Ominous Octopus Studios

04/04/2022

Ten years ago, I was in the research and planning stage for my first Kickstarter campaign (Viticulture), which would launch later in 2012. I had zero backers–literally no one other than a few…

01/18/2021

This weekend, I saw a note in the Red Raven Games newsletter that Ryan Laukat is working on a new game, Now or Never, in the Near and Far world (I loved Near and Far, particularly the skill test me…

10/13/2020

The importance of stretch goals for crowdfunding campaigns has waxed and waned over the years. A recent poll on this blog even indicated that backers are far more interested in getting the best ver…

07/23/2020

Wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working and learning from over the last 4 years, recently posted an incredibly insightful series of connected thoughts…

07/13/2020

After I recently showed that Pendulum features 250+ plastic tokens, I heard a variety of opinions about my choice to use plastic instead of wood. Pendulum is already manufactured and will soon be a…

05/21/2020

This isn’t a criticism of any specific project on Kickstarter, recent or current. Rather, I have some general observations about a trend of I’ve noticed that may really be hurting Kicks…

01/28/2019

For all of my life, Christmas break has consisted of playing lots of board games with my family. I can trace a lot of the reasons why I’m now in the game-making business to happy memories surrounding this tradition. This year, in homage to this tradition, I took things a little too far… On Decem...

09/28/2018

http://breakingintoboardgames.libsyn.com/breaking-into-board-games-episode-77-networking-tips-and-tricks

03/31/2018

Column by Chris O'Neal

09/18/2017

Marketing is something I put tons of time and thought into. I've graduated with my MBA and I'm a published researcher in the subject of online viral marketing.

09/18/2017

Board game design18/09/2017Why learning makes for a better board gameThough some great games can only be played a single time (e.g. T.I.M.E. Stories, though there technically it’s a scenario that can only be played once), replayability is generally seen as something to strive for when designing game...

10/24/2016

the link name says it all. Middle school focused game design course materials

Resources for educators to teach game design, as well as resources for amateur game designers.