Spam blog comments!

For some reason, one of my recent blog posts (not even a good one, really) has garnered quite a lot of attention lately, but not in a good way.

Since 11/22, there have been 301 spam blog comments on that post (and none on any other post)! That's THREE HUNDRED AND ONE spam comments AND COUNTING -- I have no idea when they will let up.

Fortunately (?), I have comment moderation turned on, so these comments aren't actually being published on that post. However, it means I get about 60 emails a day from the system telling me that some robot has left me a comment.

Amusingly, the vast majority of the spam is highly complimentary, telling me how great my post is, how nice my site looks, or how much I seem to know what I'm talking about on the topic. Then every once in a while there's a negative one, telling me they USED to find useful info n my blog, or saying

"Next time I read a blog, Hopefully it does not disappoint me just as much as this one... I actually thought you'd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you can fix if you weren't too busy looking for attention."

It's easy to tell when a comment is from a robot. They're all completely generic, never referring to any specific content. The formatting is often wonky, with double periods after a sentence, or random line breaks. They use words like "weblog," and they're always posted by "Anonymous." But none of these spam comments have any links to other sites, or advertisements for watches, drugs, or gambling.

I've gotten many spam comments like this before, often in small bursts, and often on old, irrelevant posts. This is the first time I've gotten such a deluge, and all on the same post. To be honest, I don't really understand the goal of these robo-comments. I guess the point is to trick me into whitelisting the sender, who might then lie in wait for a few weeks before suddenly posting more comments with spam links? I recall spambots doing something similar when I ran the Board Game Designers Forum -- they would create an account, lie dormant for 2 or 3 weeks, then suddenly make a handful of spam posts (before promptly getting banned by me).

It sucks that spam is even a thing, really. It sucks to get spam blog comments, spam emails, and even physical spam in the mail. But what sucks the most is the thought that if they're doing it, it must work. The whole point of spam is that you cast a bazillion hooks, and you only need to catch 1 fish to make it worthwhile.

If only the entire population would just not click, then maybe over time the phenomenon would fade away. But with how easy and inexpensive virtual spam is to produce and send, I think we'll be stuck with it forever. Though I do still wonder how physical spam is really worth the actual cost of printing and sending out all of that mail...

TL;DR

If you leave me a legitimate blog comment, please make sure you're logged in, because if it comes from "Anonymous" then it's probably going straight into the spam bin with the hundreds of other robo-comments!

Essen 2018 demo space

6 years ago, Michael and I attended Essen for the first time. I've been back a few times since (I missed out last year, and maybe one other year since 2012). Over time, TMG has grown and has striven to become a well known publisher, not just in the US, but overseas as well.

In recent Essen outings, we have teamed up and shared space with European partners, affording us a bigger presence, better demo space, and in some cases a small office to share for meetings. This year appears to be TMG's biggest Essen presence yet! This time we're partnering with Game Brewer, with whom we have several co-publications.

Check out these awesome pics of the TMG/Game Brewer space!

This panoramic pic is the demo space, with 15 tables (room for 30 demos, probably). People will be playing TMG and Game Brewer games there non-stop for the next 4 days straight. You can see the giant banners for games like Trade on the Tigris and Ghosts of the Moor (TMG original titles), Gentes (an import we did a deluxe version of), and on the far right you can see a TMG logo suspended above our sales area. On the left you can see giant posters for some of those same games, plus Chimera Station (which I worked on heavily) and other co-publications such as Gugong.

This is the TMG product area being set up, where people will be able to buy our games. I worked heavily on Pioneer Days (in the middle on the bottom 2 shelves), and on Steam Works (upper right shelf, left side, as well as the bottom right shelf, behind that big box). And of course on the right-middle shelf you can see a bunch of my card game, Eminent Domain, and expansions (Escalation, Exotica, and Oblivion).

I can also spot some of our other titles, such as Scoville, Guilds of London, Exodus Fleet, Okey Dokey, Thief's Market, Zooscape, Balloon Pop, Cthulhu Realms, and the Essen release, Ghosts of the Moor.

Dargon sits atop everything, standing guard :)

At Essen, some of the bigger booth areas have little office spaces, for meetings and to store things. TMG has shared an office space in the past with another company. I believe this year we have this one all to ourselves. The giant posters are for some of our games -- Ghosts of the Moor is a brand new title releasing at Essen by some of the most famous designers in Germany. Jungli-La came out earlier this year, by a well known Asian designer that we've worked with before. Both are light, small box, family friendly games.

This is one of the things that Mike and I have been working towards since we first went to Essen 6 years ago, and in a way for the last 9.5 years since we started publishing games. I started this journey 15 years ago when I first dipped my toes into game design. I am sad to miss out on Essen this year, but I hope to be able to go back soon!

Podcast appearances

I've mentioned before that I enjoy listening to podcasts -- especially game industry and design focused ones. I've even entertained the thought of getting into it myself, though not much became of that for a while. But eventually it led to The Argument Hour with Seth and TC. We've only done two episodes so far, and then my schedule went a little bit awry when my baby was born.

Not too long ago, I hit the podcast circuit to promote TMG's upcoming 10th anniversary, and the accompanying kickstarter for Homesteaders 10th Anniversary Edition and the New Beginnings expansion. And I've been invited on a few other podcasts in the past as well. Here's a list of all of them, mostly so I can find and share them easily. Feel free to have a listen and enjoy them!

On Board Games: The Argument Hour

With Seth and TC

I mentioned that TC and I have done 2 episodes of The Argument Hour:

5/07/18: In the first Argument Hour, TC and I threw down about "the Alpha Player problem," and I explained a distinction I see between 2 types of cooperative games. Afterwards we talked about Kingdomino, how it works, and the types of people who may or may not enjoy it.

6/07/18: In the second Argument Hour, TC and I got into it about different forms of "going back to the well" -- iterating on a design, honing the mechanisms, and standing on the shoulders of giants, vs lazy rehashing, or downright plagiarism. Afterwards we went over The Voyages of Marco Polo.

On 10/5/18 TC and I took a bit of a break when my son Corbin was born, but we just recorded a 3rd episode about the use of mechanics that rely on loss aversion in games, such as loans, and we mentioned a related (?) topic, scoring leftovers at the end of a game. We ran out of time to do a game review, so we skipped it this time. I'm not sure when that one will air, hopefully I'll remember to come back and link it when it does.
(podcast went live 12/3/18)

On 10/17/18 we recorded another episode about cognitive load, spurred by this blog post by Jeff Warrender. We ran long again, and couldn't really decide on a game to review, so we skipped that segment again. Since I haven't really been playing many games lately, we might just reserve the review segment until we actually have something we'd like to talk about.
(podcast went live 2/18/19)

The TMG Podcast

With Lance Myxter

I've actually been on The TMG Podcast several times:

5/26/17: On episode 003 I joined Lance to talk about How I got into game design, about several of my early designs, and about what led to founding TMG

6/30/17: On Episode 007 I joined Lance again to talk about the Origins convention, testing out new games, and my latest creation (that was on Kickstarter at the time), Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done.

10/27/17: On my third sit-down with Lance, we discussed Essen 2017 releases in general, and TMG's offerings: Exodus Fleet, Harvest, and Pioneer Days, with a few detours to discuss some of TMG's older games as well.

4/13/18: I was on the podcast one more time ahead of the kickstarter project for Homesteaders 10th Anniversary Edition, as well as the New Beginnings expansion. We talked about the beginnings of TMG, as well as plans for TMG's 10th anniversary, such as the revival of our launch titles, Homesteaders, and my game Terra Prime, which is coming back as Eminent Domain Origins. I also explained Ultimate Frisbee to Lance, who seemed to confuse it with disc golf :)

10/5/18: I came back on the podcast to talk about game development in general, but specifically about Belfort, as the kickstarter for the Belfort reprint (with the Expansion expansion and a brand new expansion) was ongoing.

10/8/18: Tasty Take #1: Since Halloween is coming up. Lance asked me if I like scary movies, and if so, which is my favorite.

10/10/18: Tasty Take #2: I talked about playing Eminent Domain and Dice Forge on BoardGameArena.com


And speaking of TMG's 10th anniversary...

TMG 10th Anniversary Promotion

I got myself invited onto a handful of podcasts to promote the 10th anniversary of TMG, and the launch of the 10th anniversary edition of Homesteaders. Here are those appearances:

Hooked On Geek

With Greg Dixon and Stephanie 

4/23/18: In episode 17 of Hooked on Geek, I talked to Greg Dixon and Meeple Lady about everything from how I got into gaming and the game industry, to my engineering background and how that relates to game design and development, to the few published games I've been able to play lately (Bunny Kingdom, Santa Maria), to TMG's 10th anniversary.

Who, What, Why

With Mike Bonet

4/22/18: Season 19, episode 1 of the Who, What, Why podcast began with me reminiscing about the biggest disappointment of my game design career thus far, a Three Musketeers themed game called All For One that I worked on with the original designer David Brain, and how that game basically launched my career as a game developer, and shaped the process I use to develop games. We talked a little about my game design blog, some of my design articles (such as the one on game end dynamics), and about the upcoming reboot of Terra Prime as Eminent Domain Origins

The Brawling Brothers

With Josh and Brandon

5/1/18: For a short segment in the middle of episode 72, the Brawling Brothers took a break from talking about The Grimm Forest and IPs in board games to talk to me about TMG and the Homesteaders 10th anniversary edition / expansion kickstarter.

The State of Games

With Chris Kirkman, Darrel Louder, and TC Petty 

5/1/18: This was a long one, and we covered a lot of miscellaneous topics, but the meat of the podcast was about special, deluxe, or limited editions of games. Also, TC explains why everyone should just enjoy Avengers: Infinity War rather than be critical about it.

The Good, the Board, and the Ugly

With Joe Sallen and T.C. 

5/2/18: After Joe reviewed Eminent Domain and Oblivion, I explained some of the background thinking behind both the base game and the new expansion. I also told some of my favorite amusing stories about the game, and I described my Eminent Domain Legacy tournament format.

What I'm Playing Now Podcast

With Joe Leuzzi

5/6/18: Joe interviewed me on some more obscure history, including my thoughts on role playing games, the 30+ hour holiday game marathons I used to host, and the first real game I worked on: All For One, and another of my prototypes: Alter Ego. The topic of Ultimate Frisbee came up, and I explained the challenges I see with trying to capture the feel of a sport in a tabletop game. And of course I promoted Homesteaders, New Beginnings, and Terra Prime / Eminent Domain Origins.

Go Forth and Game

With Tom Gurganus 

5/18/18: I talked with Tom a little bit about the upcoming TMG titles I was working on at the time (Embark, Old West Empresario), as well as the history of Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (and a little about the expansion I was working on at the time). Then we talked about the difference between game design and game development, and due to lack of specificity in the term "developer," I proposed a new term to replace it: "gamegineer." Next, I explained my philosophy that games ought to stand up to competitive play -- not all games are meant to, but all things being equal, a game is only better if it DOES hold up to competitive play. And finally, I offered some tips for pitching to publishers, and ran down a few of the games I'm working on (Alter Ego, Riders of the Pony Express, Automatown, Deities and Demigods, and the next TMG project I'm working on: Back To Earth)

Views From The Outer Rim

With Clive Lovett 

5/21/18: Views from the Outer Rim is less a gaming podcast and more of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy podcast. I knew Clive from back in my BGDF chat days, and he invited me on to talk about my sci-fi themed games. I ended up talking about a wide variety of things on that podcast!

Other/Older podcast appearances

Go Forth And Game

With Tom Gurganus 

5/10/19: Tom got me talking about topics of interest to game designers en route to conventions - how to prepare to pitch your game, and what to expect at a pitch meeting, and stuff about sell sheets and prototypes too.

Breaking Into Board Games

With Gil Hova, Ian Zang, and Tony Miller 

12/30/15: Gil, Ian, and Tony asked me about how I broke into the industry, specifically into game development.

Board Games Insider - Interview

With Ignacy Trzewik 

9/21/16: Ignacy interviewed me for a special interview series, and we talked about the difference between new and novel mechanisms, and refined versions of existing ones. I got my first chance to mention Crusaders at the end, which had only just been green lit at the time.

Board Game Design Lab

With Gabe Barrett 

6/28/17: Gabe asked me some questions about ways to take a game from good to great.

Board Game Design Lab - Bonus Round

With Gabe Barrett 

6/30/17: Gabe and I discussed the value of playing games more than once each, both as a player, and as a designer.

On Board Games

With Isaac Shalev 

9/18/17: Isaac and I discussed a proposed entry into the game designer glossary he's putting together: Fragility in games (and the opposite, which would be "robust"). We discussed some older/classic games such as Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, Container, and A Few Acres of Snow, as well as more contemporary titles such as Hanabi, Pandemic, Dominion, and others. Isaac prompted me to talk about an instance where I, as a developer, removed a source of fragility from Scoville, and we also talked about what we can do as designers to add or avoid fragility in our games.

Let's Level Up

With Rick 

2/2/14: Rick asked me about my creative process, and what TMG had planned for 2014 (and beyond).

A Dash of Science

With Chris Birkinbine 

9/5/17: Chris had me on his not-game-centered podcast to talk about "the science of game design," creating and developing board games.

Wurfel Reviews interview on YouTube

With Alina

10/20/16: Alina prompted me with interview questions (she did her homework!) about the difference between design and development, kickstarter and what games are suitable for it, and my upcoming games.

Meeple Nation

With Ryan, Brent, and Nathan 

4/27/16: The Meeple Nation guys interviewed Michael, Andy, at SaltCon 2016, which began with me talking about my upcoming games: the plan to revamp Terra Prime as Eminent Domain Origins, and my next non-Eminent Domain related game, Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done.

4/28/15: This SaltCon 2015 interview went into detail about Eminent Domain and the at-the-time upcoming expansion, Exotica.

I, Geek podcast

With Mark and Sten 

11/29/15: At BGGcon 2015, I sat down with Mark and Sten to talk everything gaming... from what gateway game got me into the hobby, to inspirations for games I've designed, to a sneak peak at the games I was developing at the time.

Legends of Tabletop on YouTube

With John Haremza

7/28/17: In the summer of 2017, I was on the Legends of Tabletop to talk about my upcoming game, Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, which was on kickstarter at the time.

Legends of Tabletop on YouTube

With John Haremza on YouTube

11/01/16: We stated this interview talking about Rincon, the game convention I ran for 5 years, which had just occurred at the time. Then we bounced around between my history at TMG, "competition" in the game industry, how I got into game design and how I go about it, what exactly a game developer does, do I have a design style?, some games I was working on at the time, and various other topics.

Arizona Public Media

11/29/15: A public radio station interviewed Karen Arnold Ewing and I about Rincon 2016, the game convention I started up in 2012. That was the last year I was the convention chair before handing the reins over to Karen and her husband Tony, who have made the convention bigger and better than I ever did!

The Dice Tower

2/29/12: I was on The Dice Tower episode 246, debating Eminent Domain vs Core Worlds with Stephen Buonocore, way back when both TMG and Stronghold Games were in their youth!

Written interviews

Go Forth And Game

With Tom Gurganus 

10/11/17: Tom got me talking about publishing Deluxified games, designing games in general, and specifically about upcoming EmDo content.

Go Forth And Game

With Tom Gurganus 

4/1/14: Tom interviewed Michael and I about 5 years of TMG.

Dice Hate Me / Go Forth And Game

With Tom Gurganus 

12/14/11: Tom, in conjunction with Dice Hate Me Games, interviewed me way back in 2011 about design advice, how different parts of Eminent Domain came to pass, what it was like to be on kickstarter (at the time it was less ubiquitous), and what other games I was working on, both for TMG and my own designs.

Go Play Listen

With Chris Marling 

12/19/16: Chris does a series of Q&A interviews called Designer's Dozen, where he'll ask a designer a dozen questions about designers they admire, the best and worst aspects of designing, tips, and other miscellaneous design related stuff. 

Games are more than a main mechanism!

One of my favorite genres of game is the typical middle weight Euro. You know, those games that generally last about 45-60 minutes, have a clever main mechanism, a few supporting mechanisms, and not much else. Many games like this come out every year, some recent examples are Ulm with its sliding action tile grid, Barenpark with its tetromino placement, and Noria with its action wheel. Some of the games I've worked on recently fall squarely in this category as well, such as Pioneer Days with its dice draft, and my own Crusaders: Thy Will be Done with its Mancala-rondel. I like these games because it's fun to see clever new mechanics, and this genre often gets right to the point, showcasing the central mechanism in a fairly elegant way.

The down side of this genre is that so many games in it lack longevity, they're kind of disposable. Often times you play a middle weight Euro, and you find it pleasant enough. You enjoy it, maybe you play it a second time, but then you move on. The creme of the crop in this genre may stick with you, but many of these games are fairly forgettable. That doesn't mean they weren't good fun when you played them, and it doesn't mean that they're bad games or aren't worth your time, it just means that they didn't stand out among the crowd of new games. Blame it on the Cult of the New if you'd like, but it's a rare game in this category that continues to be played once the hype of its release has died down.

That's the thing about these middle weight Euros... the main mechanism can be very clever, but whether the game shines or not, whether the game is memorable or not, depends on how the supporting mechanisms work. As a designer, once you come up with a fantastic main mechanism, it's easy to get so focused on that hook that the rest of the game falls by the wayside and doesn't live up to its potential.

Nowadays, a new and clever central mechanism could satisfy the Cult of the New, garner positive reviews from board game media influencers in a rush to get their review up first, or even win awards from judges who just play once or twice. But for a game to have real longevity, that's not enough. The supporting mechanisms, and the rest of the game, need to be good and polished as well. So if you're designing a game in this genre, take this to heart... no matter how new, novel or clever your central mechanism is, don't neglect the rest of the game!

Come November, Crusaders will finally be hitting store shelves. I'm confident the Mancala-rondel mechanism is strong. I just hope I've done a good enough job with the rest of the game that it rises to the top of the genre rather than fading into obscurity!

Eminent Domain is online at Board Game Arena!

I'm happy to announce that as of yesterday, my card game, Eminent Domain, is available for online play at BoardGameArena.com! Check it out, it's free to play, and they did a great job with the implementation.

I've been playing a lot of games at BGA over the last couple of months, including:

Eminent Domain
I got early access and did some testing for bugs. The implementation is gorgeous, and the game holds up! They've included the 5 scenarios that came with Eminent Domain: Microcosm, and very soon they might add the 6 from Escalation that only require base game cards to use.

Tzolkin: the Mayan Calendar
An old favorite that I hadn't played in a while. The timing aspect of the placing/retrieving of workers is ingenious. After playing a lot (and watching the top players' games), I'm actually a little disappointed in the game balance, but it's still a very fun game.

Stone Age
A classic worker placement game that I haven't played in a long time.

Russian Railroads Another good worker placement game that I haven't played in a while. It's neat how you score point income rather than just points, so rushing to scoring conditions can really add up! You can also pull of some fun combos with the reward tiles.

Dice Forge
This "dice building" game is a new one for me. I find it well balanced and fun. I like it best head-to-head, and I wish there were more cards to choose from each game (and more variety in what they do), but I hear that might be coming in an expansion.

Sobek
I own this, but haven't played it in years. Another good one for head-to-head play. I didn't even realize it's by Bruno Cathala!

Dice drafting + worker placement?

Thinking some more about the new dice drafting idea I had the other day, and discussing it with my friend Steve, some new thoughts have come to light.

Actually, Steve suggested something that I don't think I've seen before... combining dice drafting with worker placement. Suppose the cards you play (perhaps from a public supply) have worker spots on them, and after drafting a die, you place it in a worker spot. You'd have a home spot that said "collect resources according to the die," and then the cards would have other actions on them. Perhaps there's a coin resource, and placing a die costs PIP coins, but the effect is often based on the pip value as well, so a higher pip value means a stronger action, but at a higher cost.

With that in mind, I think I like the format of 2 dice per resource type, plus 2 dice for "build," and I like the idea of a face up public pool of buildings to choose from (like in Lords of Waterdeep).

Just wanted to jot this down so I don't forget!

Movies nowadays, Ready Player One, and how I would have written Solo: a Star Wars Story

I wouldn't call myself a die-hard fan, but I like Star Wars pretty well. So like many people, I saw Solo: a Star Wars Story on opening weekend.

I'm 43 years old, and I saw the original trilogy in theaters. Many people my age grew up thinking Han Solo was one of the coolest characters around. We waited 30 years for Episode 7, and if the internet is anything to go on, many big fans of the original movies were split on whether the new films were worth the wait, or whether they "ruined their childhood." Personally, I would have preferred if they had done the new movies a bit differently, but it's not really up to me, so I have tried to enjoy the movies as they are.

For the most part, I think the reason I don't like the newer movies as much is less to do with whether or not it feels like Star Wars, and more to do with my distaste with how big budget movies tend to be made nowadays. To me they feel rushed from action scene to action scene, with the minimum character development they can get away with. I don't see the passage of time done well, which hinders story development and any semblance of an epic feel.

My go-to movie to show what I mean is Starship Troopers. In that movie, we follow the main characters from their utter beginning in high school, through their respective neophyte military careers, through their veteran status, where they have gained a ton of experience, learned, and grown a lot. I feel like Starship Troopers does a great job of this, and I feel like those characters really did grow and learn over time.

I recently saw Ready Player One, and while I enjoyed the movie, I don't even consider it to be the same story as the book, and it's not nearly as strong or epic a story. Much of the reason for that, I think, is because events just sort of happen to the characters. They're thrown from scene to scene in quick succession, and the whole movie takes place over the span of what, 1 day? Without time for the events to sink in, the characters don't learn anything, they don't grow, they hardly even have any agency. In the book, events occur over big lengths of time. Wade's relationship with Artemis grows over many interactions over time (never mind how sort of stalker-y it is). Solving the puzzles takes time and thought. Wade spends time hiding from IOI, planning his infiltration of it, etc. It's not all just immediate idea-to-resolution.

After reading Ready Player One, I also read Ernest Cline's other book, Armada. To me, Armada feels like an earlier book, which was probably written first, and some parts of which Cline probably built upon when writing Ready Player One. One of the things that made me feel like Armada was an early attmempt was that the entire epic-seeming story takes place over the span of 1 day. People can't process such epic events, learn from them, and grow over such a short timeframe -- it doesn't sound right, it doesn't feel right, and it doesn't come across right.

But that seems to be how they make movies nowadays. Maybe not every movie, but the big budget blockbuster movies seem to go that way. Certainly the new Star Wars movies have. And that brings us back to Solo: a Star Wars Story.

Let me be clear, I am exactly the audience for a movie about a young Han Solo. I heard a great point made, that it really should have been a Lando Calrissean movie -- we met Han in a dive bar, and nobody cares how someone ended up a loser in a dive bar, but when we met Lando, he was king of a mining colony, and it would be cool to see how a lowlife grifter became king of a mining colony. That may have been a better idea to start with, but I'm still in for a Han Solo origin story. There are all kinds of things they talk about or hint at in the original trilogy that would be fun to see on the big screen, even if they're not new and surprising.

I went into Solo with low expectations as far as that origin story goes. I fully expected a modern-style movie, with the characters rushing from action scene to action scene, but at least it would be in the Star Wars universe, with cool Star Wars stuff, and plenty of references to the original Star Wars movies. In that I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the movie well enough, but it's definitely not how I would have written a Han Solo back story...

In my view, there are certain obvious items that must be included:
* The Kessel Run -- what is it, and how did Han Solo do it in 12 Parsecs (what does that even mean)?
* Chewbacca -- how did Solo earn his life debt?
* Millenium Falcon -- what happened between Han and Lando that resulted in Han owning the Falcon?
* What was Han like when he was younger, and how did he become a smuggler?
* How did he become the scoundrel we meet on Tatooine, who we know has the strength of character to become a hero of the rebellion?
* And perhaps we should see him drop his cargo at the first sign of an imperial  starship (because hey, even he gets boarded sometimes).

To be fair, Solo: a Star Wars Story did address most of that, but to be honest I don't like how they did. It's possible that some of the story was taken from or inspired by the Star Wars expanded universe stuff that I'm not familiar with, but that doesn't make it any better. So how would I have liked to see the story go?

For starters, the Kessel Run... I would have preferred to see it be established that the Kessel Run is some well known thing in smuggler society, like a dangerous route (via Kessel) from one important area to another, a route so dangerous that the Empire doesn't bother patrolling it. So smugglers who want to avoid imperial entanglements do a "Kessel Run," through this longer, more dangerous route. The more brazen the pilot, the more dangerous route they're willing to take, and the less out of the way they need to go, and it's well known that the shortest, reasonably safe path is on the order of 20 parsecs (and that takes a skilled pilot with some savvy navigation software or whatever). Maybe this is well known because for fun (or for gambling), smugglers regularly attempt to outdo each other, with the leaderboards in bars around the galaxy showing 20 parsecs as the current record.

I would like to see that established early in the movie, perhaps referenced later as well, to give the idea that it's a well known, ubiquitous thing, but it shouldn't be a record that Han Solo is out to break. I'm not sure he should even start out as a smuggler. You see, Han Solo tends to sort of bumble through life, occasionally doing big things almost by accident. So instead of being some hotshot smuggler pilot, I'd like to have seen him sort of fall into the role of smuggling something for Jabba the Hutt, drop his cargo when approached by an imperial starship, flee along the dangerous "Kessel Run" path, and while fumbling with the computer and trying to escape the imperials (not a stupid space squid), he accidentally takes a shortcut that nobody in their right mind would try on purpose. But due to luck and the fact that he's inherently a decent pilot, and maybe the Falcon's really good navigation system, he manages to survive, making the Kessel Run in only 12 or so parsecs. Of course when we see him on Tatooine a decade later, he's bragging about the feat, but it's not something he did on purpose, nor something he'd likely try again. Some of that is similar to what happened in Solo, but I'm not a fan of the space squids, and I don't think they established the "Kessel Run" as a thing people would be talking about years later.

Next, Chewbacca. Simply put, my understanding is that Han somehow rescued Chewbacca, and as a result Chewie owes Han a life debt, and so follows him around and they became friends. Solo did show something to that effect, and I didn't mind how they treated that relationship per se, but I might have written it a little differently. First off, the rescue in Solo didn't seem like that big a deal. Would that type of thing justify a "life debt"? Also, Han did it to save himself as much as to save Chewie. I think it would have been cool if, maybe again almost by accident or as an afterthought, Han did something to really save Chewbacca (and other Wookiees?) in a big way, but didn't take Chewie with him and be buddies right away. Like maybe he somehow saves Chewie's life, then later he's in trouble, and Chewie is there to help out. Then Han's like "thanks" and leaves again, but later hooks up with Chewie again and is like "why are you following me around?" And Chewie says he owes him a life debt, and Han's like "whatever *shakes head and goes about his business* -- maybe he lets Chewie tag along (like in Solo, when he finds out he's a decent co-pilot). Like Han and Luke in A New Hope, I could see Han initially being reluctant friends with Chewie, but then having the hairball grow on him over time.

The Millennium Falcon and Lando. I think Solo did a pretty good job with Lando. Or at least Donald Glover did. But the poker style game where Han won first lost to Lando due to cheating, and later won due to counteracting his cheating, was disappointing. Who is this guy, and why is he so confident at this game? James Bond spent an hour of screen time in Casino Royal "outplaying" Le Chiffre at poker, and if you ask me, they blew that (there was a great hand where Bond DID out play him, but that didn't amount to anything in the movie. I found it anticlimactic when Bond finally won simply by drawing the best possible hand, not due to any skill). If that's the way they were going to go, I would have preferred to see some reason to believe Han could outplay Lando, or some reason he thought he could anyway. Lando cheating was probably good (I think Han accused him of that in the original trilogy), and catching him cheating like he did in the movie was good too, I just didn't like the "oh, poker? Turns out I'm like, really good at poker!" (I know it wasn't "poker" -- but that Sabat game or whatever it's called seemed pretty similar to poker to me). All they really had to do in the movie is show Han playing Sabat in the beginning of the movie to hustle people out of their portions or something and that would have played better for me. Other than that, I think the movie did an OK job of summarizing things between Lando and Han, I guess.

Overall, I wouldn't have made Han Solo's back story a heist movie. I think I would have liked to see Han as a more regular (if mischievous) guy, who for one reason or another gets in over his head. I guess Solo did portray him as trusting, and then he got betrayed, and maybe as a result he's all hard and cold by the time we see him in Mos Eisley. I guess that works, but I'm not sure I liked how it went down in the movie.

I'm no screenwriter, so I don't know that I could really write a Han Solo origin story as a movie, but I do think I would have preferred to see some of the things I mentioned in lieu of some of the stuff that they did in Solo: a Star Wars Story (preferably done by someone who's good at writing movies). And I would like to see the action unfold over time, not over a day or a week, but over enough time the the actions have some long term effect and meaning.

[YANGI] Dice Drafting - collect or pay?

A thought crossed my mind the other day about a dice drafting game where it could be good to get either high numbers OR low numbers. The basic idea was that after drafting your die, you would choose to either collect a number of resources according to its value, or you would spend that number of resources to purchase something instead.

That thought quickly developed into having 1 die for each of several resources, and EITHER choosing one of them to collect that many of that resource, or else playing a card which has a cost in some subset of the resources. For example, if the dice are brown/wood, gray/stone, white/marble, and yellow/gold, and the roll were brown-2, gray-3, white-5, yellow-5, you could either collect 5 gold resources, or you could play a card that costs wood and stone for 2 wood and 3 stone.

Perhaps it's not a dice draft per se, maybe taking that 5 gold doesn't preclude someone else from doing the same. Or maybe it is a draft, and that yellow-5 can only be chosen by 1 player. Either way, the overall mechanism sounds like it's starting to shape up.

This morning I thought about an alternate mode of this mechanism... let's consider custom dice (which might be cool to help control the relative supply of the various resources, and to help control how many resources can be collected at a time), each face showing some number of the resource, and a + , a - , or a 0. This would also require a pricing chart, kinda like the one in Clans of Caledonia, indicating the current value of each resource. Each round you would roll the dice, maybe it's 2 dice for each resource, and adjust the chart based on the +s or -s that show up. If both wood dice came up with a + sign, the value of wood would go up twice. In addition to the resource dice, there would be two Build dice, that allow you to play a card in hand, with the additional cost of X (one side would show +1 of each of the different resources, one side would show +2 of any resource(s), and the last side could be no additional cost).

Then it could be a true draft, where you roll the dice, adjust the values, then take turns drafting them (collecting resources or building cards). Again, the cards would indicate which resources are required, you'd have to check the chart to see how many of those resources need to be paid. Note also that a card could list stone twice, which means you have to pay the amount of stone shown on the chart x2. I'm not sure what these cards would do exactly, but presumably it would be things like "+1 of a particular resource when you take that resource," or "score points based on some condition." Presumably the cards would be worth points in various ways (either directly, or via some set collection, or based on some condition).

This format sounds a little less elegant, but I think I see it working a little better in my mind (at first blush anyway).

A side thought I had was that if you collect resources and spend resources based on the die rolls, it might be the case that you spend more time collecting resources than you do actually advancing the game, so maybe when collecting resources it would be good to get an extra one, just so that you don't have to spend as many turns building up resources before you get to actually get to use them. I guess in that last format it doesn't matter as much, since the payment amount isn't based directly on the die roll.

Worker Learning progress -- what makes Worker Placement tick?

Worker Learning Progress

I haven't posted much about some of my latest game ideas here. In the case of my Worker Learning game, I've only made these two posts in this blog. I had written elsewhere about it, in a Slack channel, but unfortunately it was an unpaid channel, and the general chatter in that Slack drowned my posts about this game... they allegedly still exist, but someone would have to pay to access them at this point.

My previous posts are not very descriptive of the game, just the main "Worker Learning" mechanism which I described as a sort of cross between my own Deck Learning mechanism from Eminent Domain, and the basic card leveling mechanism in Solforge. So before I go on, here's a brief description of the game I'm working on (which could use a good title, leave your suggestions in the comments below!):

Similar to the theme of Lords of Waterdeep, in this game you will send adventurers out to prepare for, and then go on, adventures. Unlike Lords of Waterdeep however, your adventurers aren't just a resource you collect and spend. Rather they are workers you will place round after round, and after each adventure, they will level up and get better at their job.

You see, you'll have workers in different types, corresponding to typical character classes in the fantasy role playing genre (fighter, cleric, mage, and thief). My current thought is that you'll have two of each type of worker, one starting at level 1, and the other starting at level 2. You will send these workers to various action spaces on the board to collect resources they will need to go on an adventure. Like The Manhattan Project, instead of placing a worker on your turn, you'll have the option of recalling your workers, at which time they will go on their adventures (and side quests), and increase in level.

The various worker spaces will behave differently depending on the type of worker you send, or their level. Higher level workers will be able to go to occupied spaces, so long as they're the highest level worker at that space. Certain spaces may be inaccessible unless the worker is at least a certain level.

I feel like this worker learning mechanism has a good chance to produce a nice dichotomy between trying to slowly level your entire work force evenly, and quickly increasing just a few of your workers to the maximum level. I very much like the idea of his mechanism, but I was running out of impetus to fill out data details and construct a prototype to try, so the game has been on the back burner for a while. Recently I was chatting with my old friend Rick from the Board Game Designers Forum. Rick has a couple of published titles under his belt, and I've seen a few of his other promising prototypes as well. I asked Rick if he'd be interested in jumping in on this project with me, and with his help, the game has finally been making some progress! Watch this space for more info if and when the game progresses any further.

What Makes Worker Placement Games Tick?

Now that I've been thinking more about this game, I've been wondering what it is that makes for a good Worker Placement game. What keeps them from being a dry, "collect resources, turn in resources" exercise.

I asked my friend and fellow TMG developer Andy Van Zandt what he thought made WP games good:

I think most good Worker Placement games have something that causes tension on top of the math. Growing/shrinking resource pools, inbound tragedies, combos that are particularly dangerous if someone else completes them, etc. Basically stuff that makes people have to re-evaluate the perceived tactical benefits of placement spaces regularly. It's usually not the resource conversion that's interesting, it's balancing resource conversion with the changing environment.

Stone Age is a great Worker Placement game, and it features an uncertainty with each worker placed to gather resources. Sending 3 workers to get clay doesn't mean you get 3 clay. In fact, you might not get ANY clay, or you might get as many as 4 clay. In addition to the actions of the other players, you need to contend with the uncertainty of how many resources you'll get with each placement.

Lords of Waterdeep is another solid Worker Placement game, and very accessible. One complaint that can be levied at it is that it's a little bit "flat" (as Andy puts it), the resource collection and conversion is too straightforward and calculable. I don't want my game to suffer from that. I don't know if the leveling up of workers will give the game enough texture. So... how do we ensure that Worker Learning isn't "too flat?" That's the question, isn't it!

An example of something that might help in that regard might be this idea. Rick suggested that the adventures could reward you with a special "spoils" resource. This resource would be worth 1 point each at the end of the game, or you could use a certain worker space on the board to have an audience with the King, turning in your spoils for extra points.

Rick's idea was that there could be some tension between cashing in your spoils early, while you've got the chance, and doing it later, after collecting more, for a bigger score (the reward might be triangular with number of spoils). This might add texture because while you can calculate how many spoils you'll have, it might be uncertain whether or not you'll have access to that worker space to cash them in.

I'm not sure that goes quite far enough, but it made me think of something else that might help. It reminded me of the shields in Louis XIV, which come in 8 different suits, and which you draw at random. Each shield in that game is worth 1 point, and there's a bonus point awarded to the player with the most shields in each suit. Imagine if the spoils worked like that... after each adventure, you draw the indicated number of Spoils tokens from a bag, and they come in multiple types. At the King's Court worker space you could cash in sets of one type for triangular points. That would raise questions like "do I cash in now, or wait and see if my next adventure earns me more matching spoils?"

Either way, later in the game, the space is likely more valuable for everyone, and more hotly contested. With the Louie XIV version, you'd have more reason to go to that space more than once, as you could easily collect a few each of 2 or 3 types of spoils, and you'd want to be able to turn in more than one set.

Will that sort of thing help keep the game from being flat? I'm not sure, but it sounds like it has potential. It might be too fiddly. And this is just 1 action space... might the other, more standard action spaces need to be more uncertain?

Let me know what specific feature you like best about your favorite Worker Placement games in the comments below.

Blast from the past! Applying "basic strategy" to Riders of the Pony Express

For YEARS I've been searching for an article I once read about basic strategy, why it's not always bad to make a trade that's not obviously in your own favor. Nobody seemed to recognize it when I described the article, or the hypothetical gem trading game used in it as an example. Google searches had left me high and dry. At times I started to wonder if the article never really did exist...

The other day I was exchanging emails with my friend Rick, who's come on board to help me with my Worker Learning game, and he referenced (and linked to) an old article about "bombs" in games by Jonathan Degann. I clicked the link, and recognized the article. I'd read it some years ago. On top of that, I kind of recognized the look of the page. I wondered what else I had seen on it. I didn't see any navigation buttons, so I deleted the last part of the URL (showing the title of the article), and what I got was a text list of links to different article by name. I recognized that too...

Clicking through some of those links, I saw more and more articles that I remember having seen or read years ago. One of them, oddly enough, I have a printed copy of sitting right next to me at my desk!

And then it happened. One of the links I clicked on made my eyes light up. FINALLY, after all this time, I had found it. I had found that article about trading gems! It's by Greg Aleknevicus from 2004 in The Games Journal: Basic Strategy 1.0

I wholeheartedly recommend reading this short article, which talks about why it's not always bad to make a trade that's not obviously in your own favor. It's insight that applies to games, of course, but also to real life. Here's a highlight, maybe my favorite single line from the article:

When most people contemplate a trade, they consider only the two involved parties and this is why they fail to appreciate the value of "unequal trading". There are really three parties involved: you, your trading partner, and the other players. Even though your trading partner has gained more victory points than you (on any single trade), you've gained on everyone else.

By the way, I also recommend the next article in that series, Basic Strategy 2.0 -- it gives a great and very simple description of how to start considering all the factors in your strategic decision making.

I am SO HAPPY to have found this! Now, to show how it is relevant to a game designer, let's consider one of my own designs: Riders of the Pony Express.

In Riders of the Pony Express, there's sort of a low-bid auction where you receive $10 and a parcel to auction off ("Anyone want to do this delivery for me? I'll give you $3. $4? How about $5?"). If someone claims the parcel for $4, then you keep the remaining $6. Each player will do that twice per round. There's a dynamic that has come up in which players can simply bid the absolute minimum ($3) for parcels, claiming every one right away. Since you only get $3 for doing that, I had hoped that it would not be worthwhile (except perhaps in rare circumstances). But in fact, especially in a 5 player game, claiming every parcel for the $3 minimum bid can be a dominant strategy for exactly the reason outlined in that strategy article linked above!
This is true for 2 reasons:

1. In a 5 player game, you can get away with significantly more money than each opponent if you take every parcel for $3 (you get $3 x 4 opponents x 2 parcels/opponent = $24, and they each get $7 x 2 parcels = $14). This is less true in a 4 player game (you only get $18 to their $14, which is much closer), and in a 3 player game you don't actually make out ahead. So the issue is most pronounced when there's a full complement of 5 players.
2. The costs of making a delivery that's out of your way do not appear to be high enough. As one playtester put it, you have to traverse the entire board anyway, so nothing really seemed out of the way. Now, I'm not 100% sure he's right, but it's possible the costs need to be a bit higher to go "off course," in order to make the route planning and parcel claiming properly interesting.

Again, it may be that this is only a problem in a 5 player game, which might just mean the game should only be for 2-4 players. If simply reducing the player count solves the problem, then it seems a reasonable solution. Besides, I've had complaints about game length and stuff in 5 player anyway. However, I'd hate for that to be the solution, I'd rather understand the problem and fix it! And re-reading Basic Strategy 1.0 might remind me how to do just that!

Crusaders expansion prototype PDF and rules doc

http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/search/label/KnightsTemplar

I finally sat down and wrote out the rules for the Crusaders expansion I've been testing. It's in the format of my prototype rules for Crusaders, not the finished Crusaders rulebook. Once I'm convinced the design is finished, the next step will be translating it to that format.

For those interested, here is a sneak peak at the expansion rules and prototype PDF:

Crusaders expansion rules v1.0_7-15-18

Crusaders expansion prototype PDF

The major thrust of the expansion is twofold:
1. An all new, more involved Influence action. Some playtesters suggested that just collecting VP for the Influence action was boring. In general I like having an axis in games with multiple paths to victory that is "just points," things like the big buildings in Puerto Rico for example. But for the expansion, I tried out a new version of that action...

Instead of just collecting points, you use Influence to collect influence tokens from the regions on the board, leaving your influence markers behind. These tokens give you 1-time or permanent bonuses to certain actions, and the markers you place allow you to travel more easily through those regions.

This turned out to be pretty cool, but I'm really glad I didn't try to put it into the original game, because I think it complicates things and makes more fiddly.

2. Four new building types. This was the first idea I had for expansion content, way back in January of 2015. I've tweaked it a bit, now the new buildings can be built anywhere, but they're more expensive than the old ones. However, if you build a new building int he same hex as a specific existing building (belonging to ANY player), you get a discount.

The latest effects of the new buildings have been pretty good so far in testing...
* Keep - Take your next Troop for free. There are also 2 additional troops for each player, and the enemy strength tracks are modified so they don't slow down at the top end.
* Chapel - Add an action token to your action wheel
* Vault - Immediately upgrade one of your action wedges, and score VP at the end of the game
* Mill - Remove any other building of this level or less from your board (not level 4 Bank)

I originally wanted them to be buildable ONLY where an OPPONENT had built a specific building, but that didn't work too well when I finally tried it. I was afraid that if you could build a Keep over your own Castle, for example, that players would just do that, and it wouldn't add the interaction I was going for. But I tried it, and it seemed to work out OK.

Finally, I decided it would be better if players could build a Keep (for example) without building a Castle first, even if an opponent hadn't built a Castle, so I tried allowing that, but at a higher cost. That seemed to work out alright as well.

So I'm pretty happy with the different aspects of the expansion, and with the help of my trusty playtesters we came up with a few new Factions to try as well. I have 2 that didn't make the cut in the original game for one reason or another that I might include as well, bringing the total of new factions up to 6.

I could use a title for the expansion, and I'm open to suggestions! Since the new Influence action is central to the expansion, maybe a phrase with the word "Influence" in it would be good? Lance suggested "Divine Influence," which I like quite a bit. Can you beat that?

The Argument Hour, with Seth and TC

I listen to a lot of game industry podcasts. 

Many of them are just people talking about games they like, or games they're looking forward to. There's never been a lot of design focused podcasts... a few have cropped up over the years, some better than others. I listen to the following pretty regularly that actually talk about the design of games:

Ludology
Board Game Design Lab
Building the Game
Game Designers of North Carolina

There are a few others as well, but I still always thought there was room for designers talking about the nitty-gritty of game design. I've always wanted to participate in something like that, but I didn't want to figure out how to do hosting and editing myself, and I would have wanted another voice to talk to (rather than just monologueing).

I mentioned something about this on social media a couple of months ago, and I got some interest from game designer, podcaster, and boardgame twitter personality, T.C. Petty III. Then Isaac Shalev of On Board Games contacted us, offering to edit and host such a podcast on On Board Games, should T.C. and I decide to record one.

And so was born The Argument Hour, with Seth and TC! 

The Argument Hour is a segment I've started doing with TC Petty III on the On Board Games podcast, where T.C. and I pick a topic related to board game design, and we basically argue about it for while. Then we do our twist on a game review. I don't like the idea of unilaterally saying whether a game is good or bad, so our reviews are more of a mechanical look at the game in question, and then our opinion on what kind of player that game would be good for.

Edit: after the first two episodes, we stopped doing reviews. We might reserve that for times where we have a game we really want to talk about, rather than try to do a review each time. It's been a while since we've done one of these, but I do hope to get back to it some time. In the meantime, the 4 existing episodes are pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Episode 1 dealt with the "Alpha Player Problem" (whether it even exists), and included a brief review of Kingdomino.

Episode 2 was all about honing/returning to the well/designers revisiting ideas. The review that time was The Voyages of Marco Polo.

Episode 3 was about the use of mechanics that rely on loss aversion in games, such as loans, and we mentioned a related (?) topic, scoring leftovers at the end of a game.

Episode 4 discussed games that put excess cognitive load on the players, spurred by this blog post by Jeff Warrender.

So if you read this blog, maybe you'd be interested in this. Give them a listen and enjoy! Leave a note here with comments and suggestions...

"Gamegineering" and the role of the game developer

More and more lately I've heard people talk about the role of a developer in boardgames. The idea has certainly existed for many years, and every game on the shelf has undoubtedly gone through some level of development, but only recently has the role of board game developer been recognized in the industry.

When Dominion was coming out in 2008 was the first time I noticed game developers being named. It was about that time I was realizing that, while I enjoyed designing games, my real strength was in game development. So I guess it was good news the role was beginning to be highlighted in the industry!

A decade later, very little progress has been made with respect to recognition for developers. I think there are more of them nowadays, and if you check the back page of your favorite games' rulebooks, you can probably find out who they are. But I don't think many consumers have any idea...

People frequently look out for new games by their favorite designers, and these games often come from different publishers. Which means they're often worked on by different developers. Depending on how much work each developer puts into each game, "shopping by designer" may end up being a misleading metric to find a game you like.

People also frequently look out for new games by their favorite publisher. And it might be the case that most or all of those games were worked on by the same developer (either in-house, or perhaps 3rd party). For a small publishing company, the publishers themselves may be the ones doing the development. So in some cases, if you enjoy many games from a particular publisher, it might be the case that what's drawing you to those games is that publisher's development skills. Or it might be that publisher's judgement when choosing which games to publish.

This kind of thing is difficult to even talk about, because the role of the developer is so inconsistent from publisher to publisher, and from game to game. Even from developer to developer! Very recently I've seen a number of prominent people in the design community taking on developer roles, either freelance, or for a particular company. And more power to them! Sometimes I'll listen to a podcast interview, and I'll hear the role of the developer defined, and it makes me cringe a little bit because what they describe, to me, sounds more like an insightful playtester than what I consider a developer.

Maybe I've been putting too much work into games I develop, but to me the role of the developer isn't just to "make suggestions that are in line with the designer's vision for the game." The developer's job is to bring out the full potential of a game. I don't feel like I can do a proper job as a developer without taking the game under my wing, so to speak, and treating it as my own. I don't propose changes, I make those changes, try them out, and then explain why they did or didn't work. When a mechanism is just not working right, sometimes I re-design that mechanism from the ground up to accomplish what I think the designer was going for with it. Like I said, perhaps I've been putting more work in than necessary, but I'm not so sure.

I had hoped that, over time, players who found themselves liking the big box TMG titles would start to see a pattern. No matter who's name is on the front of the box, they'd see the green dragon logo, and hopefully they'd see "developed by Seth Jaffee" on the box back. But 10 years in, that doesn't seem to have happened. Maybe they see the dragon logo, but an innocuous mention in the rulebook or box back does not seem to have put my name into the minds of the end user.

One thought I've had, and that I might one day make good on, is to create a logo for myself:

Not final. I'd prefer if the typed "SETH JAFFEE" were taken out from beneath the signature, and put in the circle in lieu of "BOARD GAME"

Maybe adding that logo to games I have a big hand in would lead to a higher level of recognition. I like the composition of that logo, because it looks like a professional's seal, like my engineer's stamp. This communicates that the game literally has the seal of approval from a professional game developer!

But there's another aspect of "developer" that I think may be lacking: the word itself. I’m considering proposing a new term, because “developer” carries so much baggage, and so many different meanings to different people. In the video game world, it’s synonymous to both “designer” and also “programmer,” which doesn’t help matters. Even in tabletop gaming, it’s been used to mean everything from “insightful playtester” to “product manager” to “uncredited codesigner.” Depending on how thorough a job the designer does in the first place, there may be more or less work required of a developer. That doesn’t help matters either.

On many of the TMG big box games, my efforts have been closer to a co-designer than an insightful playtester. For that role, I’ve been tossing around the term “Gamegineer.”

What do you think? Do we need terminology to differentiate various levels of "developer?" And if so, how do you like "gamegineer," on the end of the spectrum closer to "co-designer" then "insightful playtester?"