Peter McPherson ⏭️ Unpub Prime

Thank you! Leslie Herman's work is incredible.

A completed game of Lodge. Two player areas have several room tiles with guests in them, and the center market displays room tiles on a tray, as well as guests and amenities.

I just played my first round of Lodge with a pre-production copy with my mom, and she beat me 51-37! So excited to bring this cozy game to you all soon. #lodgegame

Game night cancelled

You put on the most entertaining Fit to Print performance I've ever seen. Thanks for a great game night!

Aw, thanks Devin!

Lodge launches January 27th!

Thanks for the shout-out, Brian!

Strong protanopia checking in.

I'm a colorblind designer! I have strong protanopia, which is a less common form of red/green colorblindness than deuteranopia.

The number of times I've made a prototype without double encoding, brought it to playtest night, and realized I can't tell the colors apart...

Great to meet you in serendipitous circumstances at PAX, @enzyshade.bsky.social !

I'm quite late to this, but thank you so much!

Me holding the deluxe box for Lodge, which depicts a snowy ski lodge with glowing windows. On the table in front of me is a plastic tray holding room tiles and acrylic patron tokens, as well as a plastic tray holding amenity tiles.

I got to see a sample copy of Lodge from @pickpocket.games in person for the first time yesterday! It looks lovely. This is the deluxe edition (my first deluxe anything).

A picture of a copy of Fold & Fly! with 1/40 written on the cover. Behind it are 39 more copies of the game, printed and ready for PAX U.

Incredibly happy to announce I will have 40 copies of Fold & Fly! available at the Indie Games Night Market at PAX Unplugged!

Here's hoping everyone excited for the game can get one! 🌈🛫

Are you selling copies at PAX U or demoing?

I also enjoy making news updates and posting my design progress in the form of a chart that I update. Both of these remind me of recent achievements and give me a sense of measurable progress, which can be hard to come by when you haven't signed a game in a while.

By far the best part has been receiving messages through the contact form from local game designers who want to learn how to get into the industry and professors who want me to talk to their game design classes. But I also signed a game as a result of a publisher reaching out through my site!

Happy to share! Hmm, that's a good question. I need to think on that—I feel like I am usually able to find the tool I was hunting for. I didn't share some esoteric tools I've used for specific designs, like an analysis of Cribbage hand frequency.

Peter McPherson - Game design resources Here’s a collection of online tools I’ve used over the years. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but I hope new and experienced designers can find useful tools to help their designs at all sta...

I added a "game design resources" section to my site: www.petermcpherson.com/game-design-...

This is a collection of mostly free online tools I use regularly, as well as links to excellent podcasts, blogs, and YouTube channels. I hope people find something helpful here! 🎲✂️

PAX Unplugged 2025 Preview PAX Unplugged is a tabletop gaming-focused event that grew out of the video game-focused PAX events, and this preview highlights new games being demoed or sold.

My latest self-published game Heavenly Bodies 🪐✨🌙 is now up on the Pax Unplugged preview list!!

Help fulfill my dream of thumbing-up all the games at Indie Games Night Market 2025 to the top of the list!!

I’ll periodically update this post when new IGNM titles drop in the preview!!

The best kind—can't wait!

Missing Pieces: a Game Design Advice Column Send us whatever game design quandary you're facing and someone from our team of designers, developers, and publishers will do our best to solve it! We cannot respond to all questions, but if we ans...

Got a specific game design problem you're trying to crack? We'd love to give our input in Missing Pieces, a board game design advice column in @ttgda.bsky.social's newsletter!

You can submit questions here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1hc3...

Pax Unplugged Publisher List 2025

Hey board game designers I made a list of Pax Unplugged publishers: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

"Would need to ask", means website and maybe contact, but their site doesn't mention submissions.

Leave a comment if I need to fix something up.

DJ Icon: A Game About Tactics, Timing and Turntables DJ Icon is an easy-to-learn, tactical board game where 2-8 players battle to win the DJ Icon Series Championship.

There's a lot to love in this board game about DJing... including the really rad turntable board. It's a very cool bonus to me that the team behind the project is diverse and the game and the campaign feels pretty dang inclusive.

Hey y'all!
This is not a drill! We are finally LIVE on Kickstarter!
Cascadia: Alpine Lakes launches today and we cannot wait for you to try this brand new game that our CoLab team has been working on!

BOX COVER REVEAL!

It's hard to put into words how proud I am of our team at @pickpocket.games. Design is brilliant (Pete McPherson @peterlmcpherson.bsky.social), art is beautiful (Leslie Herman), graphic design is sleek (Seth Nickerson). Support our small team by following the Kickstarter.

I did not know this and I love it!

Aw, that's amazing‚—thank you so much for sharing this!

Gender of Game Designers: Board Game Geek Top 500, January 2025 A pie chart: 92% of the pie is Designed only by men. They made 461 of the top 500 games. 6% of the pie is Designed by a mixed-gender group. They made 28 of the top 500 games. 1% of the pie is Designed only by women or non-binary people. They made 5 of the top 500 games. Data are for January 1, 2025, using the names in the Designer field on BGG. Not shown are 6 games in the top 500 that have uncredited designers.

Update to this chart that I share a lot. Not breaking news: Game design teams are still OVERWHELMINGLY all men. About 7% of the top 500 games have a woman or non-binary person credited as a designer. A 🧵of related charts: (1/6)
🎲✂️

Only once have I ever come across a group with Tiny Towns on the table and a rulebook open, and it was at my local game cafe. They were okay with me teaching them to play—it was an absolutely magical moment 😁

Into the FUN FACTORY from AEG The Fun Factory is open! Get great deals on great fun, from new expansions to exciting reprints, and a NEW TITLE-- INTO THE MACHINE!

Check out Tiny Towns: Underground, several other lovely micro expansions, and a new game from Kasper Lapp—Live now on Kickstarter!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/ald...

Very exciting! A year ago @senfoonglim.bsky.social interviewed me for the Ludology Podcast about my unpublished game, Shanghai Noir, and narrative in games, and the episode is out! Here's the sell sheet for Shanghai Noir. If you're interested in playing/playtesting it, I have it on TTS. Let me know!