Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — game design

Games are systems: a series of inputs and outputs, of actions and reactions and interactions. They can be many things - frivolous or serious, light or heavy; they can appeal to the mathematical rigor of your neo-cortex or ignite giddy thrills in the reptilian part of the brain; they can be meaningless or they can be laden with meaning, and that meaning might be built into the game, or it might be something that we bring to it, and discover, ourselves. But for all the different types of games that exist, and all the different types of experiences we can...

At this point, I've written the rules for over twenty-five published games that I've designed. I've also rewritten, with Mary's help, the rules for about a half-dozen other games by other designers. So, at this point, writing rules is second nature to me; it's easy-peasy. It didn't always used to be that way, of course, but like I said, I've done this something like thirty-plus times, and after the first dozen games or so, I simply had to get better at it. The other thing is that over time I became much more confident in writing the rules my own...

Military history is not only the story of greatness, of inspired leadership, of singular genius, and masterful campaigns, but also of folly, failure, and disaster. There are plenty of moments throughout history where you just have to wonder, "what the heck were they thinking?" A new & correct map of the trading part of the West Indies : including the seat of war between Gr. Britain and Spain : likewise the British Empire in America, with the French and Spanish settlements adjacent thereto : adorn'd with prospects of ye most considerable towns, ports, harbours &c. therein contained from the latest & best observations....

Before I made board games, I made video games. And long before I lived, breathed, and ate board games (and there's less fiber in that diet than you'd expect), I lived, breathed, and ate video games. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games. I was also obsessed with books, and with the Bible, and I'm not sure if all of those obsessions were necessarily healthy. Whenever I wasn't reading a fantasy novel, or reflecting on how I was a sinning sinner who had committed unforgiveable transgressions (I was maybe six or seven), I was playing video...

One of the things that irks people about card-driven wargames is the fact that someone who has learned the deck - who knows what events are in there and what events aren't - has an advantage over someone who hasn't.  If I place a bunch of troops or influence or whatever in Spain, but there's a card in the deck (maybe even in my opponent's hand!) that wipes out all the troops, influence, or whatever that are in Spain, it's maybe not such a great idea to pile my pieces into the Iberian peninsula, but I have no way of...