Interview at People Behind the Meeples

I got interviewed!

Pretty neat. Thanks to George for providing the neat series of interviews with designers.

https://gjjgames.blogspot.com/2020/02/people-behind-meeples-episode-211-dave.html

SAHMReviews takes on Dr. Esker's Notebook

Here's a new review (mostly spoiler free) for Doctor Esker's Notebook by Scott at SAHMReviews.com.

They're running a giveaway also, linked from the review page, so sign up for a chance to win a free copy of the game!

Doctor Esker goes to school!

The Hungry Gamer posted a picture of Doctor Esker's Notebook being used in a school setting. That's so cool! So happy to see this.




Here's a link to his original post on Facebook.
Here's a link to his YouTube channel - he's got some really cool reviews there.
Here's a link to his reviews on BoardGameGeek.com.

Doctor Esker's Notebook review at Everything Board Games

A great review of Doctor Esker's Notebook over at Everything Board Games!

EverythingBoardGames.com review

Cubist podcast appearance

I had the great pleasure to be on The Cubist podcast with host Bill Corey, talking about puzzle game design and lots of other topics. Give it a listen!

Sponsored contest at TGC

I had the idea that I might be able to run a giveaway on The Game Crafter for Dr. Esker's Notebook. I have used TGC for nearly all of my game prototype production and boardgame publishing since I first heard of them in 2009, and I'm a huge fan of the site. I contacted them, and it turned out Tavis (one of the founders, and their marketing guy) was about to do a contest celebrating their adding their 2000th game piece type to their inventory.

I came up with ten clues to ten of their many, many parts, and Tavis and I developed the contest from there. I also sponsored up to ten copies of Dr. Esker's Notebook as prizes. If you want to give it a try, the link is here:

TGC Esker Contest Link

Tavis' video intro is here:

I had fun doing this, and I think it will potentially end up generating some exposure for me. I'm not sure how much I'll end up spending on the sponsorship - high-end case, it would probably be around $170 if all the winners win games and all of them are overseas, but I think it will probably be more like $40-$60 in games and postage. If I sell 5-7 games from the publicity, I make that back, but it will be hard (or impossible) to know if anybody buys for that reason. 

The contest has been live for 14 hours, and there are already 338 participants, so that's pretty good. I'll keep following it to see how it goes.

FatherGeek reviews Diggity

A terrific review of Diggity by FatherGeek!

FatherGeek looks at games from a family perspective, so that's why there's the multi-generational aspect to the review.  I was really thrilled by the detailed discussion of strategy that he got into.  I've always thought the game was pretty deep for having such simple rules, and FatherGeek's testers really seemed to pick up on that part of it.  I'm also really glad they had fun with it!

Diggity video review

The folks over at The Gamer's Table have been doing video reviews of games for some time, and this year they invited submissions of independent game designs for review in their "Indy" series.  The Game Crafter offered to pay for the shipping if any of their authors/designers wanted to pay for a game to send, so I took them up on it. The result is here:

The review of Diggity starts at 4:50, and the final wrap-up (where they rate it) is at 13:35.  An interesting experience; they seemed to like the game and "get" it, particularly the two guys on the sides (Chris and Craig).  The middle guy (Ken) gave it a significantly lower rating than the others, which was interesting - he didn't really say why, and I couldn't pick it up from the rest of the show, but it must not have clicked as well for him.

A lesson for other designers - they really pilloried the other game in the review because of one omission in the rules (play one card per turn).  It's important to have other people read your stuff, and to specify everything, even the stuff that seems obvious.

My thanks to the TGT guys for their review, and to The Game Crafter for facilitating it.

Hey, I'm famous...

... and a total nerd.

Interview by my good friend Bob Beshere, Ph.D.

Paper Money show

My interview on Paper Money over at Purple Pawn is up!  It was fun to do - a little nervewracking to re-listen to myself now.  I had a good time talking to Ben and Rett, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Paper Money interview

I just finished recording an interview about independent game publishing with Rett Kipp and Ben Clark for their Paper Money podcast hosted on the Purple Pawn.  Actually, I did it twice - the first one didn't get recorded, so it goes down as a fun discussion lost to history.  The second new-and-improved (and more importantly, recorded) interview should show up on their site late this week.

Me sighting

My game and I got written up by my friend Bob at Pixelated Geek.  Neato.