Megagames

version 0.8 Something I’ve been thinking on for quite a while, but reading this manifesto on the Trick’s Tales blog finally got me to write this up… version 0.1 anyway. And, of course, this is a personal manifesto that influences my commercial work, but isn’t a limit to my commercial work. Game Design Manifesto Fight the difficult problems. For example planning, executing, and resolving simultaneous moves is very difficult, especially in person, but that’s why this is a personal manifesto. I need to try and go where others haven’t, to avoid competing over the same ideas, or through failure illustrate and document what cannot work. When possible all games have online and/or hybrid and/or solo options. IGOUGO1 is easy to adjudicate but it suffers from being unrealistic and with many designs it reduces player engagement while the inactive players wait for the game state to change. Designing “We-Go” methods is more challenging, but has many benefits and is more realistic. Dispensing with “turns” is next, different actions require different levels of commitment to removing other options, a game should reflect that. The speed of decision making is a factor in real world success, games should reflect that. ( I’m hardly the first to think this ). ...

Prologue: As I wrote up in my recent weeknotes, earlier this month I helped run a hybrid megagame called Bad Moon Rising, organised by South West Megagames. This was a megagame based in an alternate history of the world, set in the 1970s during the Cold War, but with all the nuclear powers having also established bases on the Moon. If you’re not familiar with megagames do watch this video, or think of a “megagame” as just being a board game or tabletop role playing game, except with anywhere from 20 to 300 players. ...

What can Megagames learn from LARPs and Immersive Theatre? In this recorded conversation, as part of the MegaCon Mini series, experienced megagamer “BeckyBecky” looks at Immersive Theatre, and Live Action Role Playing ( LARPing ), to see what the Megagaming hobby and nascent industry can learn from them. Both of those hobbies/professions are adjacent to Megagames, and for this discussion are represented by: Owen Kingston, immersive theatre Artistic Director from Parabolic Theatre Elynor Kamil, weapons-free LARP designer To take text directly from the introduction: “These hobbies had similar niche roots to megagames, but have managed to achieve better commercial success and cultural awareness than megagames. Our panelists discussed positioning or promotional ideas they have for how megagames can follow in their hobbies’ footsteps, and also whether there are any interesting design ideas they believe could lead to even better megagaming events in the future.” ...

Last week Mostly work I can’t discuss. Worked Control for another wargame, lots of thoughts about how to run a megagame with highly variable parcipation. Working with Stone Paper Scissors again. Oh, it’s going to be one of those seasons.