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The Bone Queen And The Frost Bishop: Playtesting Scavenger Chess In Plasticine

Tom Francis

Board setup is random with some attempt at balance, plus a balancing rule: One player chooses which corner to start in, then the other player takes the first turn. And their mounted Bishop grabs the Flame: like Frost, but ignites tiles: units on burning tiles must move or die at the end of their turn.

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“Post-Balance” Cogmind Item Expansion

Grid Sage Games

Balancing Levers The idea of “post-balance” from this article’s title doesn’t mean no balance. On the contrary, as you probably know, Cogmind is big on balance , an emphasis achieved initially through adherence to carefully designed patterns and formulas.

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A dramatic design shift for Spellstorm

Keith Burgun

At different parts of the bridge there were investment tiles, so on a basic level the premise was kind of, “do I move to a relatively unsafe investment tile, or do I BUMP?” You win by bumping the opponent into damage areas, dealing damage to them until their health reached zero, before they could do it to you.

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Marvel Snap - The Definitive Deconstruction

Deconstructor of Fun

At that point, Second Dinner revealed that their first project just so happens to be a licensed Marvel IP, which the team has been working on for six months already and is currently beginning to playtest. As certain decks become dominant, players can quickly create counter decks to keep the game balanced and interesting.

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Board Game Pacing: Keeping Your Game Interesting (Tasty Humans Pt. 5)

Brand Game Development

So often, when we’re balancing our designs , it’s because we’re trying to nail down board game pacing. There is also an escalation in strategy as the players fill up their boards by acquiring more and more Leader tiles. They have just a single Leader tile and their monster’s unique “personal craving.”

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Creating Hard Choices in Board Games (Tasty Humans Pt. 4)

Brand Game Development

Players weren’t just drafting which tile they wanted most; they were also picking their turn order for the next round. Is it worth taking that better tile at the expense of picking last next round? It is much more interesting than if it was simply “which tile do you want most?” That is an interesting decision.

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Zugzwang as a pole dance upward unto heaven

Radiator Blog

A broughlike is a variation on a roguelike named after designer Michael Brough , who has spoken before on his design patterns like square tiles, orthogonal movement, turn parity, glitching, limited info, simple maze designs, minimal resources. A dense randomized mini-chess puzzle where everything matters.

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