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Card games Conventions Larp

Fastaval – Trauma Ward

(So, yes, I’m so far behind on this blog now that it’s not even funny any more. But! Maybe writing about Fastaval, which has only just now happened, will inspire me to catch up a bit.) What is Fastaval? It’s a games convention that takes place in Denmark, every year over the Easter long weekend. […]

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Card games

In a Bind – bound to have fun

I got to play the freshly-published version of the excellent social card game In a Bind recently. It’s designed by Behrooz Shahriari, who I know originally via the London playtest meetup. It’s a very straightforward game, quick to learn and to play, for 3–10 players, about physical constraints. At its simplest, players take turns to […]

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Card games Conventions Tabletop role-playing

Dragonmeet

Not just about meeting dragons! Dragonmeet has new owners and a new venue – is it still relevant, interesting, fun? Dragonmeet is London’s one-day games convention, and it’s been going since forever. I first went in 1983 or so, when it was run by Games Workshop, but before they’d become evil. More recently it was […]

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Card games

Fancy that! Belle of the Ball

Belle of the Ball, a Fancy Schmancy Card Game, is the new(-ish) release by Daniel Solis via Dice Hate Me Games. If you haven’t come across Daniel, he’s an absurdly talented game designer and also graphic designer, with a very interesting and thoughtful blog which covers the development and production of his game concepts in […]

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Card games

Shortlisted!

Woohoo! Fishy Business has been shortlisted for the Concurs Ciutat de Granollers de creació de jocs, an annual game design competition held in the town of Granollers just north of Barcelona. I was wised up to this competition by Brett J Gilbert, who won it in 2011 with the game that later became Divinare. To […]

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Card games

Japanese minimalism

Nice blog post here by Bruno Faidutti about the trend of ‘Japanese minimalism’ in game design. (It’s in French first, English underneath.) He says straight away that of course minimal games have existed for a while, and they don’t all come from Japan. But there definitely is a strong current tradition there of games involving […]

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Card games

Hands -> Monsters

I’ve gone with monsters for this next iteration. Here’s one of them! Hopefully this will be a bit more fun than red circles and blue triangles, although it’s still the same game underneath. The new working title is Monster Mash – there have been games called that before, of course, but not very successful ones […]

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Card games

Theming ideas

I’m thinking that the new game, which has the working title Hands Up! because I’ve reused a load of the art from Shape Up!, could benefit from being lightly themed rather than abstract. Theming is not one of my strong points, though – so if you’ve got any good ideas, please say! What I need […]

Categories
Card games Larp Tabletop role-playing

Busy!

Phew, hectic few weeks. I’d better write some of it down before I forget.

Categories
Card games

Hands Up!

I thought about another microgame idea last night. In the vein of Shape Up!, this one has the working title Hands Up! There are 18 cards, which each carry a symbol: there are two each of [red|blue|green] [circle|square|triangle]. Each card also carries a victory condition, which are all different. Each condition represents a possible combination […]