Skip to Content
 

Blogs

Designer Notes for King of Siam

Peer Sylvester's designer notes for the creation of the game, King of Siam, are available on my blog:

http://berlingamedesign.blogspot.com/

Mechanic of the Day, 9.22.08 Prisoners' Dilemma

Lets rock this! With one of the coolest and hardest mechanics to work with: Prisoners' dilemma. (For groups larger than 2, it's technically diners' dilemma...)

Mechanic of the Day, 9.19.08 Starting Handicap

Lets get to it: Starting handicap. This can be tricky. In many instances, it isn't necessary. But when it is, it can be hard to find balance of handicapping the first player without outright capping the first player in the leg.

-Less starting resources. In a game where resources are important, this keeps the first player from dominating out the gate while still having choice of most actions.

-Worse starting position. This helps in games where board position is critical. The first player gets first choice of action, but must do a bit more with it.

Adventure Game - Quest and Encounter source materials

Okay, so the site's new layout is still sinking in. So I posted a Game Journal entry when what I think I wanted was a Blog. I want to add additional entries as I progress. So let's try this again (at the end is posted my FIRST entry).

Anyway! On to today's entry!

Mechanic of the Day, 9.17.08 Tie Breaker

Hullo, everyone. We'll have a look at an often overlooked mechanic today, the tie-breaker.

The tie breaker is often relegated to 'most money', or 'first to do X', which, while functional, can be... mundane. If not set properly, it may also favor one strategy over another; which may lead to stale play. We want excitement, adventure and tension, right?

Mechanic of the Day, Time

It's that time again.... for TIME. We'll have a looksee at mechanics to track time.

-Real time. There are no turns, and people take any legal actions whenever they want. This mechanic is somewhat difficult for board games to use; off-hand, I can only think of Space Trader, Falling and Icehouse games. The difficulty lies in keeping the game at a fairly fast pace, as everyone can act at once, which lends itself to a frantic pace.

Mechanic of the Day, Resource Generation

Hey there, designers. I'm going to put my Mechanic of the Day into a blog so I don't end up flooding the Mechanic Forum within a couple weeks... So, without further ado.....

Oio, meeples. Today's look at mechanic is about resource generation. Here's a few for you to mull over.

Assemble!

Using some ideas from Zombie in my Pocket to solve the players vs. the game problem. I've resumed development of Assemble! a cooperative superhero board game. I'm still working on scaling it out for more players, but you will take the roll of a group of heroes trying to beat the evil master plan of different villains.

Back to Basics

Ok. It looks like my job has finally slowed down after a massive SAP conversion, summer is over, and my family life has calmed down as well. Couple that with a brand new desk, and I find that I suddenly have the game design bug again.

I need to mull over my current game ideas to decide which one to work on. The goal is to choose a project that is practically completable given my current life restrictions. I will probably create Game Journals for each to further explore which to work on.

The following are the designs I have rattling around in my little head:

Hi from France!

skype_logo_timbertom1.jpg

Hi there BGDF viewers!

I am writing to you from France to share with you a new board game I have ready for release this November.

You can have a look by visiting:

http://www.timbertom.eu

If you have any questions about the game post them on this blog (I hope to answer them ASAP but I am often 'on the road'). I hope it may provide you with some food for thought!

A bientot! Marco

Syndicate content


by Dr. Radut