🎲✂️ Every time I see 'balanced' I feel it's assigned a meaning that keeps boiling down to 'no people ahead' and, of course that's not a good game >_< IMO: a game is balanced if players have a fair shot at winning, at reading when/why they may be behind, & at knowing where recovery points could be.

Addressing feedback I have done some rulebook editing and restricted the use of the word "Activate". Now it's more obvious that you Activate Dice to Play Cards and Effects get Triggered either on reveal or because of a condition.

Getting closer to having skeletons in Bones & Banners so now I can soon retcon why the game is called Bones & Banners in the first place.

After FIVE YEARS of waiting, SHARP EYE #1, our follow-up to FIRST KNIFE, just hit Kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/sha... Check out our creepy full trailer, and then also all the info on the project following the link above, and please consider sharing and supporting our beautiful child!

Trying to lock down a design language for future Undead unit cards.

I am begging board game designers/publishers to PLEASE stop putting background images behind text on cards, in rulebooks, & on player aids. There are SO MANY neurodivergent people & people with vision issues whose brains have great difficulty trying to process this type of visual content.

A beautiful day! Received a copy of Bones & Banners to playtest—all the way from Sweden. @torviktorsson.bsky.social

youtu.be/TbMWN7gHcVs?... Welcome to SAGA Sessions, a discussion on game design! This time, we have invited Anne-Laure Janssen to talk about how to make a game accessible for a wider audience. Anne-Laure is a game designer with a special focus on making accessible board games.

Welcome to SAGA Sessions – game design talks twice a month! Anne-Laure Janssen on accessibility in board games. Big print? Braille? Color choices? Shapes? Let’s bust some myths and make games better for everyone. #GameDesign #BoardGames #Accessibility #SAGA calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0...

The talks by the Swedish Annual Game design Awards (SAGA) are now public on YouTube. We started giving them in English once we realised that there was a bigger interest than we originally thought. youtube.com/@saga_game_d...

I need some 🎲✂️ sell sheet help. I've created a card game that uses drafted dice for players to play cards with. With lots of cards and an irregular turn structure it's kind of hard to write a sell sheet that captures the essence of the game. Got any pointers?

Barefoot backwards walking today.

Upgrades to three cards that didn't feel strong enough to be worth playing before. All three feature dice manipulation to help with dice mitigation.

Can you spot the updates? Old cards on the left, new layouts on the right.

#LinCon was a blast. Played a lot of games and got a bunch of tests of Bones & Banners. Looking at all the photos I wish the game had better table presence so I'm looking into designing prettier village cards and army unit card backs.

Trust fellow game designers to give feedback you've already thought about but were too lazy to address and now you know you need to do it! 😅

Bones & Banners got a bunch of playtests at #LinCon so far. Getting useful feedback on where the game can be improved to meet expectations faster.

Having so much fun at #LinCon playing a wide variation of prototypes of every conceivable style of game play. Excited to hear which games will win the Swedish Annual Game design Awards #SAGA this evening. saga.boardgamedesign.se

Today's video talks about some ways I think the publisher-designer relationship can be improved, from communication, to development and contracts. youtu.be/YXGdfWkgcGI 🎲✂️

Adding four buildable Machine card prototypes to the next live play-testing event at #Lincon next week. See you at the boardgame designer room (Rum T1 i C-huset).

Played and beat my game today!! Last time I played I died 😅 I take both as good signs. #ZombieSlayer

Currently working on Machines trying to find the design space between Buildings and Army Units. The idea is that they are built like Buildings but that they operate closer to how infantry Army Units target different villages and your opponent will be able to attack them.

Today I ordered 12x16 cm rulebooks that fit the boxes I use for the prototypes. It's just a little larger than A6 size but the extra mm does make a difference.

Five prototype boxes of Bones & Banners ready for #LinCon protospiel designer room.

😍

It's crazy, when you play a boardgame prototype you can tell the designer what you did or did not like and they might change the game to your liking against your advice!

If you have watched Princess Mononoke even once perhaps you've picked up on a message and perhaps there was a lesson to be learned.

🎲✂️ I created 3 sell sheet templates in Google Slides for anyone to copy and make their own. This is based on providing very similar feedback repeatedly when helping fellow designers improve their sell sheets: bigger images + fewer words + focus on hooks. docs.google.com/presentation...

Loyalist Pillager. You get 2 in your starting deck. They are only one banner strong but they can be activated with three different dice results (Boot, Sword or Horse dice).

Zoomies is nominated for the GAMA Origin awards in the Light strategy section! www.polygon.com/tabletop-gam...

Does this farmer look like he is singing or sleeping? Perhaps add a couple of 🎶 so that it is more obvious?

My latest project is a deck builder civilization game. Yes, there might be a few already... question is if I can make it different and interesting enough?

@eanderssonsunden.bsky.social played whirling witchcraft today FINALLY its such a good little game!!

"-I'm not playing cards."

Considering moving the card name banner to the middle of the card instead of having it at the top of the card where the action symbol, number of banners and the card type is written.

Celebrate Danuta Danielsson!

Don't be a jerk!

Playtesting with fellow designers in Stockholm.

This week play testing ended with successful removal of a keyword, a whole damn phase and lots of text from the rulebook. It was a good week.

Since I've finally invested in a color printer I could print the latest prototype at home.

Got a delayed Xmas gift to/from myself and 13 year old me is delighted.

It felt off to write "banner" in card text when there is a symbol for how many banners a unit card has so I'm testing using the 🚩 symbol instead. Does it make sense to you?

Streamlining how units attack each other. Before they could both Duel (compare strength) and Slay (instant kill) each other but I'm replacing Slay with a Duel action plus extra strength. Most of the time this works the same as before but the game is now "rebalanced" hopefully fot the better.

Fighting Hellboy frog monsters on New Year's Eve.

Good Jul! ♥️🌿

Introducing the Rebellion Unplugged accessibility hub! This page will host the accessibility resources for Unplugged's games. 🎲 To go with the Joyride page we now also have Sniper Elite: The Board Game and the tabletop RPG magazine, Adventure Presents! rebellionunplugged.com/accessibility/

Unfortunately once a product hits retail shelves, its impossible to know if AI art was used unless they label it as such (they won't) and not everyone is going to read up on the KS for that info. If you make games and don't use Ai art, feel free to use a badge like this: hinokodo.itch.io/human-made

I've added a card carousel to the Bones & Banners page so that you can look at all the cards: www.bonesandbanners.com#cards

First version of the last card in the box. Not sure about the name. Scout or Sharpshooter or something like that. Supposed to be better than the Archers card.

The worst thing I did at a Con was bringing two identical prototypes and when a guy came back and wanted to play again I told him to wait 20min for the game being played to finish instead of just handing him the other prototype. I think about this a lot.