Civilization V developer Ed Beach transforms missionary work into videogame algorithms, drawing on his experience with boardgame design (Here I Stand) to create special powers for Egyptians and Chinese; Catholics and Taoists.
What do boardgaming’s stars look like? If Donald X. Vaccarino is any indication, they are difficult to grasp. The designer of runaway favorite Dominion builds games that change and remake themselves nearly to infinity. In his latest column Gus Mastrapa tries to get a foothold in Vaccarino’s twisty world.
Our boardgame columnist looks at three new wargames that exemplify how simulated war is becoming kindler and gentler to court new opponents.
Gus Mastrapa tells the consumer’s side of the story in Bethesda’s upcoming role-playing sprawl, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Gus Mastrapa talks to Tiny Speck founder Stewart Butterfield about the studio’s new massively multiplayer online game Glitch, regarding the importance of adults, illustrators, and doing nice things for each other.
In our second boardgame column, Gus Mastrapa looks at how rolling the dice has changed from Monopoly and Risk to Catan and Troyes.
We don’t normally associate collectible-card games with the NFL, but some recent new games and expansions draw out the metaphor. In our new column on boardgames and card games, Gus Mastrapa takes a look at the technique of deck building.
Adventure games are a genre that everybody has nostalgia for, but nobody plays. That’s because games like Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective feel old-fashioned compared to the open-world, massively multiplayer, online-all-the-time games we’re used to. Some detractors have even gone so far as to call designer Shu Takumi’s Phoenix Wright series a collection of “interactive novels” rather than games. Thank goodness he hasn’t taken his eviction from the clubhouse to heart.
After five years dedicated to the beautification of the boardgame, Mike Doyle found a new calling—Lego sculpture.
It was this summer, on a trip to Legoland with his boys, that Doyle, a 43-year-old graphic designer from New Jersey, rekindled his passion for the building blocks. When he got home he searched the Internet to see what kind of art, if any, people were creating with Lego. He discovered sculptors, like Nathan Sawaya, who use the bricks to create art pieces much bigger than your average play set. “I had no idea that Lego could be manipulated to the degree that people were doing,” he says.