Orcacon 2018 will soon be upon us. The inclusivity-focused tabletop gaming convention is taking over the Bellevue Hilton January 12th-14th. Aside from a plethora of panels scheduled games, local developers are running demos from special demo tables. Come try out new and upcoming games for the Puget Sound’s best.
Grave Error Design - Backstory and Banishment
There is a huge distinction between a storytelling game and a game that tells a story. Storytelling games are about players developing the ups and downs of characters and worlds as the tale goes forward. Games presenting a story give you dramatic tension as the mechanics unfold and play off of your machinations of victory. The difference is upon whom the onus of challenge lays: the players or the game. Do the characters have problems because of the game or because players want them to have such problems? Grave Error, our in-development, spooky, hidden-movement game, tries to blend in the players’ storytelling creativity with concrete mechanics and traditional board game components. In this blog, we will explore the in-game systems straddling this line and discuss how we arrived at the current iterations.
Games are not Art
There is a perennial debate within the industry whether or not games have to be “fun”. This discussion swirls around the ability of art to convey the full spectrum of emotions. Conspire’s design revealed my position (and that of Cherry Picked Games), though there is certainly more to discuss. However, I find the tangent mentioned here far more interesting to dissect. Are tabletop games art? As much as I love the medium, I will stake the claim games are not art, but rather craft.