‘ve started doing game design again. This is always one of my secondary hobbies – I made enough money to change my life with Eagles back in 1983. And then I designed Cybertank and Cybership for Games Computers Play. A lot of you have played my Pits of Seth games which I wrote over my entire life. And of course there was the massive Solar Trader which started off as more a dare between Jesse Markowitz and myself. Oh, and then a couple of years ago, I got into GameBooks with StoreyMinus and PathFinder, both on the Squiffy site. And these are only the games I’ve published. There are also all the roleplaying games I’ve done (StarWars and Solaris). And what is model railroad operations but another game. I’ve designed operations systems over the years for many railroads.

So yes, designing systems is just something I do. It’s just another version of storytelling.

So now a friend of mine has suggested we team up on something called a “Roll and Write” game. This is a game that comes with specific rules and specific dice, played on a pad of paper, where you play a short little game and have fun. I’ve been out of the direct gaming community for a while (actually, I’ve never really been in it – I was my own gamer and played my own games). Anyway, he asked if I wanted to design something and what it might be. I came up with the idea of SpaceLanes (yes, that was another version of an RPG I made – I just liked to name and am going to reuse it). Essentially you are a ship captain in 2105 or so, trading about the universe. Each of the games will be a planet, with specific adventures for that planet. Part map puzzle, part gamebook, you’ll make your way across the town, trying to get what you need and get out (a lot like Solar Trader). I wrote an excel spreadsheet to try it. And I must be full in for this – I’m waking up in the morning with all sorts of ideas.

But nothing comes easy – I’m current fussing around with the balance. The problem with simple games is that you are restricted with a number of constraints – in this case, the encounters either happen too many times or not at all. So I’m working on that, trying to come up with some way to make this fair and balanced and interesting and fun (with a lot of replayability). Of course I’ll let you know how it goes into the future, and might even put out a call for playtesters.

I guess, all I can say, is this is what I do.

Happy  New Years, you all.

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