Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — This Guilty Land

I remember listening to a commentary track that the director Paul Thomas Anderson did about his film Boogie Nights, in which he explained why a scene was cut from the final film. He was watching a cut of the film, and as one scene was wrapping up, he was giddily anticipating the next scene, which was one of his favorites. But when that first scene had ended, it wasn't followed by the scene he was anticipating - it was followed by another scene that he had seemingly forgot was in the film. And I'm paraphrasing here - it's been maybe...

I wanted to take a moment to talk about three games that impacted the development of This Guilty Land in a subconscious way. That is, when I was designing the game, I don't think I ever thought of these games specifically, at least not for these reasons, and I wasn't aware of borrowing from them directly, but in retrospect I can look at elements of the design, and look at those other games, and say, "Oh, so that's where I got that from." The first game is Washington's War, designed by Mark Herman. I know what you're thinking; they're both...

In This Guilty Land, each player represents an abstract idea: Justice (which seeks the abolition of slavery) and Oppression (which seeks its retention and spread). One thing I've heard from many folks online is that they would be very uncomfortable playing Oppression, or asking another player to take on that role - they can't imagine themselves playing the game at all.  The first thing I want to say is, that's a perfectly valid response. The game's not for everyone, nor is it intended to be, and if you don't want to play the game, that's okay. Not every cultural product...

I had the pleasure over Memorial Day weekend of attending Heavy Con in Denver, where I dedicated quite a bit of time to running playtests of This Guilty Land for twelve persons who had never played the game before. I was more than a little nervous going in. While the dozens of playtests before Heavy Con had all seemed to confirm that I knew what I was doing, it's always a little nerve-wracking pushing something in front of brand new people, particularly when that something is as aggressively odd as my open-hand political CDG.  In particular, the way that cards...

A week from now, I'll be in Denver at Heavy Con, where I plan to get as many people as possible to play This Guilty Land. In fact, my hope is that I won't be playing the game myself at all, but will just be on hand to teach it and to observe each match. I've played the game more than anyone else and I already know how it works (even if that doesn't necessarily mean that I know how to play it well). Especially given the game's more unusual features and its potential brittleness, it's important for me to...