I'm Kevin Allen Jr. I am a designer and photographer living in Montclair NJ, USA. I am starting this blog as a work diary as i go through the iterative design process of making a new game. This new game is specifically an entry into the fabulous Game Chef 2009 contest. I am hoping to write up a post a day for about a week and a half. After that time i imagine this blog will be very rarely if ever updated, only really posting bits of reviews, updates, and ephemera about whatever game ends up getting designed for this contest. It will then serve as a fossil record of the way I designed games at the end of the summer of 2009.
Some context about where i'm coming from in working on this context:
• I am currently reading "Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals" by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. A fantastic textbook about the theory of game design. A must read, if i am to be trusted with the matter.
• I am currently between steady regular games. I have a very stable weekly gaming group that has as of late played a number of very good games. This isn't a problem or a concern. We'll start playing a game regularly when one makes sense.
• I do not have a steady full time job. I pay my rent by being a freelance graphic designer, and thus i make my own hours. I'm working a few contracts right now, but all have flexible schedules. This doesn't mean i'm going to be working on game design 12 hours a day. It does mean i've got time to think about games.
• The last game I published was Sweet Agatha. It will no doubt inspire this next project in some way. The new crops grow in last years soil, ya know?
One last bit before we get on to real posts about the contest and game design process:
This is not my main blog. My real blog is about advertising and media criticism. That blog can be found at advertingdisaster.blogspot.com/. My website is www.kevinallenjr.com. I got a twitter, a flickr, and loads of other social networking BS, just search for "kevin allen jr."
