Game Design

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…

Delicious Game Design

Cannibalism makes for some great game ideas. Previously, I wrote about my obsession with interest in Alfred Packer, the sole survivor of an 1874 expedition that ended in death and cannibalism. While pondering the story of this infamously well-fed man, I’ve realized that it would make a great basis for a game. After all, it…

Bite-sized History

It was over a decade ago when one of my friends asked, “Hey, man! Have you seen the movie Cannibal! the Musical?” I hadn’t. I hadn’t even heard of it. He handed me a DVD. “I think you’ll like it,” he said. Turns out he was right. For the uninitiated, Cannibal! the Musical is a…

Balancing the Game – Part 4

Welcome to the final post in this series, in which we will discuss the TRUE MEANING OF GAME BALANCE. Previously, we talked about defining your game’s resources and common currency, iterating for balance, and listening to playtester feedback. Today we’re going to get a little philosophical and talk about balancing for fun. Remember when I…

Balancing the Game – Part 3

Welcome to the third installment of our math-tastic* series on game balance for tabletop and video games! The first installment is here. The second is here. And the third is… um… below. Playtesters, as I mentioned previously, will have many opinions on your game’s balance. These opinions are essential to the game development process—especially as…