Love for Quantum

Summer blog catch-up continues, this time with a report on all things Quantum. If you’re in NYC and want to try the game, I am demoing it on Tuesday August 26 at 7pm at The Uncommons, a board game cafe in the East Village.

Quantum is my recent tabletop strategy game, published with Paris-based FunForge earlier this year. The game has done well – selling out in North America and with coming editions in Italian, Polish, and Spanish to join the French and English versions. The image above is from the launch party we held at the NYU Game Center, in partnership with another tabletop game from an NYC designer, Zach Gage’s Guts of Glory.

Queering the Metagame

At the Different Games Conference this past spring, Colleen Macklin and I ran a workshop session called Queering The Metagame. Using Merritt Kopas’ “Queer Mechanics” design model (which we lifted from her essay Interrupting Play: Queer Games and Futurity), we encouraged players to hack into The Metagame and create their own cards, rules, and play rituals. 

Flatlands at XYZ

Although the exhibition happened last fall, I finally have put documentation online for the exhibition of Flatlands at the Museum of Design Atlanta. A collaboration with architect Nathalie Pozzi, Flatlands is a game installation where two players search through an archive of 200 game boards to find the right one that will please a judge. Both players play cards that change and modify the judge’s criteria over time.

Flatlands was part of XYZ – Alternative Voices in Game Design, and Nathalie and I want to thank the curators Celia Pearce, Cindy Poremba, Adam Rafinski, John Sharp, and Akira Thompson for including us in the show and also for helping tremendously with the installation.

I’m especially excited about this amazing video shot and edited by The Raftermen in Atlanta. It gives a great sense of Nathalie’s space design and the overall experience of the game. You can more documentation about Flatlands, including complete game rules, on my project website.

Quantum hits the streets!

It’s official. Quantum, the sci-fi strategy boardgame I started designing 4 years ago, is officially available for sale. From its origin as a little sketch I played with Jesper Juul in my kitchen to the award-winning prototype Armada D6, to the final game that designer John Sharp helped me whip into shape, it’s been a long journey.

Its been great working with FunForge, the game’s publisher, as well as Passport Studios, who are distributing the game in North America, on its release. For more about the title, here’s an essay I wrote about the Quantum’s design process for Boardgamegeek.com.

What does this all mean for you? You can finally order your own copy! Here’s a link to the Amazon page and another at Cool Stuff Inc. Stay tuned for a launch party in NYC in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I am very much looking forward to hearing about your experience playing the game.

Feels great to finally have this game out and in the hands of players!

Diner Dash: an “Indie Essential”

The Museum of the Moving Image, a longtime exhibitor of digital games, recently premiered the show Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Videogames. The show combines classic indie games like Passage and Braid with last years winners from the IndieCade Festival of Independent Games like Killer Queen and Gone Home.

I was delighted when Diner Dash was selected to be among the winners. It was one of Gamelab’s first titles – and probably its most successful. You can read more about the show in this review published in the New York Times. The exhibition will be up through IndieCade East in February. Check it out if you’re around NYC.

photo credit: Karsten Moran for the New York Times