Hi all! Today I have a nice podcast episode, all about RPGs and RPG design! I feel like I have a lot to say here, and I do dare say that I am slowly, slowly pursuing becoming some kind of crazy expert on the topic, so hopefully there’s some interesting stuff in here to think about. I’m also starting pre-pre-production on my very own RPG finally (!!), so a lot of this is very non-theoretical for me. I also talk a bit about Trails in the Sky: First Chapter which I’ve been playing a bunch on and off over the past month or so, as well as a bunch of other games. Finally, I answer a bunch of questi ..read more

Hi everyone! It’s been a few months since I wrote about Spellstorm, my new deckbuilding card game. As I wrote about a few months ago, the game took a huge turn somewhere around December, and I am so glad it did. The version of the game that I was working on before would get somewhat tepid “it’s interesting…” kinds of responses a lot of the time, and had very annoying problems that never seemed to be solvable. By contrast, this version consistently gets way more positive reactions. I notice it with my playtesters that all of us are sincerely way more excited to play. Overall, the game has been ..read more

As I’ve gone through the Final Fantasy series recently, it’s notable that the games used to have secrets, and now, they pretty much don’t anymore. Somewhere in the late 90s, and certainly by the mid 2000s, it was decided that secrets are bad and games shouldn’t have them. Well, I’m here to say that while secrets do have their costs, and they can be implemented poorly, but we are much better off having them, than not having them. Before I get started, I should make it clear which context it is that I’m talking about: single player, somewhat narrative driven videogames, like RPGs or adventure ga ..read more

I’m about 27-ish hours into Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I’ve only ever played a bit of Yakuza 0 before this. I thought the writing was good (great, for a videogame) but the actual combat I found to be very annoying; real time button mashy combat where the enemies have gigantic health bars resulted in my hand literally aching after beating one boss. It just wasn’t that interesting to me overall. Like a Dragon is the first turn based JRPG in the series, so I was really excited about playing it. I would have played it sooner, but I was on this huge Final Fantasy kick (which is still ongoing, to be hon ..read more

Hey all! This is kind of a “bonus episode” of sorts, only 30 minutes long. Here’s some of the topics covered: A bit of navel gazing about my own theory and approach to games and how it has changed A short essay I wrote about “speaking the language” and how building off of existing designs means a higher floor and a higher ceiling Some stuff about 4X games and scope. Will 4X games ever do anything about this? Maybe Against the Storm will provide some answers. Thanks for listening, and as always, this show has no ads and the only way it’s funded is through Patreon, so consider donating if you ..read more

Back in September, I introduced people to my upcoming card game, Spellstorm. The initial plan was to launch a Kickstarter in February of 2023, but back in early December I realized we were going to have to push that back. The original version of Spellstorm that we were working on for most of a year turned out to have a few fundamental problems. For month after month, I tried fixing them with different supporting mechanisms, different ways that cards were obtained, different ways damage was dealt, and a lot more, but nothing really fixed the fundamental problem. Let me quickly explain how the g ..read more

About a month or so ago, Marvel Snap was launched. At first, I was very skeptical: not only was this a CCG, but also it’s a mobile gacha game, but ALSO it’s some Marvel IP thing? The odds were not looking good for me! However, I quickly noticed that this was not your average mobile card game. And almost all of the things that make it “not your average mobile card game” are good old fashioned game design: bold, systemic decisions made surrounding the ruleset. In most CCGs, cards are typically extremely inefficient. Hearthstone is probably the banner example here. When I play a card in Hearthsto ..read more

Hey all! This is just a short little article where I will try to make the case for why I think Hearthstone: Battlegrounds (which I’ve gotten back into now that the Buddies system has been removed) should end after four players have been eliminated. Currently, for those who don’t know, HSBG is an eight-player FFA game. Typically, you might expect that whoever comes in first place is the winner, and the rest of the players are losers. But in HSBG, the rules say that the “top four” players are winners, and indeed, this is reflected in your Elo change after the match. Let’s take a moment to discu ..read more

Hi all! It’s been awhile since the last episode. This year I got married and went on my honeymoon, so things have been kind of crazy. But now, they’re sort of going back to normal. Over the last six months, I guess partially because I was doing a bit of traveling, but also partially because I got a Retroid handheld and a Steam Deck (both of which are phenomenal, game-changers for game-playing, for me at least), I’ve been on this crazy Final Fantasy kick. Growing up I had played (and beaten) I, IV, VI and VII, a couple times each, but I had really fallen off over the years, so I had a lot of c ..read more

Hey y’all! I’ve been working extremely hard this year on Spellstorm (among other projects) – so much so that I sort of forgot to write something about it here on my blog, I’ve realized! I did write this piece over at its BoardGameGeek page, so do check that out to begin with, if you haven’t already: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2896616/dev-diary-1-designing-new-kind-deckbuilder In any case, this game started out in late 2021 as a sequel to Dragon Bridge, my first card game. Over the last 10-11 months, and over 100 different numbered versions of the game, the game has evolved into… really ..read more