Designing for the back of the room

Lately, I’ve been visiting friendly local game stores (FLGSs). Bliss is a completely free hour in a game store with shelves and shelves of games: games I have played until the pieces are worn, games I crowd-funded, games on my birthday list, games I never heard of...

Rethinking “touch” in games

Touch. It’s a familiar word, yet I found myself a few days ago confronted by it as by a stranger. I was looking for special abilities for a character design. “You must touch additional targets to protect them,” I read. For whatever reason, I reacted as if I had never...

Intrusion: Moonlight

We didn’t get much sleep last night. Moonlight streamed into the bedroom for hours. I love moonlight and we’ve gotten used to sleeping in a periodically bright bedroom (more or less). However, we have a dog. We trained him to sleep in a crate in our room. He learned...

Games for the gloaming

As the nights grow longer, I find myself thinking about games that are best played in the dark. Outdoor games like hide-and-seek and kick the can took on a special zest when the sun went down. Frisbee goes from tame to reckless when you can barely see the disc. I have...