Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Last year I posted these 1 page games, wherein I would write a game that could not go beyond the  limits of one page on Open office or Microsoft word. None of these efforts were great, but that's not the point .. here are the links for those who are interested.  Wrestling with Dice  (The weakest game of the bunch never played still has some good bones, but no meat. Dice Chess  (this has been played a couple of times, I even updated it once . Neal and I made an afternoon of it once and  he eviscerated me in a couple of games. The end game needs a better definition.) Down on Old Mill Road: (I think this one had the most legs, but needs a great deal of tightening up. I did a solo play here. ) These are not Micro-games  or even nano-games . I look at what I was doing more like sketches, or exercises. My thought here is that every game does not need to be a  gem of game design to be a playable even fun distraction. it's alright for someone who enjoys desig...

When 2014 began I decided to take this blog in the direction of  posting more things people can use in their games rather than just rambling about the games I am working on.  To that end I  have posted about  twenty four such entries since. I think it has improved the blog. I know there are more people looking at my page than there ever were before, so it  must be at the very least entertaining.  I know I'm sloppy sometimes, badly edited, and some of the art work is at best hackney.  (I still have to redraw Haver's Harrowing Cube.)   Still there are some usable tidbits in here.  I want to make all of it  available to anyone who wants it. I will be making this  a "Blog Page" that I will update Monthly. Adventure seeds: Priory of the Lumbering Colossus: The drawing that goes with it. The Hilldugger Inn: Haver's Harrowing Cube: Gulild of Rangers (from my  campaign) dates back to 2013, fluff from my game. Scarmaw Orcs: (something I...

Taking steps: First off I'm giving you a game. Yes you.  Find it here: Dust Pan Games In the next few days I will be working on a Google site where you will be able to download the stuff I work on for free. As a bonus all those weird posts I have made about  Amazing Adventurers and Incredible Exploits, will suddenly make a bit more sense. Things like "The worlds largest Halfling gets Monkey Slapped" " The Ecology of the Slug Goblin "   " Ecology of the Sharpie " Another Post with some info and a monster called the Furnace Ape. will finally come into focus, and  kind of make sense. Admittedly the Google site wont  look like much at first, but in time I plan on adding more content, and  more free stuff from my brain parts. I also plan on running some open to any one small group G+Hangout games in the near future. Though I have things planned this month that will keep me off the computer for a few days. It will happen. So why free? First off  that'...

Just for fun. From this post:  

I was looking at my blog posts and got to thinking, “very rarely do I ever look back in other people’s blogs.” I think I will start, and encourage everybody to the same when they get a chance. If I have one problem with the “Blogosphere” in general it’s that old posts tend to get buried, and then relegated to a drop down menu list of entries off in the right margin right some place. Furthermore the most recent five posts are always shown, leaving a regular reader no reason to scroll down to see what’s lurking at the bottom of the blog. (How many of you have seen my tag cloud? Or list of most popular posts?)   A busy blog where there are posts every day or even more than that could have some great content lurking just out of view. With that in mind I promise that next time visit any blog, I’m going to peruse the back log of posts to see if there is any thing great that I missed. Any adventure worth his salt knows some times you have to dig deep for the good stuff! And with that...