5 Great Co-op Board Games for Puzzle Fans
5 Great Co-op Board Games for Puzzle Fans To celebrate the launch of Paint the Roses, our new cooperative puzzle board game set in the world of Alice in Wonderland, we’ve put together a list of 5 great co-op puzzle games for you to try at your next game night....
NorthStar announces rebranding and a new direction
NorthStar announces rebranding and a new direction After almost 20 years of publishing board games, we’re changing our look and sharpening our focus. We’re adapting and ensuring we’re better placed to continue making the games we’re passionate about and that you’ll be playing for years to come. We will now release...
3 key lessons learned designing my first board game and how they could apply to yours
I’m Ben Goldman, designer of Paint the Roses. I’ve been developing board games at NorthStar for 6 years, working on Climate, Most Wanted, and Oceans but this was the first time I’d had nearly complete creative control over the design and I learned a lot through the process. After years...
Reimagining the art in Alice in Wonderland
Our latest title, Paint the Roses, is a brand new cooperative puzzle board game headed to Kickstarter on Oct 12th. Set in the world of Alice in Wonderland the game features brand new art and illustrations reimagining its characters. Today I’m joined by Jacqui Davis the illustrator of Paint the Roses. Jacqui is...
From board game photography to scuba diving, get to know our new marketing manager Ross!
Dominic - You might have noticed a few little changes beginning to occur around our social media and website. We've got big plans for the future so I’m very excited about our new hire, Ross Connell, who joins the NorthStar team as our Community and Marketing manager. His passion for...
North Star Games is Transforming in a Big Way
We're Becoming Laser Focused We used to create games for several vastly different types of customers; for moms & dads too busy to read rules while trying to raising kids, for families with tweens, and for hobby gamers who want an immersive experience. The needs of each of these segments...
Oceans: Legends of the Deep
Oceans is a journey into the unknown, where you discover powerful traits that hardly seem possible in the realm of biology, and yet they turn out to be real. But coming next summer, you will be able to discover things beyond the realm of science...
Memorial to Satish Pillalamarri
My business partner of 17 years, Satish Pillalamarri, recently lost a battle to cancer. His passing has left a big hole in my life. This is a photo memorial to him.
Diversity Statement - mentorship details coming soon
North Star Games strongly supports the voice of black people, who have been systematically targeted by our police, the judicial system, and continually short-thrifted in all aspects of our socio-political system. On May 25th, George Floyd was murdered by a policeman while 3 other officers stood by. This type of...
Two key factors that allowed me to become a game designer with a career in the board game industry (Paint the Roses #6)
This is the sixth post in a series about our upcoming game Paint the Roses, written by the game’s designer, Ben Goldman. I went to art school for graphic design, where I spent as much time designing board games as graphics. Games were how I slacked off. It turned out to...
A new way to visualize game rules, as a network of ideas (Paint the Roses #5)
This is the fifth post in a series about our upcoming game Paint the Roses, written by the game’s designer, Ben Goldman. Nothing keeps people from playing games more than having to learn rules. Imagine how many fewer movies we’d watch if we had to read an instruction manual before watching...
What can dictators teach us about game design? (Paint the Roses #4)
This is the fourth post in a series about our upcoming Alice-in-Wonderland-themed game Paint the Roses. The Dictator's Handbook, by Alastair Smith and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, has a simple proposition: a ruler’s position determines his behavior more than you’d think. What looks like bad behavior from the outside is...
Feedback wanted for a key component in our next game (Paint the Roses #3)
This is the third post in a series about our upcoming Alice-in-Wonderland-themed game Paint the Roses.As we design components for Paint the Roses, we hope readers can help us get one key component right: a sculpted Queen of Hearts who spends the game trying to behead you. We want to...
How to fix the biggest problem in cooperative games (Paint the Roses #2)
This is the second post in a series about our upcoming game Paint the Roses, written by the game’s designer, Ben Goldman. Ask any gamer what the biggest problem with cooperative games is, and they’ll tell you it’s quarterbacking. Quarterbacking is when one player who knows the game well tells...
Why I designed a logic game set in the illogical world of Alice in Wonderland (Paint the Roses #1)
Prototype box art for Paint the Roses This is the first post in a series about our upcoming game Paint the Roses, written by the game’s designer, Ben Goldman. Why has Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland endured? It was published in 1865, the year the American Civil War ended. But we’re...
We're giving away 1000 copies of our board game Evolution to celebrate the launch of Evolution: The Video Game
Four years ago, we raised a bunch of money to make a video game version of our hit strategy game Evolution. Evolution is a super-thematic game where you evolve species by giving them traits, to help them adapt and survive in an ever-changing ecosystem: We've had 5 people working full time on...
Oceans Playtesting Files Open to Everyone
Two weeks ago, we made a call to get playtesters for the next game in the Evolution series, Oceans. Our plan was to get 100 dedicated playtesters. To our surprise we received over 1,200 submissions!
Oceans: the next game in the award-winning Evolution series
The most massive project North Star Games has ever tackled is starting to surface. After going dark for nearly a year, the next stand-alone game in the Evolution series is finally coming up for air.
Got an interesting city idea for Most Wanted?
Have an idea for a city we didn't include? Here are some tips on how to mix Action Cards. If you've come up with a unique combination of Action Cards that you enjoy playing with, share it with others by leaving a comment!
Has a new game genre formed under our noses?
There was a time, let’s call it “the early 2000s”, when there was a sharp distinction between party games and strategy games. That's no longer true. A new kind of game has evolved that spans the gap.