I've just returned to New Jersey from the 2013 Game Developer's Conference. It was an amazing two weeks in the Bay area! The weather was near perfect, the food was top notch, and everyone was so nice - much more so than the East Coast! My dear friend, Kate Hutchinson, made a great host and tour guide, showing me as much as she could of the different pockets of culture. Having never been on the West Coast, it was great experience and I can't wait to go back.
But the real treat was GDC...
My hometown doesn't exactly have a game development scene, so being in a place where I could literally strike up a conversation with anyone and they turn out to be a professional/independent developer was surreal. And the lectures - I learned so much! Spending hours of the week listening to people spit design theory was a dream come true.
I only had enough money for a Summits pass, and I opted to stick with the Game Narrative track as I figured it would be the most interesting topic for me. There was a fairly consistent theme of narrative through player action, with most speakers arguing that the mechanics of a game should portray what is happening in its story. Peter Garcin described the set of verbs a player can use as being the 'narrative palette' with which to build stories. Walt Williams stressed the importance of using core mechanics to support plot points. Mordechai Buckman called for designers to take a close read of their mechanics and choose ones that truly fit their narrative.
There didn't seem to be a consistent method of creating that strong bond between mechanics and narrative - some speakers built their mechanics first and found a narrative that fit while others knew their story first and built mechanics to support it, and a few just flip-flopped the order depending on the problem they faced. It was truly fascinating to learn about these different methodologies, and I left with a deeper understanding of the mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics framework.
There is a lot more I want to get into, but I decided to dedicate them to their own posts, otherwise this one would have been quite a bit to read - which is something else I learned at GDC; nobody wants to read before they get to play a game! Shorter rules! More pictures! LESS READING! While I agree and have always known this to be true, a lot of people really stressed the importance of it.
So this is where I am taking Decoys: not only am I going to simplify the rules and include pictures instead of words wherever I can, I am going to make a video tutorial as an alternate way to learn the game. This will surely open it up to a larger audience, and make it that much more accessible if I can pull the video off well.
The feedback that I got from people who played the game was pretty positive. It seems my core mechanics really are solid, I just need to make a few tweaks here and there. Once I come to some conclusions I'll be able to make a new rule set and post it here, and if the feedback is more positive than before, I'll start working on the video and probably post it on YouTube.
And if enough people like the game, I'll start working on some real assets. I was referred to a few websites that will do on-demand prints of your board game and sell them at a price you set yourself. I feel like this is where I will eventually take Decoys - I don't have the money to produce it myself, I don't think I would be successful begging for money on Kickstarter, and I'm not even sure enough people would want to purchase a copy of the game in the first place. I think having a way for people to buy a nice copy with special components if they want to without having to put up the money for it myself is ideal for a small amateur developer like me.
So look forward to the new and improved Decoys! Hopefully it won't take too long for me to condense and clarify the rules, and hopefully people will like it! I also plan on getting a little more in-depth with certain experiences I had at GDC, so look forward to reading those too! Cheers!
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