Links: Calculating a Game's Volume, Talking Game Design at Tedx & Importing Illegal Eggs

We love local game shops, but we know that not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a city that has one. That's why this partnership with Target is so exciting – for those of you who aren't able to find your favorite TableTop games locally, you can now find TableTop-approved titles on Target store shelves near you!

It's hard to believe that our channel, which launched just under four months ago, now has the opportunity to partner with one of the biggest retailers in the United States. The fact that we can walk into a Target store and see an "As Seen on Geek & Sundry" sticker on games is absolutely surreal, and the truth is we couldn't do it without your continued support. It's your support that enables us to make free, awesome content. Every view we get, every RT, every Facebook post, shows potential partners (like Target) that web content is a force to be reckoned with, and it's here to stay.

There is something to be said about walking into an after hours event at a science museum with the clicks and chirps of eight-bit music being played over the museums speaker system... Within a few beeps I was able to visualize Zelda's Link running around Hyrule battling creatures on his way to saving the Princess.

As for why we like to design games, it's an art, you know? Design is really fascinating in that in some ways it's a very creative process, and in others it's completely practical and technical. Juggling that stuff is fun. It's like you're writing a story and solving a puzzle at once.

The best games (at least from my perspective) also hold the player's interest and/or involvement for the full length of the game. As "length" already has definition in game terms (as in how long it is played for), I tend to call this "span", as in the game's span fails to reach the duration, or alternatively extends to the game's length.

Span does not necessarily need to be contiguous either; if every player is placed in the position of having to await his turn before considering his options, then that's a gap in the span, and if there's a tendency towards analysis paralysis, there is probably very little span in the entire game (whatever the length).