[#007] A Powerpoint export solution, priorities, and a great tutorial to data merging

Chris Backe talks board game design

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Chris Backe
January 23, 2023

Welcome to your weekly dose of board game design!

It's been really cold here in England, but that didn't stop us from going downtown for Lunar New Year. I'm regretting that a little bit since I seem to have picked up a cold...

Life is good otherwise - most everything is ready for Nuremberg, and it's freed me up to work on several new games. They won't be ready to pitch until UK Games Expo, but they're in (or going to be in) playtesting very soon. Want to see? Find me in Virtual Playtesting or Remote Playtesting =)

Something I learned about game design this week

So this is pretty specific to my favorite tag-team duo of PowerPoint and Tabletop Simulator, but it's worth sharing.

One of my games in early development will likely use a transparent card that sits on top of a normal poker-sized card. This is one of the rare prototypes that will be easier to build in real life than in Tabletop Simulator, but so much of my playtesting is done online, so if it's possible to build in the program, it needs to happen.

I was struggling with how to make a PowerPoint slide with a transparent background. The shape backgrounds were already on no fill, I'm exporting as PNG, which should pick up the no fill... but no dice. It has a white background, and removing it would be laborious...

A bit of Googling and I quickly learned I'm not the first one to ask this question. The short version: it's simply not possible to export a slide with a transparent background - the short answer is to use your photo editor of choice.

A bit more digging, however, and I found a workaround. It has to do with how Powerpoint can save objects as images. Step 1 is to select the objects you want to save as one, unified image. Step 2 is to right click and save as a picture. Step 3 is to save it as a PNG to your location of choice and you're done - confirm it has a transparent background in your photo viewing program of choice.

Which objects can work with this? Pretty much all of them, just not the slide background itself.

This week's tip

You are what you prioritize - and what gets measured gets managed. These are clichés in some circles, but I've found some wisdom in each of these. This goes beyond game design, but it has game design implications.

You are what you prioritize - no need to answer this out loud, but really think about this. For most of 2022, I thought I was prioritizing my health. I was doing yoga, eating healthy lunches... and yet I wasn't losing weight. I realized that I needed to do better... but how? 

I needed to start tracking this stuff. If it's important to you, it's worth the wall space - and most people have enough of that. 

What I’ve been working on last week

  • Playtested a dice drafting game and finally gave it a theme

  • Playtested Smite and codename Dragon

  • Received a contract for a game with a co-designer!

What's coming up this week

  • More gearing up for Nuremberg - printing off updates of some sell sheets and prototypes

  • Work on a couple of new games to get them to a first playtesting stage (codenames Shell and Shadow)

  • Get the contract for game #16 signed.

  • Catch up with co-designers on our joint projects

ICYMI

If you've been struggling with data merging, Catherine 'Cat' Drayer is here to walk you through how to make Google Sheets and Affinity Publisher talk nice to each other:

What happens when you combine cats, a passive-aggressive personality, a tough AI opponent, and the most popular website for Chess? Go read: 

Random picture of the week

...yeah, I've got nothing. Another charity shop find, obviously, and of all the things I would think to stuff a turkey with, brussels sprouts was not one of them.

Quick question for you

Have you taken a game design course / class? What did it cover well? What do you wish it covered better? What did it completely ignore? Hit 'reply' to let me know.

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 week!