Hey folks, I'm Jeff. I'm based in Toronto and looking to connect with other folks who are into designing and testing new games, and to get some feedback on my own projects. I got into "modern" board gaming about five years ago, starting with the Game of Thrones Board Game and eventually graduating to Twilight Imperium, Forbidden Stars and other American-style scifi games with 4+ hour playtimes =)
I started tinkering a little while after I started playing, and eventually I felt I had a prototype in the scifi strategy genre that I was pretty proud of and wanted to start sharing, playtesting and developing for eventual publication. Lucky for me, my closest friend Chris is a very talented digital artist, who agreed to partner with me to create original artwork.
We're calling our studio Strange Theory Games, and our in-development game is called Superluminal. It uses order placement mechanics similar to Game of Thrones, but with more tactical options, more heavily asymmetric factions and a bigger focus on large-scale expansion and empire building. The theme is inspired by the far-future space opera of authors like Iain M. Banks (the Culture Cycle), Charles Stross (Singularity Sky, Glasshouse) and Hannu Rajienemi (The Quantum Thief). If you're interested in learning more or seeing some photos, check out our recently minted Facebook page (facebook.com/superluminalgame).
In my former(?) career I was a tech journalist and editor, but earlier this year I decided to take a break and focus full-time on game design and publishing. So far I've found my writing/editing experience has come in really handy with developing and explaining rules, and I'm thinking about getting into rulebook writing as a side-gig. I've also had a lot of fun playtesting other designers' games at local meetups here in Toronto, and I'm looking to head to some design conventions this summer. Look forward to discussing stuff here too!
