Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · 26d

Game Designers! We will be hosting our monthly in person playtest w/ @breakmygame.com at Redcaps Corner tonight at 6:30pm. Designers! Sign up with the link below!

www.eventbrite.com/e/break-my-g...

Testers! Come support your local design community!

Break My Game Playtesting - Philadelphia, PA - Redcap's Corner

Come playtest board games designed by local independent game designers!

www.eventbrite.com

5 3

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Sep 2

Hey y’all don’t sleep on Eric’s playtesting event at The Board and Brew this Thursday! I’ll be there testing my new lane control game and you should be too!

Designers sign up with the link below - testers just walk in!

www.eventbrite.com/e/break-my-g...

Break My Game Playtesting - Philadelphia, PA - The Board & Brew

Come playtest board games designed by local independent game designers!

www.eventbrite.com

3 2

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Sep 1

I think it is fairly dedicated to stewarding this one game! I can’t speak for the whole org, but I am aware of individuals/small groups within NSG that have riffed on new game ideas set in our world, nothing official though. Cool as it would be I wouldn’t expect it

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Aug 18

Hey y’all! Reminder that we will be hosting in person playtesting at Redcap’s Corner tonight at 6:30 pm with @breakmygame.com 🎲✂️

Designers - Sign up using this link

www.eventbrite.com/e/break-my-g...

Break My Game Playtesting - Philadelphia, PA - Redcap's Corner

Come playtest board games designed by local independent game designers!

www.eventbrite.com

3 4

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Jun 29

If y’all are at TooManyGames Con today, I’ll be on the panel “From The Ground Up: Building a Thriving Game Development Industry in Your City” talking about @breakmygame.com and PGMG how we have formed designer communities in Philly. Come check it out! 🎲✂️

3 10

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 30

So here for this

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 25

That’s a great shout - Smoke definitely helped with sequencing. Did you find that you played stealth packages with other IDs, or did you avoid it for that reason?

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 24

Netrunner players! For those of you who miss Smoke, and the stealth mechanic more broadly, tell me why you love that mechanic and your favorite stealth cards and decks! Also interested in the opinions of stealth detractors! Why do you think this missed for you?

Asking for a friend
#netrunner
🎲✂️

1 3

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 22

3/3 Aim for elegance. Often this means simple (cards with 10-20 words total), but not always. The trick is to avoid “shoe leather”, or as PCH says don’t add any rule that doesn’t add +10 fun. Every line is a barrier to your game, it has to pull its weight or be cut, no matter how cool it reads 🎲✂️

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 22

2/3 Both of these cards do similar effects & quest the player to engineer an asymmetrical board wipe. The key difference is elegance and text density. Split Up needs only 10 words vs Birdcage’s 54 to convey nearly identical content. As designers we should strive to mean a lot while saying little 🎲✂️

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 22

Tip #2 of “Elevating Your Card Design” ELEGANCE = DEPTH>COMPLEXITY: If I could give 1 bit of advice to a new designer it would probably be to set word count limits on their cards to increase their depth to complexity ratio. Compare “Birdcage” vs “Split Up”, which is better & why?

1/3 #Netrunner 🎲✂️

2 2

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 21

3/3 Fully Operational play conditions players to exist in the tense space between glacier & asset spam (where we observe them having the most fun) by offering big value for building & icing several remotes. Identify the best parts of your core loop and make cards that funnel your players to it. 🎲✂️

1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 21

2/3 In Elevation, an intermediate product, it was important to make “level up moment” cards with “hidden curriculum” that taught players how to have more fun playing Netrunner. Ritual demonstrates this principle in action, signaling the benefits of drawing early in your turn and planning ahead. ✂️🎲

1 1

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 21

Tip #1 of “Elevating Your Card Design” PLAY CONDITIONING & SIGNPOSTING: Make sure your designs reward players for play patterns that maximize intrinsic fun. Without this intention we risk players optimizing fun out of the game, so it’s incumbent on designers to make fun optimal!

1/3 #Netrunner 🎲✂️

1 5

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 20

Okay so with one NSG Netrunner expansion under my belt and two more on the way, I’d love to share some of the best practices and first principles I have adopted and applied in designing Elevation. Would folks be interested in this “Elevating Your Card Design” series/thread🧵? Lemme know below! ✂️🎲

3 8

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · May 19

Philly Game Designers! Tonight we will be hosting our monthly in person playtest w/ @breakmygame.com at Redcap’s Corner, 6:30pm to 9:30pm. Designers sign up with the link below! Testers can just walk in and support their local design community! 🎲✂️

www.eventbrite.com/e/break-my-g...

Break My Game Playtesting - Philadelphia, PA - Redcap's Corner

Come playtest board games designed by local independent game designers!

www.eventbrite.com

1 7

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 26

This is such a good shout - I think of this often as a designer who acts as a liaison to members of the development/balance teams, and playtesters. “Tuning” is a great way to convey that numbers and balance don’t count for much if they aren’t promoting the right moments, play patterns, and feelings.

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 24

AHHHH! The first Netrunner expansion I got to work on is out now! Everyone at NSG did an amazing job with this set and it’s release marks the first of my published design work to reach the hands of players around the world - pretty special feeling. Check it out! 🎲✂️

nullsignal.games/blog/elevati...

Elevation is Out Now! - Null Signal Games

Elevation is out now! See every card in the set below, check out the product page for details on how to get it, and build decks using the new cards on

nullsignal.games

7

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 21

Philly Game Designers! Tonight is our monthly in person Playtest event with @breakmygame.com , 6:30 PM, at Redcap’s Corner. Designers, sign up with the link below! Testers, no need to register - just come out and support! 🎲✂️

www.eventbrite.com/e/break-my-g...

Break My Game Playtesting - Philadelphia, PA - Redcap's Corner

Come playtest board games designed by local independent game designers!

www.eventbrite.com

1 8

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 15

Netrunner players! How would you build around this flip ID? Fast advance? Remoteless? How do you cover your central servers? What do you spend your influence on? 🎲✂️

1 4

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 14

Breaking News! My first article with Null Signal Games is live! So excited to share two of my favorite ID’s in the set! Inverting the psychology of tags with Synapse Global is one of my favorite moments from Elevation design. 🎲✂️

nullsignal.games/blog/new-tal...

12

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 10

Punk is definitely not dead as Phoenix rises from the ashes in Elevation. As many of you know, Anarch was a big focus of mine when designing the set. I literally screamed in excitement when I saw this ID spoiled. 🎲✂️

nullsignal.games/blog/out-of-...

Out of the Ashes: Anarch in Elevation - Null Signal Games

Playtester James joins us to debut a new Anarch identity and provide some insight into the new ways to play the faction that it enables.

nullsignal.games

6

Reposted by James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25

Null Signal Games @netrunner.nullsignal.games · Apr 7

We have reserved a handful of cards which we want to give to people from marginalized groups to reveal. If you consider yourself as belonging to a marginalized group and want to have a card allocated to you, please fill in this form.

forms.gle/oxyiYaTkEGS7...

#ElevationPreviews #Netrunner

Elevation Preview Season Marginalized Groups Previews

We have reserved a handful of cards which we want to give to people belonging to marginalized groups to reveal, just as we did for RWR. We hope this will give them a brief moment at the forefront of t...

forms.gle

7 13

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 8

Hey Game Designers! My team is recruiting 3 new associate designers to the Netrunner design team. If you are interested in working with me and this amazing org on one of the best games of all time, then apply! Happy to answer any questions about the role here! 🎲✂️

nullsignal.games/blog/april-2...

April 2025 Recruitment Drive - Null Signal Games

We're recruiting for our Production, Narrative, Design, Marketing, Convention and Eternal Balance Teams!

nullsignal.games

4 13

James Barnhart ➡️ UnPub25 @jakekbarnhart.bsky.social · Apr 4

Visual absolutely crushed it with this set.

1