In The Arty of Party: Part 1 I wrote about the party game genre in general and described some of the subgenres. This week, I’ll go into the nitty-gritty of designing your party game, in particular running it through playtests. If you’ve primarily worked in strategy games or similar, you’ll…

If you ask the average American what their image of a board game is, they’ll give you two examples: “Classic” strategy games like Monopoly, and the ever-present party game. Indeed, the party genre is among the most mainstream in a hobby only beginning to leave its niche, and the most popular…

The Magic: The Gathering community has a useful term called “Magical Christmas Land” that also has some value for game design. It’s a derogatory phrase used to describe decks or cards that are very powerful under ideal circumstances, but in most other cases (and there are many, as Magic is…

The Take-That genre finds itself in an uncomfortable position between pure party games and strategic games. Games like Red Dragon Inn and Room Party have very light tactical elements but are mostly used to generate funny situations, with players attacking each other more for the hell of it than to…

  Some designers are of the opinion that theme is secondary for a game: That as long as the mechanical backing is suitable, you can basically slap on whatever theme you want and you’ll get something good. I’m not so blind as to think the exact opposite – that you can…

Because it’s been a busy couple of weeks with the holidays, I thought that this week I’d bunt and write a column about my top ten favorite games. Two things to note: A) Everything below second place is vague and could shift up or down several places depending on my…

There’s basically two kinds of game mechanics: Ones that are hefty enough to require the game to be about them (hidden movement, worker placement) and ones that are usually added in a small amount to a more complicated game (bluffing, dice-rolling). Falling half-and-half into both camps is my pet mechanic,…

I have a bit of a taste for competition-themed reality shows. Many of them are very hit-or-miss in terms of season quality (Top Chef Las Vegas compared to Top Chef D.C. for instance), but the good seasons are fun to watch, with larger-than-life personalities demonstrating skill in an entertaining way. Today,…

The most formative experience so far in my career as a game designer came the first time I tabled at a convention. As it happened, I was seated next to the only other tabletop game company selling there (name withheld to protect the innocent (me)). The first day, someone came…

If you’re really into board games, odds are you want to get lots of your friends into board games too. One of the main strategies towards this goal is to get them started with an “introductory game” like Catan, Ticket to Ride, or Carcassonne. However, a lot of more experienced…