About

This will be an introspective post, fair warning to any readers- although that’s my first question, why would people (you) read this? I know why I wanted to write it: I was thinking of self-publishing a game, and wanted to write about it. Additionally, all* advice is about putting yourself out there to make connections etc. However, there’s that nagging feeling- what have I got to offer? Why will people want to read what I write? Especially when I have no real experience in games publishing. Designing, a small amount. Pitching to publishers, a tiny amount. But this’ll only be a success story (or klaxxon-filled warning!) in retrospective, not now.

I’ve written about cons I’ve been to, which was fun but not really the plans for this blog, and I’ve been thinking about writing reviews- which would then give people a reason to read, but that feels like a trick to get people interested in my games. I could write about teaching maths (hmmm….). Nope, I want to write about my experiences designing and self-publishing and just hope that anybody who reads it gets something from it.

So the plan! A few months ago after quite a bit of playtesting I realised my other game wasn’t ready. So rather than push ahead with it, I went back, worked on another design, playtested it to the point I was extremely happy with it, and I’m going to try publishing it. Which is incredibly intimidating, frightening even. But the only thing I have to fear is the failure to fulfill. Which is nothing, really. Yet the whole thing is still fearsome, which is the thing with trying new challenges- you (I) have to push past that fear of failure.

And this blog will now become a designer diary for Forks. Stuff that’s happened in the past, stuff that’s happening now. Why some choices are the way they are, lessons learned and lets just see how it all falls.

I’ve been designing games for a while now, as a hobby, a weirdly enjoyable and stressful hobby, and wanted to blog my experiences, processes and also detail what games I’ve been playing or have influenced me. This is for a couple of reasons, but I guess they’re all really fallout from one reason. I’ve had some great experiences with publishers, even ones who have rejected my games (can’t blame them in some cases), but I think I fancy giving it a go myself. Obviously this is sheer lunacy, why take on all the work, risk and even more work yourself? Because, in spite of everything, I think I’ll like it. I’m not the best at relinquishing control, and whilst publishing in the UK is better than a lot of other countries for accepting submissions, there’s still very few with long wait times. So this blog is a taster for me- do I actually enjoy the non-designing side of the boardgame industry, and a taster for everyone who reads it- If my game hits kickstarter, this blog should give a good idea of whether or not you’ll like the game, and/ or trust me as a person to get it to you.

Well, that’s the rambling intro. I intend to update this every fortnight of so, with details of my game, design decisions, games which I love (or have influenced me in other ways), probability theory- because that’s something I know I can actually do, and anything else that takes my fancy.

Until then, thanks for reading.

Mark

Radical 8 Games.

Radical 8 Games is Mark Stockton-Pitt, boardgamer, maths-person, and Yorkshire’s 2015 7 Wonder tournament Champion. This blog is his thoughts on designing games.