2010 Retrospective


Megan
Getting married was certainly the biggest personal event of 2010. If we could survive organizing this event while also planning a move to a new house, a trip to Seattle and publishing HBR all at the same time, we can survive anything. Speaking of which, just a split second after the above photo was taken a tornado siren started blaring in the background. No worries, just a drill. Here are the pics and vows.


Seattle
And then there was the honeymoon in Seattle, where we saw the sights, heard the sounds, met the people, and ate everything we could fit in our eager stomachs. We're eager to return soon to absorb every inch of that lovely city and its colorful characters. Pics here.


Some rights reserved by Marc Majcher. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
Happy Birthday, Robot!
With the help of more people than I can count (but at least 110), I published my first game. For as much time as I once spent trying to design RPGs, then board games, it's funny that my first game would be an odd off-shoot of both species. As usual, you can find more about it at HappyBirthdayRobot.com.


Third Degree
Meanwhile at work, I got promoted to Senior Art Director. With that came new responsibilities and accomplishments, like rebranding a client, launching a new campaign for another, performing in a Halloween parade, writing humorous on-hold messages and traveling a lot.


Playtime
This was the year gaming invaded the creative department. What began as a single turn-based game of Blokus on one desk grew into five ongoing games at each creative desk. On top of that, I met some amazing people at Dreamation and GenCon. The former helped spread the word about HBR, the latter spawned SageFight. (Respect. Trust.)


Identity
And this is the year I finally "grew up" a little and got a proper blog. I experimented with Composeum at first, but a single-topic blog just wasn't for me. I had to go cold turkey, leaving behind Livejournal after ten years. I learned a bit of template design by working on JeremyAndKathleen and customized the template you see now. Since this blog's launch, I've been much more diligent about posting new games and new game ideas. I've also done a lot more interviews, which is always fun.

Yup, 2010 has been very good to me. I hope to pay it forward in 2011.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more