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Quarter 1, 2026 Small games started the year of 2026. Boardgamageek often organizes 9-card game contests and since I recently designed my first such game, I decided to submit Cheese Chase to the 2026 9-Card Nanogame Print and Play Design Contest. I also found the time to create a video for the game. The second small game was the fourth and smallest game in the Find the Bug! series, namely Find the Bug! Kanban. This game was the result of casual comments from colleagues regarding "game rules" for the Kanban boards used in a project. Since Kanban is all about providing resources to push work items forward within WIP limits, the game basically wrote itself. With cards instead of work items and cubes instead of resources supplemented by some drafting rules to acquire them, the game was designed, tested and refined within a week! 
In addition to those, I revisited old Demokratia to see if it could be a fit for the 7th WODC. The rules did benefit from clarifications but unlike the brother game and previous WODC winner Politeia, I found no changes necessary. Whether it will succeed as well is another question. This meant I had to postpone the game test of 1988 as well as the drafting of the trading and building in medieval Stockholm. At least the latter now has a working name: Holmia. Quarter 4, 2025 Most of my design time this quarter was spent on the new directive from The Game Crafter, which had me opening all my old PowerPoint box images, converting them to Keynote and changing the minimum age from 12 to 14 years at all places where the age was mentioned. Hopefully I didn't miss anything! However, I also had time to write a well received session report from a Tigris & Euphrates game. 
Which will be the next Nova Suecia game in 2026? Funny enough, I did get inspiration from a documentary on Karl Marx and the idea about how workers increase the value of goods - the basic game flow of all euro games. Why not attempt to design a modern euro game, where the challenge is to find the best optimization path? The objective of such a game would be to include an interesting action selection mechanic where every single action is an interesting minigame in itself. I dusted off some old game ideas and came up with the following:
As always, this is a new path to me and it will be interesting to see where it leads. Quarter 3, 2025 Previous quarter's publication of Globalization at Boardgamegeek was followed by a series of blog posts about how the game came to be. They have created some buzz so hopefully this heavy game will attract some interest eventually. Older games that attracted interest include Vasa Regalis - The Card Game and Warring States, both of which registered sales. Less fun was a new directive from The Game Crafter, stating that all games had to change the minimum age from 12 to 14 years. This meant updating all components where the age is mentioned, including boxes, rules, game presentation and whatnot. This was a daunting task which at the time of writing is still in progress. Last but certainly not least, I was proud to learn that the World Original Design Contest of Board Games jury approved of The Mara and selected it to the semi-finals. Quarter 2, 2025 Now it was finally time for the co-designed game Generations to present itself at SAGA. There were two planned game sessions and Generations was well received, particularly how the the card sliding mechanic represented the new worker generations. 
With Generations completed, I suddenly got new energy for my other game projects. I published Foundation and Globalization at Boardgamegeek and decided to enter World Original Design Contest of Board Games with The Mara and Cheese Chase, the latter a new nine-card game based on Comrade. I also started a brand new project: The new 19XX game 1988. 19XX is meant to a become a new game genre that starts where the 18XX game end, with a monopoly market about to be deregulated. It will be very interesting to see where this project ends up. I was also happy to register two new game sales: the old classics Bellum se ipsum alet and Vasa Regalis - The Card Game. Quarter 1, 2025 My new job consumed most of my time during the first quarter, leaving very little time for game design. I did complete the rules for our SAGA game Generations and it was also tested during a SAGA game test event. The result was OK and revealed some areas for simplifications. One major change was the removal of resident requirements for the build actions, leaving only a manufacturer requirement and a resource requirement. Other changes mainly concerned graphics. 
Speaking of jobs, I was also contacted by a former colleague, who expressed an interest in my old "job game" Find the Bug!. The discussion reminded me of a minor change that I finally implemented: failed test automations should return the tester to the player instead of removing it permanently. Whether this leads to more sales remains to see. 
Besides that, I was a bit sorry to depart with the interesting game Hegemony, but I just didn't expect it to reach the table as often as it deserved. Instead, I did buy another Exit game, Exit: The Game – Dead Man on the Orient Express. At least that will get played at home. December, 2024 December means Christmas vacation and time to play some games instead of designing them. I was gifted Exit: The Game – Advent Calendar: The Missing Hollywood Star by former collegaues and although more of a puzzle than a game, it did appeal to my wife and frequently hit the table. Other games were less fortunate as both Fishing and Babylonia had to leave my collection. When it comes to game design, I did some work for our SAGA game Generations but the most important thing is to get live and blind tests organized as soon as possible. In case the prototype will be ordered from The Game Crafter, I did prepare Globalization for printing, a game which also needs a live test as the next step. November, 2024 I did manage to get a game into the Swedish Design Contest SAGA! However, it was not Foundation but rather the co-designed game Karlskrona, renamed to Generations. I guess the innovative "bump programming" mechanic has to be shelved for now as I focus creating a prototype for Generations so that the game can be physically tested. November was also the month for the annual game convention Tyskhelg, where I got to play several interesting games and also won the trick-taking game Fishing. October, 2024 I finally decided to submit Foundation to the Swedish Design Contest SAGA. Although the game has failed to appeal the juries of other contests, I still feel that the innovative "bump programming" mechanic deserves another chance. 
Besides that, I've spent little time on game design due to changing jobs and expect to continue focusing on old games instead of starting new ones. September, 2024 Due to travelling, working out of town and preparing for changing jobs I had little time for design activities. Hopefully I'll have more time to complete the Boardgamegeek entry for Globalization next month. The new Swedish game design contest SAGA opened for game submissions with the ambition to equal the Danish Fastaval. I have plenty of potential games for it but still have to decide whether I have the time and energy. I also decided to let some good but seldomly played games leave my collection: Mini Rails and The Estates. August, 2024 The summer came to an end, as did the test of Globalization. There was a lot of balancing and tuning before I was satisfied. The next step is to order updated components and find interested testers, if I decide to pursue such a heavy game. 
With that I resumed my project to "close" all my games and this month it was time for Glasnost's successor 1789, where I completed all components and added the game to Boardgamegeek, including Designer Notes. July, 2024 The summer vacation finally brought some game design inspiration. I decided to use the free time to test my latest game Globalization and it turned out to be so good that I wanted to test it to the end. Although the game worked very well as is, it went through three major changes (and retests) to make it even better:
Whether Globalization may ever become something more than a successful experiment with an economic simulation game remains to be seen but it was very fun to see my old childhood design attempt grow up to become a beautiful swan. 
June, 2024 My project to "close" all my games continued with Cobweb, where I completed all components and added the game to Boardgamegeek, including Designer Notes. I also recorded yet another sale and this time it was Warring States that found a buyer. Given the predecessor Cosmoclasm's popularity, is it time to give this deeper version some more love? May, 2024 Another quiet month where the only game design I engaged in was an online test of Karlskrona. It confirmed my fear that it may be too difficult to plan ahead so that players simply take an available action when their turn comes. A more flexible tableau where all card actions are available but "age" as cards slide down may solve some of the problems. However, I still worry that the game is more about chasing victory points than building a city to open up new opportunities. To open up new opportunities is the theme of On Mars, which I finally got time to give a positive review. Unfortunately, Karlskrona reminds me more about another city building game I got to play this month, namely Barcelona, which also is more about chasing victory and less about progress. Besides that, I finally managed to go through my many game designs and ensure that they have the latest rule sets printed. I'm still in doubt which one to focus on next but now they're all up to date once I make up my mind. April, 2024 April was more of a gamer's month than a designer's month as I treated myself to the regular game convention "Tyskhelg" ("German Weekend"), where I got to play both old classics and good games new to me. Whether I'll bring some of that experience into my own games remains to see. I did consider an idea of an area economy game where the (city?) value would come from three sources: the surrounding tiles, the surrounding intersection points and the connection with other cities. I then realized that Explorers & Exploiters uses some of that mechanic already so perhaps I'll use the rest for a third edition. The design work that I did accomplish this month was the completion of the RPG adventure "Frändernas ring" ("The Family Ring"). Two more games were sold this month: the award winning Glasnost and my very first game Nova Suecia. Nova Suecia is another game I may revisit to streamline the supply and demand mechanic, perhaps some of the interesting ideas from Kutná Hora, that I played in January. In this game, an "analog computer" with sliding tiles is used to change the market values, which is less fiddly than the many market tracks of Nova Suecia. Another game with great mechanics is the classic Taj Mahal, which I reviewed this month and which inspired me to the games Cosmoclasm and Warring States. Finally I was able to find a buyer for Railways of the World, a good train game but too big to bring anywhere. Instead, I finally received Pueblo, an interesting block laying game which I crowdfunded almost two years ago. March, 2024 After the busy previous month I treated myself to rest this month with regards to boardgame design. Instead, I resumed some old RPG writing after having received positive feedback on some of my published adventures. Out of the campaign's ten adventures only three have been properly written down so I don't lack things to spend time on. I also resumed my chess endgame studies to use in my chess classes and hopefully refresh and improve my own chess skills. In addition I continued to trim my game collection by selling yet another cube rail game, namely Mini Express, since I already own and too seldom play the better Mini Rails. February, 2024 Nova Suecia Games' tenth birthday was celebrated with the completion of the rules and the print & play files for the Napoleon game, now officially named 1789, for the 5th World Original Design Contest of Board Game. A challenge with the predecessor Glasnost was the coup rule, that some players often played wrong. The simpler solution was to let the game end after a revolution and an immediate counter-revolution, after which the player factions may be safely revealed. Another improvement was replacing policy tokens with Minister pawns that are moved to reflect the outcome of the votes. Finally a game video was produced. With that I could finally submit the game together with Foundation to the contest. Besides working on my own games, we finally managed to get Karlskrona to the table in a test that turned out to be successful. The game's general flow worked and there were always interesting decisions. Some modifications had to be done, particularly to the scoring (where the "Knizian" best worst score) was replaced with a regressive score for each category to encourage diversion. The game may soon be ready for a pitch. I was also happy to record the first sale of Peoples - Civilizations as well as a sale of Lucca. February was also a month of changes in my game collection as the seldomly played Irish Gauge, Chicago Express Renature left in favor of the both mechanically and thematically interesting asymmetric politics game of Hegemony. Hopefully I'll find time to review it next month. January, 2024 January was a quiet month where other work took away my design time. Yoka Games did announce its 5th World Original Design Contest of Board Game with a deadline in March so it did pay off to prepare the Napoleon game. I still need to find a simpler mechanic for the revolutions though. Foundation is likely to be the second submission. Besides that, I was given a copy of Union Stockyards and since I was curious about the game's market mechanics, I also wrote a review. 
Old blog posts may be found here:
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