2016’s Lessons Of Gaming #19: 181-190

181. Game Term – Quarterbacking

QUARTERBACKING is the propensity of players in cooperative games to try and run other people’s turns ‘the best way. ‘ It’s obnoxious.

182. Market Success

A lesson to learn for when you are frustrated as a developer at your lack of commercial success: Success is largely random. You will not do succeed based on the quality of your work, but shitty work is more likely to fail. Also, when you move in circles where people expect to pay for things, things are different – look at the kickstarter crowd for examples.

183. Your Niche Moistens

Yes, you can make games about your personal fetishes or niche interests. I mean, Kojima did it and people think he’s a genius.

184. More Representation Easily

If you give players character cards, and they don’t NEED a back, put an identical card face w/a different gender look on that face. This does get a bit binarist but giving players even modest gender choice beats Here Are Seven Dudes And Tits, The Girl.

185. We Are Way Too Happy About Colonialism!?

We got a lot of games about the ‘age of sail’ ie, colonialism and slavery, that kinda don’t want to talk about it. Maybe talk about it. Shout out to Kemet for flat out stating one of the power bases is slavery, and making that type of power in-manual ‘White Power’

186. What Can Games be About

One game idea I’ve had lying around for a while now is Worse Than Hitler, which is ostensibly blackjack but is also meant to help express how every country in the world has committed genocides and there’s a problem with us just blaming Hitler. People hear this idea, and then, usually, say oh, no, that shouldn’t exist, because that’s a subject games shouldn’t touch.

They’re just wrong – it might be I shouldn’t be the one to make that game, but the principle is wrong. Saying ‘we shouldn’t make games about that’ is like saying ‘we shouldn’t make documentaries about that. ‘ It’s limiting what games can do. Now, ‘you shouldn’t make a game about that because you’re a stupid clod’ that I can buy and I think I’ve probably said it.

187. The Continued Adventures of Tits The Girl

If your cast of player characters has only one of anything, that person has to bear the weight of who they are. So if you have Seven Swordsman And Tits The Girl, the assumption is Tits is ‘normal’ for girls in this game world.

188. Deck Builder Blues

Deck builders give up a painful amount of space to your starter cards, and that’s PER PLAYER

189. Capitalism Kills

Lots of trading games assume people can’t work together sincerely and the mechanics reflect that. Which is shitty as hell. Even monopoly has the random ‘well fuck, guess we weren’t expecting that’ cards, even if they’re rarely tangible.

190. Getting Cute, Getting Paid

Cute is not the opposite of serious. Cute is not the opposite of deep. Looking good is not oppositional to being fun. A game is not more serious because it looks like a wall calendar. There really isn’t any excuse for making the art objects we make of our games look ugly any more.