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Are You Playing By the Rules? ...I Think Not!

31 aoû 20 Christian Lemay

Most people will read the rules once before the first game, and then never again.

During our development of Zombie Teenz Evolution, we ran 2 successive playtesting sessions: the first with 5 families, and the second with 4 families. Here is what we learned.Most people will invent a rule rather than look it up.It turns out that the majority of people will not refer to the rulebook when they're not sure about a game's rules, and would rather make a guess, or invent a rule instead of looking it up.

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Tutorials Part 2: Christian Un-Flips the Table

22 juil 20 Christian Lemay

Last time around, I shared a few of the reservations I have about tutorials - those favoured means of explaining rules in video games - and how many people are interested in transposing them into the wold of board games. I would like to continue my analysis here, and see if there might actually be some lessons to be learned from tutorials, an if we can possibly import some of their elements to board games. Tutorials can be integrated in different ways and to different degrees in board games.  

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Flash 8: Visual Design Diary

22 juin 20 Manuel Sanchez

Although it’s much more common to see Illustrators’ Diaries, this project went through so many changes, and required so much research, that I think a general overview of its visual development would be much more fun and informative. First Age: Primordial Soup (early 2017)

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Board Game Tutorials: Always a Good Idea...?

05 juin 20 Christian Lemay

All board game publishers have a certain envy for video game tutorials. No need to read a weighty manual or suffer through explanations by 'the person who knows the rules'...but who clearly has no idea how to explain them. No sir! Simply fire up the game and the interface guides us as we learn how to perform all the necessary actions to lead us to glorious victory!This kind of system could help bypass the biggest barrier in our beloved hobby: Learning The Rules. You can imagine my excitement, therefore, when I came across a number of board games that offered in-game tutorials! What a concept! I threw myself into them with great enthusiasm, and discovered... that I wasn't at all convinced that they were a good idea after all. 

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The Ten-Thousand Dollar Email

30 avr 20 Christian Lemay

At the beginning of December, we started an emergency print-run for Zombie Kidz Evolution, which was selling faster than we had expected. Our manufacturer promised to have them done by January 10th, at the latest, which would allow our shipper to pick them up in time to be able to catch the boat leaving for France on January 18th. That would be the last boat until Chinese New Year, at which point EVERYTHING stops in China for a month (and a bit more this year, due to a certain... illness...).

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The Scorpion and the Pandemic

07 avr 20 Christian Lemay Scorpion Masqué

I didn’t want to talk about COVID-19…

I didn’t want to talk about COVID-19… 

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Thoughts on Cannes International Game Festival, and Strategic Decisions

03 mar 20 Christian Lemay Events, Scorpion Masqué, Development, Europe, France, International

Strategic Decisions   It takes time to make a good game. That’s why we have an 18-month period between the moment we start work on a game and its release. This means that we often sign prototypes 2 years before the final version appears on store shelves! This development period that we give ourselves requires us to look more efficiently toward the future and to plan better. 

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About Scorpion Masqué

Scorpion Masqué is a leading Montreal-based tabletop game publisher part of the Hachette Group. Since 2006, our passion has been making quality games for children, adults, and the whole family, with the goal of creating memorable moments for everyone. With more than 40 published games, Scorpion Masqué is a recognizable and renowned brand on the international scene. We have a presence in more than 45 countries and have sold over 2.5 million games since the studio founding. Some of our successes include multi award-winning titles such as Zombie Kidz Evolution, Decrypto, and Turing Machine.