Velocimancer Games

Another long week, and I should really be trying to catch up to my deadlines for the latest writing gig but I want to see if I can get a Mechanic Monday out under the wire before I succumb to sleep! I’m so tired! Here we go! I’ve been thinking about ways that analog games can feel as worldbuilt as digital games, particularly with regards to having a multiplicity of mechanics.  Because most mechanics require their own components, it’s trendy in modern hobby gaming, Ameritrash aside, to limit the number of mechanics and systems. Heck I’ve waxed full many a moon about how great elegance is as a design constraint and goal.  But maybe solo games, where there’s so much built-in bookkeeping anyway, as well as a history of popularity among grognardy wargamers. Maybe when it’s just you, there’s a little more room for going for mechanic mania without anyone complaining about downtime. So here’s a mechanic! Feels out of place, but that’s fine, I’m barely staving off sleep as it i...

Wow I’ve been quiet for a while, huh? Not because I haven’t been thinking about game design, or because my interest has been elsewhere - I’ve just been too fucking busy with my dayjob to write any design or theatre or much of fucking anything! It’s been the fucking worst.  But it’s evening out now, and I am committed to getting back on track with this damn blog. Mechanic Monday has been one of the most consistent pieces of writing I’vd done (loLLLLLLLLLLL) and I want to get in the groove again. So much so that I’m currently typing this on my damn phone. So I’ve been thinking about solitaire stuff again.  After getting together a first proto and playtest of FGM-Squared, but then being stuck alone at my desk for days and nights for weeks at a time, my design brain has been mulling over the maple-distilling game I wrote about on here a few months back (called Amber Lodge at the time, I’m thinking of calling it Amber Mill or Samara) as well as a napkin-sketch of an idea about...