When I was young, I loved to stare at the maps on the inside of my favourite fantasy novels. Just stare. Without any words, they evoked a feeling of adventure, of space, things to be seen and experienced. This is the basic premise behind Glory. I wish there were more roll-and-move games, like monopoly, but with more choice, and more like those maps that would so enthrall me. So I tried to make one.

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This is an hour and a half long game,  and yet my design process had one golden rule: max complexity for min rules wording. This attitude really helped to dig out as much insight as possible from playtesting. I credit three major results to having this strict parameter. One, I spread most of the complexity out of the rules booklet into small pieces through the character boards and cards. This disperses the mechanics, making them digestible. Two, permission is given to the players to come up with a resolution when there is ambiguity- room for discussion of what should happen when funky mechanics meet each other. This means that the rules writing task was about making moments of ambiguity contained and fun- but not absent. This is a tricky balance, and a risk, but I think it's worth it. There should be at least a little room for creativity on the margins. And three, dry erase markers simplify things dramatically. No tracking beads, flipping things, tapping things, moving things around- literally, the player changes the cards, writing  things down straight onto the game. I cannot express how much wording and complexity this simple materials change made.

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Oh ya, and be prepared to risk dying in order to win the game. I thought it was an important goal to work in. You got'a make it so you need guts for glory, if you wan'a say no guts, no glory. So that's what I did.

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