Ghostel Design Blog 4 – Stacking the deck
Hi all! For this week’s article, I’d like to discuss the use of variable difficulty on the human visitor cards used to occupy the ghost house. Right at the beginning of Ghostel’s development, I always intended there to be different difficulties of humans in the house, with a corresponding increase in victory points. This was […]
Ghostel Design Blog 3 – The Phobias
This week I thought I’d look at one of the more thematic elements of Ghostel; the Phobias. Update: Since the writing of this blog, the Phobias have been renamed as scare tactics. The Phobias started as an evolution of the ghost theme, and were a clear candidate for thematic shoe-horning: I knew I wanted Phobias […]
Ghostel Design Blog 2 – Scoring Big
This week I’d like to look at the mechanics used for scoring points. For those who haven’t had a go at Ghostel, players roll dice at the start of each night to determine how scary they are. The players then place their dice on the people in the house, trying to equal or beat the […]
Ghostel Design Blog 1 – Why a ghost game?
For the first blog piece, I thought I’d start at the very beginning: why a ghost game? Well, in a bizarre twist, it was actually the mechanics of Ghostel that I designed first, with the idea of a haunted house just kind of wrapping neatly around them. So where did the mechanics come from? Well, […]
The 3 Distinct Stages of Prototyping
When I started working on my first design I made a monumental cock up and, after speaking to other designers, I’ve discovered I’m not alone in this. Prototyping. It’s really easy to get excited by your first design and you want to get stuck in as soon as possible. You know it’s going to need […]
Ghostel Appears in Tabletop Gaming Magazine
Exciting news in Tinkerbot Towers! Recently the latest issue of Tabletop Gaming Magazine was released and guess who appeared in it?!….go on guess….no…..no…..YES! It was us! Well, it was Bevan to be specific and his game Ghostel! Check out the nice things they had to say about it!
TT #20 – Board Gaming Etiquette, The Bespoke Geek and More Beeps Than Ever!
http://media.blubrry.com/talkingtinkerbots/tinkerbotgames.com/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/Talking_Tinkerbots_Ep_20.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:20:17 — 73.5MB) | EmbedSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSSIn this episode Gino and Bevan discuss the Dos and Don’ts of board gaming etiquette! Also Bevan interviews Kara Gander about her Kickstarter campaign ‘The Bespoke Geek’ for geeky clothing, and we give you a Ghostel update.
Break the Block
Hi folks! So last week I posted an update which included my unfortunate realisation that at some point in the last few months I’d hit something all designers dread; Writer’s Block. Now this really sucked, but I was super lucky to have a very supportive family and friends around, in particular my wife who helped […]
TT #19 – A MONSTROUS interview with Kim Brebach
http://media.blubrry.com/talkingtinkerbots/tinkerbotgames.com/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/Talking_Tinkerbots_Ep_19.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:19 — 46.1MB) | EmbedSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSSIn this episode Gino interviews Kim Brebach about his Kickstarter campaign for tactical dexterity game MONSTROUS. Take a listen if you’re interested in commissioning artwork, making critical funding decisions and more lessons about running a successful campaign.
Board Game Design Hack – A Review
On Friday 12th June, Tinkerbot Games held it’s first Design Hack at the Katiwok Restaurant in Cardiff. For the full details of what a ‘design hack’ is then check out this link, but in a nutshell a Hack is a short presentation concerning an aspect of the design world, followed by a workshop (the hack) where […]