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Let's track the character sheet for Band-Aids & Bullet Holes over the course of design. "But wait," you say. "The game doesn't have a character sheet!" Well then this should be extra interesting.

Last week I did a thread called 10 Guys Named Barf about how BABH uses pregen characters while still leaving you room to customize them. You do this by writing them custom "calling cards," basically character traits you marker directly onto playing cards. This week let's follow Lockhart.

Lockhart (or Lockhardt back in this first draft) is the Hotline Miami character. I thought it'd be fun to do some pregens that called out particular game influences, so they get a chicken mask and, back at the beginning, a briefcase handcuffed to their wrist.

So here are 2 Lockharts on the first character sheet. Back before I wanna say @randylubin.com suggested writing directly onto cards, I assumed characters would need sheets where you marked which calling card matched to which playing card. So on this first sheet the 6 of spades is "animal head mask".

I was in before writing directly on cards, and I loved these sheets. But writing on cards is so much better. I'm looking forward to playing with it.

I think this whole thread is a great example of iterative game design being as much about taking away or eliminating as adding or fixing

Yeah this gets lost in the thread, but the most magical moment in this evolution was inventing the idea of the powder-keg. It works SO well, one of the most effective parts of the game. And it came from asking "do I really need X?" enough times that a powder-keg shape hole formed in the middle.

Game design is easy, Sam. "Once you have playtested and eliminated bad design, whatever is left (no matter how janky) must be good design."