Hello everyone!
I am from Wichita, Kansas, and have been a board game fan for a little over a decade. The first modern board games that got me hooked were Colosseum and Power Grid, which to this day are my #1 and #2 favorite games. I love games that have unique themes, lots of player interaction with negotiation/bluffing, and solid combo engines. I'm also a sucker for unique mechanisms or substantial twists on established mechanisms. I had been on this game design kick years ago, but had to say goodbye to those endeavors with my growing family and career change. Now, I'm in a more comfortable position and am constantly encouraged by my spouse to work on my designs, and I figured this is an important step in the process. I have also been more vocal and proud of my love for this hobby, and shared my passion with coworkers and managers. One this week asked me if I had ever designed any games, and I told him a little bit of my ideas and how much work goes into it.
Like a lot of you, I have too many projects in the idea phase to count. I am trying to focus on a select few to help move them forward, and try to keep out random new ideas as they come. The ones I am furthest along on are still at the pre-playtest phase, where I am putting together pieces, boards and cards to move things around on my own and see how everything works. Here's a brief overview of my five that I am choosing to dedicate time to:
Alamantari: This started from a RPG world I put together for my kids to play D&D with some unique races/kingdoms and a rich lore and world, mixed with the thought of "I want to make fantasy Twilight Imperium." It uses a kingdom-specific deck for each player, with asymmetric abilities and simultaneous card selection to determine action order and results of political decrees.
Burglar Buffoonery: Combining my love of heist films and social deduction/bluffing/negotiation games, this is partially inspired by a little known game "The Mutiny on the Little Blue" (only released in French AFAIK). One player starts as The Boss and has a number of loot cards for the players to potentially split. However, they don't know if they can trust everyone, so must choose who will go with them on the heist. The other players have hidden roles that will trigger differently depending on if they are on the heist or not, with some being great for The Boss, and others being horrible (such as the Undercover Cop).
The Giver: My favorite book is Lois Lowry's The Giver, and this is a pipedream but I have been trying to design a game that could capture the theme. A two-player collaborative game, where The Giver is trying to gauge the emotional capacity of The Receiver in order to share Memories with them, and The Receiver must convey what they are able to handle and balance their internal struggle with the pressures of their role and the restrictions of their society.
Party Politics: A voting game where a player's voting power is determined by the lobbies they have influence with, but in order to pass policies you have to spend your influence. The policies can have a number of effects, but many make the different lobbies stronger or weaker, affecting the power of their votes and also endgame scoring. After so many policies have been enacted, there is a chance to gain that influence back, but you must contend with the other players who might see a stronger lobby available and gain some influence with that.
The Air Capital of the World: A very personal project based on my city's nickname, this is an economic game on the logistics, manufacturing and marketing of the aircraft industry and is intended to be H-E-A-V-Y. It allows players to build up their supply chain and production capabilities through different upgrades, make use of various free actions, and build different types of aircraft in an effort to market and sell them to suitable customers.
I have so many more that are in the early stages, but these are the five I am convincing myself to focus on as I seem best equipped to move between projects as they progress.
I look forward to being a part of this community!
Kyle
Thanks for the comment and compliments Glen! Yes, I am in the aircraft manufacturing industry. I was inspired by a few manufacturing games already on the market and the lack of aircraft manufacturing games, plus repeated visits to our local Kansas Air Museum.