When making a board game, how do you turn meaningless objects into things that inspire laughter, cooperation, backstabbing, or even table flips? That's the subject of my talk at last night's International Game Developers Association Twin Cities meeting. I also talked about what I learned in designing and art directing my game Four Humours.
I used to think cooperative games were boring; where's the challenge in working together against a deck of cards, instead of competing against your friends? But over the years, I've realized some of my favorite game memories come from cooperative games.
Button Shy Games hosts monthly challenges to design 18-card games. This month's challenge was to use 18 cards from a standard playing deck.
Playing cards don't offer much of a story to base a game on, but I latched on to the idea of the face card royalty. My game is Marry Up, a quick drafting game for 3 players where you're a matchmaker trying to form marriages and marry off your aces to the royal family.
Star Tribune journalist Richard Chin wrote an excellent article about indie board games in Minnesota, and he included my game Four Humours. He also interviewed some other creative Twin Cities game designers/publishers, including Adam Rehberg of Adam's Apple Games (who's publishing Four Humours), Seppy Yoon of Fight in a Box, and Patrick Leder of Leder Games.