A poem about the game of go by Jorge Luis Borges. The original Spanish, 1978: borgestodoelanio.blogspot.com/2014/06/jorge-… Translation into English by abstract game designer Luis Bolaños Mures, 2024: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3319663…

I wish more people who are into boardgames felt this way

The cases for and against our game Trekking the World 2nd Edition, through players' eyes: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3386852…

Stranded on Earth: how we tried to address a criticism of our game Trekking the World 1st Edition, with the 2nd Edition: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3388223…

My 4 parenting principles: 1. always react from a place of love 2. things they can do for themselves, they should do for themselves 3. let their interests lead the learning 4. celebrate, above all, the voluntary undertaking of difficulty and hardship.

A little feature I've seen in 7 Wonders, LOTR Duel, Everdell and a few other games is this - chaining symbols. Basically, if you have a symbol on one card in your tableau, you can play another card with the same symbol for free. It creates little pathways in a game that you can

I think there's more value in this sentence than most other sentences I've written in my life: Write down your principles, adhere to them in whatever you're doing, and iterate on them as life gives you feedback.

How we tried to limit a "loss aversion" problem in the new edition of our game Trekking the World boardgamegeek.com/thread/3389444…

An infographic of praise and criticism collected so far about our newly released game, Trekking the World 2nd Edition. Explanation and discussion at this link: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3391177…

Epistemic humility is awesome. I'll take the over on epistemic humility.

High Tide by Marceline Leiman is a petite game that hides surprising breadth. As creatures jostling for space in a tide pool, force your opponent into undesirable situations and carve out a space for yourself. What an utter delight. My review: spacebiff.com/2024/10/24/hig…

Since our game Trekking the World 2nd Edition has combos, it's fun to ask what the biggest are. I wrote an essay to illustrate a huge one (92 points): boardgamegeek.com/thread/3395224…

I don't want to be in an "attention economy" I want to be in a "learning economy" Unfortunately, the main media business models, social and otherwise, have stuck us with the former. I believe the opportunity cost to society is dramatically larger than most realize.

Have Hiking Stick, Will Travel -- Trekking the World 2nd Edition review boardgamegumbo.wordpress.com/2024/10/29/225…

I got interviewed about the concept of "emergence" in board games: youtu.be/eWSA0vuLSAE?fe…

My biggest frustration with the way board game hobbyists respond to games: Many make quick judgements about how much strategy is in a game before they really know. Emergent gameplay is definitionally hard to see at first. Many hobbyists are too confident.

Tabletop games are still among the most undervalued ways to spend free time and time with others. Wish I could somehow place a bet about this.

Improbably, the light gateway game we just published has an 8.0 average rating on Board Game Geek so far. Surely it won't last, but I'm gonna brag about it while it does.

There appears to be an exodus of game designers to Blue Sky, and it has ramped up in the last week. I hadn't jumped since I like the functionality here. But I've been studying Blue Sky, and been wowed by it, so heading over there for now: bsky.app/profile/nickbe…

My designer diary is BGG's lead piece right now! Trekking the World: Caught Between a Hobbyist Rock and a Family Hard Place boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpos… It's about a challenge unique to game design that needs more attention, imo. The response so far is strong. Overjoyed.