Wolfgang Westdorp

As things begin to take shape a bit more and I can potentially turn my attention to other matters, I want to take a moment and discuss the narrative components of Goon Game. Strange as that might sound, given how the game has very little in the way of a traditional narrative framework, they are present, though undeveloped. One of my foibles with the current discussion around Game Narrative is with the way we frame said conversation. Whenever a story in a game is brought up, i

For months now, one of the major hurdles I’ve been trying to jump is player understanding. Granted, the rate of “this does what?” has diminished, but it has been a prevalent question since day one. For the longest time, I thought this was a complexity issue: too many rules in one place, overloading players, meaning nothing sinks in. An issue I’ve done just about all I can without boiling everything down to shapes and colors, yet I keep hearing “This does what?” or some variat

Keeping this one short for a number of reasons. First and foremost, really feels like I’ve reached a place where all that’s left to do is tweak numbers and wording, something that’s less mentally taxing than coming up with systems from whole cloth. Most of what was brought up from the last testing session has been addressed: faction components have been more evenly spread out across units, spells, and whatnot; bloat spells have been cut; automatons have been reworked, and Thr

Everything’s on fire again. There’s a reason I paint minis and cook: cause it’s nice to have something creative to do that gets done in an afternoon. Game Design and writing don’t get done in four hours; not unless you're especially cracked. I am not that cracked - yet. So as I watch the last month and a half of work go up in flames before my eyes, I can’t deny the frustration I feel, knowing that there is still a long way to go. But I also know in that moment how everything

Been a minute, hasn’t it? Apologies for the wait, but this last build update took up all the attention I had not already devoted to keeping food on the table — and then some. Now that I’ve been let go of that particular leviathan, I can shift focus from the game to the show around the game. In brief, the last month or so has been centered around one thing: fixing the Creatures of Havoc. As a reminder from last time we spoke on the subject, the Creatures were my most anticip

Sorry about missing the deadline; however, rest assured, I only spent a small amount of that time frivolously. Overall, play testing went well. Put the game into another state of flux, but I’d be more concerned if it didn’t at this stage in development, if I’m being honest. Due to that flux state, I don’t have a comprehensive change log like last time, as things are still getting figured out at the time of writing. What I do have is a refined Creatures of Havoc play style, a

As explained last time, the Big Idea for Goon Game is to create a system that encourages player expression within a given play style. To that end, several systems have been added, overhauled, or completely altered to move closer to that Big Idea. Those changes, and the order in which I will discuss them, are as follows: Reworked Main and Sub-Objectives; baking the former into each player faction while leaving the latter on the board, and the only place desirable resources spa

Much has changed since the last update, and I want to talk through all of it to some degree — mainly so it’s out in the open and I can move on to new pastures. Something this post was going to cover in its entirety, that was, until I hit the two-thousand-word mark with only one talking point. So with respect for you, the reader's time, and not losing myself to the show, what follows is that first talking point. In the weeks to come, the others, more focused on the project its

As of my last posting, the prototype had begun to morph into an early form of its final release. It is still far from done, but the bones of everything I want are starting to get set up, and the feedback I’ve been getting from testers has helped guide me in a better direction to refine those bones. While that gets refined, I started making a list of required game materials. I don’t think much will be added on that front from this point on. So I wanted to get that list togethe

On August 16 th , 2025, I held my second testing session for Goon Game. However, with the testers being the same as before, I wanted to diverge somewhat from the rote questionnaire they filled out before and focus more on how their understanding and opinion of the game has shifted since the first time they played. From that, I gained a great deal of feedback, ranging from how the amount of spells available to players is causing choice paralysis to certain Commanders and Facti

Still waiting for testing data to percolate some more; however, that doesn’t get the goblins off my back, so here we are.       From the...

The first testing session, for the boiled-down ruleset of Goon Game, was held July 29, 2025. Although the data set is still too small to...

No one showed up last Saturday. Planning another in-person test as of writing and working on moving the ruleset onto Tabletopia to play...

The prototype is now printed, and a testing date is being set. As of writing, the goal is this Saturday; whether that will be reality is...

Hey. How’s it going? Update time: strap in, cause all this is coming out of me like a fire hose. The new prototype is complete; all...

Ominous as those three words may sound – doubly so when on their own line – change is not always an ill omen of dark days to come. I have...