Tuesday, December 3, 2013

What's this place?

Ok, so this is a new blog based on one idea: that I'll design a simple outline of a board game every day for a year.

Today is my birthday.  December 3rd, 2013.  By coincidence, I saw a post today on BoardGameGeek about the Boardgamizer fitness challenge.  The simplest way to put it is that Boardgamizer makes a random set of ideas for a board game, and the website put out a challenge for people to write up ideas using their randomizer.  It gives you a mechanic, theme(s), win conditions, and, if you want them, constraints.

I've been working on a couple of board games of my own, and I really think this is a hobby that I could someday turn into a little side business.  But I want more practice on my skills.  I think this is a good way to give myself a push into trying things I'm a little unsure of and to stretch my abilities.

I'll aim for 1 design a day until my next birthday.  I'm sure some of them will be weird or terrible designs, but I'll try to work with what I get out of the randomizer and see what I can come up with.  I'll use constraints, and I'll take the first one the randomizer throws at me.  The only exception being that it uses multiple themes and sometimes they very much don't work together.  Earlier I rolled up the themes of "Cold War" and "18th Century."  Maybe I could come up with something there (time travel?), but I'd rather not have to worry so much about reconciling the themes, and get more into the mechanics.

I'll also target writing 1000 words per day.  That's a reflection of some old writing challenges I've done, and it will mean that I have to flesh out each idea substantially.

3 comments:

  1. This sounds really great. I look forward to reading about all your weird and terrible designs!

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  2. Thanks Isaac! When this site is huge and famous, you will have the honor of the first comment. Or if it crashes and burns in infamy, you will have the ignoble distinction of being the first commentator.

    Welcome aboard! :)

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  3. Thanks! I may try this out as well, though probably something less crazy like once a week and starting in January. So don't let it crash and burn - I'm looking to you for inspiration!

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