One of the things that people like about Escape the Nightmare is that it’s extremely fast paced. I never thought that I’d get a reviewer to write something positive about losing a game in seconds but there it is. However the manner in which Escape the Nightmare manages to set its pace is something of a bludgeon. Causing players to lose if they don’t do things fast enough is a very artificial way to set pace, so lets talk about other methods of setting a pace.
So I’ve got this problem: I don’t read reviews. If I’m interested in a game I’ll play it and see if I like it. Or if I can’t do that I’ll read the rules and generate a mental model of what I think the game will be like. That’s far from 100% reliable but has always suited me better than listening to someone else’s opinions of a game.
Recently I’ve identified a problem with my ability to successfully communicate emotion and it’s potentially causing some fairly significant problems, so I’d like to take the time to explore my mistakes and hopefully help you to avoid similar ones. It started while I was chatting with Morten about an apparent conflict in the fundamental nature of my latest game. On the one hand it’s themed for tension and difficulty, but on the other hand it presents as a party game and the audiences for these things are almost entirely mutually exclusive.
While I’m excited about my current Kickstarter I think it’s really important to look after your existing backers so have been doing plenty on the previous one too. Most recently I’ve had a discussion with our backers about the possibility of creating some Wizard’s Academy DLC on a digital games platform, over 100 backers have chimed in with their feedback and there’s a lot to think about. One of the points that keeps coming up is the comparison between Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia, which I thought would make an interesting topic to discuss today.
