Catacombian Games

I sold 322 copies of Colossi in a day https://catacombian.com/blog/board-game-distribution-consolidators-colossi

Stealing is a superpower if you do it well. https://catacombian.com/blog/steal-like-a-game-designer-board-game-shelf-mechanics

David Gordon gave me an insight into why it's so much harder than it looks to design simple games. https://catacombian.com/blog/why-simple-games-are-hardest-to-design-making-of-mudlarks

A great design tool to steal from Valve https://catacombian.com/blog/game-mechanical-matrix-evaluating-game-mechanisms

Codenames is hard. https://catacombian.com/blog/codenames-mechanical-weight-vs-depth-of-play

Suspension of disbelief is a skill. Listen / Read Watch: catacombian.com/blog/suspens...

Frank Lantz gave me the best unified theory of games I've ever heard. https://catacombian.com/blog/games-aesthetics-of-thinking-beauty-of-games-frank-lantz

I deleted ⅓ of my game, and it made it way better. https://catacombian.com/blog/heck-yes-or-no-cutting-combat-system-canticle

My first Gen Con was like the opposite of doom scrolling catacombian.com/blog/gen-con...

Egregious wordle today. Unjust. Uncouth. Undignified.

My new game has a deviously difficult design problem. But I think I just had a breakthrough solving it. catacombian.com/blog/canticl...

You can have the same player action in 3 different form factors, and you’ve essentially got 3 different games. catacombian.com/blog/form-fa...

I really enjoy Rules of Play. It is a bit dry and academic. But it’s comprehensive and rigorous. It helped me build a vocabulary for game design, in a way that led to a lot of cool ideas. And you can jump around to the chapters that interest you.

I heard someone say, “you don’t want another Star Wars. You want something to make you feel the way Empire Strikes Back made you feel.” And I feel that every time the discourse about remakes and reboots comes up.

If you’re at Gen Con, I’d love to say hi in person and play a game with you. I’ll do some sessions of Colossi too, if you’d like to learn. Shoot me a message!

An incredibly kind write up about Colossi. Thank you for playing Dan!

Don’t be chintzy with great ideas catacombian.com/blog/the-tro...

Everything I learned from selling my games a convention. Most importantly: art sells games. catacombian.com/blog/first-b...

Board Game Geek featured a design diary on Colossi today! boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogp...

I got to play test my game with two great game designers I really respect last night. My brain is absolutely reeling right now. It's such a gift for talented people to give feedback.

I've spent so much time in the software world, it took me a while to wrap my head around how much physics matters in board game distribution. Here's what I learned. catacombian.com/blog/how-boa...

2026 goal: figure out what Catacombian really is. Do I sell directly to retailers? Fight for a distribution deal? Skip retail and go DTC? Should I pitch to publishers? Curious how other indie publishers approach this. Running experiments to answer each: catacombian.com/blog/indie-g...

The best narratives in games are the ones that emerge from gameplay. catacombian.com/blog/embedde...