Book Announcement

Do you remember that super secret project that caused me to go on hiatus this summer? I'm sure my regular readers will not be surprised to learn that that project was a book on game design theory. Thematic Integration in Board Game Design will be out in January. I'll post again when orders are open. 

In the meantime, what is this book and why would you want it? TIBGD takes my past blog posts on theme and puts them in order, provides additional examples, and fixes my slapdash approach to grammar. (Apparently using 'out' phrases is my thing: suss out, find out, clean out, call out, etc. These have been removed from the text.) The end result is a coherent treatise on what theme is and how it should be approached in board game design. 

If you have received any benefit from this blog at all and were looking for a way to show appreciation, buy this book. Seriously, I have never and will never monetize, advertise, or otherwise try to cash in on what I write here. There may one day be another book, but you should consider this book the only way I may ever see a dime as a theorist. 

That said, I don't believe in paywalls. Don't buy the book if you're happy reading the rough versions of my ideas here for free. There isn't very much there that isn't already on here. (The little that isn't found on the blog comes from other places where I have written or spoken, and those may be harder to find in the future.) 

Now, two more things. 

First: it has come up several times recently that people are mildly shocked when I state that I want to hear more from people who disagree with me. This is even part of my motivation for writing a book: I want my ideas to have enough legitimacy to be disputed. So, once the book comes out if you have opinions about where I went wrong, write about it then drop a comment on the blog so I can find it. I think theme is an important topic and the only way to prove that is if I'm not the only voice talking about it. 

Second thing: I had intentions once the book manuscript was done to devote time to regular blogging. Life recently threw me a curve ball and this post has been almost a month in the making. I have lots of things to write about, but getting the writing done has been absurdly difficult. I imagine that the person most upset about this is me. I can't make any promises about content going forward. However, I will be attempting to maintain a once-a-month schedule over on Ludology if you need a fix.  

This book was one of the most challenging projects I've ever undertaken and I'm absurdly proud of it. At the same time, I've already got ideas for new chapters in a potential future edition. Which will all preview here for free. Thanks for going on this journey with me. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates on infrequent Mondays.