Welcome to your monthly dose of insights!

We’ve secretly swapped in a new template. Let’s see if anyone notices…

Hey again,

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024!

Life is good here in Birmingham - grey and sometimes rainy as usual for a British winter - but I’m excited by some of the games about to come out or that I’m working on behind the scenes.

We’ll get to that in a minute.

Moving forward, this will become a monthly newsletter of more personal insights that won’t be published elsewhere. 

I’ll still be talking about game design a lot - the plan right now is three slightly different things for three slightly different audiences:

• A more targeted weekly blog post (like the most recent one about How to Write a Rulebook)

• A daily post to LinkedIn and Twitter about something I’ve seen, learned, enjoyed, appreciated, etc.

• This monthly newsletter of more personal insights, to come out the first Wednesday of every month

I’m excited for 2024.

Sure, everyone’s had their sparking wine and seen their fireworks and set goals…

…and then they got back to work. The same routines, the same environment, the same people.

When you’re around that much ‘same-ness’, it’s hard to break free of it. That’s why Gabe Barrett and Nerd Fitness have both recently talked about changing your environment. Each of these thought leaders is changing their environment in different ways for different reasons, but they’re focused on your personal, individual goals.

In one of his videos on the Board Game Design Lab site, Gabe Barrett calls them ‘habit fields’ - the habits you have in a given place, and how physically changing the space makes it easier to change what you do in that space.

People on the Nerd Fitness Rebellion Facebook group are changing their environment to make it easier to get ready for the gym, or to do their workout today.

It comes back to the same thing: starting with a goal and setting yourself up to succeed.

Alright, your turn: what’s one thing that you think is holding you back in your game design journey? Hit reply to share.

Behind the scenes

In 2023, I set a goal to lose some weight and get in shape. To help with that, I started doing something active every day and weighing myself first thing in the morning. This red A1-sized poster hung in my office, on the wall right by my game design ‘table’:

There’s a lot going on here, so TLDR: I’ve lost a little over 20 kilos and succeeded at doing something active - tennis, yoga, a walk, a run, a trip to the gym, etc.

This year I have a very similar poster in the same place, and now that I’m at a healthy weight the goal is maintaining it, building muscle, and dropping fat. I won’t be changing much here since it’s a sustainable habit that’s working.

One new way I’ve changed my environment has been to add a full-year calendar to the back of my office’s door. It’s not pretty to look at and pretty blank right now, so I won’t share a picture.

Beyond helping me remember some important dates, it’s also a place where I’ll be tracking two numbers tied to my personal goals this year:

• Number of pitches completed

• Number of published games played

I’m in a wonderful position to play prototypes all the time because of Virtual Playtesting, Remote Playtesting, and other playtesting groups… but I’ve really fallen behind on my knowledge of current, published board games. I realized I was in danger of not doing one of the most basic things any designer should be doing: playing games.

There are plenty of groups around (a Tuesday one I need to make the effort to go to, a Friday one I’ve already said I’ll join), so it’s mainly a matter of getting out of my comfy office, braving British weather, and getting to where the games are being played.

Ready for some accountability?

If you haven’t already seen the Accountability Coach page, head here: https://entrogames.com/accountability.

My goal here is to help you make 2024 your best year yet by helping you create goals, keep you on track, etc. Each month, we’ll get together on a video call for 30 minutes to see where you are, what you’re struggling with, and make a plan to focus your efforts between meetings.

There’s just a few slots left here - $199 gets you 12 half-hour meetings, 1 per month throughout 2024, and is a significant discount over my usual consulting rates.

Prefer one-time check-ins? No worries, head here: https://entrogames.com/consulting.

Thanks for reading!

Got a question about game design you'd like answered? Find an amazing new resource that would help fellow game designers? Reply to this email and share =)

Thanks for reading, and see you next month!