So, I’m going to try and make a post each week about what I’ve been doing regarding game development, game playing, and whatever else about my life I think might be interesting.
It’s unlikely that they’ll all be named after lyrics from 4 Non Blondes songs.
This week in development
Obviously the most significant part of my recent game development work has been getting this site finally sorted out. The bulk of it happened a while ago, but I made the final push recently.
What that involved was getting actual content sorted. Proper files and written information for Monster Insurance and You Monster, along with that all-important first blog post.
Monster Insurance isn’t definitely “done” yet. But I think it’s at a point where I need others to come up with problems, rather than continuously bashing my brain against it and driving myself mad.
As for other content: Mech Combat-ible is on the way! I need to put together some printable files and a run-down of the rules so people can try it out.
Then there’s the question of what to do with an odd number of players. Whether to have a solo player or a team of three (and how to not just steal ideas wholesale from Pacific Rim).
In other news, I picked up a copy of The White Box recently. I skipped it when it was on Kickstarter as shipping practically doubled the price, but it was much more reasonable at retail.
I’m looking forward to giving the essays that came with it a good read. I’ll let you know about anything particularly interesting I come across.
And now I have a great need to come up with a design that needs each player to have a big wooden cube.
I’ve also got Board Game Creative Kit on the way. So soon I’ll have more components for prototyping than I know what to do with!
This week in games
Another recent gaming purchase was an attempt to finally buy Geek Out, as I’m the kind of terrible person who enjoys trivia games. It’s been pretty impossible to buy over here for a reasonable price, so seeing someone offering it on Amazon for £10, I jumped at the chance.
Unfortunately, Amazon being crap, I ended up with Geek Out: Family. But, after complaining that the listing was wrong, the seller gave me a refund and let me keep the game. So not all bad. We’ll see if this version is fun, despite not being as geeky as the original.
I also picked up hard copies of Grant Hewitt’s one-page RPGs. I’m torn on whether I want to try out Honey Heist or Trashkin first.
Our regular games night at Leicester Waterstones had three people in attendance, so I finally got a chance to play Pi Mal Pflaumen (I refuse to use the boring English title of “Plums”). It’s a very simple game that results in some hard decisions. Looking at a card in your hand that you know you have to play to score it, but if you play it, someone else could easily take it!
That finished early, so we had a quick few rounds of Bring Your Own Book, which always goes down well (you’d be hard pressed to find a better environment to play this in). Though I think a book of poetry constructed from Trump tweets is a tad overpowered.
Then yesterday I took a trip to The Dice Cup in Nottingham to meet up with friends and friends of friends. It’s a nice place that does good food and drinks, and has lots of space to play. We didn’t use their game library, but it definitely looked extensive.
We had a big group, so we were limited on what we could play. We started off with Mafia de Cuba with 9 players. Then we had a few games of One Night Ultimate Werewolf that expanded to 11 players at one point. Then people left and we went down to 7 for Millions of Dollars.
All went down well, though it wasn’t the best environment for ONUW, as while background noise meant the sound of card movement was covered up, we couldn’t hear the app, so one player had to listen and repeat the instructions.
And for a bit of “game news”, I’ll point you to the Kickstarter for Good Society, which is a Jane Austen RPG.
It’s not my kind of thing, but it’s from the same team who created Alas for the Awful Sea, which I Kickstarted a while back (though I haven’t yet had a chance to play it), so I obviously trust them to make something good.
This week in everything else
While searching for a book to use for BYOB, I happened across Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, which looked worth a read (the premise sounds similar to the Song of Shattered Sands series by Bradley Beaulieu, which I really like). This is the danger of visiting a bookshop so often!
Conversely, I failed to find anything of interest in Waterstones Nottingham, despite it having a much bigger selection. I caught an earlier train just to go there and everything!
And this week I have mostly been listening to Open Hand because I picked up their album You and Me. Only 13 years after it was released! It’s good, though I’m somewhat disappointed to discover that the female vocalist on Tough Girl wasn’t actually a member of the band …
And that’s it! Wow, that’s a long post. They probably won’t all be like this.
-AD