Sometimes, like today, game design is wondering what the plural of "platypus" is

Squirrel Away design diary complete! 😮‍💨 I always super-underestimate how long it takes me to write these. Somebody teach me to be less verbose!

Had such a fun time at another stellar Lawrence concert tonight

Come get nuts with us at Spiel Essen 2025, Hall 3 3P200

We are live! And we funded in 15 minutes! Amazing! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lud...

Lies and falsehoods

heyyyyyy did you know i like doing podcasts? have me on! i can talk to you about designing trick takers, or publishing small batch games, or indie games night market, or going to japan for tokyo game market, or learning japanese, or seeing 2-4 movies in the theater a week, or nerds gummy clusters...

Just realized that there will be 6(!) of my games on the floor at Essen - Beasts, Squirrel Away, the German editions of the Merchants of Magick expansions, and the German editions of Chomp and the Flyers and Scavengers expansion. boardgamegeek.com/geekpreview/...

"I think Beasts offers some interesting flexibility and strategic play that is wholly unique from The Game, but perfectly reasonably compared to it. For one thing, Beasts has infinitely better SEO than The Game” 🤣 Eric gets it! And I will never get how "The Game" got approved as an actual title.

I cannot make my brain pronounce "ichor" the way it's supposed to be pronounced

I just backed Wizard Community College on Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/161...

I'm doing some dev work on Flintlock!, the new game in the Blitzkrieg series of 20-minute 2-player wargames. I'm coordinating some digital playtesting that's happening over the next few weeks. Any mutuals interested in helping out for the promise of a free copy of the game when it's released?

Convention planning via 3D modeling is pretty fun. I think we'll be doing up a booth something like this at PAX Unplugged

Hey board game designers I made a list of Pax Unplugged publishers: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... "Would need to ask", means website and maybe contact, but their site doesn't mention submissions. Leave a comment if I need to fix something up.

This hurricane forecast is art

I'm looking for anyone interested in interviewing me about my upcoming game Twisted Trumpets which is being published by Play to Z Games and will be available to purchase at Essen and in retail shortly thereafter.

"It was insane how such simple mechanics could lead to, just a hysterical time" Audio-only, but first full review I've seen for Squirrel Away! youtu.be/pOnrt8sKDE8

I was skeptical at first, but these were pretty great!

The hype is real. Hot Streak is soooo good! Immediately added it to my wishlist.

Board game career paths can be pretty weird. Just learned the VP of game development at Exploding Kittens came from academia where he wrote a PhD dissertation on French colonialism in the 1600s.

Pretty much anything anyone ever cites as "always bad in game design" I will fight them on. The longer I've designed games, the more I've come to believe that context is ALWAYS King. ALWAYS. There is a situation in which EVERY "Never do X" rule for game design should be broken.

It was humbling tonight to teach one of my lighter games, Chomp, to a table full of chemists who kept getting confused about several rules and saying "this is complicated!" But also, they asked to play again 3 times in a row... so I'm calling that a win!

Back home after a fantastic (1st annual?) GDofNC game jam! We had 19 designers in 5 teams. And even the jam constraints were gamified. Each team took turns drafting components, mechanics, and themes from the list. It was a blast, and my team is going to keep working on our game, Kazoo Prodigy.

Another nice review of Beasts from Tantrum House - youtu.be/heLD69Gs7S4

I don't who else is into this specific intersection of politics and comedy, but I just learned Robert Reich is Sam Reich's father, and I am shook. 🤯

Got some video of us playing Locked Out of Heaven at the wedding reception! www.youtube.com/shorts/4jdpD...

Had a blast playing my first wedding reception gig in over a decade. Also, first time playing with a 3-piece horn section. And definitely first time playing with a Grammy-nominated musician(Al Strong)! 🤯

Periodically, I take some time to make sure I'm keeping good track of my in-print games and any royalties I'm due (an unfortunate necessity). Today while crunching numbers, I noticed that I recently hit 100k units sold across all my games. What? 🤯

There's a fun easter egg in the card art for Beasts. Each set of number cards can be laid out to form views of the same nature scene at different times. Each suit represents a different season. And whole/broken variants represent day vs night scenes. So, there's 8 card panoramas in all!

Finally got my designer copies of Beasts today, so it became the 8th unique game on my Self Shelf! 😍🎲✂️

If you missed Squirrel Away at #GenCon, here you can see a full demo from the con! youtu.be/peA72EFKMJc

A Message From the Stars made it onto the list of Top Games of 2024 from @beforeyouplay.bsky.social! youtu.be/srlSTOmI-Zk?...

Latest addition to the GDofNC library is Beasts! Designed by group member @stoichamster.bsky.social and published by @pandasaurusgames.com!

First playtest of Stupid Racing Game(working title). I guess it ended up being more of a flip-and-move than a roll-and-move?

"It feels like a modern classic" - First full review of Beasts courtesy of The Game Boy Geek! youtu.be/1W9P-uDKcTc

The last time one of my games was rated this highly after this many BGG ratings, it was #1 on the BGG Hotness (The Wolves). Just sayin'... 😉

The evolution of Uh Oh, Dino!- our cute and chaotic dinosaur co-op! The photos obviously show how the art has evolved. More subtly reflected in these images is how much gameplay iteration happened during development.

Brotherwise Games is hiring! We're looking to add a part-time Product Coordinator to our small but growing team. If you know anyone who might be interested, please share this application link: forms.gle/ZQSbcbS9emGw... Details: 💻 Remote work 🕑 ~20 hours/week 💵 ~$30/hour 🎲 Tabletop Games industry

A publisher I'll be working with just sent a very transparent 5-page Royalties FAQ. It covers types of sales, their tracking systems, reports, payment timing/method, print runs, mass market, BGA, taxes, and more. I've never gotten something this detailed before, but now I want all the pubs to do it.

I was today years old when I learned the unusual timing in the intro of YYZ by Rush is actually the rhythm of tapping out "YYZ" in Morse code. 🤯

Am I actually designing a roll-and-move? maybe... 🤨

Nice Beasts unboxing video from @iteachshewins.bsky.social that really lets you see all the gold foil accents that have been hard to see in other photos and videos! youtu.be/dBotkSayOS8

We are having some fun with the cooperative card game Beasts from @pandasaurusgames.com Check out the full play through here - youtu.be/N-2lKB6IZ3s?... #beasts #beastscardgame #cardgame #games #games

Missed this earlier, but @indymonthly.bsky.social named Beasts one of the best "non-intimidating" games of #GenCon!

Here's a nice overview video for Squirrel Away from Tito's Tabletop - youtu.be/9kDhOazN9j4

It's only been a couple weeks, but Beasts just hit 30 BGG ratings, and so it's officially ranked now! Love seeing people enjoying this one. Also, an average rating of 8.1? 😲

Far more people will lose your game than win. Make sure your game is still fun even when players lose.

Making things is my joy 💜Here’s my next public thing!

It's mail day! Excited to finally get my paws on this!