Effect Proofraeding

Grant Rodiek | May 27, 2015
Firstly, the typos in the title are jokes. Dear all that is holy. Jokes. The task to make the text in a game clean, consistent, and clear, is arduous and requires a great deal of time. It should come as no surprise that in the writing world there are people whose only job it is to tighten the text, ensure consistency, and improve upon the final result.
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The Humblest of Pies

Grant Rodiek | May 21, 2015
and Joshua Buergel Last week we announced that we wouldn't have Stretch Goals for Hocus. The Kickstarter will go live June 25 and everything that will come in the box will be there from the start. You can read about this decision here.
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Funny Games

Grant Rodiek | May 15, 2015
I find myself greatly drawn to the notion of humorous games lately. More specifically, designing games that are legitimately funny for those playing them. I don't mean games like Apples to Apples, or Bad Medicine, or Cards Against Humanity that are intended to be funny party games.
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This Stuff is Hard

Grant Rodiek | May 14, 2015
Yesterday I posted about Stretch Goals and why we won't be using them for Hocus. The result was somewhat predictable and somewhat surprising. Jamey Stegmaier, the guy who is publishing a book on Kickstarter, thinks we're making the wrong decision.
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No Stretching for Hocus

Grant Rodiek | May 13, 2015
and Joshua Buergel A large part of our efforts the past year, beyond designing and developing Hocus, have been spent figuring out how we want to conduct business. For our first game, we’ve decided to use Kickstarter.
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An Interview on Salvation Road

Grant Rodiek | May 12, 2015
Editor's Note: I recently watched both Mad Max and the sequel, The Road Warrior, for a few reasons. For one, my favorite comedian, Patton Oswalt, references it all the time. Secondly, I saw the trailer for Fury Road.
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Interview with Tiffany Turrill

Grant Rodiek | May 11, 2015
The 1st Leshy Sketch Tiffany Turrill is the illustrator for Hocus. We've only worked with her for a few months, but she is so essential to the quality of the game, the experience, and our happiness that we wanted to sit down to talk to her about her process, her work, and Texan fast food chains.
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The Joy of Disappointment

Grant Rodiek | May 08, 2015
The images in this post were taken by me using my copy of Merchants and Marauders and the Sails of Glory expansion. Last night we played Merchants and Marauders for the fourth time. We tossed in the new Sails of Glory expansion, or at least about half of the modules from this.
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Balancing the Balance

Grant Rodiek | April 30, 2015
Balancing a game is arguably the most difficult and time consuming phase of design. When refining the mechanisms and trying to reach an Alpha and Beta state, you can grab new testers, test once, and gather the data you need to progress.
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A Low Chance of Success

Grant Rodiek | April 24, 2015
Earlier this week, I played Columbia Games' Napoleon: The Waterloo Campaign, 1815. This is an old, classic war game design, with blocks to allow for fog of war, rather elegant mechanisms with a few key exceptions, and lots of dice rolling.
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