design

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 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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Next Gen: Me

Grant Rodiek | July 06, 2017
The current me has had a good run.For about seven years I've been exploring card games inspired by Magic: The Gathering and experimenting with many flavors of multi-use cards. Sometimes more overtly (Five Ravens, where cards have two explicit functions), and others more subtlely (Solstice, where you can draft cards to help you or hinder an opponent with blocking plays).
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York Development So Far

Grant Rodiek | April 02, 2017
This week, April 7-10 at Game Kastle in Mountain View, CA, I'm attending the annual Protospiel event. It's my favorite event of the year. I will be testing York heavily, because it's the farthest along of my designs and it's the one I want to really dig into.
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My 2017 Thoughts on Kickstarter and the Industry

Grant Rodiek | February 20, 2017
Yesterday, February 19, 2017, a new series of threads regarding Kickstarter and really, the industry as a whole, popped up on Twitter. You have people on all sides of the aisle chiming in with this or that.
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Gamifying a Restaurant

Grant Rodiek | January 29, 2017
As you probably know, I've worked as a Producer (and sometimes designer) for Maxis since 2005. This week I received a fascinating email: a restaurant manager in Chicago asked me about using our game, The Sims 4 Dine Out, to train employees.
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Hyperbole Games 2017 Road Map

Grant Rodiek | January 14, 2017
Back in November 2016 I wrote my annual report. It may come off as pretty bleak reading, because the summary is effectively I'm not a very good publisher and I failed a lot last year. It's actually fine! But, whereas that article was primarily about what I'm not going to do, this post is about what I am going to do.
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Me + Overwatch: It's Complicated

Grant Rodiek | December 26, 2016
When I first heard about Overwatch by Blizzard Entertainment, I was incredibly excited. I love class-based team multiplayer shooters. If I had to pick a single video game genre, it would be that one. I loved Team Fortress 2.
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New York

Grant Rodiek | December 18, 2016
If you follow my Twitter or Instagram feeds, you might have noticed me testing something that looks eerily similar to Cry Havoc. And, if you follow my newsletter, you know that is precisely what it is.
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Q1: Inspired by Rex

Grant Rodiek | November 24, 2016
Dune is a very inspiring design and something that demonstrates many lessons. Although in our interview Olatka noted designers should create their own experiences, which I somewhat agree with, I think Dune can provide a great deal of instruction for those willing to read.
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