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Donald X. Vaccarino
Donald X. Vaccarino (born 1969) is an American board and card game designer. He published the card game ''Dominion'' in 2008, which won the Spiel des Jahres award along with many others, and has had 16 expansions. ''Dominion'' and its expansions have sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide, . His 2012 game '' Kingdom Builder'' also won the Spiel des Jahres award. With ''Dominion'', Vaccarino has been credited with pioneering the genre of deck-building games. ''Dominion'' has been studied academically as a test-bed for how evolving game rules can create balanced play. Life and work Vaccarino got his first full-time job as a programmer at age 16, before becoming self-employed as a game designer around 1994. Vaccarino was influenced by '' Magic: The Gathering'' and was credited with contributing to the game in the ''Comprehensive Rules of Magic''. Vaccarino's games have been published by companies including Rio Grande Games and Queen Games. Selected works Vaccarino's publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Game Design
Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war games, or simulation games.In ''Elements of Game Design'', game designer Robert Zubek defines game design by breaking it down into three elements: * Game mechanics and systems, which are the rules and objects in the game. * Gameplay, which is the interaction between the player and the mechanics and systems. In ''Chris Crawford on Game Design'', the author summarizes gameplay as "what the player does". * Player experience, which is how users feel when they are playing the game. In Academy, academic research, game design falls within the field of game studies (not to be confused with game theory, which studies strategic decision making, primarily in non-game situations). Process of design Game design is part of a game's development from conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominion (card Game)
''Dominion'' is a card game created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games. Originally published in 2008, it was the first deck-building game, and inspired a genre of games building on its central mechanic. In ''Dominion'', each player takes turns repeatedly drawing through their own personal deck of cards. Each player's deck starts small, but players can purchase new cards from a common supply to upgrade their deck; these new cards can then be drawn and used on future turns. Players ultimately seek to build the strongest deck with the most victory points needed to win the game. The game has a Middle Ages, medieval theme with card names referencing pre-industrial, monarchical, and feudal social structures. Comparisons about the game's feel are often drawn with collectible card games such as ''Magic: The Gathering''. As of September 2024, sixteen expansion pack, expansions to the original ''Dominion'' have been released. When ''Dominion'' was released at the Spi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiel Des Jahres
The Spiel des Jahres (, 'Game of the Year') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award was one of the major drivers of the quality of games coming out of Germany, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. A ''Spiel des Jahres'' nomination can increase the typical sales of a game from 500–3,000 copies to around 10,000, and the winner can usually expect to sell as many as 500,000 copies. Award criteria The award is given by a jury of German-speaking board game critics from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, who review games released in Germany in the preceding twelve months. The games considered for the award are family-style games. War games, role-playing games, collectible card games, and other complicated, highly competitive, or hobbyist games are outside the scope of the award. Since 1989, there h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expansion Pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules or game mechanics that augment the original game and add more variety to playing it. In the case of video games, they typically add new game areas, weapons, objects, characters, adventures or an extended Plot (narrative), storyline to an already-released game. While board game expansions are typically designed by the original creator, video game developers sometimes contract out development of the expansion pack to a third-party company, it may choose to develop the expansion itself, or it may do both. Board games and tabletop RPGs may have been marketing expansions since the 1970s, and video games have been releasing expansion packs since the 1980s, early examples being the ''Dragon Slayer (series), Dragon Slayer'' games ''Dragon Slayer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Builder
''Kingdom Builder'' is a strategy board game designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, published in 2011 by Queen Games with illustrations by Oliver Schlemmer in German, British and international versions (English, French, Dutch, Spanish, German). ''Kingdom Builder'' is a construction game in which each player creates a kingdom by placing settlers' houses in various locations. The winner of the game is the player with the most gold. However, the gold is only awarded at the end of the game, according to three sets of rules that were randomly revealed at the beginning. The rules are simple but each game is likely to play out differently due to the random selection of board sections (choosing four from eight) and scoring rules (choosing three from ten), the luck of the draw, and competition for resources. Upon its release, the game received the 2012 ''Spiel des Jahres'' (Game of the Year) and placed seventh place in the ''Deutscher Spiele Preis'' for 2012. Gameplay The base game has ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deck-building Game
A deck-building game is a card game or board game where construction of a deck of cards is a main element of gameplay. Deck-building games are similar to collectible card games (CCGs) in that each player has their own deck. However, unlike CCGs, the cards are not sold in randomized packs, and the majority of the deck is built during the game, instead of before the game. Mechanics In most deck-building games, each player starts with a small deck of cards of low value. Each turn, they draw some cards from their deck and play them, which may have various gameplay effects, and may buy more cards from a central market, thereby building their deck. The effects of playing cards often include providing the in-game currency that allows players to buy cards; other effects may include increasing the number of game actions a player may take on their turn, removing unwanted cards from the player’s deck, or attacking other players. As players buy more cards with more valuable abilities, thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gathering
The Gathering may refer to: Film and television * ''The Gathering'' (1977 film), an American television film directed by Randal Kleiser * The Gathering (1998 film), an American thriller film directed by Danny Carrales * ''The Gathering'' (2003 film), a British thriller/horror film directed by Brian Gilbert * ''The Gathering'' (miniseries), a 2007 American thriller starring Peter Fonda * ''The Gathering'' (audio drama), a 2006 audio drama based on the television programme ''Doctor Who'' * The Gathering, a contest among immortals in the Highlander franchise * '' Babylon 5: The Gathering'', the 1993 pilot movie for ''Babylon 5'' TV episodes * "The Gathering" (''Gargoyles'') * "The Gathering" (''Ghost Whisperer'') * "The Gathering" (''Highlander: The Series''), pilot * "The Gathering" (''Outlander'') * "The Gathering" (''Star Wars: The Clone Wars'') * "The Gathering" (''Torchwood'') Literature * ''The Gathering'' (Armstrong novel), a 2011 novel by Kelley Armstrong * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rio Grande Games
Rio Grande Games is a board game publisher based in Placitas, New Mexico. The company primarily imports and localizes foreign language German-style board games. History In 1995, Jay Tummelson began working for Mayfair Games. At that time, Mayfair had begun to import German-style board games for sale, without doing any localization. Tummelson first suggested that they incorporate an English translation, and then that they completely localize the game for American audiences. Tummelson acquired the rights for Detroit/Cleveland ''Grand Prix'', ''Manhattan'', ''Modern Art'', ''Streetcar'', and ''The Settlers of Catan'', which were published together in 1996. One part of the localization process was to create original art and components. Tummelson thought that a better solution would be to use the same artwork and components as the originals and to share the cost of printing with the European publishers, as well. In 1998, he founded Rio Grande Games to take that approach. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Games
Queen Games is a German publisher of tabletop games, based in Troisdorf and founded in 1992 by head Rajive Gupta, which specialises primarily in German-style, family-level games but has also published smaller numbers of both simpler, children's games and more complex, gamers' games. They have shown a propensity for re-releasing previously self-published games in professionally illustrated editions, having drawn multiple times from the catalogues of db-Spiele and, more recently, Winsome Games, and re-releasing those already published by themselves with a different theme and varying degrees of revision of the rules. One of their more popular releases is ''Alhambra'', itself developed from a game originally self-published in 1992, which won the Spiel des Jahres and placed second in the Deutscher Spiele Preis in 2003. ''Alhambra'' has since spawned many expansions and a number of standalone spin-offs and could be considered the "franchise" of the company. They are also known to some e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Game Designers
:''This page primarily is meant to list non-video game designers. Please see list of computer and video game industry people for a list of well-known video game designers.'' A game designer is a person who invents games at the conceptual level. Most game designers are "unsung"; for example, no one knows who invented Chess or Hearts. However, many public figures in game design, include commercial game developers and game-inventing mathematicians. Some game designers include: Role-playing game designers *Dave Arneson - Co-designer of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', an early influential role-playing game * Frank Chadwick - Co-founder of Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) and designer of over 50 war and role-playing games, including '' Twilight 2000'' and the ''Assault'' series * Troy Christensen - Designer of '' Phantasm Adventures'', a 1980s role-playing game published in Japanese and English *John Horton Conway *Monte Cook * Jim Dunnigan - Founder of SPI Games and designer of over 100 wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Game Of The Year Awards (board Games)
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but lists are frequently written down on paper, or maintained electronically. Lists are "most frequently a tool", and "one does not ''read'' but only ''uses'' a list: one looks up the relevant information in it, but usually does not need to deal with it as a whole".Lucie Doležalová,The Potential and Limitations of Studying Lists, in Lucie Doležalová, ed., ''The Charm of a List: From the Sumerians to Computerised Data Processing'' (2009). Purpose It has been observed that, with a few exceptions, "the scholarship on lists remains fragmented". David Wallechinsky, a co-author of '' The Book of Lists'', described the attraction of lists as being "because we live in an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information, and lists help us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living People
Purpose: Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. By adding an article to this category, it marks them with a notice about sources whenever someone tries to edit them, to remind them of WP:BLP (biographies of living persons) policy that these articles must maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and be properly sourced. Recent changes to these articles are listed on Special:RecentChangesLinked/Living people. Organization: This category should not be sub-categorized. Entries are generally sorted by family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give .... Maintenance: Individuals of advanced age (over 90), for whom there has been no new documentation in the last ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
