The List - November 2023

   I know I just posted about The List a month ago, but I've already got some updates to it!

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!]

- 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Finished But Unpublished Games - in line to be published:
- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]

- 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!]

- 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

- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson)

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

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

- Eminent Domain: Coalition [solo mode]

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

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]

- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]

- Eminent Domain: Legacy [campaign mode]

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

Finished But Unpublished Games

- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]

Renegade hasn't sold through the initial print run of Crusaders yet, it seems it hasn't performed as well as they'd hoped, so it seems the 5th and 6th player expansion stuff has been put on hold, so I've updated their status accordingly. it's disappointing, but understandable.

 

Current Active Designs

- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson)

This is the game my friend (and now co-designer) Steve made, inspired by Tri-ominoes. We've decided to go with a Japanese theme: the game takes place during the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, perhaps the most famous figure in Japanese history, and is centered on Kyoto, which was then the capital of the shogunate. Players are prominent members of the bakufu, the central administrative branch of the shogunate during Hideyoshi’s rule. They are tasked with revitalizing the city and its environs, with the player who does the best job gaining Kampaku Hideyoshi’s favor.

- Eminent Domain: Coalition [solo mode]

I figured out a way to play Eminent Domain cooperatively, and I put together a prototype to try it out. I've played twice so far, and I think it's a solid beginning. I even have ideas to address the biggest problems with the game so far. I'll be posting about the progress on this game sometime soon.

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

This heavily developed version of Deities & Demigods was originally slated for crowdfunding this month, but the publisher has decided to wait a few months until their previous crowdfunded game has been delivered. So this one should hit kickstarter in January or February 2024.

I got a chance to play the latest version a couple of times, and I've been communicating with the developer about some last minute tweaks and changes, so I've moved it to "Currently Active" status.

Promising Recent ideas:

- Eminent Domain: Legacy [campaign mode]

Some years ago I had an idea for an "Eminent Domain Legacy" tournament format, where each round your starting deck is different based on its end configuration in the previous game. It's not enough by itself, but I think that could be the core of a campaign mode for Eminent Domain, and since that's being reprinted next year by Rio Grande Games, now's as good a time as any to explore the idea further.

Eminent Domain: Modus Operandi?

Eminent Domain has been in a restful slumber for some time now, ever since Oblivion came out in 2018. Soon after that, TMG started a slow and painful demise, and along with it, any chance for further sales or content for Eminent Domain.

So, it's been a while, but last January's Rio Grande Games newsletter contained this little tidbit:

° We have also begun planning our new games for later in 2023. These include three rail games: Prussian Railroads, Wabash Cannonball, and Balkan Railways; Pacific from Donald X Vaccarino; and a new production of an old favorite Eminent Domain.

We're almost one year out from that newsletter, but I'm happy to report that I've seen some of the new artwork for the boxes and the cards, and it looks pretty great!

I had thought that after the base game, Escalation, Exotica, Oblivion, the standalone Microcosm microgame, the Bonus Planets promo, Chaos Theory (an unreleased EmDo dice game), and the Terra Prime reboot as Eminent Domain Origins (an EmDo prequel), that the well had run dry. I did not have any plans to further expand Eminent Domain.

However, in the wake of TMG, as I tried to find a new home for my titles, it seemed any publisher that showed interest in picking up the line wanted to do a Big Box version, or add some content to freshen up this decade-old game. And I get it -- it's nice to reach a new audience who never had the pleasure of playing EmDo the first time around, but it's also nice to offer something of interest to fans of the game who may be willing to buy it again (but not if it's the same thing they already have). new art alone is not really enough to entice those people, but even just a little bit of new content might be!

EmDo Solo

So, what to include? Again, the well had run dry... I am pretty happy with the amount of actual content that's been added to the game in the three expansions. I don't know that I'd be interested in creating more tech cards, or trying to shoehorn in another new mechanism (like Exotica's Asteroids, or Oblivion's Politics role). Well, I'm not much into solo play, but nowadays more and more players are. It so happens that prolific solo mode designer David Turczi is a fan of Eminent Domain.. maybe having him create a solo mode would be a nice chunk of new content for the game. Well, good news: he's working on it!

However, a solo mode might be better placed in the same box as the base game, so that people wanting to buy the game to play solo don't need to buy both the game and an expansion box. Then again, maybe keeping the base game box more affordable, and keeping the solo mode separate would serve a bigger proportion of the audience. Ultimately that'll be up to Rio Grande Games. 

EmDo: Legacy

Some years ago (2014) I ran an "EmDo Legacy" tournament at Strategicon in L.A. -- here's a description of how it went from a blog post back then:

Round 1 was a normal game of EmDo - players started with the basic starting decks.

After Round 1, I recorded the contents of each player's decks - the number of each standard role card.

For round 2, You started with 1 fewer card in your deck for whichever Role card(s) you had the fewest of at the end of round 1, and you started with 1 more card in your deck for whichever role card(s) you had the most of at the end of round 1.

After round 2 we did the same thing again, but didn't count any card that you started with 0 of... i.e. if you started with 0 Warfare after round 1, then after round 2 you look at the card you had the fewest of BESIDES Warfare.

There were some really interesting starting decks in the final round!

I never tried that again, but I've always thought that format had some potential. When a couple of prospective publishers mentioned wanting to add a sort of campaign mode to freshen up the game, this Legacy format immediately came to mind. I am not sure what else could be added, but I did discuss it with someone who did a TON of playtesting for the expansions back in the day, and he had some really good ideas as well.

So who knows, perhaps the materials needed for a campaign mode could be placed into a 3rd box

EmDo: Coalition

Another potential mode that could be added to the game would be a cooperative mode. Orleans: Trade and Intrigue did that - added a cooperative mode in an otherwise competitive game - and it went over pretty well as I recall. I'm not the biggest player of cooperative games (though there are some I enjoy), but I put a little thought into what a cooperative EmDo might look like, and I stumbled onto something that I think might be the key to make it work!

Imagine that the players have formed a coalition (like a galactic United Nations or something -- United Empires?), and are working together to complete an ambitious project - perhaps a Dyson Sphere:

A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to imagine how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet's resources alone.

The goal of the game would be to complete the project before the game ends (when one (some?) stack runs out). The key mechanism is that whenever you flip a planet, or buy a tech card, you will choose whether to keep it for yourself (like normal) - powering up your engine, or to commit it to the project, placing the card in a slot on a Project board, representing progress toward victory.

In the meantime of course, there would be a deck of "bad stuff" cards that would come up after each round of player turns, representing some antagonistic force (hostile aliens, or space pirates). Players would need to defend against this force, lest they get "curse" style cards in their deck, or lose progress toward winning.

I'm actually pretty excited about this co-op mode, and I'm anxious to get a prototype together and give it a try, maybe this Thursday!