Bart de Jong
@bartgamedesign.bsky.social
Father. Primary school teacher. Game designer. Designer of Bable (2024) and L'Oaf (2025).
I’m killing the product category that brought us the most licensing deals. Sounds crazy, right? After 5 years of self-publishing, I realized publishers were buying the game, not the box.Here’s why we’re saying goodbye to our $25 games. #boardgames #selfpublisher #vietnam
🎲✂️ It seems to be less and less common for published games to have a minimum player count of 3. I appreciate the desire for games to be playable at 1 and 2, but that choice puts strong constraints on a design. I fear it limits diversity, as certain interactions simply need 3+ players to work.
🎲✂️ Took me only a couple of hours to realise that RPG's solved this problem decades ago. In your typical RPG, players gain more powers as the difficulty rises. So instead of narrowing the path to victory, they just move the whole thing upwards on the complexity scale.
Bart de Jong@bartgamedesign.bsky.social · 7d ago🎲✂️ Co-op games seem to have an intrinsic problem with their difficulty scaling. Increasing the difficulty should increase the importance of skill. This is true up to a certain point. When the margin for error becomes too small, the randomness in the system itself can start creating unwinnable states
🎲✂️ Co-op games seem to have an intrinsic problem with their difficulty scaling. Increasing the difficulty should increase the importance of skill. This is true up to a certain point. When the margin for error becomes too small, the randomness in the system itself can start creating unwinnable states
Gloomhaven is perhaps the only game where I would prefer a re-theme with the same mechanics over a different game in the same universe. I absolutely love the Gloomhaven system, but I don't care for the gloomy fantasy setting. I'd love a spacehaven, ninjahaven, anthropomorphicanimalhaven, anything
W. Eric Martin | Board Game Beat@index.wericmartin.com.ap.brid.gy · last wk.Cephalofair Games gives a first look at a "Gloomhaven drafting game"
If you're looking for game recommendations this Summer, we've got you! ☀️😎 - Welcome to Parks - Flip 7 - Mushroom Cats - SCOUT - Hanabi - The Hobbit: There & Back Again - Things in Rings - Pickle Grab - L'oaf - The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
🎲✂️ Playing games makes me want to design games, and designing games makes me want to play games. It's the ideal virtuous circle, but unfortunately all too often interrupted by boring things like life and responsibilities.
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46... These Wingspan spinoffs are getting crazier each time
Timespan
Lead your civilization from the stone age to the space age in 90 minutes.
boardgamegeek.com
This is so very important. We've come a long way with the designers' (and illustrators'!) names on the boxes, but still it's the publishers who get mentioned in media coverage. Even most game awards mention the publisher but forget the designer.
Sen-Foong Lim@senfoonglim.bsky.social · 2w agoMore to what I was talking about re: proper attribution. The @ttgda.bsky.social is working to reduce instances where publishers, media outlets, and content creators fail to acknowledge the creatives behind the games. irp.cdn-website.com/2b6905d0/fil...
deeply annoying that creative breakthroughs don’t come on schedule from direct work but from things like “open-ended conversations with interesting people” and “doing nothing”
That one playtest where you feel a game finally coming together is my favourite part of design. When all the parts move in exactly the ways you want them to, when the players are feeling all the things you want them to feel, when the game transcends the cardboard, that's pure magic.
gamefound.com/en/projects/... My friends over at Wulfhorn Games have just launched their newest game on Gamefound. Go check it out if you're into backstabby intrigue and/or want to support a friendly bunch of indie creators!
Council of Serpents by Wulfhorn Games - Gamefound
Three noble Houses are vying for power, but you are not one of them… You are a member of the Council of Serpents, and manipulate their attributes to ensure the Triumph or Collapse of a specific House....
gamefound.com
This afternoon I will be interviewed about the design journey of my game L'Oaf. I'm slowly getting used to people writing or talking about my work, but this feels way more personal. It's flattering but frankly also a bit scary. Any tips for how to not make a fool of myself?
On behalf of all people who run crowdfund campaigns and artist stores, let me be the one to say it today: International shipping really is that expensive. It really costs that much. I know it's expensive. That's really what it costs. I'm sorry. I don't set the prices. But it really does cost that m
Did you miss Rattlesnake designer Michael Hardacre's design diary over on @boardgamegeek.com? We now have a version on our website blog as well. Read all about the creative process behind this chaotic, card-based, cowboy shootout: https://bit.ly/4ovmEjN // AVAILABLE NOW // https://bit.ly/3J8NKwH
🎲✂️ Hey a general cast out there, if you're one of them newfangled Instabooktube content creators and you've been following Pact with some interest, reach out to me, because we're starting planning for the media part of the publishing cycle.
Jason Gamber was responsible for the incredible illustrations and visual style for L'Oaf. It's always a joy to see games come to life under his skillful hands
Zach Hoekstra@zhoekstra.bsky.social · 2mo ago🎲✂️ One thing I'm really appreciative of for Jason Gamber, my graphic designer for PACT, is that he does an amazing job at blending symbols to really communicate some subtle stuff about the world. See his coin notes here for example (www.jasongamberdesign.com, he's done a ton of great stuff)
More board games stuff from UKGE day 1! Checked out and picked up L'oaf and Steery. Both are the sort of small quickplay games you can pull out anytime.
This week we're commending L'oaf, a game that explores the vagaries of working a job that demands too much. You play as a worker in a bakery. Your goal is to work as little as possible. Its a good game if you know how to bluff. #boardgame #cardgame #bakery boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43...
L'oaf
Bakers try to work as little as possible, without getting fired!
boardgamegeek.com
I think that any games criticism that isn't based in lived experience and observed contextualisation, is pseudo-intellectual faff.
I'd like to add "you should just do *insert neurotypical habit*". And then if you don't do *neurotypical habit* because you've tried that a million times and it doesn't work for you, they get upset and will blame any struggles you might have on your refusal to do *neurotypical habit*.
ADHD Jesse@adhdjesse.com · 2mo agoADHD is always hearing “you’re doing it wrong” even though your way works.
I heard that L'Oaf completely sold out at UKGE! I keep being surprised by how much it touches me that people play my games. I made something in my little corner of the world, and now complete strangers in faraway places are finding joy in it. That's pretty damn close to magic!
I unsubscribed from a mailing list ticking "I'm receiving too many e-mails from *company*" as the reason. 5 seconds later I get an e-mail telling me that they're sad to see me go and I can resubscribe whenever I want. What part of "I'm receiving too many e-mails from you" did they not understand?
Wishing a happy UKGE to all who celebrate. If you happen to pass by Revelation Games, please say hi to my games!
🎲✂️ There may come a day where I won't regret making too many changes at once... But it is not this day
Due to my medical situation I had to make the difficult decision not to attend the UK Games Expo this year. I'm especially sad since this will be the first year that my games are available at the con. If you're interested in Bable or L'Oaf, you can find them at Revelation Games (stand 4-425)
Affinity: "you should link these images instead of embedding them, to reduce file size." Also Affinity: "I can't export this file, there's too many linked images." (Except that it didn't tell me the second one. I wasted a couple of hours figuring out why it did nothing when I clicked "export")
Today the better idea came just before I clicked "print" on 12 pages of new cards. I have never felt more powerful.
Bart de Jong@bartgamedesign.bsky.social · 3mo ago🎲✂️ My game design superpower is coming up with a better idea just after I spent several hours implementing changes to a prototype.
