Four Questions with Bruce Glassco

Double Blind, designed by Bruce Glassco, is a finalist in the 2005 About.com Deduction Game Design Competition. In the game, each player selects a hidden victory condition. They then alternate placing tokens until one player has fulfilled both of the conditions. Glassco, an English professor, also designed Avalon Hill's Betrayal at House on the Hill.

What's your favorite recently played (for the first time) game?

I recently tried out Shadows Over Camelot for the first time. It was something I'd been looking forward to, as it has a "traitor" mechanic that's a bit similar to House on the Hill. I really liked the game -- gorgeous artwork as is typical for Days of Wonder, and very interesting gameplay. In our first game with a traitor, I found that I'm too trusting -- the wool was completely pulled over my eyes!

What game do you want to play most that you haven't played yet?

Dungeon Twister sounds fairly cool. I always like dungeon games, games where you get to play interesting characters, and maze games, and this sounds like a great combination of all three.

Please tell us about the process of designing Double Blind.

My first thought was some kind of chess variant, but those exist in such abundance that I decided the field was too crowded. When I came up with this idea, it took a while to figure out a group of configurations that would be more or less the same difficulty to create or block. I experimented with several other configurations that were too easy or too hard before settling on these.

What do you like about your entry, and do you think there's anything that could be improved?

I wanted to design a game that would show people that not every game I make is intensively rules-laden, so I like the simplicity. The deduction element doesn't play quite as important a role in actual play as I had hoped, though.