I've certainly had thoughts about it, but not built anythign for it. There are lots of challenges. You mentioned the autobattles, but also the fog of war, and the big tech tree. I'm sure a good version of it exists but it would be a whole process to find it!

First, it captures the feel & humor of the videogame but lets you play up to 4 players and away from any screens. Second, there's enough differences in rules & content that it can almost function like a sequel. If you've "exhausted" the videogame, then here's a bunch of new toys to play with it.

Hard at work on development for Party House: the Deckbuilding game & getting very excited about all the fun new characters I'm adding! Our joint Kickstarter campaign with the Baba is You Board Game has less than 3 days left. Go check it out now & back 1 or both games!

To celebrate one year of launching into Early Access on Steam, I've released a big update for MADHOUSE today! It's official spooky season and you can play this build live on Steam right now!

Anyway, I highly recommend it! It's just extremely fun & nothing else does what it does.

If I had to analyze what's going on designwise here, I think it's that the feeling of player elimination, even in a super short short game, is an extraordinarily potent flavor. Love Letter and Red 7 get some similar mileage out of this as well.

The game here is clearly in the first half, but for me it's the "weirdly intense" second half that really makes this one. There's no bluffing, no real strategy, and yet somehow it captures the feel of a high stakes Liars Dice game in a seedy backroom somewhere. Such a cool trick!

And that process of trying & giving up usually generates as much or more value to me as media that I do finish, and often encompasses a number of hours/$ that compares favorably to most other things I might spend money on. Some of my favorite game experiences involve games I never got that far into.

I always feel like an outsider in these games difficulty discussions, because I don't finish most games & never have. Growing up playing NES, I never internalized that games are even meant to be finished. I get as far as you can, eventually I stop playing, maybe I come back, maybe I don't.

For sure, that's definitely an issue when your only uncertainty comes from player decisions. Fortunately Party House derives more of its uncertainty from good old fashioned randomness so it's able to play very well at each of the four player counts it supports, albeit with some changes in feel.

If you imagine a sliding scale with "tactics" on the left , and "strategy" on the right, it's often true in games that the fewer players you have the more you shift towards the right end of that spectrum & I think that's all well & good & generally true of Party House as well.

Forgot to mention that if you play Party House the physical game solo (how most people play the videogame) the shop actually is fairly static! Since the only turnover that happens is what you yourself create.

As with the last expansion, this one will be fully standalone but also include ways that it can be mixed with other Air Land & Sea games.

It's not quite available for purchase yet, but here's a sneak peak at box art for the next Air Land & Sea (including both a classic and a Critters at War version).

As someone who's just had several contentious discussions about card text formatting this week, I can tell you there are no agreed upon standards. Just use your best judgement, copy what's worked in other games you like, and be consistent (in most situations).

The way to have maximum variety in a deck is not to have every card be unique but to have exactly 2 copies of every card. That way every card can also combo with itself.

Oh to be a little Tardigrade walking around a microscopic volvox algae colony. 🫧🐻🧪

Why does the physical version of Party House have a dynamic shop instead of a static shop? I've gotten this question occasionally since the Kickstarter launched (I thought I'd get it more tbh). See my answer below.