Earlier this year, I wrote about the 10×10 Challenge that my wife and I were undertaking for 2017. We chose ten games at the beginning of the year and set ourselves a goal of playing each of the...
I mentioned at the beginning of the year that my wife Barbara and I completed the 365 Challenge in 2016, in which we recorded 365 board game plays over the course of the year (100 different games...
A discussion on Reddit a little while ago pointed out a common mechanic (or mechanism, if you prefer) that many games use, but which lacks a name. I love this mechanic, and I call it the crescend...
Over on Reddit, someone asked me about the status of a game they remember I was working on a couple of years ago, and that made me realize that it might be fun and informative for me to write a �...
http://claycrucible.com/2017/04/state-of-clay-crucible-games-spring-2017/
I haven’t published any games since Otters in 2014, and that an intentional choice – game design and publication take a lot of time, and I have been devoting my time to other parts of my li...
http://claycrucible.com/2017/04/fibercraft-new-game-under-development/
At the beginning of 2016, I mentioned to my wife Barbara that some people on the BoardGameGeek forums were talking about the “365 Play Challenge” – setting a goal to log 365 plays of variou...
This post has been a long time coming, but I’m thrilled that things are settled to the point that I can talk about them publicly. The big message: Two of my unpublished game designs, Everest an...
http://claycrucible.com/2014/09/two-of-my-games-have-been-picked-up-for-publication/
Edit 8/2/2014: Thanks to user shendrite on reddit, I’ve changed the name of this variant from Clay Crucible Settlers to the much more alliterative Clay Crucible Catan. Today I’m sharing a sim...
I’m a big fan of transparency. When new game designers / publishers are just getting started, having detailed stories from people who’ve gone before them is a big help (it definitely was for ...
http://claycrucible.com/2014/04/financial-breakdown-of-the-otters-kickstarter-project/
In the first two chapters of this Design Diary (chapter 1, chapter 2) I talked about the underlying inspiration for my auction game, Mansion Builder, and the different methods of conducting the a...
http://claycrucible.com/2014/04/design-diary-mansion-builder-chapter-3-icons/