Salutations from A Round Tuit

Hi, I'm Glen!
I'm a self-employed accounting student with way too much free time.

►What brings you here?

I took an interest in game design after play-testing and critiquing a friend's prototype. I didn't care much for his game (still don't), but it was a lot of fun discussing and tweaking the mechanics.

I had already been keeping a business/invention/design brainstorming journal for a while where I'd write down anything that made me go, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" or "That's a problem... Is there a way to solve it?", so I started brainstorming any zany game idea that would pop into my head. It didn't matter how ridiculous. That wasn't the point. I could worry about if it was viable after I had it on paper. More recently, I've been watching videos and listening to as many podcasts as I can about game design, publishing, and the industry in general.

My inclination in designing games at the moment is "Easy to learn, hard to master." I like games that can be explained (and understood) in a few minutes but still have strategic depth.

When I first got into gaming about 5 year ago, I wanted to play EVERYTHING. Heavy, light, whatever. But as time went on I found I couldn't be bothered to learn or play "complicated" games anymore. The learning curves presented by heavier games deterred me from even trying. Why spend an hour learning the rules to a game that I'm going to get frustrated at and feel like I have no idea what I'm doing when there are so many more accessible games at my finger tips? Where I used to not mind (or even welcome) the record keeping and busy-work of worker placement and resource management games, it now felt more like homework that was in the way of the game underneath that I really want to play. I have settled into the nest that is "gateway games".

►What games are you working on?
•I've got a real-time dice game that's ready to be play-tested. The working theme and title is "Truffle Scuffle - Pigs scrambling up a muddy hill to scrounge for truffles (victory points) at the top while the other pigs try to knock you back down." King of the hill, frenetic dice-chucker. There is dice-building involved as well (gearing yourself to be better at knocking people back down the hill, climbing the hill faster, etc) but I don't think it's very balanced yet. The main mechanic is similar to how you accumulate certain die faces in the Escape games.

•I also a time travel themed dice-builder (could be a deck-builder, for sake of cost) where you play as competing scientists trying to develop the most impressive tech... by using a small portal generator and stealing inventions/upgrades from your future self, thereby becoming the reason your future self had the invention in the first place (Don't think about it too hard). The more you can charge your portal before it overheats and collapses, the further into the future you can reach and the better the equipment you can snag. Opponents can try to destabilize your portal or concentrate on their own portal. In theory, your dice should "expire" when your past self eventually steals them from you.

•My current project is a abstract strategy/programmed movement game that plays like a mix of RoboRally and Bomberman (video game). It currently has a loose time travel theme... Players take turns playing movement/timed-bomb cards until someone gets hit. Upon dying, you respawn and get to start over, but a clone/previous timeline version of yourself spawns as well. The clone will mindlessly follow the sequence of movements and bombs that you inadvertently programmed for it in your last life. Each of your lives (after dying) will spawn a new clone that will mimic your last turn and each of those clones can spawn it's own clones. If you're not careful and don't plan ahead, your clones will blow you or themselves up instead of your opponents. I have a bunch of Bomberman-style power-ups drafted up, but the clone tree can get complicated very quickly. I'm having difficulty figuring out a good way to label/keep track of which clone is which and how far down the program each one is.

•I've also got some ideas I'm really interested in developing further but that hit major hurdles right out of the gate. I know what I want the games to do, but I don't know how to do it.

►Any questions about game design?
Is it worth is to branch out and design games in genres that you don't normally care about in order to round out your skills as a designer? Or is it better to stick to you guns and design the styles of games that you're most interested in or come easiest to you?
I forget who said it, but someone on a podcast (Board Game University, maybe?) recommended that if you tend to design social deduction or trick taking games, design a CCG. If you like tactical war games, design a party game.