Time

Back in November I went down to four days a week in the day job.

It was amazing.

I got so much done on Mondays.

While awake.

Rather than trying to cram it in at the end of a long work day after family commitments.

We've just had six weeks of summer holidays.

So the kids have been off school and I've been hanging out with them on Mondays.

Plus a Bank Holiday last week.

Today is my first Monday by myself in a couple of months.

I've loads to do.

Some exciting stuff.

Plus Tabletop Scotland admin.

FlickFleet drawing a crowd as usual

Games design.

Work on the next FlickFleet campaign.

Best crack on!

Inspiration

A few weeks ago I had a new game idea.

Flip and write game using an ordinary deck of cards.

Inspired by War of the Worlds.

With a schlock 50's sci-fi vibe.

So far I've hand-sketched a few sheets and tried the first quarter of the game.

That bit kinda works now.

For the next bit I wanted to get something on the computer so I could crank out sheets.

That's done now.

Very first computer prototype!

Let the playtesting begin!

AsteRace

Over the last couple of months I've been working on a game that was inspired by a tweet (on Bluesky, does that make it a skeet?).

In it Dan Thurot asked: "... I want a designer to tell me why roll-and-move sucks and they would never consider using it in their own game."

I answered it was the theme that bothered me.

If I can move 6 spaces, why do I sometimes move 3, and sometimes 1?

It gave me an idea for a game.

Note how I've immediately broken the premise of Dan's question.

I've spent the last 2 months designing that game.

It's a race through an asteroid belt.

AsteRace. Gettit?

The board spaces start blank, you fill them in as you move.

There are nine gates to visit.

First to visit all nine wins.

It's a simple roll & move & write game.

My playtesters have really enjoyed it.

But I can't see it becoming a 'product'.

So I'm giving it away in our next newsletter.

Free game!

Subscribe here if you're interested.

In other news, Gal4Xeon finishes soon and it's doing amazing!

Thurospiration

Dan Thurot writes excellent reviews.

I follow him on Bluesky.

Where he asked for designers to explain why Roll and Move games suck.

Lots of answers about lack of player agency.

How it's associated with old games like Monopoly, Clue(do), etc.

I'm more concerned about the theming.

When I answered the question, it gave me an idea.

I quickly knocked up a sheet using a hex grid from the internet.

And took it with me when I met up with my buddy Joe, the designer of the excellent Word Dungeon. 

We tried out my loose idea.

Tweaked it.

Tried it again.

He had some great ideas.

So I've knocked up another version.

Very rough and ready prototype

Hoping to meet up with him again next week and maybe try it again.

Roll and move.

Who'd have thought!

Rules

For a long time the rules of my games live in the Apple Notes app.

I can read them whenever I want.

Tweak them easily.

Edit them easily.

Check them on my phone, when I'm pulling out a prototype I've not played in a while.

At some point they have to become official though.

Graphic design.

Diagrams.

That takes time and effort.

So I tend to leave it until near the end.

When I'm not expecting many more changes.

I'm doing the Gal4Xeon rules now.

In InDesign.

With diagrams.

And graphic design.

It's slow going.

But an important step.

Finished. Not Finished. Finished Again?

I've spent the last week in a treehouse in the woods.

And on bikes and beaches.

And enjoying pretty towns and villages.

And fresh seafood.

And working on Exodus again.

It was finished.

I'd done the graphic design.

And the final rulebook.

I took some blank sheets with me to work on some ideas for extra sheets.

And a few ordinary sheets too.

I had an idea.

Tried it out a few times.

It's an improvement.

Now I need to update everything with the changes.

Is it done now?

Resurrection

After the disappointment of yet another awesome game designed by a friend that they don't want us to publish I took one of my older designs to Newcastle Playtest last week.

Normally I take a bag with six or seven games, last week I took one.

And to be honest, I wasn't really looking to play it.

I'd not played it in about three years.

It was there as a fallback if we needed games to play.

As it turns out, we did.

So I got it out.

Tried to remind myself of the rules.

We had five players.

I had to tweak things as we went.

But there was some potential there.

And the great crowd of designers and playtesters gave me feedback.

Useful feedback.

And ideas.

My head has been fizzing with ideas all week.

I've been frantically crafting a new version since Tuesday.

I've got a slot at the Playtest Zone at the North East Tabletop Expo on Friday afternoon.

I was going to play Jotunsaga or Siren Song.

Now I think I'll play the new version of The Uprising: Saga instead.

Need to finish the prototype first!

Trains

We’re on our way home now.

Via Paris.

But we still have 15 hours on trains.

I’m putting the time to good use.

Designing games.

Sci-Fi

I’ve six games that I’m working on the at moment.

I started a new one a couple of weeks ago.

Another roll and write.

It’s on its fifth iteration already.

Three of the six are sci-fi themed.

There’s coalescence about making a solar system.

The Uprising Saga about the birth of The Uprising from FlickFleet.

And the new one: Colony about colonising the solar system.

I’ve also got three that aren’t:

Siren Song about capturing Greek sailors off triremes.

Wizard about duelling wizards in an arena.

Jotunsaga about Vikings hunting trolls.

I definitely tend to lean towards the sci-fi theme though.

I’ve more ideas in that direction too that I’m not actively working on too.

378%

The other day I saw a LinkedIn post about daily habits.

If you make 1% progress every day for a year you’ll make 377% progress!

There’s a rounding error. It’s actually 378%.

You’d think it was 365%, but the joys of compounding give you a little more.

At two years the compounding is even more pronounced. Instead of 730% you get 1,428%!

I’m only 150 days, less than half a year, into my daily games design habit - but I’m already feeling it.

I have multiple games on the go.

Making decent progress on them.

Playtesting loads

Some days it’s tiny progress. It can be a struggle to fit it in around FlickFleet shipping, Rocky ‘Roid prep and family commitments.

Others it’s huge.

Want to become good at something?

Do it every day.

Ideas

After cancelling meeting Paul due to feeling rough the previous week, we met up last Wednesday.

It was an opportunity to exchange 20 more Gamefound orders for me to ship from Newcastle.

And a chance to catch up.

I also brought two prototypes.

Troll and Wizard.

Both codenames pending real names.

Troll was an idea I had several months ago.

It has been slowly taking shape in note form.

But I knew Paul was interested in the idea when I pitched it to him.

Wizard was 5 days old at this point and I’d already played it twice.

We played both games.

Paul had great ideas for both.

I’ve made a new prototype for Troll incorporating the changes.

Subtle changes!

I might not need to change the components for Wizard.

Both games are still Sharpie on blank cards.

Makes it really quick to iterate the design.

I will hopefully test the new Troll today at lunchtime games.

Reborn

I’m constantly amazed at the changes I’ve experienced since the worst of COVID.

Over two years I did almost no games design.

I struggled to think of changes for the one or two ideas I had.

No new ideas.

Since November I’ve been completely transformed.

New ideas. Rapid progress on existing ones.

Lots of spinning plates and progress being made on all of them.

Friday I was supposed to meet Paul to collect more stock to help him ship.

I’d felt rubbish all day and cancelled so I could get an early night instead.

A game mechanism came to me while feeling awful, sat in bed at 8pm.

By 9 I’d designed a game. And written enough notes to make a first prototype.

I slept really badly. Body aches and a blocked nose keeping me awake a large chunk of the night.

The next morning I felt awful.

This idea didn’t exist 24 hours before I finished the prototype!

But I managed to make a prototype that day.

Filthy cold and I still managed to get from first idea to prototype in 24 hours.

The next day I started soloing it in public, a bunch of kids came to watch. One joined in and played it to the end.

Despite it begin an early, broken version, they wanted to make their own copy. 

They were fighting over who got to play a second 4-player game (before their parents, sat nearby, whisked them off for lunch).

It has potential.

In the last few months I’ve committed to doing four things daily: meditate, walk outside, some basic bodyweight exercises, and games design.

Is the transformation down to one of those? Two of them? All of them together?

I daren’t stop any of them. This feels awesome. So productive.

I’m a game designer reborn.

Notes

After playing with Evernote and Notion I’ve gone back to the iPhone Notes app. 

The free one from Apple. 

In the last month I’ve taken notes on 7(!) different games. 

This is prolific for me!

Only two of those have been prototyped though.

It’s time to move from notes to games. 

Broken games. Dodgy games. Boring games. 

But no matter how much you think about it, it’s not until you make a prototype that you start finding the kinks and working them out. 

I’ve ordered 500 blank cards to save me some time.

New job starts tomorrow, so I’ll be tight for time again.

2023!

I hope all of you that celebrate it had a fantastic Christmas.

2023 is on the horizon.

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

As a lad who grew up in the seventies it sounds very futuristic.

Looking forward to my flying car.

In all seriousness I'm really looking forward to 2023.

I have so many game ideas buzzing in my head now.

After some very slow years.

COVID and the job I wasn't enjoying sucked all the creative headspace out of me.

I've found my mojo again.

Hopefully I can get some of these ideas completed.

Fingers crossed!

Creativity

Following some advice I got via Daniel Pink I’ve started a chain.

Just trying to keep a streak going of things that are important to me.

Game design. Exercise. Physio for my leg that is weakened by my MS. Meditation.

I've managed nine days so far.

And it’s been amazing.

I’ve made a new version of Rocky ‘Roid and sent it out to playtesters.

Written a load of notes for a second edition of Border Reivers.

Come up with a new idea for a game about sirens and Ancient Greek sailors.

And made notes.

And a quick hand-drawn prototype.

And played it at Paul’s this weekend.

And come up with ideas for a new version.

I haven’t been this creative in years.

Something about it is working for me!

Variety

I want the roll and write to have some variety of set-up.

The players share the dice each turn. So could always choose the same options.

So I want to encourage variety between players.

Plus try to make the game less samey, so repeated plays play out differently.

Each players gets different starting resources.

And you can choose one Overlord per player from a set of six. 

So there’s some variability with fewer the six players there.

But I want more.

So each player individually modifies their maps before you begin.

But I want more.

Two different maps now!

So multiple maps, with different special rules.

I came up with a bunch of map ideas.

Now I need to draft them and include in the download.

I’ve done two so far.

The Wife is away for a few days this week. I’ll work on this in the evenings, once I’ve got the girls to sleep…

And in other news, we've got our first taker for TGWAG!

Current leaderboard (it's a bit empty - why not join in?):

Name	Rank	PIPs
Kylef	Recycling Technician's Mate	2

Pace

My game design languished during 2020.

The only other person I could playtest with was seven years old.

I hate solo playtesting.

Everything slowed to a crawl.

The pandemic robbed me of my headspace.

(Still, I was lucky that was all)

Towards the end of last year things picked up.

I was was able to host some playtesting nights.

I started making progress on a few games.

This year I’m trying to do some game design every day.

Coupled with a Roll & Write design that I can quickly iterate and share with playtesters, my pace has dramatically improved.

Cycle time is very short

I’m even solo playtesting FlickFleet: Xeno Wars to try to balance the ships and make sure they are fun.

I’m loving the productivity. The daily progress. The incremental gains.

Streak

Over Christmas I had an idea for a Roll & Write game.

I’m trying to do a little game design every day this year.

I’m on a 11-day streak so far.

The player sheet is taking shape

It’s coming along really well.

Already out with playtesters.

Getting useful feedback.

I’ve also been hard at work on 3D printing files for FlickFleet.

The game, expansion 1 and Box of Flicks 1 are all done.

Box of Flicks 2 is a big job, but I’ve started!

Cadence

As I mentioned last week, I’ve hardly done any playtesting since the pandemic began.

A little with Daughter the First at the beginning.

A couple of times with Paul when we were able to meet up.

To get a game ready in a sensible amount of time you need a decent cadence through this cycle:

Make stuff!

Before the pandemic I had monthly playtesting meetups and ad-hoc playtesting at lunchtime at work.

So at least once a month through the cycle.

During the last eighteen months it's sometimes been 6-9 months. 

And other things have just languished at the ideas stage.

That's too slow.

We're on the clock now.

Last week I tested three new designs with a couple of mates.

They need work.

I've got some decent ideas.

I'm making those changes now.

We're going to reconvene in 2-3 weeks.

I'm speeding up...

Mojo

I’ve struggled during the pandemic.

With games design.

I hate playing games solo.

And solo playtesting.

My games aren’t a good fit for Tabletop Simulator.

I lost my mojo.

My game design almost ground to a halt. Barely ticking over.

We’re starting to see the other side.

I’m vaccinated, careful, regularly masked and regularly test myself.

So I’m starting to do things again.

And with it, my mojo is returning.

I’ve made progress on three different designs in the last couple of weeks.

The pencils are to make changes!

To the playtesting table!