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Greetings for the second time.

3 replies [Last post]
Sun, 04/14/2013 - 22:48
Halobender
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Joined: 12/30/2009

Hi everyone,

This is my second introductory post to this site. I joined around 3 years ago when I first became interested in board game design. However, life intervened (as did lack of focus) and I couldn't quite get anything off of the ground then.

However, now I'm back and ready to give it another try.

Anyway, a bit about me... My family played lots of games growing up, so I've always loved them. I learned to play many at a young age (chess, poker, etc.) but really started to become obsessed with games with MtG (around 94 when I was 15) and, later, Catan in all its permutations when I was in college. In my day job, I'm an Art Director (print and online) so I'm very comfortable with design process... I'm trying to approach this new venture as another application of that process. At least to start.

I'm working on a card game right now (not trading or anything like that). I have a prototype that "works" but, of course, now needs lots of work. Now, I'm trying to navigate through everything that follows after.

One question that I've been wondering about a lot lately... I'm working on this one game idea at the moment and I'm trying to decide if I should begin another. Do you folks often stick to one idea at a time? Or do you have multiple concepts going at a time? When do you feel comfortable parking one idea and moving on to another?

Finally, I'd love to know if there's anyone out there looking to collaborate in Chicago. I'm interested both in designing games/playtesting and working with people who want help/advice on the actual art direction of their games.

Anyway... Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.
Dave

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Sun, 04/14/2013 - 23:47
#1
ThisIsMyBoomstick
ThisIsMyBoomstick's picture
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Joined: 03/30/2013
Welcome back to the Forum!

Welcome back to the Forum! Although that's weird coming from me. I've only been a member for a few days.
But nonetheless, I wish you a warm return.

To answer your question:
I often simply write down the multitudes of ideas that come my way and work on them by mood. I just work on what I want, little bits at a time. That's not to say I've got over a dozen projects going or anything, because CURRENTLY, I'm only working on one thing.
It really depends on you. You're working on a card game, but will you ALWAYS work on card games, or board games as well (dice, pawns, etc) If you intend to work on just card games, an easy to keep focus but at the same time delve into your other game ideas is to create a rule system that can work relatively well in any game you might develop.

As I said, I'm working on a Fantasy game right now, but my intention is to work out the general system of rules to be useable with any ideas I might have down the road, just with little tweaks here and there. But the reason I can comfortably do that is because I simply want to create fun, co-operative board games that make use of EVERYTHING (board pieces, miniatures, tokens, dice, and cards all with a dash of teamwork coated with a thick layer of difficulty)

I'm VERY new to the game developing scene though, so my words of advice could be useless, I don't know. However, it's something I've always wanted to do before. I just haven't sat down and done it.

So with that, I wish you good luck! If I lived in Chicago, I'd definitely hook up with you, but alas, I do not.

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Mon, 04/15/2013 - 00:06
#2
Halobender
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Joined: 12/30/2009
Thanks

Thanks for your reply... I actually had just read some of your posts about starting to design yourself, so it's nice to hear from you directly.

I like the suggestion to think about rules in a modular way. I haven't really considered that I might want to work on rules that could be applied to several games. I'd mostly been thinking about trying to create one offs. Interesting thought, especially since I think I will mostly be working on card games.

-Dave

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Mon, 04/15/2013 - 01:33
#3
Stormyknight1976
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Joined: 04/08/2012
Welcome back.

Yes most game designers do work on several game projects through out the course of a year. Takes pratice and patients. Designers always find some new ideas or want to try a new game mechanic. Write your ideas down or use your iphone or ipad as a voice recorder to get your ideas on paper later or reinact how your new game will be. Good luck.

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