The Personal, Political Art Of Board-Game Design
The Personal, Political Art Of Board-Game Design
The Personal, Political Art Of Board-Game Design
By Matthew Huston
December 21, 2023
Summary
Du Bois's Heading Forward, a one-person card game about recovering from a head injury, is inspired by his experience after a car crash in 2015.
In her book, "Empathy Engines: Design Games That Are Personal, Political, and Profound," Elizabeth Sampat argues that the distinction between personal and educational games is illusory; even intellectual games can feel personal, because they put you in the middle of things.
Amabel said, she'd like to make a game that brings players inside the experience of gender dysphoria.
One idea excites her, although she's not yet sure how to make it work: she wants to design a game of solitaire that can be won only by breaking the rules.
At Bones's place, where parts of a Kaiju Table Battles prototype were arrayed on a dining-room table, I asked Amabel to walk me through her design process.
As it happened, I'd been trying my hand at game design, and I'd brought a mockup of my game to playtest with Amabel and Bones.
Reference
Hutson, M. (2023, December 21). The personal, political art of board-game design. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-personal-political-art-of-board-game-design