The Domino Diaries is a collection of simple family (board) games about placing dominoes. Besides a shared core mechanic (the material are domino tiles and you must place them), the games are all completely unique.

At the time of launch, the project contained 5 finished games. They range from a dead simple game that kids could play to an hour long strategical game, from themes like amusement parks and zoos to building skyscrapers and kingdoms, from common mechanics to experimental ways to use dominoes that I’ve never seen before.

Visit the official project page for the latest list of available games and any other updates.

What’s special?

The first few games of this series were all invented as more of a “joke gift” for a birthday of a family member. When I fleshed out those ideas a bit further, though, I realized they were quite good and I should actually make a proper game for them. The fact that they were both Domino-related made me start a folder called “the domino diaries”.

Apparently, when my mind creates a folder for something or starts calling it a collection, it immediately tries to turn that into truth. Before my “little birthday gifts” were even done, I had 5 more ideas for Domino games. I tried to stay in the flow, as those birthdays were coming up, and just make them all back-to-back.

It is the first collection of games that …

Has this many entries. (At launch, it had 5. Over time, it will probably grow to 15.)
Has no shared or reused code/assets at all. (The core mechanic of domino placement is so “abstract” that any game built on top of it can be wildly different, and so I never saw a good opportunity to reuse entire parts I did for earlier games in later games.)
Was conceived almost a year earlier, but couldn’t be made simply because I was too busy finishing other things. (It’s one of the rare instances where I had a great idea, planned it in the future, and then actually remembered and did it as planned.)

June 26, 2025 professional own project