One thing I've noticed after 10+ years designing historical games is how closely people cling to how they *think* things work, based largely on movies, fiction, or even other games.

a short and grouchy game design 🧵! One thing we've run into a *lot* with the Horse & Musket series are folks treating horsies like tanks, expecting to scatter infantry with like a frontal charge. More than once folks have told us it's "not accurate" when their poor cavalry got absolutely chewed up by enemy fire.

So, "practical component constraints" is a major factor - there have been a couple we were really interested in, but where the production cost would be so high we wouldn't be able to offer the game at a competitive price-point. But other than that? 1/17

https://twitter.com/djackthompson/status/1424938490375155721

We look for games that have something to say. Doesn't mean we're looking for a "message" game necessarily (though we've published those), but it needs a strong thesis that's infused into the game's systems, supported and/or tested by them. 2/17

So @Capstone_Games is shipping out their handsome new production of my game Iberian Gauge. I'm really excited for it to reach a broader audience; honestly, I think it's the best of the five games I designed for Winsome. 1/11

(photo from Capstone's website) That's not to say it's the one with the broadest appeal. By rights that should be Northern Pacific; I will never understand why it wasn't a huge hit. Irish Gauge was a huge success & designed to be: it's cube-rails-as-bumper-bowling, a gentle, inviting approach to the genre. 2/11

Prolly shouldn't wade into this, but what the heck: this question assumes (a) the slap happens in my game (it doesn't) and (b) that the slap happened at all (almost certainly didn't). So, first, some pedantry, then some thoughts about my game Nicaea and its intent. 1/19

https://twitter.com/belltowergames/status/1414653042679496709

The slap doesn't appear in the "historical" record until the late medieval period - nearly a thousand years after the council. Heck, ol' St. Nick doesn't appear in Eusebius's history at all, and *probably* didn't attend the council! 2/19

Interesting question posed by this thread, and I definitely understand player hesitancy with picking the "wrong" faction. But if you want my unsolicited thoughts?

All political struggle is by its very nature asymmetric.

https://twitter.com/zhoekstra/status/1413882601140416518

Whether it's within a polity or between rival polities, the goals, capabilities, resources -- it's gonna differ pretty wildly. Even in a conventional conflict in which sides or armies are "evenly matched", it ain't ever really even.

Often when people ask "How do you design a board game?", I get the sense that they're looking for step-by-step instructions. I remember a thread in some forum somewhere where they decried how "terrible" they felt all the how-to game design books are, specifically because 1/11 "all they do is tell you about different techniques and mechanisms and pros and cons, they don't actually tell you how to *do* it". There was not-so-subtle hinting that the Game Designers were keeping that a Secret from the lowly plebs to keep them from breaking in. 🙄 2/11

One of the funniest and weirdest things folks have said about one of my games is that it's "not a game" at all. And by even the strictest & most gatekeepery definition - there are rules, players, decisions, a way to win and a way to lose - all of them are, literally, games. 1/15 I've heard it for Northern Pacific. Heard it for Westphalia. Heard it for Soo Line. Heard it for The Field of the Cloth of Gold. And, I mean, it might be a game that you like or enjoy or "get", but all of them are actually literally obviously games. 2/15