Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — game design

Playtest, playtest, playtest. Even folks who only play games, and never make the transition to designing, know that playtesting is an integral - maybe even the integral - part of the process. A common refrain when a game disappoints us is, "Did they even bother to playtest this?" There are various reasons why we playtest. First, to make sure the game works as intended; second, to make sure the game is fun; third, to catch and eliminate ambiguities; fourth, to make sure that there's some decent amount of replayability; fifth, to ensure the game's balance isn't broken. And there is...

I came to wargames somewhat sideways. I had initially operated under the delusion that I was the designer of mid-weight eurogames, only dipping my toe in the hex-and-counter pool as a lark, only to find, to my surprise and delight, that these waters were more agreeable to my peculiar talents. One wargame sold, and then another, and soon I stopped trying to hawk my eurogames altogether so that I could focus on wargames exclusively.  Do I miss the euro-style games? Not really. I wasn't very good at designing them, to be honest. Partially this was because I spent considerable time...

One of the most curious things about making weird games on purpose is that there are folks who don't seem to think that it was on purpose. I couldn't really mean for the game to do that; somehow it snuck its way into the design when I wasn't looking. I get this a lot with Table Battles and its mandatory reaction loops. There are folks who feel this is a huge flaw, and they can't believe how obstinate I am in refusing to admit it. But the mandatory reactions aren't just an aspect of the game, they are the game...

I don't play a lot of tactical games; it's just not my jam. Occasionally someone will ask me to explain why it's not my jam, and there are several reasons, sure. Even the simplest tactical games are still a little too complex for my taste. I'm also not a big fan of turns that take twenty minutes to play but represent five minutes on the ground. And then there's a tendency for the hexes to get overly congested: I have a stacking limit of two units per hex, but one or both of those units can be a vehicle which...

One of the things I'm working on - and if you ask Mary, the only thing I should ever be working on, and why isn't it done yet - is Dinosaur Table Battles, a standalone offshoot of our flagship Table Battles series. This naturally seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world: come up with some dinosaurs, translate their various offensive and defensive abilities into the language of Table Battles, you could do this in a weekend, why isn't it done yet. But as the director said to the cowboy, would that it were so simple. Because...