Connor | Always Awake Games
@connor.alwaysawake.games
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Board game designer, illustrator and indie publisher Store:
https://www.alwaysawake.games/
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Marceline Leiman
about 1 hour ago
Letās spookin goooooo! š» Got my crowdfunded games by
@connor.alwaysawake.games
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Matt Soucy
about 2 hours ago
My shipment of games from
@connor.alwaysawake.games
came in today! I play tested Club Spooky a while back and had a blast. That's The Spirit looks clever and good for my friend group
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Slowly figuring out my systemā¦but itās happening! Club Spooky and Thatās the Spirit will be on their way soon!
5 days ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Marceline Leiman
7 days ago
I hope weāre still collectively processing that AEG and the boardgaming consciousness draw the line at being pro-AI and lowering the value of game designers⦠But donāt draw the line at the insane levels of misogyny exhibited only 2 years ago? Itās wild to me he wasnāt booted to high hell soonerā¦
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Jon Perry
14 days ago
Tbf getting full enjoyment from a high luck & high skill game requires almost a cognitive dissonance... You must try super hard to win, exercising your skill, but also not care much about the final outcome, which may be dashed by luck. (This is also the personality type I most want to play with.)
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Literally just paid these the other day š« Itās gonna be such a mess sorting all this out and itās already caused so much damage.
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21 days ago
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Dan Thurot
22 days ago
Which is to say, I want that author's execution. Because the execution is the art. Not only as a physical product, but as an artifact that signifies their effort, practice, and intentionality.
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Minus the ai stuff, if you think game design is just combining past ideas, I canāt imagine youāre making anything interesting. To what end are you doing all this? The mechanics are nothing without the purpose you give them. That purpose is everything. The mechanics are just there to support it.
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22 days ago
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Xo3 (it/its) š°šŖ
23 days ago
wow so great finally consequences for shitting on the creatives of the tabletop industry after years of zero consequences for shitting on women of the tabletop industry so cool I feel so much better about this company wow so cool so great
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) ęęŖē“ē¾ā©ļøGDC
23 days ago
LOL. But this inevitable separation probably should have been clear when Dancey claimed a few years ago that women weren't succeeding due to inability to withstand creative criticism + not designing enough war games and giant robot games.
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John Zinser
23 days ago
Today I want to share that Ryan Dancey and AEG have parted ways. This is not an easy post to write. Ryan has been a significant part of AEGās story, and I am personally grateful for the years of work, passion, and intensity he brought to the company. We have built a lot together.
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Peter McPherson āļø Unpub Prime
24 days ago
No level of cleverness, time-saving, energy and water efficiency, or even ethical processing of data will convince me to use LLMs or AI models in my process. I love the process so much, and I express myself through every step. You canāt automate self-expression. [4/6]
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Business bros to game designers: just because youāre a game designer doesnāt mean you know anything about running a game business Also business bros: I run the business side of a game publisher, so I know everything about game design Just stick to the numbersā¦or actually put in the care and effort
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24 days ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
š„§ suzanne š„§
24 days ago
Reposting with ALT because this kind of phenomenal disdain and disrespect from within the industry literally against two of their own titles and the designer who made them is important to recognize.
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Marceline Leiman
24 days ago
I use
thenounproject.com
religiously for my images and icons. And if I canāt find something that fits, Iāll just google and image and slap it on. You donāt need any skills in graphic design (though perhaps you may need space to develop visual taste) to make a very suitable prototype for pitching.
loading . . .
10M Free Icons & Stock Photos | SVG & PNG | Download Today
šØ Discover 10M high-quality SVG & PNG icons & stock photos for your next project. š Find the perfect icon or photo in seconds!
https://thenounproject.com
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I know I just said not to blindly follow game designersā adviceā¦.but the one thing I wish people did understand is that every type of game, mechanic, theme etc has a place and purpose. Being smug towards easy, complex, fiddly, āmore of an activityā or whatever types of games misses the whole point.
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24 days ago
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Jon Perry
24 days ago
To be fair to those players, I think a lot of them genuinely just enjoy noise and fiddling with a lot of moving parts. Which is all well and good! That's totally valid and a big appeal of board games. This preference only bothers me when it veers into a sense of smugness or superiority.
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Joseph Z Chen š Gamestorm
24 days ago
It's live!! The game I designed, Honeypot, just launched on Kickstarter! Two years of loving work. Would be grateful if you checked it out & considered backing! It's an "I stack, you choose" game where you play as secret agent bears setting and avoding traps!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/fla...
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Forage + Honeypot
A pair of fast and fun games for everyone, from the team that brought you the smash hits Point Salad, Calico, and Cascadia!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flatoutgames/forage-honeypot
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Peer Sylvester
26 days ago
I agree. Its the most important to find your own style and modus operandi. The way I work works for me, no clue if it works for someone else. Plus one of the most important skills is to filter feedback, to decide what is helpful and what is not.
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Joseph Z Chen š Gamestorm
27 days ago
That's why when people ask me about advice about the industry I usually end up asking more questions than they do. By clarifying their intentions and goals it helps reveal the next step. The difference between making an indie game, designing for retail, or crowdfunding a game is so vast.
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My game design hot take is that you should rarely follow game designersā advice. Especially industry professionals. Everyone has different goals theyāre designing for and contexts theyāre coming from that itās rarely going to apply to you. Definitely listen, but donāt feel like you have to follow
27 days ago
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Tim Clare
28 days ago
Respectfully disagree? It can, & often is. System literacy makes the teach easier, for sure. Coming to a heavy euro completely uninitiated is going to be a rough on-ramp. So there's additional difficulty. But we often imagine it's all impenetrable shadow magic when it just asks for a bit more prep.
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David Masnato is at Unpub Festival!
28 days ago
I'm so grateful when designers like Cole share threads like this. It's exhausting being told that the only worthwhile way to make games is to design for mass market. It damages the artistry of game design and makes assumptions that have been repeatedly debunked.
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Cole š GDC
28 days ago
While I think this is often true, it also elides another critical point: professional designers often don't realize how smart and capable people are, espeically people who don't play games. š§µ
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This has been our favourite game the last few weeks. Check it out before itās gone!
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Managed to power through the rest of the cards over the holidays! Had some ups and downs but it was kind of calming in the end just drawing swirl after swirl.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Managed to power through the rest of the cards over the holidays! Had some ups and downs but it was kind of calming in the end just drawing swirl after swirl.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Fred Hicks
about 2 months ago
There's a lot of wisdom (and sustainability) in choosing to succeed slower. With rare exception, Evil Hat grew (over 20 years) by incremental steps, risking only what we were willing (and able) to lose. Some variation on this features frequently when folks ask me the inevitable "how-to" questions.
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Connor | Always Awake Games
ceefox š Airecon
2 months ago
Out of Sorts is one of the best experiences I've been able to share with friends this year - I'm looking forward to Club Spooky and That's the Spirit in 2026!
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Well that was a year⦠outside of <waves hands> I launched my online store, sold over 300 copies of Out of Sorts, helped run the PaxWest indie market, ran a Kickstarter, and did a whole bunch of illustrations. This was the year of proving I have the basics down and thatās feeling pretty good : )
2 months ago
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Honoured that Thatās the Spirit is part of Best Week! This really has become my favourite genre of board game and itās exciting being part of such great company.
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2 months ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Rami Ismail (Ų±Ų§Ł Ł)
3 months ago
I love how every announcement is the exact thing investors say they're not funding because there's no market for it, but by a famous person
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Dan Thurot
3 months ago
Persuasion and Conviction, both by
@xoe.gay
, explore two distinct acts in the life cycle of a relationship. Both installments are incisive, thought-provoking, and (deliberately) toxic. My review:
spacebiff.com/2025/12/09/p...
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Loversā Quarrels
Who was it that said that every tale is a tragedy, itās only a question of when the story ends. I bet that person was a real hoot at noon tea. Personally, I think every story is a comedy, proā¦
https://spacebiff.com/2025/12/09/persuasion-conviction/
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Having a good time working on a standard deck of cards. Itās starting to set in though that 52 is a lot of cards and Iāve ended up committing myself to drawing unique swirls on every one š
3 months ago
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M. Ward
3 months ago
I scanned drawings and did minor edits digitally. And yeah the art style was chosen because I knew I could pull it off. Really happy with the result.
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Joseph Z Chen š Gamestorm
3 months ago
100%! This is also why my art is just colorful vector shapes. It's because I can't draw to the level I want it to be. My limitations have given birth to my art style.
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In addition to everything else, the point about just doing your own sharpie stick figures is the hill Iāll die on. Your game doesnāt need 100s of highly realistic paintings. Collage public domain images together and throw on some filters. Draw stick figures. Youāll get better and faster as you go.
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3 months ago
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Andrew Jackson Lynch
3 months ago
Over the last month, I've been working on this essay about the use of AI art in board games, "Is This Really What We Want?" Though it is contextually specific, it is also a reflection of my wider thoughts on the use of AI art and writing in creative contexts.
www.meeplemountain.com/articles/is-...
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Is This Really What We Want? ā AI Art in Board Games ā Meeple...
AI generated imagery and text are a threat to what makes board games worthwhile. In this piece, Andrew explains Meeple Mountainās policy.
https://www.meeplemountain.com/articles/is-this-really-what-we-want-ai-art-in-board-games/
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Amabel Holland
3 months ago
Let's talk about board game boxes and their role in selling a game, framing and contextualizing the experience, and creating meaning.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgfV...
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Boxes: Selling, Framing, Meaning
YouTube video by Hollandspiele
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgfVE_qbWC8
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Eric Dittmore
4 months ago
For anyone who is interested in Adulting but didn't make it to IGNM, fear not! The PNP version is here! While I'd love to print more copies, this will have to do for now. It is pay what you want; I really just want to get this game in as many hands as possible. Let me know what you think!
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Adulting by Eric Dittmore
A cozy card game about the mundane struggles of adulthood.
https://eric-dittmore.itch.io/adulting
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Lunarpunk Games
4 months ago
Conviction by
@xoe.gay
is now available. A stable stalwart and an intrepid idealist vowed to live in harmony forever. But now, the two find themselves in a grim quarrel. You must decide if they cooperate, separate, or one dominates the story of their lives. The night is for mediation. š
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Conviction | Lunarpunk Games
the night is for mediation . . . Conviction is a two player tabletop game about resolving a grim quarrel with your partner.
https://www.lunarpunk.games/conviction
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Connor | Always Awake Games
Marceline Leiman
4 months ago
⨠Reminder!! ⨠Indie Games Night Market is tonight @ 7pm!! When the Expo Hall closes, come down to Hall C to buy the freshest indie games!! āMore even than last year, these games seem like theyāre pushing boundaries. They capture the spirit of what it means to be āindie.āā
@danthurot.bsky.social
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JC š Unpub
4 months ago
Finally sharing my sizzle reel! If you're in need of video production work (or pretty much anything creative), hit me up, esp. at
#PAXU
! I don't ask for this much, but if you're in the
#boardgames
industry and like what I do, consider sharing this! I'm looking to book up 2026!
linktr.ee/jcw.gay
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Dan Thurot
4 months ago
I sincerely hope people will check out this year's Indie Games Night Market at Pax Unplugged! I covered nine of the games that will be featured there, each of which has something to recommend it. With any luck, some of them will be picked up by publishers or continue to be sold by their creators.
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Taylor Shuss
4 months ago
And that is why I decided on hand-making copies for this year's Indie Games Night Market. I know it's perfect silly fun and a great way to draw a crowd at a convention š - just please be careful with cross traffic! Please come check my game out & others this Saturday at PAX Unplugged!
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Dan Thurot
4 months ago
Agreed. This is what KS was supposed to be for. Personal, niche, weird, offbeat, individual crafts that otherwise wouldn't be able to exist. Unfortunately, the hobby spent too long chasing the wrong objectives.
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Seeing all the creativity coming out of these markets cemented something Iāve been feeling for a while. The āpitch to a publisherā pipeline as the norm really stifles game design. Thereās so much creativity out there, it just needed an outlet.
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4 months ago
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Dan Thurot
4 months ago
Today I'm covering three more upcoming Indie Games Night Market titles! Fold & Fly!, Coupon Clipper, and Paper Pencil Stencil are all tactile treats. My reviews:
spacebiff.com/2025/11/17/t...
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Paper Planes, Coupons, Stencils
Weāre only a few days away from the Indie Games Night Market at Pax Unplugged. Funny how time gets away from us. Donāt worry, thatās less a plaintive cry about my fading youth thaā¦
https://spacebiff.com/2025/11/17/tactile-trio/
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BoardGame Animal š
4 months ago
Weāre thrilled to share our Special Presentation; Indie Games Night Market Preview! It was a privilege to be part of this & share these games with you all~
youtu.be/HA_u8oxU0kc?...
See the games that will be at the IGNM in exactly 1 week at
#PAXunplugged
!
#boardgames
#ignm
#cardgames
#indiegames
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Xo3 (it/its) š°šŖ
4 months ago
It's finally here!! Also this is a great thread for reading about Hollandspiel's latest releases!
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