHello Friend One of my favourite board game design inspirations is to look at something which isn’t a game and ask myself, “If this was a game, how would it work?” It might be a collection of interesting objects in a seemingly innocent config ...
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