In 2015, Greater Than Games hosted a game design contest looking for dexterity games. Since my wife was in Switzerland for the summer, I needed something to keep my sanity. Pizza Pronto came out of that summer, which ended up becoming a finalist for the Luci Award in 2016.
In 2016, Button Shy hosted a couple of game design contests for 18 and 9 card games, which lead to my first published designs. Turbo Drift is a real-space racing game where players are using path cards to navigate through a course of obstacles. Skyscrappers is a card stacking game that involves players stacking the same card at the same time. Both games were published in 2017.
Design contests are a great way to get feedback for a design. The deadlines they operate under help me keep focused too. I’m working on a lot of games in one form or another, but the most “official” projects can be found on my BoardGameGeek designer page: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/91795/rob-cramer
Rob Cramer 