The List - Oct 2023

  Once again it's time to revisit The List! Let's see if anything's changed since last August

Published Games:

- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG) [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Isle of Trains (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) (BGG)
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) [New edition from Dranda Games with included expansion]
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG) [now available from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [now available from Renegade!]

- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]
- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)
- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Development projects - Games I've done freelance development on

- Amun-Re expansion [Alley Cat Games 20th Anniversary edition] - Heavy Development

- Harvest (BGG) [by Trey Chambers from Keymaster Games] - Heavy Development

- Holiday In Rome (add BGG link) [by Cory Andalora from Pandasaurus Games - coming soon!] - Heavy Development

- Expeditions (BGG) [by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games] - Consultation

- Fled (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2024 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

- Forelords (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2025 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

Finished But Unpublished Games - in line to be published:
- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print] [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [Ready for art] [theoretically signed by a publisher!]

- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [coming soon from Final Frontier Games]

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe) [signed by a publisher!]

Currently Pitching Games - "actively" looking for a publisher (though I haven't actively been doing much of anything lately!):

- Sails & Sorcery (Co-Design with Michael Mindes) [pitching to publishers]

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Keeping Up with the Joneses [pitching to publishers]

- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain) [pitching to publishers]

- Alter Ego (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Dice Works (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Suburban Sprawl [pitching to publishers]

 

"Finished" But Unpublished Games - abandoned or backburnered designs that are "done":
- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]
- Rolling Realms: Jaffee Realms (for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms)

- Press-Your-Luck Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam entry, July 2022)

- Worker Placement Microgame

Current Active Designs - these are the games I'm actively testing or working on:

- Let's Go Balloon Racing

- Tri-inspired (co-design with Steve Carleson)

- "Revampsterdam" [revamp of an old game, commissioned by a publisher]

- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

Backburnered Designs - I kid myself into thinking that I'm still working on these:

- Isle Of Trains: The Board Game (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

- Joan of Arc

- I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement

- Kingdom Realms (KBGames 3-lane game jam entry, Nov 2022)

Promising Recent ideas:
- Worker-ception [with David Short]

- False Prophet [Mancala/Worker Placement]

- Come And Play [Sesame Street memory/rondel game]

- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]

- Hanabi Wonders [Hanabi/7 Wonders mashup]

- My First Ark Nova [Simpler version of Ark Nova]

- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central [Abandoned]
- Hot & Fresh [Abandoned]

- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG) [Abandoned]

- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]

- Moctezuma's Revenge [Abandoned]

- Kilauea [a designer showed interest in co-designing, but that didn't go anywhere] [Abandoned]

- Automatown [with Michael Brown] [Abandoned]

- Dynasty [I still think this one has potential] [Abandoned]

Misc and Really Old Stuff - most of this I'll probably never get back to, but I like keeping it around just in case:
- 9-Ball
- Blockade Runner
- Roman Emperors (my version of someone else's game)
- Admirals of the Spanish Main (my version of someone else's game)

- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- The Untouchables
- Day labor game based on craps

- Rondel Role Selection

- Scourge of the High Seas [deckbuilding game with 2 center rows]

Recent updates to the above

Published Games
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) [New edition from Dranda Games with included expansion]
Isle of Trains: All Aboard had a strong Kickstarter project, and is currently delivering to backers. I haven't got my copies just yet, but I have seen a number of positive reviews and posts about it, which is great!

Development projects

- Harvest (BGG) [by Trey Chambers from Keymaster Games] - Heavy Development

The new version of Harvest from Keymaster games had a strong Kickstarter recently, and will now move into production

- Expeditions (BGG) [by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games] - Consultation

Expeditions has been released. It was over a year and a half ago that I did some consulting for an earlier iteration of the game, hopefully my comments were helpful, though it looks like the final game changed significantly since then

- Fled (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2024 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

- Forelords (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2025 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

I did some consulting on these two games for Mark Swanson of Odd Bird Games, and I see that I'm listed as Developer on their BGG entries. I don't know when they'll be coming out, but they're listed on BGG as 2024 and 2025 releases respectively

Finished But Unpublished Games

- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [coming soon from Final Frontier Games]

The publisher has done significant development on Deities & Demigods, and I believe it will be coming to Kickstarter by the end of the year under the title The Sixth Realm. I've seen a little of the artwork for the game, and it looks awesome!

 

Currently Pitching Games

- Sails & Sorcery (Co-Design with Michael Mindes) [pitching to publishers]

- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain) [pitching to publishers]

A publisher expressed some interest in both of these titles, I'm waiting to hear if they will decide to sign either of them (fingers crossed!)

 

Current Active Designs

- Let's Go Balloon Racing

This started as an idea for a mechanism for a kid's game to play with Corbin, and has grown into a legit game with a quirky theme. I'm trying to keep it light, quick, and accessible  

- Tri-inspired (co-design with Steve Carleson)

My friend Steve had an idea for a game, which he described when he was in town visiting recently. I discussed it with him and had a lot of suggestions even then, and after he went home and made a prototype, I played it and had even more (or more specific) suggestions... I really feel like it's got potential as a popular game product. He accepted my offer to co-design the game with him, so now it's on the list!

- "Revampsterdam" [revamp of an old game, commissioned by a publisher]

I was engaged as a Developer to revamp an old game that a publisher had signed, and ended up designing a whole new game using the main mechanism and the aspects of the original that the publisher was most interested in. Currently another developer has started to work on it as well, because my draft might have been a bit too "big" for the publisher's brand

- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

Dranda Games, the new publisher of Isle of Trains, said they'd be interested in a sequel multi-use card game with positive player interaction, so I did some brainstorming, and I think I've got a good start on a game similar to IoT, where you recruit and equip adventurers and explore a dungeon rather than build and load train cars to fulfill contracts. So far it sounds promising, we'll see how well that holds up as I get a prototype together

Promising Recent ideas:

- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]

Back in February, I had a bunch of thoughts about a horse management game, initially spurred by the pun title Stable Genius. I actually used AI chatbot ChatGPT as a sounding board to talk through ideas for this one, and when it came down to it, the approach that interested me the most was a more serious game, for which that title wouldn't be appropriate. I don't know if I'll ever get back to this one, or if I really think it'd be that good to begin with, but we'll see

Horsing around

Stable Genius

About 5 years ago, the then-president of the United States had his mental acuity challenged in the media, and in contesting those allegations, he said, in public, on Twitter: "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.... I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star... to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"

Pretty much ever since then, I thought it would be funny to see a horse management game or something entitled Stable Genius. Years passed, and I still haven't seen any such parody game, and recently I had some thoughts about how a game like that might go. Here are some ideas...

1. A horse training game, where the you're trying to get the best trained horse in the stable: the Stable Genius 

2. I can imagine a Euro-style game where you manage a stable, assigning horses to things like races (for money), dressage (for points), farming (for food), breeding (for more horses), or sale. You could upgrade or expand your stable to maintain more horses, speculate on horses (buy low, sell high), breed horses to sell, race, or show, and in the end, the best manager could be labeled a Stable Genius

3. A twist on the above, same thing but add a Mental Acuity track - which would range from "stable" to "unhinged," and would trend downwards (toward "unhinged") over time. Perhaps you would suffer in-game penalties if you drop below a certain threshold, and at game end maybe you gain a bonus for being ahead of other players on the Acuity track. Or like corruption or unrest in some other games, maybe the least stable player straight up loses the game! There could be Mental Acuity challenges which you could earn: cards with in-game conditions on them which, once satisfied, move you up the track. Or maybe even better, literal mental acuity challenges, such as riddles, logic problems, or word puzzles, which you would need to solve to gain those advances.

At that point I took a step back and realized that if I were really to base a game on a pun/meme title that refers to some politician 5 years ago, I'd really have to lean into it, make it look like a parody,  not some game that tries to take itself seriously...

4. As if out of Orwell's Animal Farm, you are a horse angling to be crowned ruler of the ranch, and you'll have to use all your acumen and political machinations to defeat your opponents - for the role will only be won by a true Stable Genius!

Wingspan of Horses

To be honest, the idea that interests me the most is number 2 above, and I don't think it's worth shoehorning in that pun title. But it could be a fun code-name until I come up with a better title. I like the sounds of Equestria, but that appears to be the name of some place in My Little Pony lore, so I'm not sure if it's OK to use. So maybe just Equestrian or something. Lean into the realistic aspects of managing a stable, and maybe I can design, as my playtester put it, the "Wingspan of horses."

Side note... when I heard "Wingspan of horses," all I could think of was Pegasus. My response was "wingspan of horses? What is that - about 35 hands?"

So here are some details I thought of about a potential game about horse management. You may be amused to hear that as a sounding board, I "talked this through" with ChatGPT (the AI chat bot you may have heard about), and it actually proved very helpful!

There are a lot of details that could go into a game about race horses specifically. Pedigree is a huge deal, and while a race horse can earn money by winning races, my understanding is that the real money is in studding out your champion horse. That could be a game all in itself, but I was attracted to the idea of managing a stable of horses, and having to decide what to do with each horse every round. Do you send this horse to the track to earn money? Or should you breed it instead, so you'll have more horses to work with later? Should you train this horse for Dressage to earn some victory points? or put it to work on the farm to produce food to help keep your other horses fed? Should you expand your stable to hold more horses? Or keep your stable small, requiring less food and other resources to maintain?

Breeding

One idea I had - and I think this isn't really accurate to how horse breeding works, but maybe it's acceptable artistic license - was that your horses start out generic, and if you send them to a race, then they "become a race horse" - they are now "better at racing" (whatever that means), and if you breed them, you have a better chance of getting a new horse that's "better at racing." That's the artistic license part - I'm pretty sure the breeding is just based on genetics, I don't think you can pass down training to an offspring. but maybe one can say that you sent the horse to race because you noticed it was good for that, so *hand wave.* Anyway, I liked the idea of having to choose between racing your champion race horse, or breeding it.

Another, different idea I had was that maybe you don't have to choose to breed a horse over doing something else (because I didn't want players having to just breed their horses all the time and not do anything else with them). Instead, maybe you have a number of "Stallions" (which you could increase), which just means you get that many new horses each round to assign to races, shows, farms, sale, etc. Maybe the current configuration of your horses influences whether you get foals of a particular type - for example, maybe you roll a special die for each stallion, and the resulting face shows you what type of horse you get... brown (generic), green (good at racing), purple (good at dressage), yellow (good at farming). Maybe you have a yellow die with 1 each of those faces, plus 2 more yellow faces - so 50% likely to be good at farming, and then similarly a green die, a purple die, and a brown die. Then for each Stallion in your stable, you roll a die, and you get to choose the color of each based on where your horses are assigned.

Both of those sound kind of reasonable to me, depending on how the rest of the game works.

Lifespan

Another aspect is that a horse's useful life is only so long, and it's even shorter for a race horse. So maybe your horses only last a few rounds (like 3), then you have to sell them off or something. And maybe a race horse only lasts 2 rounds instead, representing their shorter useful lifespan due to injury and like, wear and tear. 

If a horse is past its useful lifespan, maybe you automatically sell it for some minimal amount of money, but based on the Input Randomness card mentioned above, maybe you could choose to sell a horse that's on its last legs for more money (and points?) rather than race it or work it.

Input Randomness

In order to make it a game, and dynamically change player incentives, I thought there could be an Input Randomness card drawn each round. it could indicate things in the game that are variable, such as:
* Price at which you can buy a new horse
* Price at which you can sell your horses
* Available races and contests where you can send your horses

Races, Dressage, Selling, Farm work

... sadly, I started writing this post back in February, and I had stopped writing at this point. Having only come back to it now, *8 months* later, and I'm not sure I remember all the details I had in mind at that time. This is why it pays to finish posts or note taking right away!

I know I had been considering that you would assign your horses to the following things each round:

* Racing, where you earn points and money from winning races to supplement income

* Selling, where you can sell your horses for money rather than keep, feed, and use them - see Input Randomness above

* Dressage, where you earn big points for winning First in Show

* Farm work, where you produce food to help feed your horses (vs having fewer horses to feed, or buying food for them)

So each turn you would gain some income and new horses, assign your horses to various jobs, resolve things, and finally feed and age your horses.

That's about all I have at the moment. It kinda sounds like a euro-style resource management game to me... what do you think?

Isle of Trains follow-up: Isle of Adventure?

Dranda Games, the new publisher for Isle of Trains, told me that they had a great Essen, and that people loved their new edition of Isle of Trains: All Aboard - which is great news!

I asked the Dranda guys if they'd be interested in Dana and I revisiting our ideas for an Isle of Trains boardgame, one version of which was a fairly simple rondel game, but they said they'd be more interested in another small-box card game, with multi-use cards, the had similar positive player interaction (like the IoT load thing)

They even floated some ideas they'd had:

* Isle of New York - building skyscrapers with lots of cards then selling them for a profit

* Isle of London - building the subway (I think Isle of New York would be a better start and London would be a good sequel)

* Isle of Taxis - picking up passengers. Like a Crazy Taxi card game 😂

* Isle of Dragons - don't know what to do with that but fantasy games sell well!

I know Dan had made a pirate hunting game based on the IoT mechanism called Queen Anne's Revenge, which got honorable mention in the Hippodice game design contest, and even had publisher interest I believe, but I don't know what ever became of it. I suggested to Dan that perhaps we could distill that down to a small-box card Isle of Pirates card game, which could be doable.

Then I had a new idea that sounded interesting to me. After a days brainstorming, this is what I have so far, and the Dranda guys like the sound of it:

Isle of Adventure

Play as a party leader, recruiting and equipping adventurers to delve the local dungeon looking for treasure!

Each card in your hand could be an adventurer (Warrior, Mage, Cleric, Thief), or equipment (Bolt, Scroll, Potion, Pick?), or can be used as coin to hire new adventurers or train them up.

A dungeon is laid out on the table, built of face down tiles. Players will move their parties through the dungeon, racing to loot it of valuable treasure! On your turn you will do 2 of the following actions:

* Draw a card (search the room? Go to town?)

* Recruit an adventurer to join your party

* Train an adventurer (they level up)

* Equip an adventurer (yours or an opponent's)

* Delve into the dungeon (facing its challenges)

When equipping an adventurer, you tuck the proper equipment card under them. If you equip your own adventurer, you get nothing but the equipment. If you equip an opponent's adventurer, you get paid in cards, gold (virtual cards to spend), and actions:

* Party Leader: Delve/Explore the Dungeon

* Warrior: Recruit/Train

* Mage: Gain and cast spells, giving you ongoing abilities

* Cleric: Heal damage from party members

* Thief: Equip

Your party leader would have a green "Fleet of foot" value - this is the capacity of your party, and also helps you move in the dungeon. Each adventurer would have a number of red foot icons (never to exceed your leader's green foot value) - the bigger the party, the slower they move through the dungeon. When you Delve (explore), you will be able to move through face up tiles, and flip up a face down tile using your remaining green foot icons - and discarding cards to gain feet for the turn. When you flip up a tile, you get a chance to pay the required equipment (and maybe take the required wounds) in order to gain the benefit printed on the tile.

(Wounds reduce the effectiveness of your adventurers - they won't be able to take new equipment until they are healed by a cleric)

Some tiles have Boss Encounters on them -- chances to gain lots of treasure if you have the right assortment of equipment

That's all I have so far, but it sounds promising to me, and slightly more than a straight re-skin if the spells and the dungeon tiles work out well.

Let's Go Balloon Racing - status report

After testing this game a few times now on Tabletop Simulator, I'm happy to report that I think it's actually working quite well!

The race algorithm makes for some dramatic swings of fate, and after a few tweaks I think I've honed in on some details to make the game work as intended. Here's a current rundown of the rules:

Let's Go Balloon Racing!

SETUP
1. Lay out balloon cards (or balloon board, perhaps)
2. Deal 1 Effect card to each balloon
3. Deal 1 Stowaway card to each player

GAME ROUND
1. Players simultaneously choose a balloon, then place their player cube under that balloon
2. From left to right, activate the effect on each balloon that has at least 1 player cube under it, then move the player cube onto the balloon card (adjust the balloon's altitude if necessary) 
3. Shuffle and deal 4 Movement cards. For each movement card, move the indicated balloon:
High altitude (0-2 cubes): 6 spaces
Mid altitude (3-4 cubes): 4 spaces
Low altitude (5+ cubes): 2 spaces
4. Shuffle all Effect cards and deal a new one to each balloon

RACE END / GAME END
At the end of each round, if any balloon has crossed the finish line, do the following:
1. Any player with a Stowaway card matching that balloon reveals their card and adds 1 of their player cubes to that balloon
2. Count all player cubes on all balloons that have crossed the finish line - if any player has a clear plurality, then they win the game. If there is a tie, then the game continues. Check for a winner again the next time any balloon crosses the finish line.

Balloons that have crossed the finish line are "locked in" -- they no longer get effect cards, and cannot be the target of effects

I have tried to keep the Effect cards such that play can be simultaneous, and the effects won't create any decisions or turn order issues when resolving. Currently some of the effect cards will situationally have no effect at times, and as my friend Mohan put it, I'd rather they all have an effect every time, so there ay be room for improvement there.

The next thing I intend to try are "Alone bonuses" -- either structurally, or per card, there could be an additional or augmented effect if you are the only player to play on a balloon. Since this would avoid turn order issues, these affects could target particular cubes, or allow for moving cubes from balloon to balloon, which I'd like to see more of.

It's not terribly thematic, but for the next test I think I'll try a standard Alone bonus of "move 1 of your cubes from this balloon to any other balloon, or from any other balloon to this balloon" and just see how it goes.

As for the Effect cards, here's what I've got at the moment:

BURST OF WIND: Move all balloons in MID altitude 2 spaces

GUST OF WIND: Move all balloons in LOW altitude 3 spaces

CUT THE ROPE: Return 1 cube at random from this balloon to its owner

GRAPPLING HOOK: Move the nearest balloon(s) in each direction to this space

HEAD WIND: Move all balloons in the lead (1st place) BACKWARD 3 spaces

TAIL WIND: Move all balloons in the rear (last place) FORWARD 3 spaces

UPDRAFT: This balloon moves as if it were 1 level HIGHER this round

STICK TOGETHER: Add 1 more cube to this balloon

SHOTGUN APPROACH: Add 1 cube to all other balloons in this o adjacent spaces (do not trigger effects)

PICK UP THE PACE (x5): Add this card to the movement deck (there's one of these for each color)

I had 2 others, but I think I am going to cut them because I don't think I like the dynamic they bring to the game:
KAMAKAZI: Discard all cubes on this balloon (including cubes placed this turn)

SUICIDE MISSION: Each opponent discards 1 cube from each balloon in this and adjacent spaces. Discard the cube you placed this turn.

With the exception of those cuts, I'm pretty happy with the other effects, except sometimes they end up being null -- for example, Burst of Wind and Gust of Wind in the first turn of the game are pretty useless, as none of the balloons probably have enough cubes on them to drag them down into the lower altitudes. Mohan suggested perhaps replacing those with "all balloons with the most cubes on them..." and "all balloons with the fewest cubes on them..." for example. that way they'd always have some effect.

I'm interested in more ideas for effect cards, if you have some, put them in the comments!