We trade stories about the small games that save a night, from bluffing chaos at a wrestling convention to real-time trading frenzies that only work with the right group. Peter C. Hayward joins us to get honest about what makes a design worth releasing, how Baba Is You becomes a competitive board game, and why he built a board game career as a long-term plan to move to LA and write scripts.
• Cockroach Poker as a near-perfect late-night bluffing game for non-gamers
• Picking the right small box game for a new crowd
• Triangulation as a low-rules word guessing team game
• Stonk Market as a frenetic real-time trading party game
• Mr. President as an overwhelming, fascinating solo simulation
• Flip Seven With Vengeance and the “right level of mean”
• My City vs My Island and why legacy arcs work
• Designing around tension instead of theme or mechanics
• Why “it functions” is not a good enough reason
• Rolling Deep and the goal of making a game people remember
• Baba Is You design breakthroughs for a 2-player abstract campaign
• Risk aversion in creative industries and why ambition matters
• Peter’s visa journey and the shift toward screenwriting
• Things and Rings as a Zendo-inspired “vibes” deduction game
• Reading habits as a trainable attention skill
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Check out Peter's Blueprints for Life Podcast at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlK7TV83QHJ8vo6pfbgXA-DqiuaOQW-St&si=BZQU0ZAJ9EvzLjSs

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