Games

I have a lot to say about this style of leisure

Tabletop gaming is a fabulous experience. However, I find myself being somewhat... selective in the kinds of games I enjoy. In particular, I prefer ones that have more teamwork—even if they're not fully co-operative.

I'm also a game designer, although I have not had anything be published yet.

Tabletop Games

This section includes mostly board and card games, although Blood on the Clocktower is somewhat of an exception because you don't really have a "board".

Games I've Created (or am currently creating)

My sort of "flagship" game is Intrusion Confusion, which is a 3-6 player hidden traitor game with logic and strategy. It's very close to finished (needs a few balancing tweaks, as right now the good team wins a little too often).

My second game is Ornithocracy, a hopefully 3-8 player game about political polarization in the Bird Republic. It's a multi-winner game, meaning that everyone who achieves their goal is a winner, but it's supposed to be hard for everyone to win.

I also have a "public domain" game for roughly 4-8 players called This Place Isn't Big Enough For All Of Us, that uses dice and a subset of a standard deck of cards. I'm going to post the rules soon.

My favorite published games, in alphabetical order

Game & BGG link BoardGameGeek Description Why I like it
Blood on the Clocktower
(abbreviated "Clocktower") 		"Deduce who the Demon is through logic and bluffing. Dead players still play." A social deception game with real logic, strategy, and creativity. I really enjoy characters like the Artist (ask the "Storyteller" any one yes/no question)—which is paired with the Vortox (all good info is false)—and Amnesiac (the Storyteller invents your ability, and you have to figure out what exactly it is) that allow you to go above and beyond. It's a solid game even with the base game, as you have actual information to base your accusations on... but when you include experimental roles, it takes it to a whole new level.
Blood on the Clocktower is not just a game. It's more of a game system. It is reasonably easy to homebrew your own characters, even; I've done that on multiple occasions.
Captain Sonar "Torpedoes away! Hunt for your opponent's sub in this exciting, real-time team game. There's nothing quite like an exciting team-vs-team battle. I like how there are different roles for different skill levels.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong "Interpret forensic evidence to solve a murder. Beware, the murderer may be among you!" Another one of those "use actual evidence to find the liar" games. This one is more open-ended than most games in the category because you're connecting crime-scene objects (murder weapon and key evidence) with sometimes rather obscure clues (time of day, murderer's personality, relation to victim).
Only issue is, I have seen some games come down to a lucky draw on the evidence tiles because something points directly to the murder weapon or key evidence.
Decrypto "Decipher your opponents' code before they decipher yours. Don't get caught." It's similar to Codenames, which is more widely known, in that one person is giving clues that the rest of their team tries to interpret. I appreciate that Decrypto has everyone give clues, but what really seals the deal is how creative you can get with your clues in Decrypto. You're not limited to a single word. You can give sentences that have red herrings, for instance. These open-ended games (as you can tell from Zendo) have a special place in my... heart? mind? whatever?
The Mind "Play your cards in ascending order without communicating. Timing is key!" A nice and simple co-op. It's a nice puzzle to figure out how "spherical humans in a vacuum" can trivially win 100% of the time. It's mostly about trying to discover how your teammates think, which is why I really want to play with the same group more than twice.
Spirit Island "Island Spirits join forces using elemental powers to defend their home from invaders." A long-form co-operative game that flips the narrative of colonization upside down—now it's the white colonizers who "ravage" and "blight the land". It's not technically open-ended, but the camaraderie that develops among players really makes this game shine. You have enough of your own problems that "alpha-gaming" isn't an option, but it's simple enough for players to manage "their side" at the beginning, and help out the team more near the end of the game.
We're Doomed! "Work together to create an escape rocket, just make sure you have a seat!" This is explicitly not a "co-operative" game in the sense that everyone wins or loses together. It's also not a single-winner game where you have to get the most points. Instead, it's a very curious fusion where players Contribute Resources to a Project, and at the end, the X players with the most Influence win... and X is determined by the number of Resources Contributed. It's a very interesting concept for sure.
Zendo "Players build structures to try to figure out the moderator's secret rule!" The scientific process boiled down to a board game. If it weren't for Clocktower this would be my all-time favorite (right now the two are essentially tied). Zendo is more like a platform for puzzles. Although it is technically a single-winner game, where the player who officially guesses the rule first wins, it naturally lends itself to co-operative play as people share ideas while struggling for more complex rules.
The official pieces are pyramids made by Looney Labs that come in 3 sizes (marked with pips). On two occasions I used the rule "the total number of pips must be a prime number"... but it was with math grad students. Both times the rule was solved. The point of the game for the Moderator is not to stump the players, but to keep them engaged.

Some observations: