the groundhog day project

A few things: I am considering something permanent to celebrate a year of Groundhog Day . A tattoo. This would be my second. I have one small one already. I finally got these videos in a format I could use. When my kids were out of town a month ago, my son sent me these. The first is my daughter Saer (who recently wrote most of an entry for this blog) reciting a certain bit of poetry from the film… The second is my son Kieran and my daughters Saer and Hayley paraphrasing a bit of god day … My screening of Groundhog Day for today is nearly done—he’s hugging Ned right now. I spent a good portion of the day working on an unrelated short film project and a card game—making Groundhog Day The Board Game and buying the blank cards I used for it (and a good many extra because they came in a box of 500), not to mention my obsession this summer with tabletop games, got me in the mood for making games. I won’t say much because a) it’s nothing to do with Groundhog Day and b) I don’t w...

Board game finished, just a couple weeks until Day 365. And, some speech team folk were over tonight--still here actually--to play some games. It is 1:07 AM. I'm starting to feel like there is nothing left to say. Which seems wrong. There is always more to say. Always. ... ... Or not. Perhaps if we'd played Groundhog Day: The Board Game tonight, but we were too busy with a few rounds of We Didn't Playtest This at All , a round of Zombie Dice , Carcassonne , Tsuro , a couple long rounds of Munchkin , and now Cards Against Humanity . I will have to get my kids to try out the Groundhog Day board game again tomorrow. In the meantime, Groundhog Day was entertaining today... a lot of reciting lines along with the film, a lot of complaining about Rita (from both me and my daughter Saer). Some talk (with my sister Bobbie) about dessert for the Day 365 party. Going with some thematic links to the film. ... It isn't that it is late. It isn't that the year of Gro...

The board game is finished… barring some weird detail I might have missed. (For example, the Trading In option is something we—my kids and me—have not playtested yet, so it might be removed. At one point in the developing the way the game played, different types of cards had different point values, and this is a remnant of that idea.) Here what’s in the rule booklet: You are Phil Connors, weatherman. You are trapped in Punxsutawney, PA and every day is Groundhog Day. To escape from the time loop and the small town, you have to become a better person. You do this by collecting particular cards, representing your experiences and your growth. Contents: 1 Rule Booklet 1 Board 1 Spinner 98 Cards 18 PIANO LESSON (brown) 18 EXPERIENCE (purple) 14 SEDUCTION (red) 14 SUICIDE (blue) 14 INSURANCE (yellow) 10 REPORT (green) 10 SAVIOR (orange) Setup: Setup for this game is simple. Unfold the board. Since every turn begins at the same location—the Cherry Street Inn marked with a blue...

Once again, few words, for I was working on this today: That’s the basic arrangement of buildings. They aren’t attached yet. Streets colored in, working on some grass. And, here is some of the mess on the table, including those buildings again. Today’s reason to repeat a day forever: to boil whatever town I am in for the long haul of the time loop down to a few representative buildings then reduce them onto a board game. And, when I get frustrated with the time loop or the town, I will just burn the board game or rip it into pieces or… except then I would have to make the board game all over again just to destroy it. Seems like too much work.

There will be few words typed today, because today I spent a good portion of my day writing some… other stuff related to Groundhog Day . That is, the cards for Groundhog Day: The Board Game are pretty much done—playtested a cards-only version with the kids, didn’t like it, sketched a version of the board design and playtested that as well. The cards weren’t labeled well at that point, just their categories… You can see some cards that didn’t survive the playtesting in those shots—DISCARD, GIVE CARD, FORECAST and an I’M A GOD card that was a great idea that just doesn’t work in a game with categorized cards. And, that big white board in the upper right of those last couple shots—that will soon be the board for the game. I have the design, I just have to… draw it, I guess, on the board. (My copy of All You Need Is Kill , the novel on which Edge of Tomorrow is based, can also be seen in those last two shots. Only got it yesterday, haven’t had time but to glance through it.) ...

Today’s reason to repeat a day forever: to play games, lots of games. Life would be so very boring without them. Tonight, My kids and I played three games. The four of us played Zombie Dice , then Munchkin (but Hayley had to opt out part way through that game to work on a paper for school), then finally the Game of Life . Even Phil Connors realizes games are something worth putting effort into, as you can see in this deleted scene: My character’s name when the game began was something Hispanic—I can’t remember what because he got lost on his second turn and hit his head in a fall in the mountains and came down from the mountains calling himself The Man From the Mountain and he had three furry wives he found in a cave. They were named Dorene, Lorene and Morene. They had one daughter—Symphony—and adopted a son called Clever Boy who was caught burglarizing their lovely little home: Saer, playing as Maria… Johnson or Jackson, won the game. She had too many kids for her one car but p...