News & Blog - Accidental Cyclops

Creature Ecology & Encounters

When designing encounters, let nature be your guide Without getting too deeply into the role of encounters in a TTRPG, it is often the case that our games and sessions tend to be a series of encounters with brief montages or lulls in between. We tend to write story arcs…

Jason WardSeptember 2, 2025

Protospiel Play Test by Accidental Cyclops

Game Design Philosophy Prototyping

Games as Experiences

Games are designed experiences. In the end, having a stellar game is about creating an immersive, interesting and engaging experience, which is at the heart of most kinds of design.

Jason WardJuly 1, 2022

Game Design Philosophy Prototyping

The Pitch: Vetting Your Game Design

The accountability that a team creates is critical to pushing only the best ideas forward and keeping momentum in the game design process.

Jason WardApril 29, 2022

Game Design Philosophy Gaming Business

The Language Barrier in Game Design

Here at Accidental Cyclops, we spend a lot of time thinking about words. Sexy, right? Designing a game takes a lot of thought about how to present ideas, often complex or abstract ideas. Many of the ideas we are working on require a shared understanding about what specific words or…

Mikey HawrylukSeptember 18, 2021

Game Design Philosophy

Depth vs. Complexity

If an idea requires complexity to make it work within your game concept, then it might not be the right idea. Furthermore, if your rules require a complex flowchart, it might be time to start over.

Jason WardMay 8, 2019

Gaming for Good

Strengthening Leaders Through Gaming

Beyond being fun, gaming is a great social tool, and possibly one of the best ways to train leaders on skills such as communication, collaboration and strategic thinking.

Jason WardJune 5, 2018

Gaming Business

The Art of Choosing Art

Here at Accidental Cyclops, we are relative newbs at game design. Very early on in the process of designing and developing Princes, I decided that selecting artwork was going to be a focus for me. It seemed very important to my vision for the game. Now that we are eight…

Jason WardFebruary 16, 2018

Prototyping

Prototyping 101

When you have an idea for a game, you're going to go through several stages of prototypes. The key is to get something physical and concrete in front of your players. Then you can make the physical experience of the game closer and closer to the mental experience once you've…

Mikey HawrylukNovember 5, 2017

Gaming Business

What’s in a name?

It's quite difficult to find a small series of words (or just one) that capture the theme and play of a game, while being unique (and hopefully fun or clever) at the same time.

Mikey HawrylukSeptember 5, 2017

Game Design Philosophy

The Life and Death of “MojoRico”

Before trying my hand at game design, I thought the hard part was coming up with the original spark, the idea that is unique and intrinsically awesome. Now that I've dabbled a bit, it feels like the hard part is making everything else work with that idea so that you…

Jason WardJune 27, 2016