Welcome! Welcome back to Design 101 If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. Today we’re going to talk about one of the most controversial topics in game design: Complexity. Since time immemorial, arguments about this subject have raged through design teams and gamer communities alike. Does removing complexity “dumb down” […]

I just published an article on MTG Salvation, introducing a new way to play Magic: the Gathering. It’s not just a new format, it’s basically like an entirely new game you can play with the cards you already own (assuming you’re a Magic fan of course). You can read the article here.

The Call “Hey Dan, are you in town?” Asked Ian. “I am actually.” “Great. I need a game. I need a game bad.” “Cool. I’d like to do some sort of mini-campaign. I’d rather not do a one-shot, I’ve done a million of those, but something more like a three-episode campaign would be neat.” “Excellent. […]

Welcome! Hi, welcome to Design 101. Like many people in the industry, I get asked a lot of questions about game design. Sometimes it’s from friends, sometimes it’s from their kids, sometimes it’s even from new students of my former teachers. Lately I’ve been answering a lot of the same questions over and over again, […]

So, I run design teams as a hobby. It started in college, a way to simulate the professional production environments and practice our skills. We used to sink 30 hours a week into designing various board games, card games, tabletop rpgs and more. Now I’m in the industry and working professionally, but I still love […]

Just finished my time at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. I had an extraordinary time. I spent about half of it exhibiting for Faeria and the other half wandering the great vastness of the convention. It felt great to share the product of a year’s worth of work with so many people, […]

It’s been a year since I brought my Résumé up to date. Now the linked document in the About page is fresh and ready for visitors. If you’d like more details on projects, feel free to shoot me a request for details via email.

If you’ve met me, you know I love talking about game design. A podcast all about it seems like a natural extension. Remaking Magic is a podcast all about the design lessons we can learn from Magic the Gathering; and it’s of special interest to those working on card games or even fan-created Magic the […]

Just started putting rules and materials for our gaming projects onto a central website. The questionably named Exploding Flamingo (probably should change that) projects are available for perusal as well as play if you click those bold letters. Included are our popular Spelltacular! card game, the current alpha build of Raelic’s Adventure as well as other titles […]

Looking forward to my first GDC! Finally I won’t have to catch all the greatness via the GDC Vault. If you’re reading this, hope to see you there! Yes, even if you have no interest in games. Trust me, this stuff’s fascinating.