Nerdlab Podcast

In Episode 24 of the Nerdlab podcast, I chatted with Chevas Balloun the designer of Gambit. Gambit is a Tabletop RPG without Pen and Paper and a lot of visualization that started when Chevas drew a dungeon-like Maze for his 5-year-old son and realized that he could play through the maze as a kind of

In Episode 23 of the Nerdlab podcast, we will tackle a challenge many game designers have to face when they create a game. Today I am going to take a look at resource mechanics. At their heart, resources are a way of restricting a player to do whatever they want. The main challenge for me

Get the companion PDF File for this episode in order to transform this incredible advice into actionable items for your own journey. In Episode 22 of the Nerdlab podcast, you will be listening to 14 of the greatest game designers of all times. All of them have answered one question:What is the one thing you

In Episode 21 of the Nerdlab podcast, we will talk about level ups and progression systems in card games. We will talk about character progression by upgrading cards or adding new cards to a deck. We will talk about roguelikes, deck builders, deck construction games and adventure card games. All of these games have progression

For Episode 20 of the Nerdlab, I have had the honor to interview Mike Selinker. A legend in the Game Design industry. He is the brain behind many of the games that inspired me to start my quest as a game designer. Just to mention a few: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Apocrypha Betrayal at House

In episode 19 of the Nerdlab we will follow up on last weeks episode. So if you didn’t listen to episode 18 I strongly recommend listening to this episode first. Because I discussed a lot of basics about Artificial Intelligence. We talked about some design principles and different levels of AI in board games. Today

In Episode 18 of the Nerdlab we will talk about AI which stands for artificial intelligence. AI is a form of intelligent agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving a goal. While this is also a huge topic in computer science, we will only focus on AI

In Episode 17 of the Nerdlab we will talk about the topic "How to finish a game" and will especially deal with the situation when a game takes much longer than expected. To avoid this situation in our games, we will also look at some fatigue and exhaustion mechanics that can be used as secondary

In episode 16 of the Nerdlab, I am talking about how I approach an upcoming playtesting weekend. In particular, I am talking about Scattershot Testing, a method I use to test as many different mechanics as possible in a single playtesting session: Instead of hunting for the answers to the core problems of my game I want

In episode 15 of the Nerdlab, I have the honor to interview Kevin Riley designer of Aeons End, one of my favorite games. Kevin shares with us some incredible design principles that I'm definitely going to apply to my game design as well. And To be honest, I think every card game designer should follow these principles.

In episode 14 of the Nerdlab, I'm very proud to talk with Angelo Nikolaou about the game Cardpocalypse and the specific design process of a single player CCG. We also discussed a lot about legacy elements in games and why we think they make a game more interesting through personalization. Angelo has a lot of practical advice

Hello fellow adventurers, In today's episode, we are discussing Turn Order and Initiative in Cooperative Card and Board Games. My goal for this episode is to identify the different aspects of various turn order mechanics in order to enrich our game designer mindset. Hopefully, this will help all of us to create the best possible turn

Hello fellow adventurers, In today's episode, we are discussing co-op game mechanics that can be used to: Fight the alpha player problem Foster team decision situations Add tension to the game What are the main goals of co-op mechanics: One problem in co-op games is the so-called quarterbacking. What it means is that one player makes

Hello fellow adventurers, In today's episode, we are discussing at least 8 mechanics that can be used to encourage team play in cooperative games What is a Cooperative Card Game? A co-op game is by nature a game in which players work together as a team, usually against some kind of AI. In most co-op games

Hello fellow adventurers, In today's podcast episode we're dealing with a topic that made me ponder and sometimes even despair during the last week. It's about dividing game elements into logically connected groups. In other words. How can I divide my cards into different factions or colors? I was wondering if my game even needs

Hello fellow adventurers, and welcome in 2019. Let's start this year by talking about the Unique Deck Game (UDG) Keyforge from Richard Garfield and Fantasy Flight Games. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the core concept of unique deck games and some of the mechanics of Keyforge in particular. Therefore, I decided

Hello fellow adventurers, The new year is approaching fast. We are going to use this weeks episode to talk a little bit about goal setting and why it is especially important for game developers. Topics: Goal Setting / Life Planning Why is goal setting is so important for game designers? How to set goals as

Hello fellow adventurers, In Episode 7 of the Nerdlab, we will focus on health tracking in card games. This is the second part of a 2 part series on health mechanics. In the last episode, we analyzed the different aspects of health systems and formulated some questions you could ask yourself in order to find

Hello fellow adventurers, in Episode 6 of the Nerdlab, I will talk about health systems in board games and card games. This is the first part of a two-part series on health systems. My goal for the first episode is to analyze the different aspects of health systems and to provide you with a bunch

Hello fellow adventurers and welcome to the Nerdlab - Where we transform our gaming passion into incredible game designs and learn how to nerd like a boss. In Episode 5 of the Nerdlab, we will talk about storytelling. What is a story and why do we want one for our games. Today you will learn

Hello fellow adventurers, in Episode 4 of the Nerdlab we will talk about the third and final building block of exceptional encounter design. In the first part of this 3 part series, we identified how to ask dramatic questions to our players by creating interesting conflicts and real decision points. In the second part we

In Episode 3 of the Nerdlab we will talk about the second building block of encounter and combat design. Last week we identified how to ask dramatic questions to our players by creating interesting conflicts and real decision points. This week we will talk about fireballs and crushing blows. In other words: how to design

In Episode 2 of the Nerdlab you will learn the three fundamental pillars of encounter and combat systems. This episode is the first in a series of episodes that will deal with the topic of Encounter Systems. Today we will focus on how to ask your players the right questions in order to make the

In Episode 1 of the Nerdlab, I will today present my vision for this podcast and introduce the game I am currently developing. In addition to that I will talk a little bit about the importance of having a clearly defined vision and why I think you should have one for your game as well.