Design Blog

At BonesCon this year, I got a chance to sit down with Glenn Ford, from Man O’ Kent Games and Lee from Bleeped Up Productions to chat about A Billion Suns, Gaslands: Refuelled and Glenn’s game: SSO.

Red Alert! With Gaslands: Refuelled in the can, I am returning my full attention to A Billion Suns. Here’s the plan… Continue reading “T minus 12 weeks”

Okay, I admit it. The versioning system has gone a bit screwy, but I’ve made so many changes in the closed playlets group over the last month I lost track of the numbering. In order to provide a bit more context to the major changes in this release, I’m posting a blog post here. I might take this down after a while, or not… who can say. Continue reading “Version 37”

Maybe it’s because my car just died and I have to get a new one. Maybe it’s the excitement of it being the end of the year… Time to tear this game to pieces and build it anew!

I recently introduced a small rule that totally changed the game. Continue reading “Zones Of Control”

I recently took some time away from the design of A Billion Suns to focus on its setting. Oddly, doing this really helped boot the design of the game forward. Continue reading “Theme As Glue”

Here’s a list of games that I recognise as influences and touch-points for A Billion Suns Continue reading “Ludography”

In a game of massive spaceships duking it out, an obvious element to include is some from of damage mechanic, with the ships suffering problems as they get smashed up, and some kind of repair mechanic, where the brave and overworked engineers can patch her back together in the heat of the battle. These elements would be thematic and cinematic, and provide an ebb and flow to the performance of each ship that would surely create more interesting tactical choices.

To spoil the conclusion: they don’t, and I won’t be including them. Here’s why. Continue reading “She cannae take anymore, Captain!”