Game Design

Back on the Jam Wagon

I love doing game jams. Oh, I don’t participate in every jam I see, or even every jam I want to do (only so many hours in the day, after all), but when an opportunity presents itself, I like to take advantage of it. Last weekend, that opportunity was the Global Game Jam. For those…

The Curse of Alfred Packer

A few weeks back, I noted that my Packer’s Last Resort card game had reached a point where I could no longer playtest it solo; I need to get other folks to play it too. Turns out, that was easier said than done. First, I made plans to test the game at the local game…

Packer’s First Milestone

I’ve hit a milestone on my Packer’s Last Resort card game: I can no longer playtest it by myself. Oh, I can still make sure most of the mechanical tweaks are working, and that my math hasn’t turned the game into a collapsing, flaming wreck. But as I simultaneously played four different hands during my…

Too Little Misery

I’ve continued to bang away at Packer’s Last Resort a bit since last week. The latest iteration (which you can still download here) is better, but still has some problems: Too much food! There’s still too much food, and not enough desperation. The problem here is two-fold. Not only does it tamp down the game’s…

Watching the Sausage Be Made

I’m still hacking away at Packer’s Last Resort, but if you’ve got a stomach for games that are lumpy, uncooked messes… you can hack away at it too. I’ve uploaded the latest iteration of the game as an ugly, crudely-done print-and-play file. The file includes a version of the rules and cards so new, I…

Packer’s First Prototype

As promised earlier this week, I recently plopped the revised prototype for Packer’s Last Resort onto the table for a playtest. It was a cold, lonely playtest in which I myself played the parts of four different players, like some sort of game-designing Peter Sellers. It’s fine, though. I prefer to keep these initial playtests strictly internal….

Up From the Ashes

Last week, I wrote how my original design for the “Alfred Packer Leads a Bunch of Noobs Into The Mountains and Ends Up Eating Them” game was no good. “Burn it down!” I wrote. And so I did. And since then, I’ve completely revamped the game, written a new set of rules, and put together…

Burning Cannibals

One of the challenges of game design is knowing when to stop designing. Sad to say, some designs are just dead ends. It’s better to shove them into a well-labeled box somewhere, take a day to clear your mind, and start over from scratch. That’s where I’m at with the “Alfred Packer Cannibal Card Game”…

Cards and Cannibals

I’ll be honest: I expected to be further along on this “cannibal card game” idea by now. I’d intended to show you a full game pitch like those I’ve done in the past, but life, as it often does, had different ideas. That’s okay. We’ll make do with a short snapshot of the work in…

Take me Down to Cannibal City

It’s strange where a fascination with historical cannibalism can take you. In my case, discovering Cannibal the Musical led to thoughts of designing a game about the most famous cannibal in Colorado, which led to… a spring break road trip deep into the mountains in search of inspiration. It was March. The girls were out…