Notes on Play

John Drexler
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A game development log where I share the hardest game design problems, and share thoughts on the games I'm playing. My name is John Rudolph Drexler and you can find my games at catacombian.com

  1. 29: Form factor is everything

    17 июн.

    29: Form factor is everything

    You can have one action in 3 different form factors, and you've got 3 essentially different games. It's worth iterating a lot to find the one that unlocks the biggest design space.

    13 мин.
  2. 28: I accidentally made a whole game in 3 weeks

    2 июн.

    28: I accidentally made a whole game in 3 weeks

    Notes on Play

    11 мин.
  3. 27: The trouble with abundance

    21 мая

    27: The trouble with abundance

    I want to be generous, not chintzy with the coolest parts of my game. But that does not mean I should be generous with all the parts of my game. Brian Moriarty's talk linked here.

    13 мин.
  4. 26: How board game distribution actually works

    29 апр.

    26: How board game distribution actually works

    I learned a lot by calling some people up on the phone. Most notably: physics matters.

    12 мин.
  5. 25: I made my dream game, but something was wrong

    22 апр.

    25: I made my dream game, but something was wrong

    Canticle came to life, and to my exact specifications. But my exact specifications were wrong. Fixing it led to an explosion of great ideas.

    15 мин.

  6. 14 апр.

    24: Where do good ideas come from?

    Mark Brown made a great video about finding great ideas. And it made me wonder: where did my best ideas come from, and how do I set myself up to have more?

    9 мин.
  7. 23: Is Catacombian a designer, a publisher, or both?

    8 апр.

    23: Is Catacombian a designer, a publisher, or both?

    Brian Bornmeuller's talk at NYU Game Center helped me finally articulate a question I've been wrestling with: what is Catacombian Games, exactly? In this episode I map out the five layers of the board game industry — design, publishing, manufacturing, distribution, and retail — and share how I'm approaching 2026 like a product manager: setting clear experiments, defining success criteria, and actually measuring results.

    14 мин.
  8. 22: Steel vs. Soft

    20 мар.

    22: Steel vs. Soft

    A framework for deciding what needs to change next in a game prototype that I developed with my friend Walter Somerville. I used this recently to make some huge improvements to Canticle.

    11 мин.
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A game development log where I share the hardest game design problems, and share thoughts on the games I'm playing. My name is John Rudolph Drexler and you can find my games at catacombian.com

Информация

  • Автор
    John Drexler
  • Годы выхода
    2025 - 2026
  • Выпуски
    30
  • Ограничения
    Без ненормативной лексики
  • Авторские права
    © 2026 John Drexler
  • Сайт подкаста
    Notes on Play