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10 Elements of Good Game Design

Brand Game Development

The mere threat is usually enough to keep the game going. On the other hand, playing Tasty Humans has short turns, which helps the game stay snappy even though it’s a brain-burny puzzle game. Predictability is the bane of games. You don’t want your game to feel predictable. Make it feel unique.

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Become a Patron on Patreon?

Sirlin

During Pandante development, I posted dozens of versions of the game board, cards, rules, etc. Patrons helped playtest and also just point out errors or give suggestions how to improve things. Codex, Flowchart, and now.the Fantasy Strike fighting game (yes, really!).

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Friday Questions #3

Grumpy Gamer

I had worked at Lucasfilm for 8 years and learned a lot, not just about game design and programming, but also marketing, PR, and production and I felt like I needed to try it all for myself. I also had the idea of making adventure games for kids. I floated it by Lucasfilm Games and they weren't interested.

Puzzle 52
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Istanbul Gaming Summit 2023

Deconstructor of Fun

Running through the market by genre, Kress noted that King has done quite well, but other genres had suffered badly, with strategy, RPG, match puzzle, and casino games all down double digits. Fun generates retention, he said, stating that game designers should think of their games as becoming a daily player habit.

Games 59
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the curse of cooperation

Interesting Choices

That said, there's a particular problem that's endemic to cooperative board games, which is that the game will present players with a puzzle, hoping that the group will work together to find a solution, and instead the single most skilled or most experienced player will end up playing for the entire group.

Co-op 52
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Garrisons 2.0

Grid Sage Games

In playtesting so far this (among other benefits we’ll get to later) is already clearly tempting players who would otherwise always prefer regular branches over infiltrating a Garrison. I wrote about this factor in my recent article on game design philosophy.

Beta 52
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Board Game Pacing: Keeping Your Game Interesting (Tasty Humans Pt. 5)

Brand Game Development

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout. In playtesting, the time between turns has rarely been an issue.

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