After the successful invasion of Eurogames into the New World, the growth and popularity of boardgames in the US has beeny impressive, especially given today’s digital and virtual offerings. My take is that sitting around a table and playing with friends or family has irreplaceable social value. This argument has long been made for tabletop …
Category Archives: Game Design
An Addendum to Pulsipher
So I’m reading this cool book on board game design. The book is a collection of essays, some better than others. In the first, Lewis Pulsipher poses some solutions to the three player problem and petty diplomacy. He goes into some detail to define the problems (check the link) and present the answers he has tested inside …
Player Interdependency
How much should the success and enjoyment of a game depend on the performance of teammates? That’s the question struggling to find an answer in League of Legends and other MOBA games. Plenty of developers despise use of the term, but I’ll apply it here: LoL is addictive. I continue to play for some reasons …
D&D4E: The Exceptional Flaw
An opinion on how designers botched the latest edition of Dungeon & Dragons. That’s what I promised. The last post focused on external factors that played into its decline as a paper game: technology and convenience. I won’t wax poetic with social commentary on shorter attention spans, less free time, and the problems with kids’ …