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PODCAST

Notes on Play

A game development log where I share the hardest game design problems, and share thoughts on the games I"m playing. My name is John Rudolph Drexler and you can find my games at catacombian.com

leisure games

All Episodes

8:32

37: Stealing is a superpower

Notes on Play ·

2026/10/01

Stealing is a superpower if you do it well.

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8:21

36: Designing simple games is hard

Notes on Play ·

2026/09/22

David Gordon (co-designer of Finspan, and many others) gave me an insight into why it's so much harder than it looks to design simple games.

en

6:54

35: Valve's Mechanical Matrix

Notes on Play ·

2026/09/10

Kim Swift, of Portal fame, shared that Valve uses this simple tool to inform what they design next. I found it immensely helpful.

en

9:35

34: Codenames is hard

Notes on Play ·

2026/09/01

Codenames lures you in as a family friendly party game, but it is deep, sophisticated, and difficult.

en

10:00

33: The best grand unified theory of games

Notes on Play ·

2026/08/25

Frank Lantz's book The Beauty of Games blew my mind. And so I made a little book report. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLW8ZvKjmko

en

9:49

32: I deleted 35% of my game, and it got way better

Notes on Play ·

2026/08/11

I had a big combat system that I didn't feel good about. I finally ripped it out, and it left a vacuum that inspired my best idea yet. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfgcoyz9HFY

en

12:01

31: The opposite of doom scrolling

Notes on Play ·

2026/08/05

Gen Con was an awesome experience. I got third place in a Cat in the Box tournament. Tabletop gaming is the opposite of doom scrolling.

en

9:40

30: Canticle's hardest design problem

Notes on Play ·

2026/07/14

I'm building something that doesn't have an obvious precedent, and it's been very tedious to figure out the right shape.

en

13:02

29: Form factor is everything

Notes on Play ·

2026/06/17

You can have one action in 3 different form factors, and you've got 3 essentially different games. It's worth iterating a lot to find the one that unlocks the biggest design space.

en

11:18

28: I accidentally made a whole game in 3 weeks

Notes on Play ·

2026/06/02

en

12:52

27: The trouble with abundance

Notes on Play ·

2026/05/21

I want to be generous, not chintzy with the coolest parts of my game. But that does not mean I should be generous with all the parts of my game. Brian Moriarty's talk linked here.

en

12:29

26: How board game distribution actually works

Notes on Play ·

2026/04/29

I learned a lot by calling some people up on the phone. Most notably: physics matters.

en

14:42

25: I made my dream game, but something was wrong

Notes on Play ·

2026/04/22

Canticle came to life, and to my exact specifications. But my exact specifications were wrong. Fixing it led to an explosion of great ideas.

en

8:59

24: Where do good ideas come from?

Notes on Play ·

2026/04/14

Mark Brown made a great video about finding great ideas. And it made me wonder: where did my best ideas come from, and how do I set myself up to have more?

en

14:28

23: Is Catacombian a designer, a publisher, or both?

Notes on Play ·

2026/04/08

Brian Bornmeuller's talk at NYU Game Center helped me finally articulate a question I've been wrestling with: what is Catacombian Games, exactly? In this episode I map out the five layers of the board game industry — design, publishing, manufacturing, distribution, and retail — and share how I'm approaching 2026 like a product manager: setting clear experiments, defining success criteria, and actually measuring results.

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11:02

22: Steel vs. Soft

Notes on Play ·

2026/03/20

A framework for deciding what needs to change next in a game prototype that I developed with my friend Walter Somerville. I used this recently to make some huge improvements to Canticle.

en

11:36

21: Why are there so many medieval games?

Notes on Play ·

2026/03/13

Games feel immersive and grounded when they are familiar and legible -- even from a distance.

en

10:52

20: Player experience is the guiding light

Notes on Play ·

2026/02/27

How do you give the emperor a sense of epiphany? How do you give the board a feeling of organic ideas-based growth? I picked the experience first, and designed around that.

en

10:12

19: The best game idea I've ever had

Notes on Play ·

2026/02/13

This is a game that takes place in the past and the present. And I've never been so excited to work on something. Many more updates to follow on future episodes.

en

14:30

18: Every prototype I made in 2025

Notes on Play ·

2026/01/23

2025 was a creative explosion for me. Now it's time to focus up, and pick which prototype I will try to take to the finish line.

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38 results

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