Random Observation

One of the great things about doing this business is meeting fantastic people.  The people who you play games with and can have conversations about your love of games.  I know I talk many about the ugly gritty side of reality.  The getting into distribution.  Getting your game on store shelves.  People not following through on their commitments, etc.  But I think one of the things that drives the industry is our love of games.

I know that when I go to a meetup I will get 2-3 games in during the time period and usually have a relaxing time.  We are all there to play a game and socialize a bit.  I know some games are better at socializing then others, Great Debate plug. However, I think sometimes we forget that people are people as well.

I admit personally that I like heavier games overall.  Recently I was at a meetup and someone was teaching a game or trying to.  The comments he received as he was going through the rules that everyone at the table agreed to beforehand were pretty outrageous.  “The best time to learn a game is not at the table.”  “Real games should have rules you can learn in 5 minutes”  I agree the best time to learn a game is probably not at the table.  However, he had prefaced this beforehand and EVERYONE at the table had agreed to participate.  Instead of walking through and listening he was heckled by people who agreed to try something new.  The time to say not interested had passed and you had committed peoples time to playing this game.  If people were not interested then they should of spoke up then instead of agreeing.

We eventually did not end up playing the game and instead broke out Diamonds which the original protestor wanted to play originally but got voted down.  This seems a petty way to get your way.  I took the other game and began reading it in downtime to learn its mechanics, in between rounds of Diamonds and social engagement at the meetup.  Afterwards a group of 6 had decided to play another game and 4 of us decided to try the other game since I had time to read it.

The game went fine with teaching it and going through.  However, when the two groups split we had problems because people did not think we should split up and felt slighted that other people would want to play something different.  When our group split off the other group got splintered more and dragged into other games.  Yet, I was blamed for breaking up groups to play my game.  I had to show them that it was not anything I had published or had anything to do with. It is a weird psychological thing here that someone much smarter than me can tell you in an instant what it is.    I felt odd having to defend myself about teaching a game that someone else really wanted to play.

Now this post was not meant to degrade meetups at all.  Honestly, I have met some really great people through the meetup community.  I think its a reminder to all of us to think before we speak sometimes.  We all just want to have fun and there is no way to have fun wrong. 🙂  We have to remember the social contracts of the table and respect everyone else as well.  Or you might soon find yourself with no one that is willing to play with you.

Designer Diary pt5

Actually this is a break in the narrative.  The next few blog posts will be about the con season and the things we hit there in getting awareness of our new game.  Here is a resource we found handy afterwards.  However, I want people to be prepared beforehand and not run into some of the pitfalls we did.  http://comic-makers-club.deviantart.com/journal/Stickman-s-Tips-for-Conventions-464183377

Stickman’s guide is incredible and something I had read before getting into convention season.  Now, this did not always solve all our problems.  We still ran into our share of convention scheduling hassles, conventions not knowing where things were to be setup, real board gamers putting hate on party games, etc.

Designer Diary Part 2

The first night we tried out “Argument” in my board game group I think it threw people for a little bit of a loop.  The people in my group had been mainly playing Seasons, Lords of Waterdeep, etc.  And we had not thrown a social game in the mix yet.  With just 10 cards that I had written on I created a very short demo game to see how it went.

The first thing I learned was I hated having to go against my gf all the time.  Thinking back when people sit for a party game you sit by people you know or your spouse.  Well of course you know your spouse unless you got one of those arranged marriages or mail order bride.  After we went through a quick pass around the table of seven players people seemed to really like it.  But it bugged me that you would always been going against the people right next to you.

The next step was I went to Printerstudio and created a deck.  First, so no one had to read my horrible handwriting anymore.  Second, to give progress for myself.  If I felt I was moving along it would make work harder on this game.  This version of the game I added directional and number to the bottom of the deck.  This was you would be going against a random person each time you debated.  This resolved the problem of debating your S.O. every time you draw a card.  This version of the game was about 50 cards with lots of different debate topics.  Many which were taken straight from headlines

The Great Debate designer diary 1

Hello, and welcome to the designer diary of The Great Debate.  This will show an in depth look of creation to kickstarter of this product.  This should give you insights on your own game or kickstarter in the future or just for a good laugh.

In 1997 I was on a Magic the Gathering team called Team Dallas with several other people.  We had a lot of fun in our off time and one of the things we came up with was our own card game.  This game was very much like Magic because what else did we know.  The whole focus of the game was to have friends who could win an argument over four different areas of pop culture, politics, religion, and money.  Each argument had a threshold that you had to reach to claim it. Very much like Smash Up, I guess I should of kept working on it.

We had some pretty fun concepts with it but the problem was once basic ideas down no one wanted to go further with it.  Somehow I became the keeper of the cards, magic cards with postit notes and bad sharpie marks.  Every so often I would break it out at meetings by request but it would go no further.

After Team Dallas dissolved and I quit Magic and began my work in Seattle the game was completely forgotten.  Until about 4 years ago my friend asked me about it and said it was so good and wished we had finished it.  Well, once again I broke it out and we messed with it a little more but then they grew tired of game design and I put it back.

Earlier this year different friends approached me about a game design.  I showed them what I had but we figured it would be convoluted in its current form.  After we played a game of Cards Against Humanity we had an idea of just using the different debates from “Argument” and making a game out of it.  We tried this and had a very good response in two different groups of friends on board game night.  So the next task was to refine it and playtest with people we did not know.