Kevin Wilson

Listening to the Creature with the Atom Brain for the 3rd or 4th time today. Definitely my favorite song on this New Wave Halloween album.

Dang. I was kinda hoping for a cozy anime about a noodle shop owner.

There was a couple in front of me who were having some difficulties that held the line up, but it's not like I was in a hurry to be anywhere, so I just chilled for a bit, and the cashier was way too grateful for that. Poor dude. I couldn't handle a customer service-based job at all.

Did a bit of grocery shopping tonight, and the night air was absolutely perfect. Windy and just the right temperature. I had the car windows down and the stereo off and just savored it. Also, the grocer had finally restocked my preferred frozen burritos, so that's good too.

I guess some people just have a corporate boot fetish.

I try to give folks the benefit of the doubt by remembering how much money is spent to brainwash people by "think tanks" and such, but...jesus.

Oh my gosh! I hope you're well on the mend.

For me, it's like tension in a movie/story or something. You don't want the needle pegged into the red constantly. You want build-up and cooldown, sudden spikes, that sort of thing.

The thing I'm always chasing is a stable enough game with room for astonishing events to occur. Memorable moments that stick with the players, that they find themselves re-telling to folks who weren't there. That drama is what I enjoy in games and what I usually try to design for.

I've heard some folks describe a good game as a series of "agonizing decisions", and wow, those games are not for me - they just exhaust me and make me not want to play. I want there to be some easy decisions, some tougher decisions, and the occasional agonizing decision.

I try to design around a 'normal turn', but leave room for crazy turns, when all the players stop for a moment and go, "Ummm...welp, that's a thing." This kind of feeds back and forth with my philosophy on decision-making in games as well, which is, once again, ebbs and flows.

Now, some players love utter constancy in games, and that's fine, but I don't generally design for them, honestly. I like games with ebbs and flows, where you can ignore an element while you work on your own goals, and must choose when it's urgent to pay attention to it.

If something happens with the same level of importance every turn, then it kind of leads to a certain monotony. An element that's always vital must be constantly planned and played around, and that can feel repetitive or droning if every game element is always firing exactly the same.

One of the elements I use in design that hits different for different folks is irregularity. That is, I often include game elements that are important...but not ALWAYS. This leads to comments like "That mechanic is wasted." or "Why include it at all?" and really, it's in service of variety.

Almost there! But yeah, that's like April in MN, when winter is still hanging on and I'm just like, COME OOOOONNNN.

Well, the main thing is enjoying the game, really. The score is only there because some players get enjoyment out of beating their own score. Me, I just make pretty lakes.

Glad you're enjoying it! My best advice is - stick to L shapes and avoid U shapes. You're way more likely to match 2 sides than 3.

The heating pad is definitely helping, so that's a big improvement from yesterday. These days, I'll take what good news I can get.

Anyway, and that's the story of how I broke down and bought a heating pad today.

Kevin's Body: Hmm, he seems pretty excited to mess around with coloring some art today. I wonder how I should react? Oh, I've got it....
Kevin: Ah god, everything hurts. Did I seriously overdo it just messing around with art today?
Kevin's Body: You're OLD, just so's you understand.

Wildly, even though I've worked from home for ages now and have done work I love for even longer, when I find myself in a mysteriously bad mood, it is almost inevitably Monday. Some things just never let go of your brain, I suppose.

Ooo, very nice!

All the little wrinkles and krunkles are there for theme and a game balance that I can't be sure of, having not played it to any extent. But it conjures a very coherent world - probably the most thematic implementation of a rummy-variant ever created. It's the sort of thing I find irresistible.

And yeah, it sounds like I'm talking more about negatives than positives here, which is giving you the wrong impression of my opinion of the game, which is that it's a bizarre little delight. It's a game that I could imagine playing over and over again with a group, much like I did Cosmic Encounter.

It has a number of characters that have aged poorly and fall into various stereotypes, and same for the art, but it's a weirdly fascinating game to me. There are lots of fiddly bits all over it that are mostly the result of its release date (these days such exceptions would be right on the cards.)

I've been messing around with Tom Wham (and Richard Hamblen's Great Khan Game this weekend, just as a mental/design exercise. Like most of Wham's stuff, it's whimsical and wild, kind of combining rummy with a war game set in the Forgotten Realms (well, vaguely).

I haven't been engaging with the news and such lately because I just lack the capacity and need to manage my anxiety in order to function at all, not because I don't care. Arguing with other folks online is the thing I don't do because I just don't care. I would rather clean grout with a toothbrush.

Tom Wham is one of my great inspirations as a designer. I love how quirky and unique his games are, and every so often I poke at them and see if anything inspires me. It usually does.

Oh, that's super lame. I don't get any grocery ads here, I only notice sale items when I see them on the shelves. Sometimes they're locked behind their 'club card' thing, which I don't want to deal with, so I only mentally count the general sale items.

Quick grocery trip today to refresh a few staples. Noticed that although things are rather more expensive than they used to be, I'm seeing a lot more sales recently, so that's interesting.