Current Projects

I’m Nick Drage, these are the current projects I’m working on.

Working titles are in bold or italics.

All the main projects, Eisenhower Matrix¹ be dammed:

• The Decision Exploration System. This is a way of thinking through problems an exploring how you might solve them, rather than being stuck on finding one ideal solution, As I’m currently figuring out a commercial model for it the updates are on my work website here.
• Working on simple online game formats to help individuals or groups think through situations more effectively. These can be used individuals personally or professionally, or by larger groups or organisations. My last LinkedIn experiment is here, my next one if overdue.
• Helping run SPS’s Games Experimentation And Development Group, for professional designers of serious games, there’s more here.
• Preparing content for the Exemplar Strategies newsletter, abstracting strategies from their originating context to give you fresh inspiration when you’re stuck.
• Having co-written Random The Book, a book about randomness, I’m now helping generate further content for it.
• Preparing Water Water Everywhere ( more on the wiki), a game about flooding in East Anglia, in 2048; I think there’s huge possibilities in players immersing themselves in different scenarios over elongated asynchronous games, to think through options and solutions in a safe-to-fail environment.
• “High Fantasy Football”, an overly realistic simulation of a sport from a sporadically familiar universe that doesn’t exist. If I’ve started publishing content about this you’ll be able to read about it it on the Sigilball website. I’ve enjoyed indulging this aeipathy² over the last few years, but now it’s time to turn this into at least one of the following:
  • Basic version - a combat results table based board or card game between two players.
  • Solo version - a relatively complex solo play board game to take your Order through a season of tournaments at your own speed.
  • Commanders version - two groups of one to five players face off against other, each managing different aspects of their Order. The “true” version of the game.
  • Android version - robots are so impressive now I think the sport could be simulated in the real world, for around £6m per tournament.
  • Illustrated Novel - there’s a narrative in here somewhere, I just need to tease it out.
  • The Movie - I just need complete creative control and about £150 million.

These are all bubbling along.

While I’m either concentrating on the projects above, or strongly drawn to them whether I want to be or not, I’m trying to progress those listed here as well. Sometimes that just means that I add to notes when an idea comes to me, but I ought to start releasing more about each one in public.

• Building a proof of concept of being able to play “text and image” games against unseen opponents over common messaging protocols. I suspect there’s too many issues to doing this in a meaningful way, but I can’t help but be intrigued by what’s possible over the messaging services that so many people use.
• A fantastical influence game, expected to be invite only. Can I maintain player interest in an environment where players have little information about the results of their moves, and even who they’re up against?
• Modifying an existing planning game, set in a fantasy environment, so it can be resolved by LLMs or other automated processes, for the education of players and facilitators alike.
• Having too much Linux in my life, in an effort not to be too dependent on online services, and trying to use the OS to actually make my life easier.
• Chess variations - We-go³ multiplayer chess variations. Because variants on a relatively basic game are interesting to me as a designer, and potentially to players.
• Cyberkill - A game of variable length actions, so making turns much less precise and predictable than most games. The scenario is multiple cyberpunk cyborg assassins and bodyguards fighting each other at very high speeds, and where the identity of all players in relation to characters in the scenario isn’t clear - so it’ll be a facilitated recreational game. Because committing to an action for a period of time opens up intriguing design possibilities.
• Dungeon Hideout - one or more player controlled groups hide within a procedurally generated dungeon from pursuers, and potentially its existing inhabitants. Because I’m interested in what it’s like to excavate and defend a dungeon, rather than invade or raid it.
• Smashbeef - a We-Go³ area map game of super-heroic combat. Because it’s an easy context for players to get into, and there’s a lot of scope for asymmetric forces.
• Uplifted Goose Game - this will be a simple online Ink based game. I’m deceiving you and myself by putting it in the “bubbling along” category, but I ought to spend more time with Ink to turn ideas into simple online games to explore ideas.

These are all delayed until I can work in more space.

From the title of this section “work in more space” almost definitely means “move to somewhere with more room”, if you’re reading this page I might be discussing that with you.

• A downloadable cyber incident response game for between maybe ten to fifty players or more, along with guides for facilitation.
• Assisting in playtesting an educational game on the survival of ancient tribes, that may become a more generic survival game.
• Studying American Football board games, especially how they abstract player locations and how they manage simultaneous orders.
• Modifying existing games for solo play, and the commercial possibilities and perils of that, or just finding the other “automa” communities..
• Liberty and Aviation - a mashup of two existing games, combined with the question of “what situation would need the Continental Army to take over the British invaders’ airports during the American Revolutionary War?”. Using existing games as a design constraint is something I’d like to spend time on.

These are essentially dead:

I just need to think about these enough to provide a fitting tribute to why I won’t or can’t be working on them. Probably the concept is too big, or there’s no application for them in the foreseeable future. So, unfortunately I’m not actively working on any of these:

• Finding a more appropriate theme for this blog.
• What is the offensive equivalent of DAMROD-C⁴; and what are the differences in red team thinking against an adversary, and against an idea?
• How can we measure the appropriateness of an analogy?
• Making my Critical Friend service clearer.
• A Challenge To Leadership - a discussion game inspired by an academic paper on Zombie Leadership.
• Arctic Blockades - an overly simplistic introduction into the near-future of the Arctic Circle, a relatively short online demonstration game to introduce non-gamers to the medium.
• Chorvs - a multi-player space colonisation rogue-like or something.
• Market Forces v1 - a spreadsheet based We-go³ decision making game for online participants based around competing Market Square Coffee Shops, and Market Forces v2 - a Theatre of the Mind matrix game as part of the “Wargames and Lego Serious Play Experiments” series.
• Multi-city Monopoly Megagame - distributed city management and trading game designed for hybrid play. I enjoy setting myself very grand design challenges, how could multiple locations play a megagame together with a design that resists any single location from cheating. I’m imagining that a “location” could be as small as a couple of people around a board and a laptop for this.
• Multiverse Time Travel Diplomacy Megagame - can your country win, both everywhere, and everywhen?