Zach Hoekstra

Overreaching Gondorian Defence Regulation bill unfairly drives out largest local employer, champion of industry.

- Graag Skullsplitter, Mordor Times (Opinion)

Me: "Logic puzzle: You have 12 coins, one of which has a picture of a lion on it, and an unmarked scale, which can be used to measure the weight of the coins at most 3 times. How do you find the lion coin?" "ai" responded: "You look at them?"

www.youraislopbores.me
Legitimately the first 'AI site' to have answered this correctly.

And you can free up space in your game for the good complexity by aggressively cutting bad complexity elsewhere

Always, because I tend to make games like that.

But here's the thing, in some cases of the complexity is needed to create the correct richness you're going for, then you just need to make extra sure the new changes fit inside your 'complexity budget'

First time playing Pact? For your first game, choose the three Agendas marked with the beginner icon. Neith should also select the Slytongue Weave when she gains her first Weaving ability. In addition, for ease of learning the game we suggest not looking ahead in the event decks and agendas to fully plan out your strategies and moves. You may not know enough of the future to make good decisions in the present, but then again, neither did any of the characters you are playing. Once you have a feeling for what the consequences of your actions are, you can enter your second game with a better understanding of what to do and what Agendas to select.

🎲✂️ Pact is modelled after CDGs (where event knowledge is important for effective play), but I've found that Pact has a much broader audience that may be used to more traditional games.

Question: Is this disclaimer useful to add to setup, or condescending to my players?

Incredible!

The board game Evenglow laid out on a table at GAMA Expo. A man with a clipboard is in the background.

The board game Evenglow laid out on a table at GAMA Expo.

The board game Evenglow laid out on a table at GAMA Expo. Other board games by The Op are shelved in the background.

Some folks at GAMA Expo playing Evenglow.

I'm not at #GAMAexpo, but I'm there in spirit! If you're there, go visit The Op and tell Evenglow that I said, "Hello."

These photos have made my day, y'all. I'm so excited.
#boardgames 🎲✂️

A sketch of a Pact space - this one has larger numbers for the VP enhancements

🎲✂️ Not many updates on PACT lately, we've been working on the boring stuff. A few usability updates on the board, and pulling together quote numbers.

De Visdeurbel — De Visdeurbel Zie je een vis? Druk op de Visdeurbel dan opent onze sluiswachter de sluis en kunnen de vissen doorzwemmen.

Zie je een vis? Druk op de Visdeurbel!

The fish doorbell is back for the spring. Look for fishies, ring the doorbell so the worker can let them through.
visdeurbel.nl

Page decor illustrations consisting of page borders, page title decor and corner decor

7 black and white page divider illustrations featuring roses, swords and skulls.

30 colour illustrations of swords with various themes.

Colour illustrations of items you can find in a wizard's study - a gold key, potion bottle, scroll, scrying orb, herb bundle, staff, candle holder, a hat, a big tome and gold coins.

Did you know you can get all this plus ✨so✨ much more for free in my freebie library? 😍
Free for personal and commercial projects.
ko-fi.com/alderdoodle/...

Those page dividers are gorgeous

The ceremonial changing of the jacket if you will

As the weather warms, it is time to accept that I cannot just wear a heavy denim jacket all the time, and must put it away

(So I can wear a lighter denim jacket all the time)

A shot of the billboard at the Festival International des Jeux, giant displays set up over the entrance to a large gaming convention

A close up of one of the games on the billboard. It's Bellevue!

Feels surreal

Ah yes, the greatest BBEG of every D&D campaign - *scheduling*

An Example Made is the one way in which a Convert token may be removed from the board (being dead does tend to restrict one’s ability to think about their own faith, at least in this world). The Convert token is returned to Neith, where she may place it again using her normal ability.

🎲✂️ There's a very specific interaction between two components of my game that I don't feel I have the room to include in the actual text of the cards, so here's hoping sequestering it to a FAQ section will not ruffle too many pedantic feathers

But with the move to a new printer we have the chance to redesign influence to a new token. So my question to you all is... what token shape is abstract social influence?

flowers? agent meeples?

(these need to be ~15mm x15mm, so I can't get too detailed)

🎲✂️ Influence in Pact is an abstract representation of social power. It is bribes, blackmail or coercion - anything that makes a Courtier do what you want them to.

Right now influence is represented by an acorn because... well that's the token the printer had available.

Immediately Neith may improve her Pact with a faction. She may also destroy one coin from that faction to increase it's standing. Then discard this card

Neith may displace 1 influence at the start of each of her turns. Whenever Neith displaces influence, she moves it to an adjacent courtier instead of to the displaced box.

Neith can move 1 shift 1 instead of using the actions on a selected card. If she does so, she tucks the card under this weaving. (the event still activates) In a later turn, Neith may discard a tucked card to use its actions in addition to her normal turn.

🎲✂️ The trouble with making a character that can pick and choose her special abilities is it becomes way too fun to make those abilities.

zach's sideboard works but sucks visually. Make it better Jason

🎲✂️ graphic design pass #2, here giving very good and professional instructions to my graphic designer in our status document

Neith nearly drove the kingdom into ruin for her own greed and ambition. We failed the first defence against the centipedes, then Neith deliberately defunded the military TWICE, risking an all-player loss each time for a better chance at winning the game.

A great battle ensued in the game of Pact, a battle won by strange weavings of fate. A picture of a pact board from an artistic angle, with coins and pieces strewn about in ordered patterns

🎲✂️ Got to play a full game of Pact with my fellow conspirators, with the goal of tuning up the graphic design before the push for pre-production copies.

Cheddar packaging: "Handcrafted by the Quicke family in Devon, this six to twelve-month matured cheese develops a mature complexity that’s grassy, nutty, and savoury all in one bite."

Me, shredding it into a $4 pot of Kraft mac-n-cheese: "wow this is gonna be some primo bougie shit"

Apologies for touching the shit-making machine, it was in service of pointing out how shit it is at making shit.

And thus it is written in MR 137:14 “The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid.”

He jokes but honestly the watch, witches, and von lipwig lines of pratchett discworld books hold the same moral salt to me as Matthew Mark Luke and John do to Christians

The Cat Prince | zhoekstra | Screentop.gg Play The Cat Prince by zhoekstra on Screentop.

Yeah, I burn through a lot of projects, don't I?

Have At Thee got shelved for a little bit, but may come back. In the meantime I took everything I learned from it and created The Cat Prince

screentop.gg/@zhoekstra/c...

Oh I'm going 0-100 on this.

First game, a 15 min lighthearted family affair about building lovely canal houses

Second game, a 2 hour theme-packed game of political manipulation, ambition, greed, and betrayal, in a kingdom on the brink of civil unrest

I'm glad I cut Pact to the bone, because it resulted in a clean easy to teach system, but It was just as important for me to build back up to the spark that sets it apart.