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Every choice in this game is painful
Exploring a "subversion of the point salad paradigm" game that makes every decision seem like a bad one. How The Field of the Cloth of Gold creates it's…
Oct 14
28
24
Mythic battles with dice
Exploring the combat dice system in Mythic Battles: Pantheon and how it uses discarding dice and re-rolls to create a push-your-luck mechanism.
Oct 7
15
4
September 2025
Roll three, pick two in Rumble Nation
Exploring how simple dice mechanisms can be used to create deep decision spaces in strategy games via Rumble Nation published by Hobby Japan.
Sep 30
25
6
Use inductive reasoning to talk to aliens
Exploring deduction and induction games and learning the differences between the two using Signal (DVC Games) as an example. Can we make more highly…
Sep 23
26
13
🐙 Return to the sea
The latest issue of TUMULUS is shipping now, including creative inspiration, game design exercises, deep sea treasures, pirate islands, and unfortunate…
Sep 22
19
7
Help libraries add your game to their collection
Exploring the world of library catalog and bibliographic data, and why it is important for indie creators to understand the basics. Let's talk about…
Sep 16
38
6
Initiative in A Gest of Robin Hood
Exploring the First Eligible initiative system used in Fred Serval's A Gest of Robin Hood published by GMT games. Turn order becomes part of the tough…
Sep 9
18
11
What is a probabilistically equivalent mechanism?
Exploring how the choice of cards, dice, tokens, coins and how the player physically interacts with can support (or break) the theme of a tabletop game…
Sep 2
23
25
August 2025
When is randomness OK in games?
I lost a game of Kingmaker when plague struck Calais and I've been thinking about it ever since. Exploring thematic vs. abstract and random vs. low-luck…
Aug 26
27
4
Interview: Choose your own adventure with TTRPGkids
An interview with Steph from TTRPGkids about choose your own adventure games, playing TTRPGs with kids, non-violent obstacles, and more.
Aug 19
20
6
3 design lessons from Ghost Beacon
Exploring how the design of Ghost Beacon for the One-Page RPG Jam taught me some lessons about game design. Keeping good notes, feedback on what's (not…
Aug 14
27
11
Make beautiful games with 5 free fonts
Use these five fonts the next time you want to branch out from the usuals. All of them are free, versatile, and particularly readable at a range of…
Aug 12
40
6
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