My game bio

I've decided that it's probably useful to write something about myself and why I think the way I do about games.

There's a tldr below,
I'm 35 as of writing this and I spent my formative years in the 90s playing stuff like Final Fantasy, Double Dragon, Megaman, Tribes, Counter-Strike, Diablo 1/2, Command and Conquer, Star Craft, Warcraft, MUDs, The Legend of Zelda (like all of them), Masters of Orion, Civ, etc etc. Looking back it's kind of disgusting how much time I spent playing all this stuff hah (don't regret a moment of it).  Anyways, in college I really picked up CS and then spent a good deal of time with WoW and Final Fantasy XI and some Initial D in the arcades. From then until now, I've been playing a smattering of games but mostly indie titles as AAA titles have kind of lost my interest or disappoint me.

As for board/card games, I played some Magic the gathering and Risk in middle/high school and then kind of fell off the board games thing until a little after college with lots of Dominion and then Agricola and then Race for the Galaxy.  I've played lots of other stuff but really those 3 represent the bulk of my time playing board games.

tldr: I've learned a few things about myself and maybe games in general from all this..
  1. When playing games with friends it's always a good idea to be at the same or similar level/learning rate.
  2. Fun is very abstract.  Even the most arbitrary thing can be fun if I'm convinced it's worth it.
  3. Inconsistency is annoying.
  4. Build mechanics and intent into the theme. I want to know what I'm doing and why I'm doing what I'm doing.
  5. Trust the player to bridge gaps
  6. Give me something to think about
  7. Don't add things just for the sake of adding them