Jon Perry

Awesome! I'll be there too

Hi I'm on bluesky now! Last year was a hell of a year as my 2-year-old was diagnosed with cancer (!?!?!?) and spent much of it in the hospital. Thankfully it's in remission now. What a ride. Hoping to slowly get back into gamedev stuff this year!

I love it when I open a one sentence reminder email that says, "Make dentist appointment" & Gemini is like "Can I summarize that for you?"

Thought of another:

-Fog of war in Starcraft

A subcategory of spectatorship I'm particularly interested in is dramatic irony in games.

Examples:
-The hole cam in Poker
-Being a moderator/dead person in Werewolf
-Watching your teammate pick a card in Hanabi

But I can't think of many other examples.

Totally-- I believe fighting games are probably the most watchable multiplayer video game genre.

I can see that! For the right person, being a moderator and simply facillitating other people's fun is super enjoyable. Often when I'm teaching a lighter game, I'm happy to sit out and just run it if we have one too many players, even though "running it" often turns into just watching.

Totally, it's a good example of dramatic irony. Like seeing the hole cards in Poker tournament.

Makes sense! I can totally see how you'd glean a lot of useful insights from doing that.

Absolutely. Making other people's turns watchable is my favorite solution to downtime.

I increasingly spend time thinking about designing games for spectation as opposed to just active participation. On the extreme end, you have game shows, which are nearly 100% about spectation & interesting to me for that reason. But many types of games benefit from considering, What's fun to watch?

I tend to use "rivals" for this reason

When writing card texts, is it fine to ignore the grammar rule regarding less/fewer and just write "less" because it's shorter, even if it's not technically correct? I gotta admit that grammar rule always seemed kinda pointless to me, anyway...

Interesting, I didn't know they tried a square grid first! I wonder if hexes worked better because players build the grid in that game and the hexes offered more flexibility and choice

I prefer square grids to hex grids. It's easier for me to parse visually and I like having diagonality as a resource to play with.

YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie Abolish ICE

a few thoughts youtu.be/lERS4kJIQR8

I may be making some incorrect assumptions about your game, but it sounds like in this case you did go with the simpler option, though?

An example for me is the 6 dog limit in Spots. Leaving it out would simplify things but it seemed too essential for making games closer & maintaining uncertainty into the late game, which is a value I often prioritize over elegance.

Here's a question for board game designers... What's a wonky rule that you wanted to cut, but in the end had to leave in because it just felt too important?

"Sensory hanabi" is such a good description

My favorite party games of 2025: Yubibo & JinxO

5 Calls Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.

As so many of us are… I’m furious and scared and exhausted. It may feel pointless… but call your reps. CALL. you can email too but the call is more important.

@5calls.org will get you the phone numbers AND and has an easy script on what to say.

5calls.org

Hot Streak ABSOLUTELY lives up to the hype

Took my time reading this, a few pages a day, but just finished. So good. Michael DeForge never disappoints.

OH MY GOD

I have ideas for how to improve Scape Goat, as well, in case any publishers see this!

Christmas deals!

The Party House guest pins in their natural habitat.

Part of our official UFO 50 collection: www.fangamer.com/collections/...

Wow! Good luck and have fun!

Ah, fair point. Forty really is a lot to put around a table! Besides using a camera to solve this problem, I guess the other strategy would be to put down tape to create a lifesize track and have people be the racers...but you'd need space & with winter weather, that's probably tough.