Making Games

If I say ‘parlour game’ you’d probably think of two things, stiff Victorian etiquette and idiotic childish games - at least I do. One of these things may not seem much like the other but the fact of the matter is a lot of grown-ups like 🙃‘silly’🙃.

I think there is something fundamentally silly about playing games because they are all some slightly absurd version of real life. I think a great game should embrace that. Any Royal Engineer will proudly tell you that the game of ‘bridging’ is a rehearsal for the real thing, just as many families play the Game of Life and get busy buying yachts and priceless artworks as if it was what we all do in our daily lives.

This has led me to three thoughts about making great games:

• If there is ever a tradeoff to be made between realism and playability, your target audience is unlikely to care as much as you about your game being a perfect reflection of the real world. Err on the side of fun

• Don’t write “ages 8 to 80” on the box, because being silly and having fun could not be more ageless. To be fun and silly or silly and fun is the core reason why people want to play games

• Anything you can do to make ‘silly’ easy is worth doing. You might see ‘It’s Bananas’ advertised heavily at the moment and my first though was it’s a bit of a con. It is exactly the game I’ve played many times with an orange hanging between your legs on a piece of string. However, on reflection, I think it’s only a good thing to put a new spin on a classic game and bring ‘silly’ to a new audience.

If Claudia Winkleman can get 10 million viewers for a dramatic, high-budget version of Ultimate Werewolf, which is itself a boxed up version of the 40 year old party game Mafia from the USSR, then you can too! 💪

If anyone is interested, I’ve put these posts about game-making into a Beehiiv so you can read them all in one place - newsletter.straightforwardcards.co.uk