For the inaugural post of the series I wanted to talk about a pattern that has been really important to my own designs, and that has become a hallmark of modern games. What you do helps others too is a pattern in which your play doesn’t function to block others as much as it opens »more
Author Archives: Isaac Shalev
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Introducing Patterns in Game Design
I’m a fan of the Game Designers of North Carolina Podcast (GDoNC), which features conversations between game designers on design-related topics. In episode 33, Mark McGee spoke about how he designed his games around a central message, a kind of moral of the game. He mentioned a couple, like “teamwork is awesome or “you can have it now »more
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New PnP – Mosaic, a Roll-and-Write Game
Want to try one of our games? You can print this one on one page! In Mosaic, you’ll try and restore the Mona Lisa of the Galilee, an ancient tile portrait of a mesmerizing, mysterious woman with just a hint of a smile. Mosaic is a roll-and-write game, like Yahtzee. You supply the dice and the »more
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Game Design Glossary: Decision Scales
The Game Design Glossary is an ongoing series about defining new terms in tabletop game design. Learn more about it here! This week, we welcomed Matt Wolfe, the designer of Wombat Rescue and Avalanche at Yeti Mountain to talk about Decision Scales. Listen to the whole discussion on On Board Games Episode 235 here, download »more
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Pickpockets is on Kickstarter now!
Lately I’ve teamed up with designer Matt Loomis to make tons more games. Our first to be published is a small game in the Buttonshy Games stable of wallet games, called Pickpockets. These are games of no more than 18 cards, packaged in a small wallet. Our is the first REAL wallet game though, because »more
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Interview on the Game Design Round Table
Dirk Knemeyer and David Herron invited me over to their show, the Game Design Round Table, which is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to. We had a great chat about designing games, telling stories, and collaborating with others. We even shared the news that Dirk and I are working together on a project. Head »more
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Pitchcraft!
(x-posted to Whose Turn Is It Anyway) Robin Lees, host of the very enjoyable Whose Turn Is It Anyway podcast, wrangled a few designers together to write about different aspects of designing, playtesting and publishing games. Here’s the piece I wrote, which I thought I’d share on this site too. For the other articles in the »more
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Panda Preserve PnP
Want to play a game about herding an adorable panda? Of course you do. It’s my submission to the DFW Nerd Nighters Design Competition and it’s a ton of fun! You download the Print-n-Play and please come back and leave comments. You can watch this Youtube video to learn how to play.
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Conquest of Canaan Is Back
After an amicable parting of ways with the previous publisher, who did a great job developing the game further, but who does not have the ability to continue to drive the project further, Conquest of Canaan is once again available for another publisher. To help explain what the game is all about, I made a »more
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Panda Preserve – DFWNN Design Vlog #2
As you may know, I am competing in the #DFWNN design competition. This is part 2 of my design vlog. You can check out part I here.
