Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Lawrence

@chris.eternalstudios.com

300 followers 540 following 360 posts

Board game designer, creator of Propaganda, and avid fan of TTRPGs and indie video games. He/him

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Jan 9

Dan wrote a great review of my game, check it out!

Dan Thurot @danthurot.bsky.social · Jan 9

Of the titles I've played from the Indie Games Night Market, none are as abrasive or unusual as Propaganda, a game about subjective presentations of the truth. My review: spacebiff.com/2025/01/09/p...

Photograph of a Battlefield

Persistent readers will be well aware that I’ve been writing about some of the titles to come out of the recent Indie Games Night Market. Three of them, High Tide, Out of Sorts, and Torchlit,…

spacebiff.com

2 14

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 2h

I increasingly wonder if I should've made Propaganda a TTRPG. Every time I play it with new players everyone's laughing and having a great time, but it's mostly because of what the players themselves bring to the table.

The rules help facilitate that, but don't really cause it directly.

Reposted by Chris Lawrence

Taylor Shuss @drawnonward.bsky.social · 1d

Next up is local friend Mike Trias. His first game was Upstaged, and now he is crowdfunding DJ Icon. The turntable mechanism has always been a highlight and players can use real vinyl to play the game!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/koa...

DJ Icon: A Game About Tactics, Timing and Turntables

DJ Icon is an easy-to-learn, tactical board game where 2-8 players battle to win the DJ Icon Series Championship.

www.kickstarter.com

1 1 3

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 1d

Kulebra was also very good, highly recommend.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 3d

Playtesting in Santa Monica! We got 6 or 7 games to the table so it was a pretty successful afternoon.

Several people playing a board game prototype.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 6d

I've had a drop in attendance for a couple playtesting groups I run, and I've been trying to figure out if it's part of a larger trend or just a natural rhythm (maybe the holiday season started early?).

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 11d

I appreciate BlueSky getting rid of the algorithm, but it does feel like when you post now matters a lot.

Reposted by Chris Lawrence

Zerua Games @zeruagames.bsky.social · 11d

We're closing! Last chance to get our games. Thanks yall!
www.zeruagames.com/shop

2 5

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 12d

I was always pretty happy with how the cover to Propaganda came out. I made it by taking a couple different photos and "rotoscoping" them together.

My one regret is using toy pieces, since some people thought they were in the game. I could've probably found a different "model".

The cover of the board game Propaganda, with a phone aimed at several toy soldiers carefully cropping some of them out of it.

The basis of the cover, a real photo of a phone aimed at a board.

A zoomed in picture of several toy soldiers, where 2 blue soldiers are surrounded by several red ones.

2 6

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 16d

Yes, I'll definitely make sure to bring it! I'm also hoping to sell a print-and-play for it soon.

1 1

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 16d

Ran a playtest of Propaganda on Saturday! This board has a zone that scores only to whoever has the highest sum of dice in it.

(If it's a little off center it's because I was the superpower and had to close my eyes while they played lol.)

The board game Propaganda with several dice rolled onto the board. One player has their phone out.

1 8

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 22d

In one of my recent games there was a hard card to score - just 2 pts per set of A and B, but counting it was awful.

I changed it to a table so now you just count the pairs and then check the table, and it feels so much better.

I think a big part of design is psychology and how players see things.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · 23d

If you're boycotting a company because of an action they took, you need to go back to supporting them if they then reverse course.

A boycott is to make it clear they will get your money only when they do the right thing.

But if you refuse to support them ever again, they have no reason to listen.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 13

New boards for Propaganda! Including one designed by the lovely @neilk-design.bsky.social and one by @drawnonward.bsky.social.

I'm trying out a few different things and playtesting to get things just right, but hopefully they'll be in peoples' hands soon.

Two and a half boards from the board game Propaganda. One has a stripped pattern in the middle, another is asymmetric, and another is out of sight.

1 10

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 13

I will say the first 3ish areas of Hollow Knight are the worst. The game gets a lot better once you get a couple upgrades.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 12

I thought about making a board game called "Monopoly On Violence" and then realized I might run into some trademark issues there.

(Which would be a little funny given how unrelated the content would be.)

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 11

The majority of games I play are other people's games, either at cons or meetups. So I play them once to check them out and then I'm done.

Games I own is definitely better, but I struggle to get people to play them so not much better.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 7

I'm loving the interconnectivity in Silksong so far. I feel like every area has at least 2 ways to reach it, and then a bunch more paths back to earlier areas.

1 3

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 2

Photos of Propaganda from playtesting this past weekend. There are new things in the works...

A photo from the board game Propaganda, of 2 dice on the board, just barely on 2 different scoring spaces. 2 more scoring spaces are barely visible at the top and bottom of the photo.

A photo from the board game Propaganda, of 2 dice on the board on 2 different scoring spaces. Several other scoring spaces are visible in the back.

A photo from the board game Propaganda, of 2 dice on a scoring space. The photo has been edited with various parts of it redacted, implying additional dice may also be present.

1 1 6

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 2

Oh all the time. Sometimes at least it ultimately makes a game easier to get rid of (since you still have a better version) but sometimes I wish I could keep both (but alas, space).

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Sep 2

Played a lot of FlipToons last month. I enjoy the game and quite like the random "I hope I get lucky" feel from it, but it's hard to really give your deck an identity.

Part of me wonders if it's best on BGA where you can probably just knock out 20 games in an hour.

A photo of the game FlipToons, with 6 cards in front and a row of cards further back.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Aug 29

Purging the ol' game collection a little bit. It's rough because I liked playing all these games but ultimately when choosing what to play I never looked at them and went "oh man I want to play this one".

3 board games on a table, Bunny Kingdom, Hamlet, and Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Aug 27

I kinda wish I didn't ping-pong back and forth between "too tired to do anything" and "too excited to sit still" and actually had more of a middle period to get stuff done lol.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Aug 23

I like the super long gun at the bottom they're effectively playing tug of war with.

Chris Lawrence @chris.eternalstudios.com · Aug 23

This would be my exact answer.

As a kid I would close my eyes to run through Castle Town after pulling the Master Sword.

Reposted by Chris Lawrence

POCGamer aka PanzerLion! @pocgamer.com · Aug 22

THIS. I'm already seeing comedy skits that are recycling anti-Black stereotypes and racism using robots/androids etc... as a poorly pallette swapped analogues. Rebranding racism in fictional scenarios/content only reinforces it in reality by normalizing the behaviour.

Nnedi Okorafor, PhD @nnedi.bsky.social · Aug 22

I really don’t care for this new term “clanker”. I sounds and feels way too familiar.

If we don’t address these underlying prejudices, they’ll keep replicating in nastier and nastier ways. It’s not going to die out with the “olds”. The youth have these issues baked into them, too.

17 38