The List - April 2026

It's been a few months since I checked in with The List, and I think I have some updates since then. Let's take a look at how things are going...

Published Games:

- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG) [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Isle of Trains (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) (BGG)
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) [New edition from Dranda Games with included expansion]
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG) [now available from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [now available from Renegade!]

- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)

- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Nothing new just yet... I moved The Sixth Realm down to Finished But Unpublished. 

Development Projects - Games I've done freelance development on

- Amun-Re expansion [Alley Cat Games 20th Anniversary edition] - Heavy Development

- Harvest (BGG) [by Trey Chambers from Keymaster Games] - Heavy Development

- Holiday In Rome (add BGG link) [by Cory Andalora from Pandasaurus Games - coming soon!] - Heavy Development

- Expeditions (BGG) [by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games] - Consultation

- Fled (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2024 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

- Forelords (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2025 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

Still no new development projects, at least not paid ones. I haven't been doing any consulting or development lately, but I have been helping a couple of my friends/playtesters with their games...

Unofficial Development Projects - Games I've done unofficial development on

- Henge [by Rick Holzgrafe]

- Forbidden Art [by Steven Carleson]

I've known both Rick and Steve for many, many years, and they are my most consistent and frequent playtesters. As a matter of fact, I've got a co-design with each of them currently signed by a publisher! Rick and Steve are each currently working on a rondel game, and I'm pretty fond of both of them.

Henge is a shared-pawn rondel game about building a henge and attracting druids to check it out. We've been testing it at my playtest sessions, and I really like the game it's come to be! I hope he finds a publisher that likes the game as much as I do.

Forbidden Art is a necromancy themed rondel game where you command undead minions to power up your actions -- in a way it's like Crusaders, but the minions don't automatically move around your personal rondel. In the game you pillage artifacts, and use them to bind demons, and I think it's pretty cool how it all comes together. This one's a little less finished than Henge, but in both cases I feel like I've been able to offer helpful ideas to improve the games.

Signed Games - in line to be published:
- Usurpers (FKA Apotheosis) (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe) [signed by a publisher!]

- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson) [signed by a publisher!]

Not much news about Steam Kingdom (FKA Taiko Kiri) (co-design with Steve), but the publisher has started getting some art done -- I've only seen the cover image and some tile art so far, but it looks cool! 

It's been several years since Usurpers was signed, and I've been skeptical it'll ever actually come out, but I recently saw some potential movement on the publisher's Basecamp thingy, so that made me a little hopeful again. I guess we'll see if any further progress is made on it.

Currently Pitching Games - "actively" looking for a publisher (though I haven't actively been doing much of anything lately!):

- Sails & Sorcery (Co-Design with Michael Mindes) [pitching to publishers]

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Keeping Up with the Joneses [pitching to publishers]

- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain) [pitching to publishers]

- Alter Ego (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Dice Works (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Suburban Sprawl [pitching to publishers]

- Balloonatics [pitching to publishers]

- Politica Galactica (FKA "Revampsterdam") [pitching to publishers]

- Division of Labor (FKA "I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement") [pitching to publishers]

Not much progress, but I have had some pitch meetings recently that may be promising. In a few cases I met with a publisher and ran down my Pitch List, and in some of those cases it seemed to generate at least a little interest. I had a playtest of Sails and Sorcery scheduled last month with one publisher, but had to reschedule at the very last minute due to a conflict with a work meeting (should be able to have that meeting soon). And I have a different publisher wanting to try Division of Labor.

I'll note that my wife came up with a much better title for Let's Go Balloon Racing, and you can see it above: Balloonatics. In other Balloonatics news, I got Claude AI to create a web-playable version, and it works! I've tried to get it to do Keeping Up with the Joneses and Dynasty as well, with some success (still working out the kinks on those)

"Finished" But Unpublished Games - abandoned or backburnered designs that are "done":

- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [not coming soon from Renegade :(]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [not coming soon from Renegade :(]

- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print] [trying to find a home]

- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [Ready for art] [trying to find a home]

- Worker Placement Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam idea, July 2022)

- Press-Your-Luck Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam entry, July 2022)

- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]
- Rolling Realms: Jaffee Realms (for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms)

[- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [Final Frontier Games]]

It still hurts to have Crusaders expansions and EmDo games in this category, but I'm still hopeful they'll find new homes some day. I have a lead for Crusaders, but unfortunately all my leads for EmDo have dried up.

Current Active Designs - these are the games I'm actively testing or working on:

- Dynasty [Risen from the dead!]

The only game of my own I've really been working on lately is simultaneously a new one and one of my oldest... Dynasty: The Spread of Culture in Ancient China is a design that's legitimately 20 years old, and I've finally gotten around to making a fully playable prototype... and I'm happy to report that it works! In fact, I rather enjoy it. I mentioned it in a recent post, but I probably ought to do an in-depth post about that  game. 

Backburnered Designs - I kid myself into thinking that I'm still working on these:

- Eminent Domain: Coalition [solo mode]

- Isle Of Trains: The Board Game (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

- Joan of Arc

- Kingdom Realms (KBGames 3-lane game jam entry, Nov 2022)

- 18-card Point Salad (KBGames 18-card game jam entry, July 2024)

- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

- Truck, Boat, Plane

- Peanuts & Crackerjacks

I have moved Truck, Boat, Plane (the game I made with Corbin) and Peanuts & Crackerjacks to this category because they're not games I've really been working on, and I don't really see getting back to them anytime soon.

Promising Recent Ideas:
- Worker-ception [with David Short]

- False Prophet [Mancala/Worker Placement]

- Come And Play [Sesame Street memory/rondel game]

- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]

- Press Your Luck Candyland [Candyland variant]

- Hanabi Wonders [Hanabi/7 Wonders mashup]

- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]

- Eminent Domain: Legacy [campaign mode]

- Which Witch is Which

I've added a new title to this category, which at this point is merely a glimmer of an idea... Which Witch is Which is a simple, maybe kid's level deduction game about a coven of witches, where players will be dealt cards showing different unique witches (some have pointy hats, some don't, some have cats, some have ravens, some have cauldrons, some have jack-o-lanterns, etc), and will have to deduce stuff, like in In the Name of the Rose, or Clue. I'm not sure how they'll go about doing that, but probably some mix of asking questions and passing cards around.

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central [Abandoned]
- Hot & Fresh [Abandoned]

- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG) [Abandoned]

- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]

- Moctezuma's Revenge [Abandoned]

- Kilauea [a designer showed interest in co-designing, but that didn't go anywhere] [Abandoned]

- Automatown [with Michael Brown] [Abandoned]

Notable that Dynasty moved up to Current Active Designs!

Misc and Really Old Stuff - most of this I'll probably never get back to, but I like keeping it around just in case:
- 9-Ball
- Blockade Runner
- Roman Emperors (my version of someone else's game)
- Admirals of the Spanish Main (my version of someone else's game)

- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- The Untouchables
- Day labor game based on craps

- Rondel Role Selection

- Scourge of the High Seas [deckbuilding game with 2 center rows]

What I've been working on... Dynasty (finally!), PYL: Rondel, PU/D design with Corbin, and some rondel games by my friends

It's been far too long... an update is long overdue at this point! So here are some recent games we've been testing in my playtest sessions, mine, as well as a couple of my playtesters':

Dynasty: The Spread of Culture in Ancient China (finally)

My latest design is also one of my oldest... Dynasty: The Spread of Culture in Ancient China started as an idea for a game... *checks notes*... almost 20 years ago(!) I have revisited the idea many times over the years, I even have 1/2 of a physical prototype around here somewhere, but I never got around to finishing the prototype or getting it to the table.

Originally, I figured there'd be a few different actions in the game, and you'd just choose one to do each turn. The last time I started thinking of this game, I considered that just picking an action each turn might be a bit boring, or old fashioned. Nowadays, in a game of the type or scope that I expected this game to be, there's generally a logistical or personal puzzle involved in the action selection (in addition to interactive play on the board). So, I gave it some thought and came up with an action selection mechanism that sounded good to me, and then I -- finally -- got a prototype together and tried the game!

The mechanism is this: there are 4 actions in the game (Leader, Village Conquer, Invent), each color coded. During setup, you draw some random colored cubes out of a bag to put on each action space. On your turn, you choose one of the actions to do, resolve it based on your "action level" in that color, and then claim one of the cubes from that space and put it on your player board, powering up the action associated with that cube. So it's kind of like EmDo's deck learning, only you don't get better at the action you do, you get better at some other action. This mechanism adds a little bit of engine building, and a simple entangled decision -- balancing the actions you want to do with the actions you want to power up. When you get a 5th cube of a color, you get a bonus action of that type and then you discard some of those cubes, reducing your level in that action. And finally, when the last cube is taken from one of the actions, a "mini-scoring" occurs, rewarding whatever that action does, and then all of the actions reset like during setup. 

At the beginning of that first play, it was immediately obvious that I'd messed up the costs of some things, there was very little we could afford to do at first. But after a few early turns and an audible on certain costs, the game actually started to feel pretty good! It's hard to describe the feeling of relief I felt when finally playing this 20 year old design, and having it actually work out alright!

Peanuts and Crackerjacks

Over in the Decision Space Discord, the host (Jake) mentioned something about boardgames evoking the decision space of sports, and it led me to think of the similarities between Baseball and the rondel mechanism. This pretty quickly led me to a design based on a "push-your-luck rondel," where your personal rondel is a little baseball diamond.

After some sketchy attempts, I figured out that I was approaching it all wrong, and pivoted a bit -- while the game could still be described as PYL Rondel, it's more of a Yahtzee mechanism now. You roll, lock, and re-roll some dice, then move your meeples around your rondel doing actions. Sometimes they get out, sometimes they get home -- scoring a run. The player with the most runs at each scoring phase gains *fans*, and at game end, the player with the most *fans* wins the game.

The theme of the game is managing a team in the golden age of Baseball. A lot of the actual baseball game stuff is abstracted away, but I tried to keep things making as much sense as possible without trying to simulate a baseball game.

I think this one is OK, not great... maybe it has potential to be better, but I've been unhappy with the occasional bad rolls. I had some ideas to modify what bad rolls mean exactly to try to mitigate that, but the game got set aside when I started playing other things.

Truck/Boat/Plane

One day when my 7-year-old was home from school for the day, I turned to him out of the blue and said "do you want to design a game together?" To my surprise, he was on board! So I got some pieces out, and started asking him what he wanted the game to be about. I tried to prompt him as much as possible rather than direct the design myself, but I did add some mechanical details here and there. In the end we came up with a dice drafting pickup/deliver game that's kind of like a really light Logistico or something. There's a game board depicting 4 islands in the water, connected by bridges, and each player has a truck, a boat, and a plane. Each island has a warehouse an airport and a dock, and all other land spaces have 2 colored cubes stacked on them. Each round you roll 3 dice per player and then draft them, picking a die and assigning it to one of your unused vehicles. So every round, each of your vehicles moves once, according to the die assigned to it -- trucks move on land, boats move on water and planes move wherever. When you stop on a space with cubes, you may load the top cube into the inventory for that vehicle on your player board. When you stop on the appropriate building, you deliver all of the cubes of that color (the islands are color coded) from that vehicle -- sliding them down to a scoring zone on your board.

When you make a delivery, you get a little upgrade card for that vehicle, making it move better, or giving it some ability. Then at game end, you get 1 point per cube delivered, 1/2 point for undelivered cube in your vehicles, and a bonus for each set of all 2 colors you have delivered.

I won't say it's the deepest game ever, but it could be a lot worse -- I actually think it's kinda fun, and I love that it was co-designed by my kid!

Henge

One of my regular playtesters is Rick Holzgrafe, designer of Villages of Valeria, as well as a couple of Railways of the World expansions: Railways of the Western US, and Railways of North America. I have known Rick for, I don't know, probably half of my lifetime by now! We met online at BGDF.com, and in person every year at KublaCon and BGG.con for a long time -- I like to tell people that if you look at the board for Railways of the Western US, you'll see Tucson, AZ on the map where most games would use Phoenix. Rick used Tucson because that's where I live :)

Rick has been playtesting with me ever since I started playing online (so about Pandemic-time), and even before that he came on board as a co-designer on Apotheosis, a game which was signed some time ago, and may eventually yet come out under the title Usurpers (so watch for that!)

Rick has had a number of designs over the years, and we've tested them at my playtest sessions now and again. Some of them I think are pretty good, and a few I think are publish-worthy... but none so much as his latest design, Henge. I *really* like Henge.

Henge is a shared rondel game -- there's a big rondel with a single pawn, and on your turn you advance it up to 3 spaces for free, or pay to advance farther ($1/space). The actions you take are to obtain stones, carve them, install them in a henge, and attract druids to check them out. One thing I like about the game (and it's something I lobbied for in development) is that the stones must be transported to the henge before they can be installed. There are a few spaces on the board or a few effects that can make your stones arrive at the henge immediately, but mostly they advance down little transport tracks automatically whenever you advance the pawn past certain lines on the rondel. I love the idea of things going on in the background while you play -- you get a stone, then while you wait for it to transport to the henge, you stop off and get income, maybe you attract some druids, spend some time ornately carving the stone so you can install it in a premium location, whatever.

Henge also includes a little engine building, and you can concentrate more on building or more on druids (though of course you'll probably do a little of each). Once the henge is mostly complete, the game ends, and the player who did the best job wins!

Forbidden Art

Another regular playtester / old friend is Steve Carleson, and he's had some games ideas a number of times over the years, but until recently never really pursued them. Not too long ago he had an idea I thought was promising, and I offered to come on board as a co-designer, and now that game has been signed by a publisher! Don't worry, I'll be sure to post when there's information to share about that!

Steve's current game is another one I like a lot, and I think it has great potential... this one's called Forbidden Art, and in it you play as a necromancer, commanding undead minions to help you pillage powerful artifacts, distort them, and use them to bind demons. It's another rondel game (rondels all around!), this time with a personal rondel, not unlike Crusaders. Also like Crusaders, you have minions in each rondel wedge which power up your actions, and one of the actions in the game lets you move them around your board to make certain actions stronger (while making the actions they leave behind weaker)

2024-2025: A playtesting retrospective

 It's about time I posted another 2 years worth of playtesting retrospective! Let's dig right in...

2024

January

While the year started out with 1 more game of The Sixth Relam, January was dominated by 5 games of Taiko Kiri and 8 games of Goballoon racing. For TK we were doing a lot of tweaking and balancing, as well as adding a new network bonus. For Goballoon Racing I added alone effects, which were a pretty big deal.

February

Taiko Kiri and Goballoon Racing continued to get played here and there throughout February, interspersed between 4 games of Eminent Domain: Coalition, and a couple of plays of a new game Rick whipped up called Cwen 

March

March started out with another play of Taiko Kiri and Coalition (added scoring), then followed up with a chat with Rick and Steve about a new idea I had for a mono-match game -- a game with cards where any 2 cards match exactly one symbol. Then we played 4 iterations of that mono-match game, which used 7 cards and a 7-area board to drive a 2p area control game where you race to a certain score (with a little bit of engine building). We also played a couple of games of Keeping Up With The Joneses because a publisher had shown some interest in it (spoilers: that didn't go anywhere in the end) 

April

Had to cancel test sessions a few times in the first week or so of April, but got a couple chances to just chat about stuff with Rick and Steve. Then we played 2 games of Goballoon Racing, a new game of Steve's called Ship of Fools, Another of Rick's called Portsmouth, something called Love Triangle from another designer who joined us for a couple of playtest nights (though I don't think I have seen him back since then). I played my 2-player Press Your Luck microgame with the designer of Love Triangle as well, but the highlight of the month (for me) was the three games of a new and much improved version of Division of Labor!

May

A few more cancelled sessions in May due to work or the baby, but managed 4 plays of Division of Labor that month. Also played one game of Taiko Kiri with Steve, just to play it. 

June

June saw some more canceled sessions, but was pretty fruitful otherwise. We played Division of Labor with 4 and 5 players (most of the time we had been getting 3 players), I had a pitch meeting for Taiko Kiri, and had a design discussion with Rick and Steve about a new idea (False Prophet) as well as Steve's new necromancy-themed rondel game (which, spoilers, you will see again later in this post!). We also played yet another of Rick's games: Ultimus Libre, and one more game of Goballoon Racing.

July

Two of the Discord servers I'm in (KBGames and Decision Space) both did 18-card game jams at the same time, and I hadn't planned to enter anything in either one because I had plenty of games to work on. But in thinking about the jams, I came up with not one, but two new designs! One of them (Tic Tac DOH) was pretty bad, and was soon abandoned. The other (18-card Point Salad) I think was OK for a 2p, 18-card game!

I tried a simplified version of Keeping Up With The Joneses, which turned out to feel very chain-y, but TBH, I just like the regular version better so I never came back to that simpler version. 

We rounded out July with 2 more games of Division of Labor, trying some tweaks here and there, a game of Goballoon Racing one day when we didn't have a lot of time and just wanted to play something quick, and a couple of plays of a new game of Rick's about gardening.

August

August was plagued with a few more cancelled sessions -- a disturbing trend for 2024 :/

I concentrated on Division of Labor this month -- 5 plays, including an in-person game with a friend who was in town with his teenage son... They really wanted to play Crusaders with me, but I talked them into a prototype instead, a choice I regretted since Division of Labor really wasn't working all that well yet, despite all the testing it had gotten thus far.

We also played new versions of Ship of Fools from Steve, and Ultimus Libre from Rick. And for fun I had made a custom tile set for Captain Flip, a game I'd been playing a lot at the time (the custom tile set worked, but was not nearly as good as the standard one)

September

3 cancelled sessions due to me not being available in time and/or not having players, and 2 more when I was sick with COVID :( 

All I really got to play was one game of Taiko Kiri (in prep for another pitch meeting, which my notes say "went fine"), and one 5p game of Division of Labor, with a new "Candyland track" idea, which grew into the island map that's in the game now.

October

Five cancelled sessions and 4 games of Division of Labor. This month the boat map was born, which I think is a big help to that game. We tried a number of other variations as well.

November

Between me being late and Thanksgiving, I had six more cancelled sessions in November. One night, Ben, Daniel and I just chatted about Division of Labor, Press Your Luck games, and maybe some other stuff. Only games played this month were Division of Labor x2 (more variations on things), and Ultimus Libre.

December

Finishing off the year strong (/sarcasm), I had 5 more cancelled sessions in December, including a pitch meeting with a publisher because I was late! Oops! I did meet with them, and they were understanding about it, but it had to wait until after the holidays.

We did get 2 games in of Division of Labor, as well as 2 plays of a game about log driving that I was gearing up to do some freelance development on (sadly, that gig never really materialized). Steve also gave the EmDo Solo mode a try, designed by David Turczi for Rio Grande's re-release. Sadly, Rio Grande never got anywhere with the game, and ended up canceling the project, but the solo mode exists (even if unfinished) and may yet see light of day if I can find a new publisher for EmDo!

With all those canceled sessions, and no real freelance development, 2024 was a pretty poor year for me, although it did result in a cooperative mode for EmDo which I think is pretty good, Division of Labor which I think is on the right track, and some solid development on Goballoon Racing and Taiko Kiri -- the latter of which (spoilers...) has gotten signed! And I did have a few pitch meetings, which is good.

Now let's take a look at 2025:

2025

January

Unfortunately, the canceled sessions continued well into 2025, but by the end of the year they stopped happening with such frequency. Also unfortunately, it seems like I've lost a couple of my players, potentially due to the erratic schedule, or the generally late hour of my sessions.

We started out the year with a test of a proposal I had for that log driving game, as well as a chat about another consultation I was doing -- a cooperative game about civic duty.

Then we had a couple more plays of Division of Labor, one play of a new game by Rick called Tektri (more or less about building a tech tree), and even tried a first draft attempt I made at a very old game idea a friend of mine had called Velociracers... sadly, that friend passed away years ago due to cancer, which is too bad for a number of reasons -- not least of all that he had a lot of good game designs!

(My Velociracers idea ended up sucking, btw)

At the tail end of January, I tested a new version of Revampsterdam... by that time the publisher had found another designer to revamp Merchants of Amsterdam, because my attempt was so far out of scope. In retrospect I see what I was doing wrong, and I would have loved some more explicit feedback and another chance to provide what they were looking for, but alas, I don't blame them for finding another designer. So now, with their blessing, I was making some changes to the game to further disconnect it from a Merchants of Amsterdam, and will be pitching it as a separate game I'm calling Politica Galactica

In January I had that pitch meeting I'd rescheduled from last month. the publisher game the game a chance, and even met with me a 2nd time after I addressed some of their comments from the 1st play. Ultimately though they decided to pass on the game.

February

February is always a short month, which limits playtest opportunities, especially with all the cancelations I've been having. We started out the month with a play of Keeping Up With The Joneses to refamiliarize myself with the game ahead of a pitch meeting, then another play of Politica Galactica - was teaching a publisher's rep so they could play it and see if they wanted to publish it. Sady, that publisher is no more, so no luck there.

Rick and I also played his new Tektri game a couple of times (once with Bernease as well).

March

I actually got a good number of playtests in March, 3 of which were playing Keeping Up With The Joneses in person with Corbin! He likes the game, and at this point has beaten me at it a couple of times as well :) Playing with him was funny, because he focused solely on the cars... so much so that I decided to add a couple to the game for him, one of which rewards getting lots of cars :)

Looks like the only other game we played was Division of Labor with a few more changes based on the reaction of the publisher above.

April

April was dedicated to Taiko Kiri, mostly testing a sort of expansion module wed come up with. I also had 3 canceled sessions, and one night I just chatted with Rick.

We played one more game of Rick's Scarab of Ra to cap off the month.

May

Unfortunately, May had more cancellations than playtests. The only game we played was Usurpers (4 plays and a design chat with Rick), after some promising-sounding news from the publisher (the game was signed a few years ago at this point, and probably won't actually ever get published at this rate). We took the opportunity to show Steve the game, and to tweak some things that were bothering us about it.

June

June was a lot like May, only more so... 2 more games of Usurpers, and the rest of the sessions were cancelled for lack of players (and/or starting too late). I think things finally started to pick up after this month.

July

Three more game of Usurpers and 4 games of Taiko Kiri -- in both cases making changes with an eye toward publication. Taiko Kiri had been signed by this time, and they publisher is planning a theme change to "underwater steampunk." Steve and I were testing some tweaks to the tiles and setup to make sure late turn order players didn't feel screwed in the early game.

August

August was interesting because both Rick and I had new designs to try, both of which have gone through some iteration since then. After one game each of Taiko Kiri and Goballoon Racing, we played 3 successive drafts of Rick's shared rondel game Henge (which at this point, Jan 2026, I think is basically done and I love playing it), as well as a first draft of my Press-Your-Luck Rondel game about baseball, where your rondel is a little baseball diamond(!), which I'm calling Peanuts & Crackerjacks.

September

Only 1 cancelled session in September, 2 games f Peanuts & Crackerjacks, 3 of Henge, and the first couple drafts of Steve's new necromancy-themed rondel game Forbidden Art! Rondels all around lately :)

I already mentioned that I love Henge, and I've been enjoying Forbidden Art as well so far.

October

October featured one more play of Forbidden Art, 2 more of Peanuts & Crackerjacks, and 3 of Henge. I also introduced my players to a game that I designed with Corbin (!), which doesn't have a great title (I refer to it as "Truck/Boat/Plane"). It's not terribly deep, but it's not the worst game in the world, and it's co-designed by a 7 year old! 

November

November started out with one more game of Henge to try a newly scaled board for 3 players, then it was all Peanuts & Crackerjacks, all the time (5 plays). 

December

To round out the year, December started off with yet another two canceled sessions, followed by 2 plays of Goballoon Racing (testing tweaks offered by Ralph Bruhn of Hall Games, who seems to enjoy the game), Keeping Up With The joneses (just to play it), 2 plays of Henge (testing tweaks to the Henge-Bot, an AI player you can use to fill out a 4-player game), and 1 play of Peanuts & Crackerjacks (trying another version of a lineup rather than a bag of meeples to draw from).

Finally, I closed out the year with an evening spent chatting with Steve about Forbidden Arts, and a post-apocalyptic themed game idea he's mulling over.

Fewer canceled sessions than the previous year, I still felt like I missed a bunch of playtest opportunities in 2025 for one reason or another. And as for regular players, I seem to be down to just Rick and Steve for the most part, though I did have some other testers play occasionally.

As we go into 2026, I'm going to have to figure out a way to get some of my players back, or recruit some new ones. Not that I don't like hanging out with and appreciate Rick and Steve! But I'd like a more diverse (and larger) player pool for my games! Another thing I'd like to do is get more third party development gigs, that's been conspicuously missing these last two years!

One nice thing about my players designing their own games once in a while is that it gives me a chance to stretch my Developer muscles, which feels different than designing, even though there's some overlap.