Pulsipher Game Design

The Disease, Game Design Class

I sometimes have so much fun creating new games, or modifying existing ones that I've set aside, that I don't always work on finishing games the way I should. Likely that's because there's a lot of drudgery in the "last 20%" of the work.

So in the past few days I've revived a China game, revived a game of rise and fall of empires (not Brit-like, some elements of Vinci), thought again about Middle-eastern Brit, got an actual set of rules together for "Advanced Britannia", and so forth. What I should be doing is finishing Brit scenarios and then working on Caledonia(TM), which is close to ready for playtesting by other people.

So I beat myself up about this, then remember that I'm supposed to be enjoying myself--this is a hobby, not a business.

To change the subject:
I will be teaching "How to Design Games" in a new class at CCCC Sanford (NC) Campus, from October 3 to November 16, Tuesday and Thursday nights 6-8:30. This is a Continuing Education class (not college credit). The class is scheduled for room 201, Wilkinson Hall. I don't have preregistration details right now

We cover video games, board games, and card games.
The Secret: it’s very hard to learn to design video games by designing video games because a working prototype is so hard to produce. We’ll learn by designing board/card games and apply this to video.