Dice Exploder

Designer Commentary

Podcast Transcript: Designer Commentary: Northfield (with Jason Morningstar)

TranscriptSam DunnewoldComment

It is still designer commentary season on Dice Exploder, and today I'm talking with Jason Morningstar (Fiasco, Night Witches, a million other games) about Northfield: a game we co-designed about the time Jesse James tried to rob the bank in my home town, we shot the hell out of him and his gang, and then we started an annual small town fair to celebrate our victory. You play as both a member of the James-Younger gang during the bank raid and as a person in the modern day portraying your gang member in a reenactment.

It's a weird little game, much like its subject matter, and surprisingly personal to me (Jason was not surprised by this). On this episode, we break down the process of our collaboration and how we feel about the results (very positively).

Podcast Transcript: Designer Commentary: Space Fam

TranscriptSam DunnewoldComment

For Ken Lowery’s Disc 2 jam, I decided to finally release the game I’ve been working on for nearly four years: Space Fam.

This is a game about, you guessed it, found family in space. In particular, it takes a lot of inspiration from The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet in that you’re the crew of a ship escorting a traveler from point A to point B, and along the way you deal with your feelings of guilt and stress about living under an oppressive government.

It’s a hack of Our Traveling Home by Ash Kreider, and it’s like 90% of the way to really great. But that last 10% is always the hard 10%, and I decided it was time to let this game just be what it is and push it out into the world.

As a part of that, I wanted to look back on the design process. What went well, what didn’t, what would I change if I was going to spend another 30 minutes or 30 years on this thing. To do that, I sat down with two of my friends who playtested the game, and we talked about all things Space Fam.

Space Train Space Heist: Design Commentary

Sam DunnewoldComment

Because I’m shy on twitter, I never talked about the first RPG I ever finished designing: Space Train Space Heist. But I recently remembered how much fun it was, back when I was playing a lot of forum mafia, to read and write debriefs on a given game’s design and playthrough.

I thought today, while STSH is part of this itch bundle of Forged in the Dark (FITD) games, would be a fun time to revisit it. So let’s do it! Here’s a post mortem, retrospective, “director’s commentary,” and/or essay about the design of STSH.