Playstyle Profiles

One of the least exciting parts of being a game designer is the initial tests, after a game has been developed into a prototype but before the prototype is ready to show to anyone. At that stage you put the game down, set out a bunch of places for your players around the table and hop from chair to chair playing the game with yourself. During the development of Wizard’s Academy I’m sure that I spent more than fifty hours playing with myself. While it’s more fun with company it’s useful to do this alone and it can be more fun with the right technique.

solo

 

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Playtesting graphic design

I’m a big fan of awful prototypes. It’s very much my preference to translate an idea into physical form and start playing with it as fast as possible and I really don’t spend much time agonising over how to lay things out neatly before creating *something* that will do. Generally this approach is great, ideas can get a “reality check” pretty quickly and there’s always time to refine later. It’s also pretty quick because every card that I design is essentially the same.

layout

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Sportsmanship and Game Design

Among other things, I grew up playing Titan. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the basic pattern of the game is that you start with a titan and a few other units and move about a strategic board using your existing units to recruit better units. When your units run into your opponents units then they’re moved onto a tactical board where they have a fight. The winner – in addition to having killed some things – gets some points which translate into recruiting special units and more power for their titular titan. A player who loses their titan is eliminated and the last player left standing wins. When my father was winning a game, the closing moves of the game would often look like this:

titan

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