There are many ways to game as there are gamers to play them. There are focused gamers who pick a theme and stick with it most of their lives. There are die hard role players, hard dice roll players and anti dice hard tech players. There are board game aficionados and card game fanatics. There are folks who like to move around the hexes and those who wont map the territory of their playing.

Then there are those who like to mix it all up.

Precious few resources exist for this type of gamer, one such resource though is Warp Spawn Games (http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/index.html)

Warp Spawn Games is home to a motley crew of game developers and players who revel in creating games as much as they do in playing them. The lead mad scientist in this laboratory of gamming is Lloyd Krassner who has been running this site since 1997.

The site itself is spartan but what it lacks in graphics it makes up for in game rules. Lloyd and the Warp Spawn regulars have been churning out game rules at a break neck speed for the last few years, the count for 2001 is now over 70 and climbing.

Game types range from your pure card game to your roll and move board games to hex game to role-playing to combinations of all of the above. There are lots of different types of game mechanics to choose from as well. The rule sets are broken into thematic sections; there are sections for SF, Fantasy, Historical and the infamous Other as well as a place of Universal Game Systems. Each of these sections is further broken down by time period of subtype.

Many of the rule sets you will find are mostly straight text files. Very few have any sort of graphics, maps or unit counters. These are left for others to work on. In some cases there are graphics available either as image files or as Thoth game sets. The big advantage to a Thoth game set in this case is that the individual graphical items are not hidden in the gamebox, they are available to be manipulated and customized in directories.

The good news is that over time and with more people using Warp Spawn Games the more ready-made graphics there are to play with. If you cant find these ready made gems for the rules set you are wanting to play then its up to you to create them and hopefully offer them up to the site so that others can use them as well. A lot of what goes on at Warp Spawn is centered on this act of causal collaboration and sharing.

Sharing the games or variants you have created with the rest of the Warp Spawn crew gets the game played more and thus it becomes a better game for the playing. Play testing games is a powerful tool in the developmental cycle of a game.

The act of making a game has become a game for the Warp Spawn game makers. Trying out combinations of types, tweaking rules sets, merging different mechanics and methods all are evident in the rules sets found here. You can get a glimpse of what goes on in one game developers mind on Llyod’s Brainstroming page. There is also an open channel of discussion between the users and developers. This comes in the form of a message board. It’s a simple text only web message board but it works to get the conversation and critiques flowing.

A Review and Essays page gives players and developers alike a place to work out the workings of the games; the good, the bad and the ugly. Often what doesn’t work can be as helpful to making a better game as what does work. Hearing from the developer and the players is a great way to get a look into some of the games.

The biggest strengths Warp Spawn has going for it is not its flashy graphics (there are none) or its professional publication ready games (these games are as raw as they come, rivaling even CheapAss Games) or even its detailed rule sets (some of these games are as abstracted from their source material as a Pollack canvas). What Warp Spawn has is a down in the muck attitude where the game comes before the detail and the developing is as much fun as the playing. It’s a schloberknocker no holds barred game development site that offers as wide a range of game styles as I have seen represented in any one place. It has a core group of members who are quick to help and very into the idea that everyone is a game developer just looking for a chance to come out and play.

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