Journal: 10/28/2017

Grant Rodiek | October 28, 2017
Final Final: Last night was a pretty big deal for me at work. We declared Final for The Sims 4 Cats & Dogs, which is a project some of us have been working on for years. Typically an expansion is about one year, but Cats & Dogs requires a fundamental overhaul of our engine to allow for quadripedal movement (among other things) and it's a really long haul.
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Journal: 10/27/2017

Grant Rodiek | October 27, 2017
I didn't write a journal last night as Antonio came over for game night. Therefore, this morning I want to write about...game night!Stratego: On a strange whim after the night's main attractions, we went downstairs to grab Stratego.
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Journal: 10/25/2017

Grant Rodiek | October 25, 2017
Day two without Twitter, day two of these journals. I've actually been thinking about this and looking forward to it all day, so maybe that's a sign it's worth doing? A few short topics today.
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Journal: 10/24/2017

Grant Rodiek | October 24, 2017
I was inexplicably suspended from Twitter today around noon. I have no clue why - the site doesn't notify me. I filed an appeal and I hope this is resolved in the near future. And if it isn't, it's probably healthier for me to not be on Twitter.
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From Farm to Odin's Table

Grant Rodiek | October 21, 2017
The best authors of any medium have a distinct style. One of the pleasures of being a more veteran player of tabletop games is appreciating the styles of my favorite designers. One of my favorites is Uwe Rosenberg.
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The Cards of Five Ravens

Grant Rodiek | September 21, 2017
This is the fourth part of a designer diary series on Five Ravens. You can read the rules here. You can download the Print and Play here. The soul of a card game is in its cards, the combinations they create, the grins they provide players when they figure out something devious, and the secrets held in your hand.
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The Design of Five Ravens

Grant Rodiek | September 20, 2017
This is the third part of a designer diary series on Five Ravens. You can read the rules here. You can download the Print and Play here. The design of the cards, and by design I mean the visual layout and design, was very important to me from the very start of Five Ravens.
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The Illustrations of Five Ravens

Grant Rodiek | September 19, 2017
This is the second part of a designer diary series on Five Ravens. You can read the rules here. You can download the Print and Play here. Art in a board game is absurdly important to me.
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The Origin of Five Ravens

Grant Rodiek | September 18, 2017
This is the first part of a designer diary series on Five Ravens. You can read the rules here. You can download the Print and Play here. At the conclusion of Solstice I knew I wanted to create a new card game that sidestepped some of the issues that made Solstice such a difficult game to design.
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Simple is (often) boring

Grant Rodiek | July 23, 2017
A few weeks ago I wrote about my new design approach. The gist of the post is: I need to design more simply in order to gain more traction with publishers. This means no text on cards, no combos, no learning curves.
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