Skip to content
Transneptune Games

Transneptune Games

Menu
  • About Us
  • Our Games
  • Contact

Category: Game Design

Characters you care about

By Kit
|
July 17, 2015
| No Comments
| Game Design

I’ve been thinking about this post from Chuck Wendig. In it, he talks about making the reader care about the characters you’ve written. It pertains to RPGs, too. Rather than the reader, though, both the other people you’re playing with and you yourself need to care about the character, though perhaps in different ways. I feel very […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Leave a comment

Organizing Playtests

By Kit
|
June 10, 2015
| 1 Comment
| Game Design

A couple days ago, I did a design chat with Ryan. One of the things we discussed was how to organize playtests. The particular kinds of playtest opportunities available to you will inevitably shape the game you can make. A consistent group with a regular schedule will allow you to produce a different game than […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s 1 Comment

What should my game say?

By Kit
|
December 30, 2014
| No Comments
| Et in Arcadia Ego development, Game Design

Or really, ask? How about this: the players are engaged in improv, with the general topic as the premise of your game. You’re kind of observing, sitting back and throwing a wrench in the works every time they get too comfortable, and nudging them back into the theme every time they drift too far. What […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s Leave a comment

Cognitive Load

By Kit
|
December 22, 2014
| 3 Comments
| Et in Arcadia Ego development, Game Design

I ran a little playstorm of Et in Arcadia Ego this weekend. It was very informative! One of the best things to come out of it was that, while there are many changes to make, I did not have to rip everything down and start from the ground up again, which is a sign of […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s 3 Comments

Simplicity

By Kit
|
June 30, 2014
| No Comments
| Critical Theory, Game Design

I had a talk yesterday with Austin about beats. They’ve been on my mind a lot lately. I think a large part of what I like so much about Vincent’s games is that they help me structure play, beat by beat. They help keep scenes from being sketchy, they make surprising outcomes and shape moments. So, […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s Leave a comment

Playtest budgets

By Kit
|
May 29, 2014
| No Comments
| Game Design

I’ve been mulling over the idea of playtests-as-studies. I’ve been thinking particularly about a recent conversation I had with the inimitable Avery Mcdaldno, wherein they suggested that, for a game you intend to Get Out Into the World, you have a limited budget (maybe, say, 4 to 40) of playtests. And so each one has […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s Leave a comment

Studies and playtests

By Kit
|
May 23, 2014
| No Comments
| Game Design

I’ve spent the day at the National Gallery, looking at Andrew Wyeth, Degas, Cassatt. When I was little, this was my least favorite museum (Air & Space and Natural History always claiming my affections), but as I grow older, I grow to appreciate it more. What struck me today was looking at a wall of […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Leave a comment

Balance, Symmetry, and a third thing

By Kit
|
May 13, 2013
| No Comments
| Game Design

A few thoughts intersected the other day. Let’s see if I can get them down. Here’s the short of it: balance is a canard. You don’t want balance, at least not in an RPG. You want interesting choices. Balance is a response to one kind of failure of interesting choices, that of a dominant strategy. […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s Leave a comment

Piece of Work G+ Round-up

By John
|
April 10, 2013
| No Comments
| A Piece of Work development, Game Design, Promotional

So, I’ve been posting to G+ these snippets: they’re a little too small and underdeveloped for the blog but I thought I’d do a round-up and save them here. If you want to know more about how Piece of Work is going, take a look over here: On the topic of damage.On the topic of […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s Tagged %1$s Leave a comment

Demand Mechanics

By Kit
|
March 24, 2013
| 2 Comments
| Game Design

So, a while back, we talked about doing a thing called Demand Mechanics. The idea is that we will do improvisational mechanic design: pull something out of a hat, bat ideas around for how to make mechanics about it. The video didn’t go up right away, due to none of us really knowing anything about […]

Read More »

Posted in %1$s 2 Comments

Posts navigation

1 2 … 11 Next

Links

  • Bully Pulpit Games
  • Daniel Solis
  • Deadly Fredly
  • Galileo Games
  • Go Play
  • Lumpley Games
  • Margaret Weis Productions
  • One Thousand One
  • Rob Donoghue
  • Ryan Macklin
  • Story Games
  • The Impossible Dream
  • The Mighty Atom

Categories

  • A Piece of Work development
  • Actual Play
  • Critical Theory
  • Et in Arcadia Ego development
  • Game Design
  • Game Design Community
  • Games Galore 2012
  • Lucid development
  • Play Process
  • Promotional
  • Transneptuniana

Archives

  • May 2017
  • March 2016
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011

Links

  • Bully Pulpit Games
  • Daniel Solis
  • Deadly Fredly
  • Galileo Games
  • Go Play
  • Lumpley Games
  • Margaret Weis Productions
  • One Thousand One
  • Rob Donoghue
  • Ryan Macklin
  • Story Games
  • The Impossible Dream
  • The Mighty Atom

Categories

  • A Piece of Work development
  • Actual Play
  • Critical Theory
  • Et in Arcadia Ego development
  • Game Design
  • Game Design Community
  • Games Galore 2012
  • Lucid development
  • Play Process
  • Promotional
  • Transneptuniana

Archives

  • May 2017
  • March 2016
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011

Powered by WordPress Transneptune Games 2022 | All Rights Reserved.