November is over and I have to say, I am totally blown away by the response to NaGa DeMon this year. People from all over the world have been on creative benders, designing and playing boardgames, RPG’s, video games, wargames, supplements, adventures, add-ons and expansions in a huge variety of settings and genres. Experienced game creators, virgin game designers, world renowned bloggers, novelists, game design dabblers, students, and tavern wenches have all put their hand up to have a go. (Okay, I am not sure about the tavern wenches.) Some of you powered through and finished early; some worked up to the wire and finished in a nick of time; some of you gave it your very best but found your design efforts dashed upon the rocky shores of life; some combined your work with that of NaNoWriMo or one of the other projects happening in November; and a few continued to bang away at your project after the buzzer and managed to complete your work. Whatever approach you took, whether you completed your game or not, CONGRATULATIONS!
Whether you were successful or not, now is the time to talk about your NaGa DeMon experience. What was your inspiration, your design process, the good bits and the bad? When you played your game, did it work the way you expected? If you didn’t get around to playing it, what are you hoping to find out in your first playtest? What do you intend to do now?
If you have your own website or blog, feel free to leave a link in the comments below. If you don’t have anywhere to share, then tell us all about your experiences in the comments. Also, don’t forget to go read the comments on the NaGa DeMon page, as lots of people have already posted their feedback there.
Now that November is over, your designing doesn’t have to stop. I hope NaGa DeMon gave you a “kick in the pants” to tackle that game you have always talked about doing, and now that you have started, keep going! If you think your game “has legs” (as they say), there are plenty of resources out there to help you take your game further. I also want to point Australian game designers to the Australian Game Designers Facebook page, a new community meeting place for likeminded folk.
Okay, I am off to draft my first “feedback” post. November was epic, and I need to get my head around everything. Once again, congratulations to everyone that had a go at NaGa DeMon and I look forward to reading your game feedback.
I posted most of my feelings about the process on my blog, here:
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2011/11/nagademon-mission-accompished.html
But I didn’t really share anything about the next steps in the process.
This first effort was intended to be a sort of “gateway drug” to re-introduce role-players to hex-and-counter wargames by making one that was accessible in terms of theme (dwarves, wizards, clerics, etc.) and very simple in terms of mechanics (4 pages of rules).
The intention going forward is to come up with a series of such games, each of which introduces a few more wargaming concepts, to ease the players into the genre and get them to a point where they’re using some fairly advanced operational-level rules, but don’t have the shock of having to learn them all at once.
The first play-through definitely brought up some mechanical issues with the way the scenario was designed, and certainly in the technicalities of producing the maps and counters. But all in all this was a fantastic event and I’m looking forward to participating next year.
well i was done but failed to have a decend play test, the first test failed because i fortot something important.
i may have failed here but during the creation of the game i learned much and it helped to get a deadline, thanks for orgenazing next year i wil be there surly.
i will post my rpg soon if the website gets finished. but the failiure did not bring me done at all, i will contineu creating games and try to past them. dont expect too much of them.
well see you next year.
Well, I too fell short finishing my pirates FU hack just into December. I’m sure there are things to change but I’m happy with it for now.
NaGa DeMon is a great incentive to create something and it succeeded in this regard even if it wasn’t done in a month.
There’s been posts over at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/718896/nagademon-national-game-design-month/new and I’ve left my thoughts about my game Soul Survivors there.
Agree wholeheartedly with Steve about NaGaDeMon being an incentive to create. It’s been a great motivator for me to make a transition from having ideas to building a prototype and playtesting it with friends.
Next steps, I’m going to rework my game as I think the mechanics are promising but need more work to integrate them into the theme. So more to do!
I’m also really interested to hear if anyone in the UK has an interest in game design as a hobby, as it would be great to meet some kindred spirits. I’m chris_cheese on BGG if you want to contact me.
I posted a writeup of some lessons learned on my first efforts at game design on a deadline for “Spirit of Greyhawk” over here:
http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com/2011/12/greyhawk-naga-demon-post-mortem.html
This was an invaluable experience and thanks for your efforts!
I’ve finally gotten my results from NaGaDeMon typed up at http://johncdubois.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/national-game-design-month-part-1/. I had a great time, and I learned a lot about my design goals and where I should go next.
my rpg is downloadable on the 1km1kt site, here is the link http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/dark-stories