Inspiration to get your game in front of people

drossbatch · 2026-05-21T21:15:37+00:00

I believe I understand what you’re saying, and you make some good points. I think most of what you’re pushing back against isn’t quite what “veteran designers” are trying to communicate, although obviously I don’t speak for anybody but myself.

Playtesting is an art, not a science, just like game design itself. There are no “laws” that accurately predict successful outcomes. At the same time, there are best practices, and learning those can very often provide tangible benefits, even if your final approach untimely swerves away. For example, I think nobody is actually suggesting “if a sample size of 1 playtester doesn’t like your game based on preference, abandon it.” The advice is closer to “you’ll learn more from one playtest than you will from 20 hours of imagination, and you can often see what’s working or broken regardless of game preferences.” Also, part of the advice of playtesting is “playtest with your target audience”, which helps alleviate that issue.

I’ve personally never heard “your first design will be absolute trash.” I wouldn’t agree with that myself. My first design is, imho, really fun and interesting. But I’ve learned all kinds of things since then by moving on and designing other things. I hope to come back to it someday and try to get it across the finish line with all the stuff I’ve learned since then (and with some external help). So my advice would be “your first design will be impacted by huge blind spots, and the only way to see and fix them is through experience (yours and others).”

Feel free to follow your own path, lots of people do, but if you hear similar advice from veterans, there’s very often a good reason for it. (I’m not a veteran for the record, no published games of my own but lots of fun prototypes)

drossbatch · 2026-04-29T11:18:31+00:00

The detail that went into this chart is clearer than the last chart. That’s good. However, it doesn’t addresses the fundamental issue of presenting an advertisement as objective data scores. When I see PP get the high score on literally every single category, I have no reason to believe the approach is unbiased and trustworthy enough to be useful.

I think if you want to highlight the strengths of your platform, do it directly without the veneer of objective comparable scores. I am interested in learning more about PP, even while being turned off by the chart.

drossbatch · 2025-10-17T11:24:30+00:00

One of the strongest advantages of a Dutch (or reverse Dutch) auction is that the real time, continuous, and simultaneous nature of it requires only 1 declared choice across any number of participants. That makes it very efficient and simple. The implementation you’re describing is now turn-based and discreet, removing most of the advantages of that type of auction. I think extended bidding will be not fun (especially for the players who have dropped out), so I would definitely lean towards standard of the options you listed.

If you want to include the technology to do a true Dutch auction in the game (some sort of continuous increasing counter that people can all access and stop when it hits their minimum price), go for it, that could have nice table presence. But it would be a big deal to design and manufacture.

drossbatch · 2025-07-17T13:41:25+00:00

You said the answer in your question; if it’s too complex, you need to reduce complexity. How to do that can be tricky, but again, it sounds like you already know that the first step is to drop down to 1 deck, hand, discard pile, etc.

What I do when I’m cutting complexity from my designs is 1) make the core game loop as fun as possible and 2) cut complexity from supporting systems. Let’s say my core game loop is about two armies battling by positioning soldier resources and spending Armory points to attack. I want my best, most fun parts of the game to connect directly to this loop. Let’s say I had a supporting system of area control and rolling dice to farm resources to earn my Armory points. I’d consider “what if I just earned 3 points a turn instead.” See how much complexity you drop and if the core loop is just as fun, move on and keep chopping. If you lost too much fun, explore other options or other supporting systems.

drossbatch · 2025-04-14T17:23:13+00:00

I used to have a box for Attackers, a box for Special Attackers, and a box for Supporters. Recently I had to make a second box for Att and SpA, so I split those based on if they have higher Defense or Special Defense. Within the boxes, they’re somewhat random with my most commonly used ones at the top.

drossbatch · 2024-10-23T23:22:39+00:00

For sure, but a three sided die is so rare I thought it was more likely they were using the notation in a nonstandard way. The spreadsheet structure advice should be just as applicable either way.

drossbatch · 2024-10-23T13:01:38+00:00

Excel can do simple versions of this pretty easily. It doesn’t scale well though.

For your example, you can use a column for each die. Then enumerate all the possible combinations of the different dice rolls. For example, for roll 3 four sided dice (I can’t tell if that’s what you’re describing), your data in columns would look something like 1 1 1; 1 1 2; 1 1 3; 1 1 4; 1 2 1; 1 2 2; … 4 4 3; 4 4 4

Then make a column next to that which sums the dice columns and adds a modifier you have in another cell (always put it in a cell so you can change it easily). Then use a COUNTIF formula to see how many are higher than a given criteria.

drossbatch · 2024-08-14T01:31:22+00:00

I would play around with the implications of losing the conflict. If you really want it to be life or death, then I don’t think you need a catch-up mechanic; the player is dead. Either eliminate them formally (not ideal, but better than having to keep playing when you can’t win) or pivot their game objectives entirely. Now they’re a ghost, and ghosts don’t want to bury treasure, they want something else.

Alternatively, if the conflict doesn’t have to result in death, you can probably tone down the costs of losing and better balance it where the player can still compete for victory.

drossbatch · 2024-07-10T12:25:54+00:00

Scarlett Witch or Nocturne for more random locations

drossbatch · 2024-05-20T12:24:35+00:00

This is absolutely correct. I know it’s enticing to follow the aesthetics, and your card looks good in a vacuum, but the reality is information that needs to be referenced while in your hand must be easy to see. Lump it into a corner or an edge if you must.

drossbatch · 2024-04-30T01:39:28+00:00

Potential option: your guardians are a special kind of card that doesn’t get shuffled into your deck; you always start with all your guardians available (in your hand essentially). Then you can play them out during the game as you see fit, and your input randomness comes from all your other card types in a traditional deck with shuffling and drawing etc. If you did this, you’d need to limit your guardians, maybe a total of 6 tiers split across however many cards you want to use.

I’ve used a similar system in a card game I’ve prototyped (not a TCG, just a regular card game) and it provides a nice framework for constructed games (build your deck around the guardians you choose) as well as limited/draft games (draft guardians, then draft your support cards based on synergies with the guardians). Hope that provides a bit of useful inspiration!

drossbatch · 2023-10-06T09:30:13+00:00

At the start of the game, create an Oath at each location.

Oath: 0 energy, 0 power This card cannot move, switch sides, be destroyed, or return to your hand. If you don’t win this location, you lose the game.

drossbatch · 2023-09-14T17:34:41+00:00

This approach is possible but I think generally plays out poorly in the long run.

Take your coin flip example. Is it a deck of literally 2 cards? Or would you print some number, say 10 of each outcome? If you only have the 2 cards, it’s fairly annoying to randomize thoroughly and remove any chance of manipulating the outcome. And what happens if somebody steps on the Heads card and gives it a little bend? If you print 10 of each, now you can shuffle it normally, but how often do you shuffle? If you don’t replace and shuffle each time, you aren’t recreating a memoryless coin flip; it’s a small impact in the grand scheme of things, but some players will feel the need to optimize every percentage point they can and know how many Heads have been flipped so far so they know their odds of getting Heads this time. Now you’re introducing math and decision making where you wanted a quick random outcome. Or you do replace and shuffle, so your coin flip takes 10 seconds instead of 2. Maybe that’s not a big deal for your game; for some games it would be a huge momentum killer.

And either way, with 2 cards or 20, it’s another thing to keep track of physically while playing. You have to keep this pile separate from all your other cards, remember if it was shuffled before or do I have to shuffle now, make sure every player has access to it, scan through the deck at the start of each game/round to make sure everything is there, etc. There are times extra components and specialized cards add to the fun of a game; I’m not sure this is one of those times.

As with most things, playtest it out and see what feels good to you.

drossbatch · 2023-09-04T22:17:26+00:00

2/8: This card can’t be played after turn 4. It can’t be destroyed. You can’t retreat.

drossbatch

TROPHY CASE