Azul at BGG CON

I loved Azul. I played it on 4 different days at BGG.CON in the Hot Games area. I’m definitely buying this one.

Faramir and Denethor

I’m re-reading The Lord of the Rings this year. This exchange is just so haunting and powerful.

Faramir: “You wish now that our places had been exchanged. That I had died and Boromir had lived.”

Denethor: “Yes, I wish that indeed.”

Illustration: Anke Eissmann

The Placebo Effect

I’ve always found placebos interesting. (The brain is pretty powerful!) Here’s a great article with recent research.

Theme vs Mechanisms

Many people debate theme-first or mechanism-first design for tabletop games. I completely agree with this quote from Bruno Faidutti on the issue: Tips For Aspiring Designers →

Search Tweet History

Today I learned how to search the tweets I posted within a date range:

from:randyhoyt since:2014-04-01 until:2014-05-31

(I was looking for this picture of an early Lanterns prototype when I was considering it for publication, and I found it easily with this search.)

3D Printed Box Insert

3D printing a box insert or storage solution might be one of my new favorite things. My son took a 3D printing class at our public library. They have a 3D printer than anyone can use; you just pay for the material. I’d been wanting to get boxes or trays for Santorini to hold the pieces, to make it much faster to get the game out and play it quickly. Last week I found files on Thingiverse by someone else had the same idea.

Hero Kids

Yesterday’s Hero Kids RPG session was a success! We all had a lot of fun, and Garrett Hoyt (10YO) did a great job his first time as a GM!

I’ve only rarely played any RPGs before this. But my brother’s been playing DnD a lot recently, and he got Garrett really excited about it at our summer family trip. He recommended we check out Hero Kids, and I ran an adventure for Garrett and Darren (5YO) this summer. This was our second adventure together.

Happy Socks

Happiness is someone you love buying you crazy socks.

Spy Club Launch

We’re launching Spy Club on Kickstarter today! We’re excited to launch. (But with “273 live Tabletop Games” on Kickstarter right now, I go back and forth between “excited” and “anxious.”)

Edit: We had a great Day 1 for Spy Club on Kickstarter! (It was the most money we’ve raised in a single day on any of our campaigns yet.)

Undead Viking on Content Creators

There are a lot of great comments in this video that apply to GAME CREATORS, as well, discussing hopes, motivations, popularity, and more.