The world of special needs is near and dear to my heart. My son, who is almost 29, has been in a wheelchair his whole life due to congenital cerebral palsy. I’ve made a number of modifications to our home to make it easier for him to get around. He has a wheelchair van but…
So, if you read my last blog post, you’ll understand that Cruise Monkey Games has gone through quite a metamorphosis. The reason being that I am completely incapable of focusing on one thing for very long periods of time. That’s what the SOS post was all about, shiny object syndrome. (You can read it here)…
Note: In addition to being a year since my last blog post, this blog started about seven or eight months ago, so some things have changed since I initially wrote it. It makes it all the more relevant, just stay tuned you’ll see what I mean. If you haven’t heard the term before, SOS stands…
This blog is doing double duty since I never posted it before or even right after the Strategicon convention on Labor Day weekend. We showed up, set up our area, which was very well placed, put up our banner and got ready and waited. As you read the second half, which is actually the first…
Prototypes are almost always a necessary step in the game design process. Once you have an idea, the next step is see if it works. (Spoiler alert, it almost NEVER does the first time around…or second… or third). Depending on the game, a prototype could be a handful of index cards with scribbles on them,…
Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know there were these two types of games. To me, a game was a game. We own probably six different versions of Monopoly. Star Wars, Air Force and Lord of the Rings just to name a few. We have two versions of Catan. They both belong to…
There’s an expression that says “creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum“. I don’t know who said it and that might not be the exact quote but it puts across the idea I want to discuss today. Last week I wrote about play testing and how important it is and how it takes a group of…
Play testing, it’s what most Game Designers live for and die trying to accomplish. My business partner, Cesar, and I started playing One Letter Better at work on our lunch break. He’s almost 20 years younger than I am but we’re pretty equally matched. He took the game home and played with his girlfriend who…
I am not a professional graphics designer but It’s a hobby I enjoy a great deal. I’ve designed all of the Cruise Monkey Games logos and all the cards for One Letter Better and our upcoming 3 Somes Party Game (It’s not what you think!). The monkey face on the logo actually goes back about…
So I am most certainly not what you would call a “gamer“. I played DND in high school which was more than four decades ago, quite possibly first edition. My immediate family and I have a tradition of playing Monopoly on New Year’s Eve because it’s the only time we all stay up late at the same…
