Steven Davis

For a little background info before you read this post, you can watch me ramble on in front of a camera below. If you don’t want to listen to my bullshit, skip it and read on.

In my opinion, one of the greatest triumphs of the cocktail renaissance is the rediscovery of the classic Old Fashioned. I’ve often spoken of how at some point after the repeal of Prohibition, the Old Fashioned became lost and possibly confused with a long-forgotten drink called a Smash (basically a tarted-up Mint Julep covered in fruit), a mere husk of its former, glorious self.

For decades, bartenders just like me served a limp, weak concoction consisting of a half-muddled sugar cube, a mashed-up neon red cherry and orange, a splash of whiskey, and some soda water drowning the results.

With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, that’s all changed with the renewed interest in classic cocktails. Now at any given night at my bar you can find literally a dozen people sipping on two ounces bourbon touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters, garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes.

But don’t try to pull that bullshit with the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin, where the Brandy Old Fashioned rules supreme. It’s not the same drink as above, it just shares a name. And if you make it right, really right, it’s a damn delicious cocktail and worthy of examination.

Being located in a hotel, we’re used to serving folks from all over the world. And the first time I witnessed a guest from Wisconsin stare blankly as one of my bartenders handed over two ounces of Cognac touched with a teaspoon of sugar and two dashes of bitters and garnished with a simple orange twist over a couple big ice cubes, I knew some further training was in order.

So in the name of making cocktails – all cocktails – with as much of our hearts as we can offer, I present to you what I believe to be the perfect Brandy Old Fashioned… Wisconsin-style.

---

I start with an old fashioned glass I’ve chilled in the freezer. Call it a tumbler, call it a double rocks glass, or call it a bucket, it’s a glass you’re familiar with. To that I add two dashes of Angostura bitters and a teaspoon of sugar. If I’m in a hurry I use a 2:1 simple syrup, but if I’m going to spend some time, I use a sugar cube. The sugar cube is preferable here because it’s going to add some friction to the muddling we’re about to do. Brace yourselves, cocktail “nerds”.

Next I’ll take a thick-cut orange wedge, and a cherry. The usual suspect here is a grocery store maraschino cherry, but I always choose a brandied Amarena cherry. Remember, you’re going to get out what you put in, so a quality cherry is going to make the drink that much better.

I muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to touch the orange peel too much as it’ll bring unwanted bitterness to the party – just work around the peel and pulverize that orange meat.

Your standard Brandy Old Fashioned brandy of choice is Korbel: cheap California brandy. Considering the hundreds of thousands of cases they ship to Wisconsin every year, it might be considered sacrosanct to use anything else. But if you want to do this right, really right, then do yourself a favor and use some good Cognac. I have my preferred brandy, you have yours.

At this point your typical Wisconsinite barkeep is going to add ice and finish the drink in one of two main ways: sweet or sour. Those who take it sweet will ask for a splash of Sprite or 7-Up, those who take it sour get a dose of Collins Mix or Squirt. To me, it’s just a way of watering down the drink, so I leave out the soda and take a more… cocktail-y method.

Crushed ice is a must for me whenever I whip up a Brandy Old Fashioned. I always skip the soda and let the tiny shards of ice do the work, taming those strong, sweet flavors and turning this into a drink you can sip slowly.

As for a garnish, most will throw a “flag” of an orange wedge and a cherry spiked through with a wooden toothpick, but my take here is that those things are already in the drink, so I skip ‘em. Besides, how pretty does that look without the goofy fruit salad perched over the top?

You know, it’s something to enjoy sipping on while you cook up some bratwurst and onions in a boiling kettle of beer before everyone comes over to watch the Packers game. Drink accordingly.

Brandy Old Fashioned

1 sugar cube or 1 tsp 2:1 simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 orange wedge
1 cherry, preferably Amarena or Maraska
2 oz brandy or Cognac

In a chilled old fashioned glass, muddle the sugar, bitters, orange wedge and cherry into a thick paste, careful not to work the orange peel. Add brandy or Cognac, stir, and fill glass with crushed ice and serve.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

Brandy Old Fashioned

Little did I know, after announcing that I’d be bringing a pitcher of sangria to the Tex-Mex dinner party last weekend, that every single person in attendance was recoiling in horror at the thought of having to choke down a big heaping glass of red syrup. But much to their surprise – and my relief – what I showed up to the party with was fruity, spicy, and dry enough to pair with food.

Sangria recipes are like censored old pairs of sneakers: everybody’s got one, and most of them stink. While sangria is nothing more than a lightly sweetened wine-based punch typically consumed during the summer in Portugal and Spain, the garbage you’re going to be served in the average Mexican-American restaurant is syrupy and spiced beyond belief in an attempt to cover up the rank of cheap red wine.

So in an attempt to help promote what can be a delicious summer or fall party beverage, I’m offering up a few tips, with a recipe to follow.

1. Do use an inexpensive, dry yet fruit-forward red wine in your sangria, preferably something from the Rioja region of Spain.

2. Do not think that spending $5 on a bottle of wine is going to yield delicious results.

3. Do use fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice in your sangria.

4. Do not use anything from a box, carton, jar or can in your sangria. If you don’t think you can spare the ten minutes to juice fresh oranges, pick up a six-pack of beer instead.

5. Do use decent-quality orange liqueur in your sangria. Remember, garbage in, garbage out.

6. Do not believe anyone who tells you that there is one specific recipe for sangria and that anything else isn’t real. The only requirement to making sangria is that it contains wine. Everything else is based on your personal preference.

7. Do try making your first batch with the following recipe. It’s a solid, basic recipe that you can then play with and make your own.

Sangria

1 750 ml bottle red wine
¾ cup Grand Marnier
1 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
1 oz 2:1 simple syrup, or 1½ oz 1:1 simple syrup
1 tsp Angostura bitters

Mix ingredients together in a large pitcher. Add pieces of fresh seasonal fruit and serve in goblets over ice. Makes 8 five-ounce servings.

Post from: Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Make (or, not make) Sangria

Have you ever wanted to learn something, but weren’t sure where to start? Maybe you want to learn a language, programming or business. Maybe you want the confidence to tackle supposedly “hard” subjects like math, finance or physics. Today I’m going to show you how.

I’m going to describe the process I’ve used to condense a lot of learning into a short period of time. This is the same process I used to learn MIT’s 4-year computer science curriculum in twelve months, teach myself languages, business and intellectual subjects like physics and psychology.

This article is going to be a bit longer (~3500 words), so you may want to bookmark it for later.

I’m going to focus on the strategy for learning, meaning how you choose to break down a nebulous goal like “learn to speak French” or “understand personal finance” into something concrete and actionable. As much as possible, I’ll try to provide links to specific low-level tactics I use, such as the Feynman technique, visual mnemonics or active recall as well.

This strategy is just one possibility. If you’ve found success with another, by all means, go ahead! I only want to share the method I’ve been honing for years across a variety of different subjects.

The Steps in 2-Minutes

If you’re short on reading time, I’ll summarize the steps for you:

1. Take your learning goal, and craft it into a compelling, obsession-worthy mission.
2. Find material to learn from, structure it into a flexible curriculum.
3. Define feedback mechanisms to constantly direct your future learning efforts and ensure high-intensity, active recall.
4. Test and enforce a schedule that is sustainable over the entire lifetime of the project.
5. Develop a long-term retention strategy (formal or informal).

There’s a few points that may be different from what you’re used to:

The first is that the learning goal is oriented around a obsessive mission. Many people trying to learn something adopt a haphazard, casual approach. In general, I’ve found this wastes a lot more time and produces lesser results.

The second is that the strategy is defined by high-feedback practice. In a classroom setting, students can be forgiven for neglecting this step because it is already partially provided in the form of assignments and quizzes. When teaching yourself something, it is very easy to slip into learning tasks that are devoid of feedback and so it takes months to realize you’re off course.

Finally, the process is driven by mentally intensive, active learning methods. Although this can be uncomfortable at first, the speed of that results come makes it worthwhile. You can spend months on a slower strategy, get discouraged and give up which could be fixed by going through some initial discomfort but seeing results quickly.

Now, onto the steps…

Step One: Craft an Obsession

Almost anything can be achieved with the right motivation. The motivation you bring to a project forms the foundation for all your efforts. If that foundation is unstable, you don’t have a chance at success even if you use all the “correct” learning techniques.

My approach has been to choose short-term obsessive missions for learning new things. The word obsession usually has a negative connotation, being paired with “dangerous” or “unhealthy”. But obsession can also be a positive force. By structuring your project around a compelling mission, you focus your enthusiasm for the subject (or the rewards it can bring in your life) onto a single target.

The MIT Challenge was a good example of this. I took the vague goal I had of wanting a computer science education, and crafted it so that it would become very interesting to me. Had I instead started off with the aim of “learning a lot about computer science” I doubt I could have accomplished nearly as much in ten years, let alone one.

Your missions don’t need to be as ambitious or all-consuming, however. Even a project that only takes a couple hours a week can still be compelling.

Here are a few ingredients I’ve found helpful for taking a vague goal and crafting a mission you can get excited about:

1. Give it a name. Naming your project helps you define it. A name helps you identify the boundaries of what you’re trying to accomplish with this particular mission, and which you aren’t. Having a name also helps you think about the project as a unified whole instead of a random collection of loosely related learning tasks.
2. Pick a specific objective. Narrow your ambitions onto something concrete. Instead of just trying to learn a language, have a goal of speaking only in the target language for an entire day, for example.
3. Constrain the scope. Instead of just defining what you’d like to accomplish, also define which things are outside of the scope. This doesn’t mean you have to avoid learning anything outside of those constraints, but it helps you prioritize the vague desire many autodidacts have to “learn everything” onto something attainable in a project.
4. Hit the challenge sweet spot. The ideal amount of challenge is that it should be hard enough that you aren’t sure whether you’ll be successful, but not so hard that you give up. If you’ve put off learning something because it scares you, try lowering the challenge. If you’ve given up because you’ve been bored before, try increasing the challenge.

Building a compelling mission isn’t too difficult, once you try. The majority of the time people skip this step, in my mind, is because they either don’t realize it’s important, or they falsely convince themselves that there’s no way learning about *insert subject* could be compelling.

Step Two: Build a Flexible Curriculum

The next step is to gather material. The problem is rarely that there isn’t any material available, but that the material can be hard to find or that good material can be drowning in irrelevant or lousy content.

I’ve found it important to choose material from a wider net than others may cast. This way you can shift between resources to meet your goals. Here are some points to look for when trying to find material:

• Open courses and MOOCs (edX, Coursera, Udemy, MIT’s OCW)
• Textbooks (look in the comments here for good ones)
• Pre-packaged courses
• Book lists (Personal MBA, Good Reads, etc.)
• Videos (YouTube, Khan Academy, Patrick JMT, etc.)
• Journal articles
• Private instruction/tutoring
• Educational software

Depending on the size of your project, you may want to spend a few hours looking for different options. I must note, that with the exception of some MOOCs and pre-packaged courses, you’ll almost always need to draw from multiple sources.

Another piece of advice—don’t let a lack of complete courses bother you. I did two-thirds of the MIT Challenge just using suggested textbooks and minimal guidance from MIT’s OCW, and in most cases the deficiency was negligible. The difficulty is almost always from the subject, not a lack of resources.

Once you’ve identified material, you need to develop a flexible curriculum around it. By flexible, I mean that, unlike school, the curriculum is something that you can modify and adjust depending on your progress.

When I’d go through a class during the MIT Challenge, I’d often have a few resources to choose from: videos, textbook, external tutorials and articles. My curriculum would be to pursue one resource, but use the feedback I was getting to adjust it. After watching videos, for example, I could use the textbook or articles to fill the missing gaps.

This is even more true when your goal isn’t to learn a particular set of knowledge, but to acquire a useful skill. When I’m learning a new programming language, I often go through several different resources, switching whenever my feedback indicates my weaknesses are more easily fixed using a different resource.

The final key with a curriculum is to not get overwhelmed. The purpose of picking out material isn’t to try to cover all of it. Instead, it should be to give you a starting point for structuring your learning efforts. Even if a different resource turns out to be slightly more efficient later, you can adjust.

I’ve found it useful to do most of this step prior to starting my project. For me, gathering material is distracting from the task of actually learning from it. This is why investing a day or two into researching, bookmarking, downloading and purchasing all of the material you might use in advance is so helpful.

Side note: If you’re not sure about a paid resource, check if it has a free trial/money-back offer. Most have free trials, so you can do a pilot with it before committing your money. For those that don’t, used and library options can significantly reduce the cost. I’d often get textbooks for under ten dollars during the MIT Challenge, so cost is rarely the limiting factor.

Step Three: Define Feedback Mechanisms

Feedback is essential to learning. The first reason is because it helps you guide your progress. If you’re failing practice problems or can’t code a simple program, you know you need to adjust your learning methods.

The second reason is that thinking about feedback mechanisms tends to promote efficient learning methods. One feedback tool you might use is practice problems, which has demonstrated effectiveness in increasing long-term retention.

How do you incorporate feedback?

The two most straightforward ways are by producing something or practicing something. Although not guaranteed to provide feedback, if you’re doing either of these as a significant amount of your learning time, you’ll probably be getting feedback.

Combining learning a programming language, for example, with a set of mini-projects where you actually write valid code ensures that you’re getting feedback. Learning about design while building models or illustrations gives you a chance to observe whether the lessons are creating improvement.

Practicing speaking a language with native speakers ensures that all your learning efforts with SRS, audio courses or phrase books is actually helping you speak. Practice problems for math or physics ensure your conceptual understanding is growing.

Which feedback mechanism you use will depend on what resources you have and what the subject is. Even if you can’t pick a perfectly suited feedback mechanism, you can incorporate smaller feedback drills to ensure you’re not completely without feedback. These smaller mechanisms can include: self-quizzing on learned material, writing Feynmans without reference material or using software like Anki.

The best feedback goes directly toward your project’s mission. If your mission is to perform a skill or speak authoritatively about a topic, then practicing that skill or writing about the subject are ideal feedback mechanisms. If your goal is to have a particular set of knowledge, self-testing and explaining the knowledge to yourself are good mechanisms.

Step Four: Enforce a Schedule

Many self-learners can successfully reach this point in their project, but fail on the next one: actually doing all the work. It’s one thing to tell yourself you’re going to learn about biology or history. It’s another thing to actually execute the curriculum you’ve devised and accomplish the mission.

The first half is in preparation. Without a compelling mission, it’s easy to get bored and quit. Without a curriculum, it’s easy to get lost and give up. Without feedback mechanisms in place, it’s easy to not learn anything at all.

The second half is in establishing a schedule that allows you to follow through with the reading, watching and practicing you need to do. Here are a couple frameworks I’ve found helpful for successfully implementing such a system:

1. The “Every Day” Plan

The first strategy is to do a little bit of work every day. I did this with a friend on a project to learn languages (which I’ll hopefully be sharing more on in the summer). Because of conflicting schedules and the desire to stay at the same pace, we decided to do an hour lesson, in the morning, every day.

In the past, I’ve done similar approaches to book-reading projects. When I want to cover a large swatch of information on a particular domain, I would get several books and devote 30-60 minutes reading them at the same time each day.

The process is simple:

1. Define a certain time period, every day, when you’ll do your work. It doesn’t need to be a long time period to be effective.
2. Commit to following this time period, without exception, for at least three weeks. The number is arbitrary, but I’ve found that enforcing the habit strictly in the beginning is essential.

The advantage of this strategy is that the effort quickly becomes a habit. This is the approach to use if your project is not going to be full-time and it will require some self-discipline to execute. The other strategies I’ll mention can also be effective, but they have greater risks that you’ll drop the ball when your motivation wanes.

2. The Obsessive Burst

This strategy is one I’ve used on projects which interested me deeply, and were short (in the span of a few weeks). The idea is simply to work on the project during most of your off-hours until it is completed.

This method only works if you’re genuinely motivated enough to pull it off or there is a compelling external reason for such devotion. If you’re rolling your eyes at this possibility, do yourself a favor and opt for strategy #1 instead.

The advantage of this method is that it utilizes your initial motivation. Some projects that could be finished quickly, I opted for this approach because I knew that my motivation would wane after a few weeks and I wanted to see results quickly. The disadvantages are obvious, but in some instances they don’t matter.

3. The Precommitted Schedule

A final strategy I’ll mention is simply to precommit to a certain goal, or certain hours. If you’re making use of tutoring or outside help, simply committing to your tutor to have finished an amount by each lesson will give you motivation. Opting for a structured MOOC or course plan can also be helpful, since they provide you with constraints you’re required to follow.

Another alternative is to set up short-term exams which you need to pass along the way. This could be useful in studying for a larger self-study exam (SAT, MCAT, GMAT, LSAT, CFA, etc.). Basically, you could break down practice exams into segments and resolve to be able to ace a particular segment by the end of the week, giving you the motivation to learn that section without procrastinating.

Anti-Strategies (or Plans that Rarely Succeed)

In contrast with the above three mentioned strategies, I’ve also found some approaches that tend to work poorly. This doesn’t mean they never succeed, but rather that they require disproportionately more motivation or self-discipline to execute. These include:

• Working on your project whenever you feel like.
• Not establishing particular scheduled hours or deadlines.
• Planning to begin a learning task later, without providing a compelling reason why it should be delayed.

In the end, you know yourself and your motivation. If getting stuff done isn’t a problem for you—don’t worry about this step. If it is, I’d recommend using strategy #1 in most cases. It’s a good default go-to approach when you’re not sure which one to apply.

Step Five: Long-Term Retention

This final step is an optional one. For many learning projects, I pursue this step informally because I know my lifestyle and goals will allow me to circle back to the knowledge I acquired previously at some point.

For those who are worried that such an informal approach may lead to losing a lot of the knowledge acquired, taking additional steps can be useful. Adding a strategy for long-term practice and retention can make sure that you don’t forget things years later.

Learning for Long-Term Retention

My first weapon against the long-term decay of memory is to learn it better, the first time around. I’ve found that learning with the goal of understanding promotes the best long-term retention compared to memorized facts.

Consider learning physics. Most students spend a great deal of time memorizing formulas and the situations where they apply. Smart students spend time trying to build the intuitive principles for what the formulas are saying and why they work.

Sometimes learning to understand isn’t a short-term goal. Learning how to solve a particular problem with an equation takes a lot less time than trying to build an intuition around how it works, but years later the equations will be forgotten and the intuition will remain.

This is why I recommend metaphors, visualization, diagrams and the Feynman technique when learning. They promote the process of decoding an abstract idea into an intuition that you can keep with you much longer than memorized trivia.

This doesn’t mean understandings are immune to forgetful minds, but simply that they persist longer.

Here are some other mechanisms you can use to ensure long-term retention:

1. The Orbit Strategy

Think of how the moon orbits the Earth, returning to the same relative position each month. This strategy works similarly—after completing a project, set a notice on your calendar a few months or years into the future. Once the time comes, do a mini project to reactivate those skills.

I intend to do this broadly with the programming and computer science knowledge I acquired during the MIT Challenge. By doing a mini project every 6-12 months, I hope to sustain my skills even when I’m at a stage in my life where they aren’t a main part of my career.

I recently executed this successfully with French. Even though it had been over two years since I lived in France (and spoke French infrequently) I made the goal of going back to Paris for a month and speaking exclusively en français. I was surprised that I was even able to improve my French from where I had left it after that burst.

If the goal is only sustaining, not improving, then the period of the orbits doesn’t need to be fixed. Increasing the spacing between each burst can probably sustain the same level up to a point. An exception would be very high levels of skill (which decay more quickly) and where the skill itself changes rapidly (such as programming).

2. Scheduled Practice

Another strategy is to schedule practice or recall regularly, in small doses. I know that Benny Lewis, who speaks around ten languages fluently, uses this approach to maintain his ability. By speaking the languages every week or so, he can continue to sustain and improve his abilities over the long-term.

I do this myself with many subjects I’m interested in. I subscribe to blogs on those topics (say linguistics or economics) and use the regular posting as a way to stay connected to them.

3. Formal Systems (SRS)

If these strategies are too informal for you, then you can opt for implementing an even more structured review using a spaced repetition system such as Anki. This would be particularly useful if you needed to retain a large corpus of factual information you aren’t using frequently. I suspect medical and law students, for example, would benefit from having the factual details of their courses inputted into Anki, which they would then get reminders of long after the class was taken, so the knowledge doesn’t fade.

Implementing the 5 Steps

This is just a framework for planning and executing a self-education project. As such, you may have a lot more questions about handling the specifics. Here are a few articles I’ve written on the details of learning efficiently:

• How to understand hard ideas.
• How to take notes. (PDF)
• How to read faster.
• How to read a textbook.
• How to use metaphors/visualizations to study for an exam.
• How to quickly learn a free online course.
• How to get work done.
• How to focus on what you’re learning.
• How to access ‘hidden’ courses from MIT.
• How to learn really hard subjects.
• How to translate your self-education into an actual degree.

I cover all of this comprehensively in my course, but those above free resources should be a good starting point if you’re not ready to invest in it.

The Benefits of Learning Well

Self-education can seem like a luxury at times. Or it can look like an exercise in intellectual wastefulness—something that doesn’t materially improve your life. I’ve found the opposite is true: learning more gives you an enormous advantage in almost any area of life you choose to apply it toward.

The people I know with the best careers, relationships and lives are the ones who learn continuously. I always strive to have a learning project at all times, and following these steps have been essential to make them successful, instead of something I idly start and never finish.

Image courtesy of Hash Milhan.

Learn Faster, Achieve More
Get the ideas I don't share on the blog. Join my private newsletter and I'll give you my free rapid-learning ebook.

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Creative nerds everywhere want to be entrepreneurs. Thanks to Kickstarter, the Internet, and money growing on trees, it’s now relatively possible for these nerds to become entrepreneurs.

I am not a publisher, but I want to be. Badly. Yes, I self-published Farmageddon and yes I’m self-publishing Battle for York. The distinction I wish to make is that I did these as a creative exercise. I did these for myself. I believe a publisher creates games for the purpose of revenues and profits. A publisher does it to be a business. I did it for funsies. Now, that doesn’t mean a publisher doesn’t have fun and doesn’t love games, but to be successful, my games need to make money and I’m not quite there yet.

This article is intended as a case study to stir discussion and aid those interested in game publishing. I receive quite a few emails with questions about publishing and I do my best to answer them with what (little) I know. I’ve been taking notes for years and watching. This article will discuss the development I did to publish Battle for York, what I would have done differently if this were a real, profit-focused print run, and the marketing ideas I have for the game. In summary, you’re going to read about what I did, what I would have done, and some of my goofs.

Development: The Actual

Overall I’m quite pleased with the development of Battle for York. Some of my friends have told me that they tested their game a few times, a publisher signed it, then they were hands off for the next year’s worth of development. Well, I did that development. York was thoroughly tested over the course of a year with friends and co-workers, non-gamers, gamer gamers, random folks at GenCon 2012, folks at Protospiel Milwaukee, and a few folks in the Prototype Penpal Program.

Testing overall went through 3 main phases: mechanical, balance, and usability. The first phase focused primarily on making the game work. Getting it to an Alpha state. The second phase focused on making sure the game was fun and fair. Also, to ensure it’s fun to play 1, 5, 10, and 20 times (it is!). This phase is about getting it to a Beta state. The final phase was about making sure the game was as easy as possible to learn and play. It was about ensuring the reference boards and cards presented the information as well as possible. I haven’t done this for a game before and I found it insanely useful.

All told, the game has over 70 tests with dozens of people. It was tested extensively with 4 peers for the sake of deep, long-term balance testing. The rules have also been read, tweaked, and massaged for the entirety of this year. I write my rules at the beginning of the project for precisely this reason. I am reasonably confident my rules are good.

Development: The Potential

If this game had more of a development budget I would have done a few things differently. As it stands now, I had one local long-term test group and one blind long-term test group. I would have sent out copies to at least 2 more groups for long-term blind testing. This would have been invaluable for balance and accessibility. Plus, more word of mouth marketing.

I also would have tried to work out a testing moment with a prominent reviewer. Now, this might not have occurred — reviewers are busy and reluctant to do these things. I would have been willing to pay them for their services, services being 2-5 tests. I would do this in the hopes of getting a private, mock review. I would want to make sure it would go over well in the review circuit. Now, I cannot guarantee every reviewer would agree with the mock review, but testing with 1 or 2 is a good sample size. Hint: We do this all the time in the digital game space. It’s very useful.

Another change is that I would have begun stalking local FLGS to attempt to get some local word of mouth built. There are a few good stores near me: Gamescape in SF, End Game in Oakland, and Black Diamond Games in Concord. However, doing this takes time, gas money, and the stores need to be cool with me testing/shilling my game on their premises. This isn’t just a show up and rock it affair, so it would need some effort.

Finally, I would have hired a dedicated editor to examine my rules. I would not change the number of peers who examined them. Their service has been amazing and again, the rules are good. But, paying someone who is on the line to make it awesome is a good thing to do. This maxim is so true: you get what you pay for.

If you’re curious about the design side of Battle for York, ask questions, or check out this lengthy post I wrote on its origins and development.

Art: The Actual

I’m very pleased with the final art for Battle for York. The cards were illustrated by one of my favorite artists, John Ariosa. The work he created was amazing, working with him was fantastic, and overall I’m just thrilled. Here are some of his pieces:

I wrote about working with artists earlier, but I’ll rehash some of the info. I spent a year thinking about the art for York and built not one, but two Pinterest boards for it: Theme 1 and Theme 2. I had a clear vision and that really helped things.

I also greatly scoped down the required assets to fit within my tiny budget and John’s time frame. Ultimately, I hired him to create 5 images, each done in 4 colors. I asked for characters with simple backgrounds, which also kept things within scope.

I also hired Robert Altbauer from the Cartographer’s Guild to illustrate a map for me. I discussed the project with 3 artists, but ultimately settled on Robert because of his style and experience, his demeanor, and his very reasonable quote. I had him create 2 maps: 3 player and a 2-4 player. These were based on drawings I created for the prototype — the layout was refined and complete. He made it pretty and created icons for it, including the Cities, Seaports, Forts, and Headquarters. You can see one of his maps with the board elements here:

I handled the graphic design duties for the project, which included icon sourcing and layout. For icons, I used Game-Icons.net and modified them as needed, usually just by simplifying the icon or modifying it to fit the aesthetics of the rest of the game. These icons are consistently created and provided free within the creative commons license, so I used them.

Because I was obtaining the icons and because my graphic skills are limited, the overall look and feel of the game is simple, clean, and modern. Here’s a card to demonstrate this point:

You can see one of every card on Facebook here. This style was shared throughout the game’s assets, including the game board, the rules booklet, the stickers, and the player boards.

All designers do some form of graphic design for their prototypes. This project has been very instructive to me both in how to do layouts and execute tricks in Photoshop. Experienced graphics folks will giggle at what I produced, but I did my best and I learned a great deal. I created dozens of iterations for the player boards, refined the rules dozens of times, and even experimented with the relatively simple board.

Never undervalue the importance of properly communicating elements to your players.

Art: The Goofs

I did two stupid things. One is something most publishers do, for better or worse, the other is just a goof of mine. Firstly, my game isn’t the most colorblind friendly. In testing I used colors that did not share a colorblindness spectrum, but for the final game I opted for color. The four player colors are yellow, blue (oops) and green, red (double oops). Were this a fully published game, I would probably do something more along the lines of green, yellow, black, and white. Maybe. I’m not sure and right now it’s not something I’ll change.

Fortunately, the cards and game boards are very color blind friendly in regards to the information presented. But, the game pieces are less so if you’re colorblind.

The second goof also has to do with color. I’ve always used red to indicate “offensive tactics” and blue to indicate “defensive tactics.” These items also have symbols, but the colors really drive it home. My prototype did not feature red. The final game does. Now, there are red and blue player colors AND I use these colors for offensive and defensive tactics. Doh! It’s not the end of the world, but it is lame and it’s something I’d address in a real version.

Art: The Potential

The game’s assets are ultimately not very consistent. I knew this going in, so this is less a learning for me and mostly something to do differently if this were a real publication effort. The key differences is that I would have added additional process and layers to it as well as hired a graphic designer.

I also would have hired the illustrator to craft more art. Instead of 5 cards with 4 colors each, I would have made the cards color agnostic and created a unique set of 5 cards for every faction. This would have quadrupled my costs, but also made the game more varied and exciting visually.

When creating the art, I hired the illustrator (John) and map artist (Robert) simultaneously. The cards have a very painterly style and the map looks like, well, a map. In a full printing, I would have hired the illustrator first. After he (or she) created a handful of assets, I would have then sought a map artist who could work within that style and remain consistent. Another option would be to have a graphic designer create a wireframe then simply have the artist do an aesthetic pass to make it look gorgeous and consistent.

I would have also hired a graphic designer to create icons, improve my layouts, and do an aesthetic pass on all UI. When I say improve my layouts, I say that because I would still create everything. I would mail the graphic designer a copy of the game with all my assets, have him (or her) learn to play it, then with his expertise, improve upon it. From there, he would make it beautiful. As the designer, I expect myself to know what my player’s need best. I expect the designer to know slightly more than me. Ish.

The mapmaker wouldn’t begin the map until he received an improved wireframe from the graphic designer. I sent the mapmaker a layout, but it wasn’t the final one. Granted, not much changed, but still, these things matter.

I would also retain the artist to do an aesthetic pass on the icons created/sourced by the graphic designer. If you look at what York actually has, it’s painterly and somewhat fuzzy illustrations (intentional) with clean, sharp icons. These would be merged and made consistent.

Stylistically, I would also direct my team to create something that fit the fiction better. Currently, the game is set in the 19th century with some decidedly 21st century styled lines. Clean clean clean. I’d like to see a parchment vibe, something that makes me think of the time period. Island Siege by Ape Games and graphic design by Daniel Solis did this well. Here is their player mat:

In my mind, these are fairly obvious decisions based largely on time and money. Could York look better? Sure! But, the cost to do so isn’t worth the money I will make for it. To summarize my notes here:

1. Hire a graphic designer
2. Leapfrog between artists in order to maintain consistency
3. Create a more appropriate aesthetic to match the theme

Marketing: The Actual

I didn’t do a very good job marketing Battle for York. Much of this have to do with me thinking  to myself, “it doesn’t matter much.” I like to develop my games openly and as a result folks may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information I share. At work, PR always guides us to have 2 or 3 points and stick to them. Market those 2-3 things precisely and repeatedly. With York, I posted about development (balance, UI, testing, mechanics, etc.) and shared everything as it became available. I should have shared things more sparingly.

If you notice with Blockade, I’m mostly teasing it via Twitter. I’ll write fewer posts and they’ll matter more. Of course, if you EVER want to know anything about my projects, email me. I’m an open book.

Another example is that when John was sending me assets one at a time, I simply shared them on Twitter. I believe there is a more effective and potent way to wield these beautiful surprises. In a proper campaign, I would have merged my Faction Previews with the art reveals. I also would have crafted a more elaborate fiction and story for each. There would have also been a video format. Just imagine how fun this would be!

The intent, would be to build hype and excitement for the theme and mechanics of York bolstered by gorgeous visuals and a well-crafted fiction.

I asked people, somewhat, for thumbs on BGG, but I don’t like spamming folks for what is ultimately an exercise in pageantry, and as a result I don’t have many thumbs. You have to ask for things!

Once I receive my copy of York, I’ll do a video unboxing to show the components and create a video tutorial to explain the game. I’ll also be sending a copy to a few reviewers. Finally, I’ll have it with me at GenCon to share and demo.

Marketing and Kickstarter: The Potential

I actually detailed some of the things I’d do differently above. So much for that format! The truth is, York is too big of a game for me to self-finance and I would have to run a Kickstarter campaign for it. Let’s discuss the Kickstarter I would have run. Before we get into Kickstarter…please don’t freak out. These are just my opinions. There is no right way. There is no single way. This is simply what I think would be my way based on my own experience with Farmageddon and a lot of observation.

Obviously, before the game launched, a handful of reviewers would have a nice prototype of the game in order to review and share. It blows my mind that some people still launch a game on Kickstarter without critical reviews to vouch for the game. This is a no no.

Before I launched on Kickstarter, all art assets would be final, all graphic design finished, and all rules final. I personally don’t like the “NOT FINAL” caveat. I’d self-finance this and say “boom, here’s the game. THIS is what you’ll receive.” It’s a personal choice and ultimately, everyone should do what they feel is best. This also helps you stick to your manufacturing schedule. Many KS projects still have to finish the game after KS.

I would share a PNP and also share a small number of copies with common BGG users to comment and discuss. This was very powerful for Farmageddon’s campaign and I feel sharing a PNP shows confidence. I would also take a note from Stonemaier Games and provide a money back guarantee. Now, before I did this, as mentioned at the very top, the game would be tested even more to fully relax me when giving this guarantee.

Stretch Goals are probably the thing I like least about the current Kickstarter ecosystem and it would definitely be a problem for me with York. I don’t like many of the extras for a few reasons:

• The extras packed in can really increase the MSRP, which can hurt long-term sales.
• I want to present and create the game as it’s meant to be. No more, no less.
• They make publishing, an already difficult thing, a bit more wild and unpredictable.

Nevertheless, here are the stretch goals I had in mind for a Battle for York campaign:

• Additional factions: York features four asymmetric factions. Manufacturing more is really just a matter of a player board and 25 cards, plus the art. I would design and test 2 more before the campaign so that adding them wouldn’t be a big deal.
• Stories: I hired a writer to create two short stories for the current game. In hindsight, these would be awesome stretch goals. Craft stories for every faction that go beyond the “short story” limit.
• Promo Cards: I created some of these for the current version (Tactician, Saboteur) and really like how they change up and in some ways, break the game. I think good promos are fun and I’d probably do a few of them for a KS campaign.
• Custom Tokens: The game would largely use punchboard tokens to keep the game at a lower MSRP. However, for scoring and turn order tokens, I could have neat custom meeples created. Note: The current game uses all wooden components, so in that sense, it’s arguably nicer than the “real” version. This is probably the least likely goal I’d pursue.
• Bag: To cut down on MSRP I’d remove the bag from the base set. But, as a stretch goal for backers, I could include the bag. Note: There’s a bag with the current version.
• New Maps: The current maps are balanced and designed for straightforward gameplay and symmetry. I’d love to create weirder maps that shift the gameplay, add new mechanics, and really vary things. Adding new maps is simply a matter of adding more boards. Oh, wait…those are super expensive! Still, something I could “add” much like Days of Wonder did with the Memoir ’44 Winter/Desert board.

All of these would be estimated and quoted before the launch of the campaign. If my goals were hit, I’d simply reveal the next stretch goals. They would fit within my budget and I would not lose money. As a side note, I really like how Mercury Games Kickstarted The Guns of Gettysburg. They had a very upfront, honest policy regarding Stretch Goals.

My funding goal would probably be around the $10k-20k mark. I know that’s a big gap. The minimum number of copies is typically 1000 and 1500 (depending on the manufacturer), but I’d prefer to print at least 2000 as that’s where you begin to see price breaks. Margins improve here, but your investment greatly increases.

Ultimately, the number I decided would be based on the amount of money I’d be willing to put towards it.This was one of the reasons I didn’t KS York — It’s more of a niche game and I’m not sure it’s the one to put $10,000+ of my savings towards. I hope to design and publish that game (or sign someone else who does), but I’m not sure York is it.

I prefer Kickstarter projects with a few, simple backer levels. Typically:

• Get the game for the US
• Get the game for Canada/Europe
• Get the game for somewhere else

Foreign backers would probably need to buy multiple copies to make it cost effective, but I haven’t gone deep enough into that to say for sure. My Kickstarter page would be simple with the following information:

• KS video would largely be a 2 minute pitch. “This is why you should back.”
• Page would detail components at a high level, link to reviews, share some of the art (cards, game board).
• Page would give a quick glimpse into the world’s fiction.
• Page would have a gameplay video. “This is how you play.”

The campaign would last for 30 or fewer days. I would be highly responsive and transparent for any questions ask (see the Farmageddon campaign for proof!). I sent several RFQs and settled on a manufacturer who would create a high quality game, was nice and reliable (from personal referrals), and could help me make the game at a $40 MSRP. I just didn’t pull the trigger.

Fulfillment and Post-KS Sales: The Potential

Fulfillment is a tricky subject. There are so many options and ways to do it. I know a few that I would NOT use. As for what I would use, I’m currently leaning towards doing it myself (if sales were low) or using Amazon fulfillment. Amazon could also help with shipping to European backers, again, if sales warranted such a thing.

In the short run I would rely heavily on Amazon’s storefront. Doing so gives me a place to store the games, a nice, safe, outstanding web store, and lets existing Amazon customers use their logins, their credit card info, and Prime status to get free shipping. Basically, I wouldn’t invest in my own Hyperbole Games storefront until sales warranted such a thing.

I would immediately begin the slow, challenging process of getting into the traditional distribution channels. There are a lot of great distributors and it would take time to build a great relationship with them. I would need to attend trade shows like GAMA and GenCon with some presence in order to do so. It is so key to be in FLGS to reach a mass audience. Once in an FLGS, my hope is that superior art and a very reasonable price would warrant a look from potential customers. Those two elements are so very key.

I would send the game to additional reviewers, especially ones with a large presence like The Dice Tower and some of the popular war game reviewers, like Marco Arnaudo. I would absolutely save some of these for after the KS campaign.

I would also begin creating expansions. I’m a huge proponent of the expansion driven business model. I love it as a consumer, a designer, and a publisher. As a consumer, it gives me more of a thing I love, but also, it’s my choice to do so. As a designer, I get to create content atop a foundation. Content is so much easier than mechanics! You also get to dream up and create less typical elements. With the base game, you want to cover your bases and hit as many people as possible. With an expansion? Go nuts. Finally, as a publisher you are able to drive additional revenue off the same IP. You can leverage existing art assets and branding. It’s also less risky to create a smaller expansion than yet another full game. Many of the most successful publishers utilize the stuffing out of this business model, including:

• Days of Wonder: Ticket to Ride, Memoir ’44, Smallworld
• Steve Jackson Games: Munchkin
• Plaid Hat Games: Summoner Wars and hopefully Mice and Mystics
• Mayfair: The Settles of Catan
• Fantasy Flight Games: Almost everything they make. Lately, Netrunner, X-Wing, and older titles like Arkham Horror. 

Over time, the hope would be to build a small, core audience who continues to support the game’s expansions. In turn, I would support them with scenarios, PNP components, and the obvious rules support. Byron Collins of Collins Epic Wargames does a great job of supporting his community. So does Plaid Hat Games. I would like to emulate this.  This core of consumers would hopefully grow via word of mouth and eventually I’d be a millionaire. Or, I’d simply reprint and improve the game.

Ha.

Conclusion

This post is absurdly long! I apologize. This post covered:

• Development: Actual versus Potential
• Art Development: Actual versus Potential
• Marketing: Actual
• Marketing and Kickstarter: Potential
• Post KS Sales: Very hypothetical potential

This post was fun for me to write and share, but most importantly, I want it to be useful and interesting for you. Were you looking for specific information not covered? Did I gloss over something? Please feel free to comment below. Or, email me your question at grant[at]hyperbolegames[dot]com.

Thanks for reading. I sent Battle for York to the printer last night and I am so very excited to hold it in my hands.

These saws solve problems.

The Japanese azebiki saw, at the top in the photo, has curved tooth lines designed to start a cut in the middle of a board. One side is rip, the other crosscut. The neck is thicker toward the handle, which, along with the short cutting length, makes this saw fairly stiff for a Japanese saw.

The azebiki works well cutting against a straightedge wood guide to make kerfs for starting grooves and dados, including sliding dovetail sockets. Use a chisel to clear the waste and a router plane to true the bottom. I prefer an electric router for this work but sometimes it is too risky or awkward, so it is good to have hand tool options.

For all sorts of odd small-scale sawing tasks, the azebiki saves the day. It is inexpensive and worth having in the shop.

The Z brand 6″ keyhole/compass saw (S-150), at the bottom in the photo, has Japanese three-bevel crosscut-style teeth (17 tpi) with variations in the set to help clear waste. This saw cuts more smoothly than other Japanese and Western keyhole saws that I have tried.

At .035″ thick, it is stiff enough to maintain control when sawing curves, as long as the stock is not too thick. Of course, it cuts on the pull stroke, which occasionally is a disadvantage when jabbing into a small hole to start a cut.

I bought the skinny keyhole saw with the wooden handle many years ago, and it hangs around waiting for an odd situation where there is only a tiny hole or narrow slot to sneak into with the nose of the saw. It would be expecting a lot for a saw of this size to cut smoothly, and indeed, it does not.

The little guy keeps his place on the roster because, though infrequently, he continues to make plays when needed. And he doesn’t take up much space on the bench.

Second from the top in the photo is a Z brand flush cut saw (S-150). You might not need this type of saw if you use the trick I discussed in an earlier post, but I still like having it as an option. The .016″ thick plate is very flexible, so it can be bent to allow the handle to be lifted away from the work surface, as you use the fingers of your other hand to press down on the saw blade.

To prevent scratching the work, the three-bevel crosscut style teeth (21 tpi) have no set whatsoever. I prepped the saw by lightly working each side on a medium sharpening stone to ensure that any trace of burr would be gone. As discussed here, binding can be a problem with this saw but it works well enough for shallow cuts.

Z brand saws are well made. The replaceable blades are inexpensive, so there is no worry if you occasionally abuse them when desperately trying to do an awkward job.

This part 8 concludes the My Saws series. Or does it? Our current woodworking world has some great saw makers at work, modern technology, and an expanding appreciation of the woodworking wisdom of our forebears, so a new saw for my shop is always a possibility. The bottom line will always be: how the tool can help me make things that I so dearly want to make.

Note: The entire series, parts 1-8, of “East meets West: My Saws” can viewed on a single page via this link.

Plastics are not just ubiquitous, but extremely versatile: some of them are incredibly stretchy, while some are hard as nails; some are crystal clear, and others come in all colors of the rainbow; some can survive extreme temperatures, and yet others can stop a bullet mid-flight. Michal Zalewski walks us through his simple process for casting plastic parts for use in high-tolerance engineering applications.

Read more on MAKE

In the process of getting better at something there are two mistakes that hold you back. The first kind is the mistake of not knowing. Not knowing how the market works, which major to choose, what to do.

If I wanted to start a business selling industrial solvents, I suffer under the first error. I have no idea how the industry works (or much about solvents, for that matter). Ignorance holds me back.

Ignorance, however, isn’t too hard to fix. If I spent several months researching, I could probably have a decent idea of how the industry works. If I spent several years working in it, I’d know even more. The first error has a straightforward remedy—learn more.

The second kind of mistake, and far more insidious, is the mistake of believing things that happen to be wrong. If you’ve convinced yourself that a hill is a valley, it will take a lot of climbing before you realize you were wrong. I worry more about the second mistake.

The Map and the Territory

We spend our lives devising theories for explaining the world. These theories form crude maps of the impossibly complex terrain of our lives. We have a map for our careers, a map for our relationships, a map for our beliefs about the meaning in our lives.

Maps are good. Even a map that is wrong occasionally is a lot better than no map. Philosophical skepticism may have its adherents but it’s utterly impractical. You must have beliefs about the world to make decisions, and even imperfect ones are better than nothing.

But the map is not the territory. The territory is alien, strange and perhaps even incomprehensibly complex. Any map-making process undertaken by an individual over the course of one lifetime is going to be error-ridden.

The rational thing to do, is a cost-benefit analysis. If we can invest less resources to fix our map than the benefits of a correct map yield, fix the map. Yet human beings rarely do the rational thing.

Confirmation Bias and Protecting Our Maps

It turns out we don’t follow the rational process for map fixing. Through a set of interesting experiments, psychologists could show that instead of trying to hunt for the information that would force us to change our maps, we instead seek to information confirming what we already “know”.

The experiment was ingenious. Subjects were given a set of three numbers, such as 2, 4, 6 and told it fits a secret pattern. The task was to guess the identity of the secret pattern by suggesting further sets of three numbers, which the experimenter would say either fit or didn’t fit the pattern.

Given only one data point, many possible hypotheses could be dreamt up by the participants. The numbers could be all even, for example, or the middle number could be the average of the first and last.

The rational method for testing these hypotheses would be to choose counterexamples. If you believed the numbers were all even, try 3, 4, 6 and see if it is validated. If it did, you’d know that your only-evens rule was not the correct rule.

This wasn’t how subjects proceeded, however. Instead, they picked examples which confirmed their previous hypothesis. All-evens testers would pick 4, 8, 10 or 2, 6, 12 as candidate patterns, seeking validation for their theory.

The problem with this method was that the actual rule was “any ascending numbers” so the previous two examples would have been valid, but so would 1, 3, 12 or 3, 9, 11. The method of testing hypotheses sought confirmation, even when it couldn’t determine the secret rule.

What relevance does this have outside the laboratory? The relevance is that we look for information to support our theories, not to break them. We try to protect our maps instead of pointing out where they may be flawed. Worse, when we expend energy trying to improve our maps, the methods we default to are unsound.

Looking Around the Edges

The most profitable method to winning the secret-rule game of the experiment is not to pick random counterexamples. After seeing 2, 4 and 6 validate, picking 1, 17, 4 and seeing it fail doesn’t teach you too much. Instead, the best bet is to try to break the edges of your rule: make one odd, flip the order, make two the same.

The same strategy is effective in life: test around the edges of your map, so you’ll know where to redraw. By breaking your map in precise ways, you can get more information than seeking confirmation or pulling counterexamples out of a hat.

I’ll give an example from my business. When I first launched Learning on Steroids, it was unusually successful compared to my previous business efforts and I wanted to know which principles guided that so I could use those insights in the future. Here were some candidate hypotheses:

• Monthly billing over one-time sale.
• Conducting an email-based launch.
• Restricting capacity.
• Restricting registration time.
• Having a clearer service component (in earlier editions I made more emphasis on being able to reach me for feedback)

All of these could have been valid, some combination of them could be or it could be that none of them were the underlying causes of the recent success.

My approach to testing these hypotheses was to vary the different variables individually in my future launches. Later, I did launches that had one-time courses, no capacity restrictions and downplayed the service component. I couldn’t always test each variable in perfect isolation, but in nearly every launch the permutation of these variables was somewhat different.

In retrospect, my hypothesis now is that #2, conducting an email-based launch, is the only consistent winner. Restrictions on capacity has mixed results and restrictions on registration time has a minor, but positive effect. Service components were not important, but that could have been a feature of the price points tested.

My map is far from perfect now, but it is a lot better than it was when I started, which I believe is a large part of the reason my business is generating four times the revenue from when I had made those initial hypotheses.

Researching Edge Cases

You often don’t need to run an experiment to break your map on edge cases and update it to more accurate beliefs. Sometimes simply doing a bit of research can reveal edge-case counterexamples which force you to re-evaluate your thinking.

Cal Newport recently shared an example from his own journey trying to become a tenured academic. Instead of browsing through random examples and trying to confirm his previous hypotheses, he looked for a natural experiment: choose a group of PhD graduates from the same graduating class, but who differed greatly in their eventual success and look at what they did differently in their early careers.

Studying these two groups, the biggest differences were number of papers published (the successful group had more publications) and number of citations, a rough indicator for quality. Using that as a benchmark, Cal could easily hone in on the precise metrics success required in his field.

Research, as opposed to direct experimentation, is useful when the time frame you expect to see results is very long. I could directly experiment on my launch strategy because I could repeat it every 3-6 months. Cal was better off looking for natural experiments because the time frame to observe results was in decades.

Comfort in Contradiction

To me, the idea of map-breaking is unsettling and counterintuitive. Our brains aren’t hard-wired to think this way, so it always takes a deliberate effort to apply.

The challenge to me is being able to be comfortable with spending a lot of mental energy constructing explanatory theories, and then seeking to tear them down. We’d rather spend time building more, rather than admit what we’ve built may be on a shaky foundation.

One step I’ve found helpful to combat this urge (and is often derided by outsiders) is to simply allow yourself to temporarily hold contradictory beliefs. Believing that your theories themselves are a work-in-progress can allow you to recognize the validity of part of the map, even if you don’t know how to connect it to the other parts yet.

Ultimately, confirmation bias is in our nature, and can’t be completely avoided. With effort, however, I think we can remind ourselves to avoid it when we design the larger experiments or research projects to redraw the lines on our map.

Learn Faster, Achieve More
Get the ideas I don't share on the blog. Join my private newsletter and I'll give you my free rapid-learning ebook.