Part IV of V

I like book compilations and sets. I love trilogies and quintads. If Jeph Loeb ever produces something I like, I’d also love books in a series where each one is a new month, day, week, year, thing. I love it when progressive bands do part IV of a trilogy and complex song structures that take 65 minutes to resolve.

I think if you have the right set of themes, you can even do games in a series. For instance a game all about suffering and giving up something you love for something you need… followed by a game where you start with nothing and have to achieve everything… which anchors to a board game about growth and destabilization… and then dovetails back to a card zen-like card game like Uno, where you have to lose everything you have.

The Gipf series of board games is a great example of this. But designing across mediums  has proven difficult in this hobby. Most gamers who enjoy a thematic board game, might not also play the roleplaying game or historical miniatures game that ties all those elements together. And there is a long track record of failed projects by people trying to design a CCG-RPG or some similar hybrid.

Over the coming months, I intend to design a new RPG (with cards) that crosses over two different themed sets of games that I have in the hopper. To make it even more interesting, I’ll be designing this project step-by-step on this page, walking through each design aspect of the game.

Stay tuned.

Ugly Dog

Above you can find two REAL pictures of dogs that have won “World’s Ugliest Dog” contests. Both have some level of Chinese-crested thing going on, which makes me wonder about Chinese dogs.

The real reason these two are on here, though is two-fold.

1. I just found out about this contest and saw these two pictures.

2. Don’t they look like they’d make great familiars for a lich or necromantic warlock or something? Seriously? Creepy stuff.

Okay. Back to work.