New Year, New Misplays
Embracing Growth
by Mark
Looping back to a new year is often positioned as a moment to create New Year’s resolutions or approach the year with new intentions. It might be a bias in my perspective, but when I look at the discussions revolving around the new year, I often see goals or resolutions framed as a renewed attempt to change something we deem bad. As teachers, Jason and I would never center a goal on the deficit or problem we are hoping to help a student solve. Instead, we would ask: what skill can be taught or learned? Part of developing a nurturing and educational goal is taking stock of the current skill set, identifying the skill or skills that will address the challenge or need, and outlining the steps required to learn those new skills.
On an early episode of the podcast, Jason voiced: “we don’t know what we don’t know.” He was right, of course, and on so many levels. Between the incredibly large scope of this project and our constant search for the game, our first year of the podcast by necessity focused on documenting this process of discovery. As we look toward our first-ever season two, we’ve recognized the need to change how we plan, assess, and describe our work, both behind the scenes and live on the mic.
Our intention with season two is to be more nurturing and gentle with ourselves as we work to improve the quality of The Misplay Podcast and the game we are going to develop this coming year. We want to continue giving an honest look at where we are and what we are currently working on. To this end, we plan to make some structural changes to the show in service of a more cohesive narrative and continue to develop our game designer toolkits.
I expect there to be some growing pains as we start making these adjustments. In our last episode of season one, we talked about how our first year of the podcast was not what we expected. While we will continue to hold to our ethos of “this isn’t how you SHOULD build a board game, it is simply how we are building ours,” we do want to be more mindful to not beat ourselves up when we run into unpredictable challenges or changes. It’s an easy trap to fall into when you are passionate about what you are creating and want to produce the highest quality product possible. I’m so excited to step forward into season two along our path to building a board game. We want to wholeheartedly embrace and celebrate the effort and contributions of our team of friends, the game we’re going to bring to life, and our story of how we get there.
Chasing the Feeling: Lessons from Splendor
by Jason
I just played Splendor for the first time and was surprised to learn it’s not from the late 80s or early 90s, despite how much it’s talked about. I love the feel of the pieces—they remind me of poker chips. I wouldn’t call it a simple game, but there’s something about its simplicity that I really enjoy. If you haven’t played, it’s a resource management game where you use gems to buy development cards that give you points and extra resources. I taught it to my six-year-old in just a few minutes.
There’s clearly a lot of strategy I haven’t discovered yet, but I’m reluctant to look up strategies for two reasons: I don’t want my wife to get mad, and I’m enjoying the self-discovery process. The best part? I want to keep playing. I’m eager to play again.
This is the feeling I’m hoping to capture with our game this year. I want people to feel excited to play again. It won’t be easy, but that’s the goal.
Sponsors
Rebel Raptor Games
A new indie board game publisher focused on making games that are perfect for kids and new players but is just as fun for seasoned gamers.
Their first game, Raising Rabbits, launches on Kickstarter this March 2025. Follow them on Instagram @rebelraptor.games or visit rebelraptor.com to join their mailing list for exclusive updates.