#19: December Tiny Letter
First of the three quick December updates! Have a good week!
I. Watch of the Week
I’m very late to the party but this is very cool. John Harper has a two-part video on how Blades in the Dark came to be. It starts as a one page game that contains the seeds for Lasers and Feelings. Super interesting and useful for designers to know how much iteration goes into games like this.
II. Links of the Week
A note card app for playing games like Fate.
“…it’s a city so large and convoluted as to be unknowable; you can get lost like it’s a forest, transit it like a subway network, or plunder it like a dungeon.” from a review of Electric Bastionland
John Wick on his Youtube channel is making a character in a new system every day of December. There’s some fun videos from Traveller, Alien and Over the Edge.
Sean Nittner walks through the development cycle on Thirsty Sword Lesbians from April starting designing in December 2017, signing a contract in June 2019, and post-kickstarter development. A neat insight into the timeline and process of a Evil Hat game.
On Gauntlet’s Trophy podcast, there’s a fun discussion of cities in Trophy Gold and the open design space that’s there. If you’re interested in the system, it’s a good listen.
Doikayt, a collection of games from Jewish designers, is out now!
Dicebreaker wrote about the Cyberpunk by Asian Designers jam that I’m co-hosting.
III. Small Ads
This section contains sponsored links and advertisements. Nothing this week though! These ads help keep this newsletter going and I’m very grateful for them! If you’d like to advertise with the newsletter, the submission form with all the guidelines can be found here.
Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.
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