Over the past decade or so there has been a massive increase in individuals who enjoy games as a medium for watching rather than a medium for playing. This is evident in the explosion of e-sports, Let’s Plays, tabletop series, etc.
When it comes to specifically board games, though, there’s not much of a viewer culture. And aside from the culture, in my experience it’s just not particularly interesting to watch people play board games most of the time. There’s a few “problems” with existing board games that make them poor subjects for viewing. To figure out these problems, and some solutions, I’m going to do a mock interview.
Read moreA key part about a puzzle is that everything you need to solve it needs to be presented from the start. The challenge to the player is figuring out how to put the pieces together. In this case, the information that the man was in a sailor’s outfit is unknown and not something someone should be reasonably able to deduce from the given information. Literally nothing in the setup telegraphs that the man is in a sailor’s outfit. It’s like someone gave us a jigsaw puzzle that was missing pieces and then were shocked that we couldn’t solve it.
Read moreI don’t intend to solve everything with blog posts alone by the way. Instead, today I’ll set out quest markers to guide us from here on out. Even if you don’t immediately jump to your feet to design a game for yourself/others after this, I hope you can glide away with the capacity to at least consider some new possibilities for expression and creation.
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