Pre-GenCon thoughts:
Business is hard*. It's tough. I kind of, sort of, knew that, and I kind of, sort of, ignored that I guess, when my design partner and I set off on this journey to create games together. If, at any point, I thought that designing games was tough, the business side of things has been exponentially tougher. And I'm not even really referring to the incorporation papers and the taxes and the actual business stuff. (Which.... bleah....)
I mean the business of games.
Self-publish or pitch?
Kickstarter or no?
Fulfillment versus distributor?
Hello... Distributors?
A maintained website?
Forums with moderators?
Advertising?
Sticking to a regular meeting schedule?
Do a podcast or guest on others?
And I think about us in the nature of playing the game of "Tabletop Game Business". I wouldn't say we've lost. But the Distributor boss-level kicked our butts, and the Too Much Inventory Self-Publishing opening-gambit still stings a little. Both Partners Working Weekends was really a dumb luck top-deck by our opposition, and Hey, Wait A Minute I've Got A New Idea penalties have bogged down our offense. The board state is not in our favor. The clock is ticking.
But all is not lost. No scooping. No "GG"ing. No conceding, here. We play on.
We are re-thinking the way we "do business". We are still in the midst of fighting through some of those issues I mentioned previously. We don't agree on some things and we are working-through working-through things. (Which is new for us on the business side, happens ALL THE TIME on the design side.) Its a process that won't happen overnight and we know that.
If you know us, or have met us at previous GenCon's, or via contests or podcasts, then I think you'll know that we are passionate, literate, and creative and can bring that to the table where games are concerned.**
If you, in any of the facets of your game-business needs, as a publisher or fellow creator of games would be interested in us, our services, or would accept submissions from us, or have assignments to farm out to us; we would love to bend your ear for five or ten minutes at ANY convenient point during this massive and time-hectic convention. Either during the exhibit hall day at our booth (1353) or yours, or in the evening time away from the convention center hustle and bustle. We are at your service.
This represents quite a change for us, as we have always seen ourselves and our future as staunch self-publishing renegades in the gaming world. And maybe at some point we'll see ourselves back to that. But in the meantime, we have a lot to learn and some humble pie to consume as we reach out to competent and successful industry folks*** and look at a new phase of Sparks Games.
We can be reached at @Sparks_Games on Twitter (happy to follow back for DM's) and at 573-268-5596 via phone or text to set up a meeting at any point. Thanks.
* Understatement of the EVER. Duh.
**Modest, as well.
***Flattery, shameless flattery.
24 July 2015
26 September 2014
Designing for a Contest
Just wanted to place a quick note up here chock full of excuses and rationalizations as to why we hadn't posted another scathing "big-picture" game design blog post lately.
Well, its because we've actually been designing a game! (Strange, I know.)
Jordan, from collapsecards.com, was awesome enough to host a 10-Day Design Contest and though it was WAAAAAAYYYYY outside our comfort zone, we decided to give it a shot. Jordan provided 10 teams (from out of 100 possible entrants) with identical sets of prototyping materials: gems, cubes, cards, dice, etc. Teams could only use what they were provided to create the components of a new game.
Whew. This is not our wheelhouse. Storytelling, paper & pencil, big ideas with sprawling implementation... all things this contest effectively cut out from under us.
But we conked our heads together repeatedly and brainstormed (and that whole "no bad ideas while brainstorming" mantra... I don't know anymore!) and finally got down to three ideas that we felt might make the cut. Honestly, we were already like 6 days into the contest at this point and mildly freaking out.
Our three ideas were:
1. A draft & bluff game. Drafting the items and placing them on top of face down cards. The rest of the group deduces and reads tells to call "Bluff" or not. It had some attraction and potential, but we lost the thread of it quickly and felt like that was a sign that it wasn't the right game for the artificial-deadline contest.
2. An alchemical sales game. Players were stall-owners at an alchemical bazaar or market. Using research to find new combinations/processes you could offer more and greater powered substances to customers... but with a slight co-op effort of maybe having to send a customer to a competing stall in order to get back a crucial item that you didn't have in stock. This one started to get way too big for the materials on hand and I think we got in "grand-big-scale design mode". Probably best we stepped aside.
This idea had loads of potential that we thought about re-visiting it and NO WONDER, because one of the other designers in the Contest made an alchemy game. (And, to be fair, narrowed the scope to the point that these materials needed, and put a second layer of alchemy in that we would have NEVER foreseen. He did it so much better than our entry would have ended up, for sure!)
3. This little throwaway idea that I had about tossing a bunch of the materials randomly on the table and then using THAT as your board to score points. Seriously. I brainstormed it as, "Okay, here's a horrible idea, but maybe it will get us going in a different direction!". And, voila. Two scrambling days later, a YouTube video, .pdfs of card art and rules, and you know... a game.
Judging is still on-going, but we wanted to make sure any of our readers here could follow along.
The Contest home page
Our Submission
Hopefully we don't finish in last (not that it will be announced as such or anything) and it would feel really great to finish as one of the winners. Especially with going so far outside of what we normally do. It was cool to see how the same batch of "stuff" could be turned into so many different types and genres of games!
Thanks to Jordan for putting on the Contest and congrats to all the other teams for participating!
Well, its because we've actually been designing a game! (Strange, I know.)
Jordan, from collapsecards.com, was awesome enough to host a 10-Day Design Contest and though it was WAAAAAAYYYYY outside our comfort zone, we decided to give it a shot. Jordan provided 10 teams (from out of 100 possible entrants) with identical sets of prototyping materials: gems, cubes, cards, dice, etc. Teams could only use what they were provided to create the components of a new game.
Whew. This is not our wheelhouse. Storytelling, paper & pencil, big ideas with sprawling implementation... all things this contest effectively cut out from under us.
But we conked our heads together repeatedly and brainstormed (and that whole "no bad ideas while brainstorming" mantra... I don't know anymore!) and finally got down to three ideas that we felt might make the cut. Honestly, we were already like 6 days into the contest at this point and mildly freaking out.
Our three ideas were:
1. A draft & bluff game. Drafting the items and placing them on top of face down cards. The rest of the group deduces and reads tells to call "Bluff" or not. It had some attraction and potential, but we lost the thread of it quickly and felt like that was a sign that it wasn't the right game for the artificial-deadline contest.
2. An alchemical sales game. Players were stall-owners at an alchemical bazaar or market. Using research to find new combinations/processes you could offer more and greater powered substances to customers... but with a slight co-op effort of maybe having to send a customer to a competing stall in order to get back a crucial item that you didn't have in stock. This one started to get way too big for the materials on hand and I think we got in "grand-big-scale design mode". Probably best we stepped aside.
This idea had loads of potential that we thought about re-visiting it and NO WONDER, because one of the other designers in the Contest made an alchemy game. (And, to be fair, narrowed the scope to the point that these materials needed, and put a second layer of alchemy in that we would have NEVER foreseen. He did it so much better than our entry would have ended up, for sure!)
3. This little throwaway idea that I had about tossing a bunch of the materials randomly on the table and then using THAT as your board to score points. Seriously. I brainstormed it as, "Okay, here's a horrible idea, but maybe it will get us going in a different direction!". And, voila. Two scrambling days later, a YouTube video, .pdfs of card art and rules, and you know... a game.
Judging is still on-going, but we wanted to make sure any of our readers here could follow along.
The Contest home page
Our Submission
Hopefully we don't finish in last (not that it will be announced as such or anything) and it would feel really great to finish as one of the winners. Especially with going so far outside of what we normally do. It was cool to see how the same batch of "stuff" could be turned into so many different types and genres of games!
Thanks to Jordan for putting on the Contest and congrats to all the other teams for participating!
30 August 2014
Let's talk games.
No preamble.
No introductions.
Let's just talk games.
And what I don't want to talk about (at least at the beginning of writing here) is this wrinkle or that little mechanic, or how cool the board art for such and such is.
I mean, let's ask big heavy questions like, "Why do humans play games at all?"
Because there is no doubt in my mind that there exists a gestalt, grand, and sweeping aether surrounding games and game design. There is a long historical meta that has anthro- and sociologically shaped what we do, what we crave, and (most certainly) what we play. Humans play games. Other species play, but we play games. We codify. We label. We transform symbols and sounds to represent objects that exist in the world that surrounds us. Once we got that survival and food surplus thing under control, we got down to business and decided to play some games. Not just dexterity games or athletic competitions, which boil down to the same thing as the mama cat teaching the kittens how to pounce and kill. But games with a second layer of reality.
Mancala. Chess. Go. We modeled the high courts and marketplaces that helped us evolve out of the muck and separate ourselves from the beasts, on rough hewn boards with small trinkets or stones. These tools , and they are simply tools towards a greater purpose, allowed you to defy reality in some way, and become greater than your station, even for a moment. You could defeat a king, even as a pauper. You could defend territory, without being conscripted. You could out-swindle the wily trader at the bazaar. Did you believe you were actually doing those things? No. But your imagination was inspired to take flight for that moment of victory and escape reality for a bit.
Games exist for the greater ideal and the bigger picture. They fill a void in our human experience of the world. The downtrodden win at something, at anything. The middle class ascends to earn and spend. The elite conquer all.
Oftentimes, I feel let down when I see transcripts of Q & A's or read theory pieces by other game designers. They seem to have little idea of this pre-existing, bigger, human need for experience. Their answers are woefully short-sighted, or wandering, or just plain off-base. They show no outward recognition, at least, of this glaring need our species has to transform via games and gameplay. The fans of their individual games probably don't notice, and those that attempt to write critically about game design seem to take them to task for small failures, or carelessness with a mechanic or fluff, but not for being unaware (or at least not showing awareness of) these larger modes of hows and whys. And maybe that's why it's easier to just make a game that's hopefully going to sell well, and have that be your design barometer. Maybe when I make a game that sells well, I'll understand.
Games must be, by necessity, greater than the sum of their parts. If four people sitting around a table with a piece(s) of cardboard between them are ever actually cognizant of THAT fact, that they are four people sitting around a table with a piece(s) of cardboard between them, then that game is a failure. That game will not exist in their minds. Nor will it exist on their table for very long.
Games should propel you. Games should elevate you. Our humanity tells us that it's so. So, go and propel and elevate and enlighten. Forget about the minutiae and the details and peer deep inside every genetic and archival part of who you are as a human being... and make that game.
That's what we try to do. And that process is one we will talk about here, among other things.
Onwards!
-Jay
No introductions.
Let's just talk games.
And what I don't want to talk about (at least at the beginning of writing here) is this wrinkle or that little mechanic, or how cool the board art for such and such is.
I mean, let's ask big heavy questions like, "Why do humans play games at all?"
Because there is no doubt in my mind that there exists a gestalt, grand, and sweeping aether surrounding games and game design. There is a long historical meta that has anthro- and sociologically shaped what we do, what we crave, and (most certainly) what we play. Humans play games. Other species play, but we play games. We codify. We label. We transform symbols and sounds to represent objects that exist in the world that surrounds us. Once we got that survival and food surplus thing under control, we got down to business and decided to play some games. Not just dexterity games or athletic competitions, which boil down to the same thing as the mama cat teaching the kittens how to pounce and kill. But games with a second layer of reality.
Mancala. Chess. Go. We modeled the high courts and marketplaces that helped us evolve out of the muck and separate ourselves from the beasts, on rough hewn boards with small trinkets or stones. These tools , and they are simply tools towards a greater purpose, allowed you to defy reality in some way, and become greater than your station, even for a moment. You could defeat a king, even as a pauper. You could defend territory, without being conscripted. You could out-swindle the wily trader at the bazaar. Did you believe you were actually doing those things? No. But your imagination was inspired to take flight for that moment of victory and escape reality for a bit.
Games exist for the greater ideal and the bigger picture. They fill a void in our human experience of the world. The downtrodden win at something, at anything. The middle class ascends to earn and spend. The elite conquer all.
Oftentimes, I feel let down when I see transcripts of Q & A's or read theory pieces by other game designers. They seem to have little idea of this pre-existing, bigger, human need for experience. Their answers are woefully short-sighted, or wandering, or just plain off-base. They show no outward recognition, at least, of this glaring need our species has to transform via games and gameplay. The fans of their individual games probably don't notice, and those that attempt to write critically about game design seem to take them to task for small failures, or carelessness with a mechanic or fluff, but not for being unaware (or at least not showing awareness of) these larger modes of hows and whys. And maybe that's why it's easier to just make a game that's hopefully going to sell well, and have that be your design barometer. Maybe when I make a game that sells well, I'll understand.
Games must be, by necessity, greater than the sum of their parts. If four people sitting around a table with a piece(s) of cardboard between them are ever actually cognizant of THAT fact, that they are four people sitting around a table with a piece(s) of cardboard between them, then that game is a failure. That game will not exist in their minds. Nor will it exist on their table for very long.
Games should propel you. Games should elevate you. Our humanity tells us that it's so. So, go and propel and elevate and enlighten. Forget about the minutiae and the details and peer deep inside every genetic and archival part of who you are as a human being... and make that game.
That's what we try to do. And that process is one we will talk about here, among other things.
Onwards!
-Jay
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