I “met” game designer Dirk Knemeyer through our Out of the Park Baseball league. He’s had marginally more success than I have mostly through not finishing 30 games back four seasons in a row. Dirk is also an employer and collaborator, since I am doing research and consulting for him in the evenings and on [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
Holiday Guest Blog 5: Dirk Knemeyer – “Theme and Mechanics”
January 3rd, 2012 · 6 Comments · Design, Guest Blog
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Three Moves Ahead Episode 146: On the Air
December 8th, 2011 · 20 Comments · Design, Podcast, Three Moves Ahead
It’s more a fancy lecture and masterwork design class than a bunch of guys guessing about what works when board game desiger Lee Brimmicombe-Wood sits down with Troy and Bruce to talk about his history of making games about air power, the challenges in getting all the cool technical bits down and the difficulties in [...]
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Starting From the Middle
December 6th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Design, Me
I think and write a lot about accessibility of strategy games. I do this for a couple of reasons. First, I love them and want more people to play them. I think strategy gaming scratches an intellectual itch (the desire to see a plan come together, the balancing of timing and resources, the original narrative [...]
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House Rules
November 30th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Board Games, Design, Modding
I think most of us encountered our first house rule without even knowing it was one. We’d be playing Monopoly with friends or families, because we were too young to have good taste in games or friends, and we all used the Free Parking rule – taxes and Chance/Community chest money went into the center [...]
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Stories within Systems: Why Randomness Matters
November 24th, 2011 · 15 Comments · Design
This post is mostly thinking out loud. So please fill the comments with your own insights. Though the idea Chick Parabola predated Tom Chick’s eloquent discussion of early in Three Moves Ahead history, the core idea speaks to a hardcore understanding of what strategy games are all about. Like chess or Go or Little Wars, [...]
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Hey There, Little Buddy: The Sphere of Influence
October 23rd, 2011 · 6 Comments · Design
Spheres of Influence are one of those diplomatic conceits that strategy games try to recognize but have trouble really bringing to life, and there’s a good reason for this. A sphere of influence isn’t “real” in the sense that an alliance or a vassal status is, though it supersedes both of those. A sphere of [...]
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