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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

@stoichamster.bsky.social

460 followers 300 following 470 posts

Almost award-winning tabletop game designer, musician, photographer, father of two, possible descendant of pirates

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · Jul 14

Finally! I've been dying to talk about my newest game, Beasts! This might be my best design yet. It's definitely my most elegant. It's a co-op "cards with numbers" game that should appeal to fans of The Game. More details and the rulebook are here: pandasaurusgames.com/blogs/pandas...

A Cooperative Card Game Where Every Number Counts

We're officially halfway through our Road to Gen Con and it's time to say hello to Beasts, a compact cooperative puzzle game filled with clever cardplay, rising tension, and one very specific rule: pl...

pandasaurusgames.com

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 2d

Lies and falsehoods

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

Here’s a primer on ‘primer.’

It’s pronounced ‘PRIMM-er’ if you mean “a small book” or “a short informative piece of writing.”

It’s pronounced ‘PRY-mer’ if you mean “an initial coat of paint.”

Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

Daniel Newman // New Mill Industries @dnlnwmn.bsky.social · 5d

heyyyyyy did you know i like doing podcasts? have me on! i can talk to you about designing trick takers, or publishing small batch games, or indie games night market, or going to japan for tokyo game market, or learning japanese, or seeing 2-4 movies in the theater a week, or nerds gummy clusters...

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 4d

Just realized that there will be 6(!) of my games on the floor at Essen - Beasts, Squirrel Away, the German editions of the Merchants of Magick expansions, and the German editions of Chomp and the Flyers and Scavengers expansion. boardgamegeek.com/geekpreview/...

SPIEL Essen 25 Preview

Hundreds of new games will be introduced at SPIEL Essen 25. This preview covers games debuting at that show or recently released or (for smaller publishers) released since 2024.

boardgamegeek.com

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 5d

"I think Beasts offers some interesting flexibility and strategic play that is wholly unique from The Game, but perfectly reasonably compared to it. For one thing, Beasts has infinitely better SEO than The Game” 🤣

Eric gets it! And I will never get how "The Game" got approved as an actual title.

Eric (What's Eric Playing?) @whatsericplaying.bsky.social · 6d

it's another cool art week at What's Eric Playing?, but it's almost always cool art week

heeeere's beasts

http://whatsericplaying.com/2025/10/06/beasts/

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 8d

I cannot make my brain pronounce "ichor" the way it's supposed to be pronounced

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 9d

This used to drive me crazy with e-mail pitches to publishers. I eventually started using the automatic tracking feature in HubSpot that lets me know if anyone actually opened the e-mail or not.

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 10d

I just backed Wizard Community College on Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/161...

Wizard Community College

A hilarious 20 minute roleplaying card game of magic and mistakes

www.kickstarter.com

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 11d

How have I never heard of this?!

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 13d

I'm doing some dev work on Flintlock!, the new game in the Blitzkrieg series of 20-minute 2-player wargames. I'm coordinating some digital playtesting that's happening over the next few weeks. Any mutuals interested in helping out for the promise of a free copy of the game when it's released?

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Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

Rob Newton | Coin Flip Games @coinflip.games · 13d

Convention planning via 3D modeling is pretty fun. I think we'll be doing up a booth something like this at PAX Unplugged

3D rendered booth with teal floor tiles, 2 big banners showing Chicken Fried Dice and Urban Professional Games. There are 2 black tables and a tall banner also of Chicken Fried Dice. There's a big spiral of Trickadee copies on the side of the booth.

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 13d

Thanks for doing this! I took a quick pass and left some comments. I generally don't know about the current status of open submissions on these, but I can at least point out pubs that I have pitched to in the past.

Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

zintismay.bsky.social @zintismay.bsky.social · 14d

Hey board game designers I made a list of Pax Unplugged publishers: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

"Would need to ask", means website and maybe contact, but their site doesn't mention submissions.

Leave a comment if I need to fix something up.

Pax Unplugged Publisher List 2025

docs.google.com

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 17d

This hurricane forecast is art

Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

Matthew Rodela 🔜 TantrumCon @muse-and-mettle.bsky.social · 17d

I'm looking for anyone interested in interviewing me about my upcoming game Twisted Trumpets which is being published by Play to Z Games and will be available to purchase at Essen and in retail shortly thereafter.

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 17d

"It was insane how such simple mechanics could lead to, just a hysterical time"

Audio-only, but first full review I've seen for Squirrel Away!

youtu.be/pOnrt8sKDE8

Reviews: Squirrel Away

YouTube video by Board All the Time

youtu.be

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 18d

Sun Tropics is the brand if you wanna look for them

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 18d

I got these from Amazon, but I've seen them at my local grocery too

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 18d

I was skeptical at first, but these were pretty great!

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 21d

The hype is real. Hot Streak is soooo good! Immediately added it to my wishlist.

Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 23d

Board game career paths can be pretty weird. Just learned the VP of game development at Exploding Kittens came from academia where he wrote a PhD dissertation on French colonialism in the 1600s.

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Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

Kevin Wilson @kevinwilson42.bsky.social · 24d

Pretty much anything anyone ever cites as "always bad in game design" I will fight them on. The longer I've designed games, the more I've come to believe that context is ALWAYS King. ALWAYS. There is a situation in which EVERY "Never do X" rule for game design should be broken.

Cardboard Edison @cardboardedison.com · 24d

Thoughts on why downtime isn’t always a bad thing and why constant engagement isn’t always desirable

What’s up downtime?

Reviews often share certain assumptions about what makes good gameplay. Despite the old claptrap that all quality is subjective and that objectivity is only possible when comparing cardboard thickn…

lestmyopinions.com

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 25d

It was humbling tonight to teach one of my lighter games, Chomp, to a table full of chemists who kept getting confused about several rules and saying "this is complicated!" But also, they asked to play again 3 times in a row... so I'm calling that a win!

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 25d

Nice! It helped that the image was small on my phone, but I definitely briefly thought I was looking at a photo, and was wondering which physical object on the table you designed in Blender. 😂

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Reposted by Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU

Foxes In Love @foxes-in-love.bsky.social · 26d

A comic of two foxes, one of whom is blue, the other is green. In this one, Blue and Green are sitting in front of a whiteboard, where Green has crudely illustrated a hole, a table at the bottom of the hole, and two foxes sitting on the opposite ends of the table. Holding a pointing stick, Green taps at the board, as Blue listens attentively.
Green: We dig a hole, and then set up our game table there.
Blue: Right.

Having drawn a cover over the hole, Green taps at the addition.
Green: Then we cover the top and wait for an unsuspecting victim.
Blue: Huh.

Green taps at the whiteboard again, pointing at the most recent addition to the drawing: A startled third fox falling through the cover at the top.
Green: Eventually someone will fall through.
Blue: I see.

Last, Green's illustration looks the same as it did in the first panel, save that there are now three foxes sitting at the table. Blue turns to look at Green with suspicion.
Green: And they'll have no choice but to play with us.
Blue: Are you sure this would work?

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Clarence Simpson 🔜 PAXU @stoichamster.bsky.social · 26d

Nice! What's your new role?

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