This blog is where game designer Amanda Vallerand records her thoughts about designing and self-publishing board games, and the lessons she has learned along the way.
Winning! An alternative to “most points”
After a game is over, how do you know who won it? As a Euro gamer, I play a lot of Most-VPs-Wins games, but I’m starting to sway more and more towards games which avoid the end game accounting associated with those. In this article, I dig into how Spirit Island handles this.
WHEN to add variability to your design
Last week, I talked about going from idea to prototype. Today, I want to talk about one of the pitfalls many of us fall into when prototyping. I’m a huge proponent of variable setups, missions, objectives, factions, and characters. I feel like it’s the one thing all of my games will have in common: “20 … Continue reading WHEN to add variability to your design
From Idea to First Playtest
I’ve always had a lot of ideas for games, but it took me a long time to figure out how to get from an idea to a first prototype.
This is MY method.
Subsurface Games 