Cumbersome

Good news about For The Win!

2012-01-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Tasty Minstrel Games' latest Kickstarter project, For The Win, has passed the funding goal of $15,000!

With 2 weeks remaining in the funding period Michael has announced an overfunding goal as well. If funding reaches $25,000, then all supporters pledging $15 or more will receive additional tiles in different colors in order to play the game with up to 4 players.

This project had an interesting reward structure - the first 200 supporters were allowed to pledge as little as $5 (though many pledged more than that), and the next 500 "pay what you want" supporters pledged a minimum of $10. The regular pledge level for 1 copy of the game is $20, and retail price will be $25.

This overfunding goal presents the early adopter with an option that later supporters do not have:

1. Keep my pledge the same, and receive a 2 player game for an extraordinarily low price.

2. Up my pledge to $15+ and receive everything I was going to receive, plus tiles for 3-4 players.

Both of these are good deals, depending on the desire of the supporter. And it makes sense that there be a minimum pledge level for the overfunding reward, because doubling the number of tiles will severely increase the shipping costs. I don't see how $5 could cover that!

Print and play tiles
So if you're a supporter already, then thanks very much! Depending on your pledge level you might have a choice to make (super low price vs 4 player game). If not, consider jumping in - any of the reward levels above $15 will come with one set of the tiles for 3-4p for every copy of the base game!

And if you haven't seen them yet, there are several very positive reviews of FTW popping up around the 'net:
Ryan Metzler's video preview for The Dice Tower
The Little Metal Dog Show
Grim Tree Games: For The Win is Full of Win!
Meet The Meeples
Father Geek

Knights Templar - Rules outline

2012-01-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

The Knights Templar
A game of influence and scandal for 2-4 Crusaders

Components

64 Building tiles (16 in each of 4 player colors)
- 16 Churches
- 16 Castles
- 16 Farms
- 16 Banks
4 Player boards
48 Action cubes (12 in each of 4 player colors)
16 Knight figures (4 in each of 4 player colors)
1 Game board
XX Enemy tokens
- XX Slav
- XX Saracen
- XX Prussians
XX Troop tiles
XX Influence tokens
XX Gold coins

Setup

Each player receives the following in their player color:
- Player board
- 4 Knight figures
- 16 Building tiles (place them in the indicated spaces on the player board)
  - 4 Churches
  - 4 Castles
  - 4 Farms
  - 4 Banks
- 12 Action cubes (place 2 in each Action bin on the Player board)

Lay out the Game board and distribute the Enemy tokens to the regions indicated by icons. Each player takes their Level 1 Castle building and places it on their indicated starting region along with one of their Knight figures.

Place the Gold coins, Influence tokens and Troop tiles in supply piles. Choose a starting player at random and you are ready to begin!

Game Play
Starting with the Start player, play will progress clockwise throughout the game. A player's turn consists of the following sequence:

1. Choose any one Action bin on your player board.
2. Resolve the action associated with that Action bin.
3. Distribute the Action cubes from the chosen bin.

1. Choose an Action
Select any one of the six Actions on the Rondel that has at least 1 Action cube in its bin.

2. Resolve the Action
There are six Action spaces on the Rondel, though 2 of them are the same. Each of the Actions resolves differently. In each of the following descriptions, "X" refers to the number of Action cubes in the Action bin.

MOVE: There are 2 different MOVE spaces on the Rondel. The move action allows you to move your Knights on the game board, and it also adds gold to the Communal Coffer as your Knights collect charity.
- Add X Gold coins to the Communal Coffer space on the board.
- Move your Knight figure(s) up to X regions total.
BUILD: The build action allows you to erect buildings worth influence. Buildings confer benefits when resolving the various actions in the game.
- Erect a Building tile of level X or less from your player board onto a region on the board occupied by one of your Knights. You must be able to afford this (see below).
- Each Bank you have built increases the maximum level of building you may erect.
- Remove Gold coins from the Communal Coffers equal to the level of the building.
- Each Bank you have built reduces the number of Gold coins you must spend.
- Only the lowest un-built level of each building may be erected.
- Only 1 building can occupy each region.
- Collect Influence tokens according to the level of the building erected.
  - Building Types:
    - Bank: Pay less Gold when using the build action.
    - Farm: Collect additional Troops when using the muster action.
    - Castle: Place an additional Knight token into play at the new Castle.
    - Church: Collect additional Influence when using the influence action.
MUSTER: The muster action allows you to muster troops to take crusading with your knights.
- Collect up to X Troop tokens from the supply. You must be able to afford each (see below).
- Remove 1 Gold coin from the Communal Coffer for each Troop tile collected.
- Collect 1 additional Troop token for each Farm you have erected (you need not pay for these additional Troops).
CRUSADE: The crusade action allows you to fight Enemies, scoring influence and clearing regions to make space for more buildings.
- Choose 1 region containing one of your (any player's?) Knight figures and an Enemy token.
- Determine the Enemy Strength by checking the Enemy Strength track for the appropriate enemy type.
- Each Knight figure (no matter which player's) in the region reduces the Enemy Strength by 1.
- If the Enemy Strength is less than X, then discard Troop tokens equal to the Enemy Strength.
- Collect Influence tokens equal to the Enemy Strength.
- Move the Enemy token to the appropriate Enemy Strength track.
INFLUENCE: The influence action allows you to gain Influence tokens by spreading the word of the Order.
- Collect X Influence tokens from the supply.
- Collect 1 additional Influence token for each Church you have erected.

3. Distribute Action cubes
Take all Action cubes from the bin associated with the chosen Action and distribute them, 1 at a time, clockwise around the Rondel. See example diagram

End Game Phase
"God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom"
When the last Influence token is taken from the supply, finish out the round so that each player has had the same number of turns*. At this point, the Order of the Temple has become so powerful that King Philip, threatened by the Order and deeply in debt to it, issues an arrest order for all Templar Knights and begins to have the Order disbanded.

* Players may still collect influence after the supply runs out. Keep track of this influence using Troop tokens.

After all players have finished their turn in the round in which the Influence supply runs out, the End Game phase begins. Flip the starting Castle buildings (in the Paris region) face down - they are considered destroyed. Whenever a building is destroyed, each player collects 1 Influence for each building of that type they still have in play.

At the end of each round during the End Game Phase, destroy all buildings in regions adjacent to a region that's already been destroyed. Flip the destroyed buildings face down (simultaneously) and collect influence for like buildings each time.

During the End Game Phase the Community Coffers are emptied, and Gold Coins are no longer added during move actions. [The build action turns into a third move action (?)] The build, muster, and crusade actions no longer have any effect.

Game End
The game ends when one of two things happens:

All Knights on the board have reached Portugal (or Scotland?)
The wave of destruction reaches Portugal (6 rounds after the End Game Phase begins).

When one of these triggers occurs, the game ends. Any player without at least 1 Knight figure safely in Portugal (or Scotland?) (ALL Knight figures?) is disqualified from winning. Of players reaching safety, the player with the most Influence is the winner.

Revisiting the Templar Knights

2012-01-05T16:54:00.001-07:00

A few years ago I had the idea that a euro game about the Knights Templar ought to be doable. I haven't put too much thought into the idea since then, but recently it's popped back up on my radar as something I'd like to think about. Here's the fruit of that thought:

* I still like the idea of players dealing with a communal coffer
* I like the idea of players building structures on the board which will give them points and benefits
* I like the idea of player actions boosting the overall influence of The Order of the Temple, and that eventually triggering the End Game Phase (Friday 13, 1307 - when King Phillip IV issued an arrest order for all members of the Order of the Templar)
* I like the idea of an End Game Phase where players must flee and make a last ditch effort to score points, potentially losing flat out if they do not make it to safety in time
* I like the idea that the End Game Phase represents the destruction of buildings players had built, and that buildings closer to the 'epicenter' of destruction are worth more points while buildings further away will last longer (and confer their benefit longer)
* I like the idea of both militaristic and economic viable strategies
* And most recently I like the idea of using a Rondel mechanism to drive the game. Specifically, a "Rond-cala" mechanism (combination of Rondel and Mancala) similar to that in Stefan Feld's recent Trajan

I've mentioned before that upon reading about the Rondcala mechanism in Trajan, my guess was that you would choose an action and it's intensity would be based on the number of bits in that actions bin... then you would Mancala those bits around the Rondel. It turns out I had it backwards - instead you pick a bin and Mancala the bits from it, and you take the action at the end of the line. That's a lot harder to wrap your head around, and I wondered if it wouldn't be worth trying my mistaken guess out as a main mechanism in some game of my own - and now I'm going to give that a try.

I currently don't have a complete game, rather I have various parts of a game and ideas about how I'd like them to go together. The purpose of this blog post is to help chronicle them and facilitate putting the pieces of this design together to see if I can come up with the game I've got described in my head.

I suppose I could start with a title... since the game is about the Knights Templar it seems fitting to name the game Knights Templar, Templar Knights, or Order of the Temple. The subtlety of tricky or clever titles such as Friday the 13th or Order 66 would likely be lost on most players, and would cause more harm than good. I am open to suggestions on this, I'm leaning toward those first three - I like Order of the Temple but I also like the word Templar...

Players will be members of the Order of the Temple, and as such they would have gifted all of their personal wealth to the Order. Therefore players will not have personal holdings. They will act on behalf of the Order, spreading the Order's influence throughout Europe by building infrastructure and fighting in the Crusades. Players WILL however have personal Influence, representing their standing in the Order - the escaping player with the most influence will win the game.

My version of the Rondcala:
Actions in the game will include things like...
* Moving pawns on the board
* Constructing buildings
* Mustering troops
* Crusading (attacking a hostile region on the board)
* Spreading influence (collecting VP)

Each player will have a personal Rondel, and each of these actions will have an action space ("bin") on that Rondel. Each bin will begin with some number of bits in it (probably 2). On your turn you choose any action for which there is at least 1 bit in it's bin, resolve that action according to the number of bits in the bin, and then "mancala" those bits around the Rondel - that is to say take all of the bits and distribute them, one at a time, clockwise around the Rondel. In this way, the relative strength of each action will rise and fall over the course of the game. If you want to do a strong action (one with several bits in it), you must first do the actions preceding that one in order to build up enough bits in your chosen action's bin.

In addition, and I'm not entirely sure this is necessary, I thought it might be interesting to have money in the game. But as above, that money is in a communal coffer and accessible to all players. This means that one player could spend money, and not leave enough money for the next player (which could be good or bad I suppose) - and it also means that there needs to be a way to add money to the coffers. My old thought was that there'd be an action to "collect charity" or something, which would add money to the coffers. My current thought might be a bit better though... Each time a player chooses an action, an amount of Gold is added to the coffers equal to the number of bits in that action's bin. This way, the bigger or more powerful your action is, the more money you make available for your opponents to use. That dynamic sounds interesting to me.

In order to simplify the discussion, I'm going to define a variable X to be "the number of bits in an action's bin" - so the paragraph above translates to "when taking an action, add X Gold to the coffers."

Now that I've got a pretty good idea of how the main mechanism in the game might work, I probably ought to consider the rest of the game...

Actions:
Here are some of the actions I expect to want to use in the game. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list. It seems like +/- 6 actions seems to work well for a Rondel game.

* Move: Move your pawn up to X spaces. Or perhaps split X movement points between all of your pawns on the board. I expect that other actions such as Build and Attack will take place where your pawn is, so moving around the board may become important in order to take your other actions.

* Build: Construct a building of level X or lower. I expect to use a variety of buildings, each conferring a specific benefit, and each coming in different levels (say, 1-4). The higher the level, the stronger the benefit of the building. In order to build a Level 3 building, you would need 3 bits in your Build bin, AND the Level 1 and level 2 buildings of that type must already be on the board. It's possible that the buildings will also cost some amount of Gold, in which case that Gold must be available in the coffer... though with the scheme outlined above you'd be adding Gold to the coffer before building anyway, which should help.

Possible buildings and what they might do include...
* Bank: allowing you access to more money in some way
* Church: helps you score Influence with the Influence action perhaps
* Castle: helps you with attacking perhaps? Or makes troops stronger (more Knights for example)? Or maybe when you build a Castle, you get a new Knight pawn on the board, making your movement options better/more versatile.
* Farm: helps muster or maintain troops (you have to feed them)

* Influence: Collect X influence (plus additional influence from each Church in play?) I like when a game has a 'straight VP' action, usually weaker than other actions, unless you work really hard to make it good. In this case, perhaps by building Churches you can choose this action more often and make out ahead while doing so.

* Muster: Collect X troops (plus additional troops from each Castle in play? Limited by number of Farms in play?) Troops will be needed to attack regions. I expect there could be Knights, a special kind of troop that is stronger somehow.

* Crusade: Attack a region with up to X troops, or maybe with strength X (or X per troop). I expect the board will have some spaces (region) that are empty at the beginning of the game, and others that are defended by enemies. Each region should have some number of building spaces (no 2 like buildings in any region), so in order to continue expanding players may have to clear out Enemies via Crusading. This would earn them influence as well as open up new Building spaces.

Interesting idea: suppose you attack 1 region with this action, and if costs you X troops, meaning for this particular action, you want X to be small, not large. There could be a building that reduces the troop cost to attack (hospital?) In this way, the more often you attack, the less it costs each time - rewarding a warmonger for attacking often.

* Move: Perhaps another Move bin, since movement may be key to positioning your pawns.

Influence track and game end timer:
I envision an Influence track across the top of (or around) the board, which records influence each player brings to the order (which will be their score), as well as the overall influence of the order itself - which I envision to simply be the running total of the player' influence. So whenever a player scores Influence, they adjust both their marker and the Order's marker on the Influence track. When the Order's influence marker reaches a certain point, marked on the board, that will indicate Friday 13, 1307, the time at which King Philip issues the order to arrest all members of the Knights Templar. At this point the Order's marker on the influence track would cease to represent the combined influence of the players, and instead would turn into a countdown timer of sorts. In some way the marker would decrement, and when it reaches certain spaces (marked on the track), buildings in the region(s) indicated by that space would be destroyed. Perhaps as well, Knights in those regions would be captured. Players would need to move their Knights to Portugal, the only European country where the Knights Templar were safe, before they are captured. When all knights are safely in Portugal (or captured), then the game will end. Perhaps there could be more than 1 (I want to say 3) different possible 'epicenters' of this destruction, so you don't know which it'll be, and it could be different from game to game.

Building tech tree:
I've got a couple of different ideas about this... it could be the case that there is 1 big set of buildings, with 1 or 2 tiles of each, and when all the Level 1 Farms (for example) are gone, then it'll be a little harder to get a Farm (need to build Level 2)... then the benefits would probably be related to the total number of the appropriate buildings on the board, meaning everybody has the same tech upgrades (though in theory you'll build the buildings that support your strategy more than someone else's).

Another idea is for each player to have their own supply of building tiles. While this requires more bits, it could be better because (a) players could differentiate their player profiles based on which buildings they build (only 1 building of each type would be allowed per region, and only 1 building per player would be allowed per region as well) - and (b)there could be 2 copies of each, and when built, 1 could go onto the board, and the other could go onto the player's Rondel so it's easy to calculate and not miss the benefit. In this case, for each player it will get harder and harder to specialize in a particular building (each one will be a little harder to build), which is a neat dynamic. On the other hand it would be relatively easy to build several different level 1 and level 2 buildings, giving the player a variety of bonuses, but no action that is super powerful. This scheme sounds best to me at the moment.

That's about all I have for now. I'm working on some thoughts for the game board. I'm sure I'll keep you posted on any progress this game sees. In the meantime I'd be interested in any comments you may have on it!

EmDo Warmonger Expansion - some thoughts

2011-12-31T02:46:00.000-07:00

I have invited some people to share the DropBox folder with EmDo expansion files, and I hope to see some reports after the new year as to what those people think of the new stuff, especially if they printed it out and played with it. I have played a bit (mostly 2-player) in the last couple of weeks, and as John and I gain familiarity with the cards, we are definitely improving.

I was worried that the Warmonger stuff - Warfare Technology, benefits of having a dreadnaught, and the necessity to get Destroyers to attack some planets - would overemphasize the Warfare role rather than simply be another option of something to pursue. I tried to balance this out by including planets that cannot be attacked*, and then I went 1 step further and made the effect of those planets be "collect 1 VP when dissenting a Warfare role." So far I don't think it's been a problem, but my latest thought is that I should make Tech cards that also give a VP if you dissent a Warfare role - probably put them on the back of the Warfare Technology tech cards (which allow you to discard fighters as if they were Research symbols).

The Warfare Technology is currently a level 1 permanent tech in each of the tech stacks (i.e. there are 3 of them), with an interesting new technology on the back. In some games I think it may be too strong to be able to pay an unlimited number of Research costs with Fighters, so I'm considering turning those Warfare Technology techs into Level 2 techs - making them at least a little harder to obtain. Other games though I'm not so sure that's necessary.

* As an aside, I think I might change that to simply be "requires infinite fighters" - so the card cost can stay consistent (put an infinity sign for the Warfare cost), and those planets can still be attacked if you do the work to get a Dreadnaught (which you can discard in lieu of any number of fighters when attacking a planet).

Sedjtroll's Gaming Year In Review - 2011

2011-12-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year, and I see a lot of "year in review" and "best of 2011" posts floating around. I've never done that, but I thought I'd take a look at what I've played this year and do some sort of "year in review" post myself...

Games Played
According to BoardGameGeek.com stats, I have recorded 436 games played - about 36 games per month on the average, and more than 1 per day! This is actually somewhat low for me in comparison to recent years. Let's take a look at some of the more notable games I was into this year:

Unpublished Prototype: 88 plays
This entry is a combination of all the prototypes I played, 34 different games including Tasty Minstrel submissions (some of which are now published, such as Martian Dice, and some are in the process, such as Kings of Air and Steam), my own designs (such as Alter Ego, Exhibit, and Eminent Domain expansions), and other people's games I played at Spielbany, Protospiel, and BGG.con among other places.

Eminent Domain: 56 plays
This includes some recent plays of the expansion stuff I've been working on, since then I started recording it in the normal EmDo entry. I'm starting to be more comfortable with the Warmonger expansion stuff. Like the base game though, I suspect it may take players several plays to sort of "get it" - and if they don't persevere they might find the expansion wildly broken.

As a side note, I've played over 150 games of Eminent Domain over the last 2 years or so, and I'm not sick of it. That makes me happy!

Hanabi: 29 plays
Hanabi is by far the most cooperative feeling cooperative game I have ever played. I think it's the crowning acheivement of the genre, at least so far, and I look forward to playing some more. The only down side to Hanabi is "The Great Convention Debate." The people who taught me the game are bridge players, and they had 3 pages of conventions such as "If I tell you you have "Zero 4's" that means your 1st and 3rd cards are playable." If you ask me, that kind of convention is specifically prohibited by the rules! There are more tame conventions though, such as "I keep my oldest cards to the left of my hand, and always place the newest card on the right" - which is a logical convention that sort of evolves naturally... however it leads to other conventions which become borderline cheating - like "When I discard, I always discard the card furthest to the left." Which then begets " "I know if they discard it'll be a safe card, so I won't give that player a clue, I'll look at the next player's hand..." which translates to "They just passed over giving me a clue, therefore my leftmost card is a safe discard..." Just how much of that info transfer is 'legal'? Certainly all of it is more legal than using the bids as code for other pre-agreed upon language.

Sobek: 21 plays
I got Sobek as a throw-in on a trade, and I ended up liking i better than the game I had traded for! I especially like Sobek as a 2-player game, and the only thing I wish were different is the "oasis" tiles - I wish you could hold onto them and use them later, so that they are always a reward rather than occasionally a penalty (you play a set to avoid drafting a card, but if all that's left is Oasis tiles, you'll still have to draft a card).

Kings of Air and Steam: 17 plays
I have been working on Kings of Air and Steam for Tasty Minstrel Games since February, and I really enjoy it. In the last weeks I've gotten a number of plays (mostly 2 player) in to fine tune the character abilities. After the successful Kickstarter campaign, this game's production is in full swing, Josh is hard at work on the visuals, and I look forward to an awesome looking game next summer.

Glen More: 15 plays
Glen More is a fantastic little game that I'm very glad I was able to trade for. The guy I got it from even pimped it out with fancy aftermarket bits! Though I would be just as happy to play with the standard bits. The market mechanism in Glen More is inspired, and the game offers several viable paths to victory. I am always a little disappointed that the special tiles overlap so much, but that doesn't keep the game from being really cool :)

7 Wonders: 11 plays
7 Wonders won all kinds of awards including the big one (Kennerspiel des Jahres), and it's a very popular and well liked game. I am not as enamored with the game as all that. It's a solid little card drafting game, but I think people are more excited that it plays 7 players and has a short play time than they are excited whether or not it's any good. It IS good, but I don't know if it's as good as it's cracked up to be.

Kingdom Builder: 6 plays
Kingdom Builder is the new hotness from the creator of Dominion. I can see a lot of Donald X's style in the variable scoring conditions and power tiles, and the game is an OK diversion, but I don't see it as being really skill based enough to really satisfy me. I'd much rather play Glory to Rome or EmDo, each of which is about the same scope/timeframe (though to be fair, they're both heavier and more complicated, so they only count as the same scope if you have experienced players).

Navegador: 5 plays
I first played this game at BGG.con last year, and played it 5 times in 2011. It's definitely my favorite Mac Gerdts game to date! I hope to play this one a few more times before I forget about it.

Pantheon: 4 plays
I played Pantheon at BGG.con this year, and really enjoyed it.

Grave Business: 3 plays
Grave Business is by a friend of mine, and if it weren't for that I might never have played it - a Zombie theme and blind bidding are both things that generally turn me off in games. but Andy's games are always well thought out, so I thought I'd see how his first published title played. I was surprised at how much I liked it! It's a solid, well thought out game, and one I've played a couple of times this year - more than I can say about any other game with a Zombie theme!

Quarriors!: 3 plays
Quarrior's is a standout game in that it was very popular, riding on the recent popularity of the deck building genre as well as the recent popularity of dice games - and almost nothing else. All 3 of these recorded plays were a result of me waling up when people were already explaining the rules and it was either play or watch (in some cases it seems like those are the same thing). I will note that the designer/publisher recently posted official variant rules which apparently they playtested for a year and made for what *I* would consider a better game - though maybe not "better" for their target market... I haven't tried the game with those variant rules, but I highly suspect they're an improvement.

Shipyard: 3 plays
I first played Shipyard at BGG.con 2009, and soon after that I bought a copy (buying games is actually quite rare for me). I have not played it nearly as much as I'd have liked, but finally I've picked it back up and gotten it back to the table a couple of times, and that reminds me why I like it so much! It has a lot of fiddly bits, but all of it goes together prefectly - nothing is extraneous. There are various approaches to get things done, and I like the various Rondels which govern most of the actions in the game.

Shipyard is really a standout game and I look forward to playing it again. Rumors that the end-game bonus cards are not properly balanced have been greatly exaggerated - those people just like to compare apples to oranges.

The Castles of Burgundy: 1 plays
I played The Castles of burgundy at KublaCon last May, and I really enjoyed it. I have not had the opportunity to play it again, but I thought it deserved mention as a standout game of 2011. Stefan Feld had an outstanding year, and while it was his other games that got all of the attention, I think this one might be one of his actual best.

The Manhattan Project: 1 plays
I saw some posts about The Manhattan Project before it was picked up to be published, and it sounded very interesting. I was kind of hoping to get my hands on it for possible Tasty Minstrel release, but James grabbed it up at Protospiel. And I'm glad he did, I got a chance to play it at BGG.con and it's every bit as cool as I thought it would be! This might be a game I purchase, which (again) is rare for me - though it's sort of contingent on my play group wanting to play it... I hope they do!

Trajan: 1 plays
I got a chance to play Trajan at BGG.con, and it's every bit as interesting as I thought it would be, though perhaps not as good as I hoped it would be. Managing the colors on the Rondel sort of obfuscates the playing of the game, which is a little annoying - if I didn't think the Trajan tiles were such a big deal I could more easily ignore it. I'd like to play again, but if that part doesn't get more pleasant with experience then I'm afraid I won't want to play it too much. Shame, because I really like how the rest of the game fits together - many different approaches, and they overlap so you may be in contest with someone for an action even though you're both pursuing different strategies!

Walnut Grove: 1 plays
I hadn't heard anything about this one until Snowden brought it to game night, and he described it as a light sort of Agricola. After playing the game I rather enjoyed it and would like to play again, albeit with one small variant rule.

Kings of Air and Steam - Kickstarted!

2011-12-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

It's official, with 626 backers (representing almost 1000 copies of the game) and $41,722 in pledges, the Kings of Air and Steam Kickstarter project has funded! That was sort of a foregone conclusion, as it reached the initial funding level within a week... the bigger question is which Ovrefunding goals were reached? Answer: at $40k+, every copy of Kings of Air and Steam will have custom molded airships that look something like this:

They'll also have a 7th team (2 additional characters) which were not originally going to be in the game. I'm really looking forward to playing this game with the final art and components!

In true Tasty Minstrel fashion, Michael tried some new and innovative things with this project. Taking some of my advice, instead of offering exclusive game content or upgrading only Kickstarter copies with stretch goals, he used stretch goals to improve the production quality for the entire print run. I've posted before why I think this is the way to go - the long and short of it is that while these 626 kickstarters did support the game, the thousands of people who buy up the remainder of the print run, and any future print runs going forward, are supporters as well.

Aside: Certainly people need some incentive to pre-order on Kickstarter, committing money well in advance of the release date, and taking the chance that they might not even like the game without having had a chance to play it. I don't disagree with this at all. However, as indicated in the post I linked above, I am a fervent supporter of those incentives NOT being Exclusive Game Content. Exclusive bling is better, depending on what it is. I believe that some types of bling should be just put into the full print run of the game. Other types of bling such as an alternate cover, or fancier dice (provided the standard dice are nice enough) is more acceptable as a physical exclusive for KS supporters.

This choice to not offer exclusive benefits for supporters faced some resistance online, with a common sentiment seeming to be that "supporters need/want/deserve exclusive content!" I have been surprised at the number of those types of posts, and the relative lack of more rational "if the incentive isn't good enough, people will not support the project" posts. In any case, I was curious to see how well this project would do, given the distinct lack of exclusives and trinkets...

In the end Kings of Air and Steam garnered over $40,000 in support. Not quite as much as Eminent Domain, but close. EmDo had some advantages over KoA&S with respect to funding viability - it was a more accessible theme, a lower price point, and a hot mechanism. However, KoA&S had some advantages over EmDo as well - Kickstarter is more well known now, more people are using it to fund board games, and therefore more board game players are aware of and are looking for it. Also, with the success of EmDo, TMG had a stronger brand and more fans going into this project.

That KoA&S could garner as much support as it did is strong evidence that exclusive items (and especially exclusive game content) are not, strictly speaking, necessary. This is a huge relief, and I think it bodes very well for the longevity of KS as a board game funding platform.

Could the project have raised more funds if it had included other rewards? I'm sure it could have, and I'm certain that the next TMG kickstarter project will build on the success of the first two projects and find some creative ways to encourage support. I'm personally happy that the results of this project show how overfund goals can apply to the entire print run!

Tasty Minstrel is now 2-for-2 with Kickstarter projects in the Top 10 Funded Board Game Kickstarter projects! I won't say it was all because of the genius of the reward structure - I think the success of KoA&S was based largely on the TMG fan base, brand, and track record for publishing outstanding games. Many thanks tot he TMG fans who helped push Kings of Air and Steam into the Top 10!

Another new and innovative thing TMG is trying out is a new distribution model for this game. KoA&S will be part of the Game Salute Select Exclusive program, meaning that these games will only be available though brick and mortar stores who sign up for the program, or online directly from the publisher through Game Salute's or the publisher's websites. As a result of this program, the retail price of the game can be reduced from $60 to $50 (%16 discount across the board), but it will not be available for the usual 30%+ discount ($40) that online retailers would normally sell it for. Nobody has seen this program in action yet, and I'm sure it'll have advantages and drawbacks compared to traditional distribution... we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I believe the reasoning behind the whole program is noble, and a number of other publishers are on board with it as well, you can see a list of Game Select Exclusive games on Game Salute's website.

Characters and player pieces in games

2011-12-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

If you're playing a game with player pieces on the board, and variable player characters such as Pandemic has:

How important is it that the character pawn color is tied to the character card color?

Case 1:
A player likes to play Green. When playing Pandemic, he either cannot play green (unless dealt the Operations Expert), or else he always chooses Green and therefore always plays the Operations Expert.

Case 2:
A player likes to play Green. When playing Pandemic, he uses the green pawn no matter which role he is dealt. Therefore in one game the Green pawn can represent the Operations Expert, while in another game it could represent the Medic.

I can see benefits and drawbacks to each of these cases. As a game player, which case do you think is better? Leave a comment and let me know!

Benefits of Case 1:
* It's always clear by looking at the board which character ability is associated with which pawn, no referencing must be done to figure out whether that Green Pawn is really the Medic (and can therefore more easily treat diseases near him), or the Operations Expert (and can't).
* Potentially more thematic - always being Green gives both the green pawn and the Operations Expert role some identity.

Drawbacks of Case 1:
* Players may not get to play the color they want, or if they insist on it, they will play the same character every game.
* More pawns are required - 1 per character rather than 1 per player. Additional pawns are required for each expansion that adds additional Roles.

Benefits of Case 2:
* Players can always play the color they want
* Only 1 pawn required per player not 1 per character.

Drawbacks of Case 2:
* Loss of identity as described above.
* Potential confusion or annoyance when players must do multiple cross references to determine which piece on the board belongs to which player and therefore which abilities that pawn may be capable of. This could be amplified if, unlike Pandemic, the game is competitive rather than cooperative.

EmDo Expansion Print and Play

2011-12-14T01:41:00.000-07:00

I've updated my current prototype files for the latest EmDo expansions (under construction!) and placed them in a DropBox folder. If you read this blog, then you probably have an idea what's in there.

If you are interested in printing the expansion stuff and trying it out, please send me your email address and I'll invite you to share the folder.

Please note that at this time I'm not intending to preview this as if it were a final product, rather I'm interested in getting opinions on the content so far so I can determine what should be in the expansion, what should be left out, and what tweaks should be made to the content I have so far.

I've got 2 Expansions in there - the Exotic Expansion (which I've posted about a long time ago), and the newer Warmonger Expansion. There's also prototype files for the base game in there.

I reformatted the prototype planets to look more like the published version.

Thanks!

Rating one's own game

2011-12-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while a thread erupts on BGG in which somebody complains that the designers/developers/publishers of a game have rated it a "10" - sometimes they call it "shilling," other times they just say it turns them off. Some go as far as to suggest that a high rating from the publisher of a game negates any interest they had in the game, even if that were considerable based on what they'd read or seen before examining the ratings.

Obviously everyone's entitled to their opinion, and one could argue that if ANYBODY is turned off by the practice of a designer rating their own game then I ought not rate my own games. No need to turn anybody off unnecessarily. However, I find that sentiment repugnant...

I am a gamer. I've been playing, tracking and rating games on BGG for years, and that pre-dates any of my game design or publication efforts. All the while my ratings have been biased toward games I enjoy. Of course when it came time to rate my own games I would be biased toward them as well. The very idea that I should have to censor myself and not rate the game is abhorrent!

Giving a high rating to a game you design, or a game you publish, is not shilling. Shilling is opening fake accounts in order to give additional ratings and other non-genuine props to a game, posing as somebody else. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but only one of them. The problem with shilling is that it's duplicitous - it's an attempt to fool somebody into thinking that more people like the game than really do. Rating a game that you designed is not duplicitous, provided you really do like that game.

Having to hold back your rating is like negative shilling and it's equally duplicitous - representing that FEWER people like the game than really do. I am not interested in artificially anti-shilling my own game for any reason.

I understand the arguments against rating one's own game, but frankly they just don't hold water. If other designers want to refrain from rating their own games, then that's fine for them - I don't care. It's the principle of the thing. I absolutely refuse to change my behavior in this case just because other people are unreasonable. If that means some guy I've never met decides he's going to predispose himself against my game, then so be it!

EmDo popularity at BGGcon

2011-12-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

I was happy to wander the ballroom at BGG.con and see groups of people in the middle of a game of Eminent Domain. It made me feel good when people would say how much they liked the game:)

I just saw a post at BGG listing how many times each game was checked out of the library at the convention, and Eminent Domain was 5th on the list!

I continue to really enjoy how well the game has gone over so far. It's rating at BGG is 7.35, which is a really good average rating! It's ranked 290 overall, and 157 in the Strategy game category!

Awesome! :)

My campaign against Exclusive Game Content

2011-12-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Kickstarter has been around for a while now, and it's use as a platform for funding board game projects has grown in popularity and exposure, leading to record levels of funding. Last year, Tasty Minstrel Games raised over $48,000 on Kickstarter to publish my game Eminent Domain. About a month ago, Richard Bliss (who follow this stuff closely and reports on it in his Game Whisperer podcast and on PurplePawn.com) reported that Kickstarter had raised $1.1 million for board and card game projects so far this year, and that amount has only increased from there. A project called D-Day Dice (a cooperative dice game) has raised over $114,000 all by itself.

Chris Shreiber has started a series of LESSONS LEARNED threads in the Kickstarter guild at BGG. Each thread intends to cover some aspect of running a Kickstarter project, with the goal to be an overall improvement in how the KS process benefits the gaming community as a whole, so that everyone (project authors and backers) get more out of it.

In one of those threads Chris requested suggestions for Card & Board Game relevant reward levels. In that thread I posted a request to future authors of Kickstarter game projects. My request is that authors avoid using exclusive game content to entice people to back the project. I then cross posted that request into a thread specifically about exclusive offers and stretch goals, and it generated some response and discussion.

Here is the request, copied verbatim from those threads:

There is a very strong incentive that has thus far worked well in soliciting pledges that I would like to address: Exclusive game content. I implore all publishers (established, first-timers, and self-publishers alike) to please consider NOT including exclusive game content as an incentive to pledge support for a game! Because I feel this is a very important point, I'll say it again, succinctly and in bold type:

Please do not use exclusive game content to solicit pledges.

Here are some reasons why, as well as some alternatives that I think ought to work just as well:

* First and foremost, everyone who buys the game is a supporter, not just the Kickstarters. That is super important, so here it is again...

Everyone who buys the game is a supporter, not just the Kickstarters.

Unless you are only going to produce just enough copies of the game to satisfy kickstarter orders and no more (this is not common), then the number of Kickstater supporters is very small compared to the total number of supporters the game will see over it's lifetime. For the thousands of people who find out about the game AFTER the Kickstarter campaign, it totally sucks that they cannot have the entire game experience, or that they have to scour eBay and pay extra for the right to do so. Some players are so turned off by not being allowed access to the entire game they won't bother to play it in the first place.

* When there exist different versions of a game, it creates confusion in the marketplace. Right now there is the possibility of a game store stocking 2 copies of Eminent Domain side by side, one from the initial print run with Bonus Planets included and one from the 2nd run without them. This is very unfortunate, and I wish it were not the case. With any exclusive content, buying or trading for any game on the used market is suddenly complicated. Does it have the exclusive content? Is it therefore worth more?

* When 1 group has content that another group does not, then the 2 groups aren't even playing the same game! It becomes difficult or impossible for players to compare game experiences from 2 separate sessions (for those that care to do so), and it can be very disappointing when a player is in a new area and sits down to play a familiar game only to find it's not the same game he expects because there's exclusive content.

In my opinion, exclusive game content is bad for hobby gaming as a whole. While offering it as an incentive to pledge will excite a handful of people, it will disappoint a far larger (and ever growing) number of fans of the game.

Alternatives to exclusive game content:
* Exclusive game pieces are something that people can get excited about, but that do not change the game itself. I personally think that any such upgraded component should probably just be made part of the print run rather than an exclusive, but this is at least an acceptable alternative to exclusive game content.

* Provide widely available (or to-be widely available) content for free to Kickstarters, while it will cost extra down the road. For example, if you have a mini expansion (or a full expansion) prepared, include it for free with Kickstarter orders, but make it available via BGG store, distribution, website sales, or whatever for a cost to those who do not kickstart the project.

* Provide increased production value for the entire print run, rather than only for the Kickstarters. I think this is a good use of Overfunding or Stretch Goals. Kickstarter orders will be upgraded, but so will all future copies of the game which will be on game store shelves. This is effectively just restating the whole purpose of using Kickstarter in the first place. Nobody says "if we reach our funding goal, we will ONLY provide games to our Kickstarter supporters" - instead it's "If we reach our funding goal we'll print X,000 copies of the game" - so obviously there's no exclusivity there. I believe the stretch goals should work the same way: "If we reach X additional funding, we will print X,000 copies of the upgraded version of the game."

* Guarantee early delivery. This can be tricky because of the vagaries of production and shipping timelines, but if you can manage it then it allows Kickstarter supporters the opportunity to both be the first on the block to play the new hotness, as well as trade or sell it if they find it's not to their liking (or if they got multiple copies) before the game hits the shelves. Some Kickstarter supporters are in it to speculate, and this gives them the opportunity to do so without having to disappoint all future fans of the game.

* Offer significant discounts to Kickstarters (akin to large pre-order discounts you would normally see from publishers who have pre-order promotions). Kickstarter is essentially a pre-order system, so it should work like one. This in combination with the previous bullet point increases the value of speculation for those supporters for whom that's important.

I hope that future Kickstarter publishers will consider this. I know it's a hard sell considering how well exclusive game content seems to work as an incentive to pledge. However, I suspect that the main reason most people pledge is NOT just to get exclusive game content. I think most of the supporters will still support without exclusive game content, provided there are attractive reward levels - and my list above is NOT exhaustive, I'm sure there are more ways to entice support!

Alter Ego rules update

2011-11-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

Alter Ego v2.3
A cooperative deck building game of vigilante heroism

You won't see Crime City on any map, but that's how people have come to know your hometown. Sadists, Anarchists, the Mafia, each carving out portions of the city they call their own. Hundreds of innocent bystanders caught up every day in their turf wars, or held under their oppressive thumbs. Precious few have the time, the money, the guts, or the wherewithal to do anything about it. You're one of those few... of course it means you'll have to give up that happy home life, or that cushy job. The paper paints vigilantism in a negative light - you'd be viewed by the community as a monster. But your city bleeds... the city bleeds and it calls your name. Will you answer?

You're a vigilante hero, one of the few in Crime City who have come together to put an end to the reign of terror the city's been trapped under. Banding together, you'll fight through a swath of henchmen in order to find and defeat several Arch Villains. But as you get stronger as a hero, you'll have to neglect some parts of your Alter Ego life - your family, your job, and the community.

Components:
XX Hero cards (5 types)
XX Alter Ego Cards
- XX Family Cards
- XX Job Cards
- XX Community Cards
XX Henchmen Cards
XX Arch Villain Cards (3 types)
XX Nemesis Cards
XX Equipment Cards
XX Civilian (CIV) Tokens (3 types)
XX Teamwork Tokens
XX Cop Tokens

Setup:
1. Shuffle the Henchmen cards to create the henchmen deck. Place this deck in the middle of the table.
2. Randomly choose 1 Arch Villain of each type. Those will be the Arch Villains used this game, put the rest back into the box.
3. Sort the Hero and Equipment cards by type and place them in piles in the center of the table, accessible by all players.
4. Give each player 4 of each Alter Ego card (Family, Job, and Community). Sort the rest of the Alter Ego cards by type and place them alongside the Hero cards.
5. Each player shuffles his deck of 12 Alter Ego cards and deals 4 cards face up into his "display" area, then draws a hand of 4 from the remaining cards in his deck.
6. Sort the Civ tokens by type and create pools of each. Also create a pool of Teamwork tokens.
7. deal each player 1 Nemesis card, which they keep hidden from other players.

Turns:
Patrol phase: On your turn you must first bring a henchman into play:
* Draw 1 card from the Henchmen deck.
* If you have any face up Community cards in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community card.
* If you have at least 1 [Should this be "For each"?] Community card in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).
* Choose 1 Henchman card to put into play, and discard the rest in a face down discard pile.
* If you have at least 3 Community icons in play and played at least 1 Community card, then you may "Call the Cops" - discard a Cop token from the group's supply and remove 1 Henchman card in play from the game. Any hostages on that henchmen are considered rescued and are returned to their supply pools. No player takes the Henchman card into their play area.

When a henchman comes into play he takes some number of civilians hostage! Place CIV tokens on the Henchman card as indicated. If a CIV token must be taken but the supply is empty, then the game is over and the Villains win!

Support phase: After a henchman has come into play, you may gain support from your family, allowing you to draw cards from your deck:
* For each Family card in your display, draw 2 cards from your deck.
* If you have at least 1 [Should this be "For each"?] Family card in your display, also draw 1 card from your deck for each Family icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).
* If you have at least 3 Family icons in play and played at least 1 Family card, then you may collect 1 Teamwork token from the supply.

Equip phase: You may spend money on fancy equipment to make you a stronger hero:
* For each Job card in your display, collect $1
* If you have at least 1 [Should this be "For each"?] Job card in your display, collect $1 for each $ icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).
You may spend these $s to buy or activate Equipment this turn.

Crime-fighting phase: Now that you have geared up and garnered the support of your friends and family, it's time to go fight some crime!
* Hero cards in your display may be spent to rescue CIV tokens currently being held on a Henchman card. Hero cards spent must match the icons depicted on the Henchman card. The rescued CIV token is returned to the supply.
* If you have at least 1 [Should this be "For each"?] Hero card of a particular type in your display, you may use the matching Hero icons on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).
* You may "request help" from another player. Give an opponent 1 Teamwork token in order to use one of the Hero cards in their display (they need not discard it). You can only request help from each other player once per turn, and each request requires a Teamwork token.
* You may discard 2 Teamwork tokens to the general supply in lieu of any 1 Hero symbol.
* If the last CIV token on a henchman is rescued, that henchman is DEFEATED, and the current player may keep that henchman in his play area and gain the printed benefit (usually an icon).
* Whenever a henchman is defeated, check to see if it has any Arch Villain icons. For each Arch Villain icon, place a token on the matching Arch Villain card. When enough tokens are placed on an Arch Villain card, that Arch Villain will come into play and terrorize the city by KILLING civilians (removing CIV tokens from the game) until he is defeated!

Recoup phase: After you're all spent from fighting crime, you get a chance to recuperate and plan your next turn.
* Discard all cards in your display.
* Play 4 cards from your hand face up into your display.
* For each Display icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area), you may play an additional card face up into your display.
* Choose a Hero or Alter Ego card from the supply stacks and place it face up in your display.
* Discard the rest of your hand, and draw 4 new cards from your deck (shuffle your discard pile as needed) plus 1 card for each Hand Size icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).

Play continues with the next player in clockwise order.

When the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over. The Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil and everybody wins!

OR...

When the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over. The Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil! Any player who has defeated their Nemesis wins a Personal Victory, while all players win a Cooperative Victory.

OR...

When the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over. If all players have defeated their Nemesis, then the Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil and everybody wins! Otherwise, the Nemeses who were not defeated rise up and overtake Crime City!

OR...

When any player defeats their Nemesis OR the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over. If the game ended because a nemesis was defeated, then the player defeating their Nemesis wins. If the game ended because an Arch Villain was defeated, then the Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil and everybody wins!

If at any time a CIV token must be taken but the supply is empty, then the game is over and the Villains win!

EmDo Expansion progress

2011-11-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

I got a few chances to play with the latest EmDo expansion cards. It went fairly well, and then I made some adjustments based on the few games we played.

I thought it was too annoying to have additional tech stacks and to check the specific planets required for the Double Time cards, so I changed that to 1 specific planet plus any other planet, so it could just go in the corresponding tech stack. I had meant "any 2 planets", but maybe it should be 2 different planets... not sure if that matters. It's supposed to be for people who get a variety of planets, not people who specialize, so I'll probably stick with "Any OTHER planet" there.

I changed some of the costs of some technology to "either research icons or fighters" and added a level 1 tech in each stack called Warfare Technology, which allows you to pay fighters as if they were Research icons. The purpose of these is to allow players to add tech cards to their deck without having to add Research cards to their deck.

I added a few other new technology cards to the piles as well, some requiring all 3 different planet types, some requiring a Destroyer rather than research symbols (or fighters). As described in the prior post, I also added Resources and Fighters to the icon area on some of the new tech cards, meaning you can discard that card from your hand as if it were a resource/fighter in your empire to trade or attack a planet. I added Destroyers and Dreadnaughts to some of the more expensive techs, so buying that tech is like buying a Destroyer or Dreadnaught into your Empire.

I also added a card/tile that each player will start with called Fleet Upgrade... it confers additional actions a player can do in lieu of playing a card during their action phase - exchange 3 Fighters for a Destroyer, or exchange 2 Destroyers for a Dreadnaught. It also serves as a reminder that while you have at least 1 dreadnaught in play, your Warfare costs are -1, and you can discard a Dreadnaught in lieu of any number of fighters to attack a planet.

I like the idea of offering Actions that are available each turn without requiring a card, so I added a series of planets that each have one of the basic actions on them. this means that every turn, whether you have a Trade card in hand or not, you can use your Action for the turn to trade 1 resource for 1 Influence. Those planets cost either 5 colonies or 1 Destroyer.

I also made "Hostile" planets, which require 1 Destroyer to attack and cannot be colonized. those each provide 1 Fighter whenever you're spending fighters (so effectively -1 to Warfare costs, as well as usable for things like Fleet Upgrade).

And finally, I created "Civilized" planets which cannot be attacked, only colonized (they have defenses and stuff). Each of those have the ability "gain 1 Influence whenever you Dissent instead of following a Warfare role." I hope that this will help counterbalance the things I added that emphasize Warfare role.

As a sort of teaser, I included Exotic icons on the Double Time cards, and I came up with 6 Agendas which could be used as an optional rule... Put 2 of them at random into play each game or something like that. In a future expansion I still intend to add a Politics role and more Agendas, and I even have a better idea how I think they'll come into play:

I think players will use the Politics role to either choose an Agenda to bring into play, or choose an Agenda in play to discard. Players will 'vote' for or against by boosting and following the role, each card played will count for 1 vote, with Politics cards counting as 2 votes. It seems like a simple system that could be fair and work the way I want it to. I could always specify icons on the agendas that indicate what you need to play in order to vote for or against that Agenda.

I'm more happy with the expansion progress now than I was before, and I've sent PDFs to a couple of friends to let me know what they think. One more round of edits and I might open up a print and play to people interested in commenting on it!

Alter Ego - clarification of the theme

2011-11-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Alter Ego is not about Superheroes.

I feel like this will be a point of contention, as people have already mentioned that they "did not feel like they had super powers." People refer to Batman as a "Superhero," but he has no super powers... he's just some bad-ass who's trained various skills and bought awesome equipment in order to become a vigilante crime fighter. THAT'S what Alter Ego is about... Vigilante heroes like Batman or The Watchmen. There are no super powers here. How can I ensure that point comes across?

The main mechanism of the game is that each turn you choose what aspect to 'train' - and thereby get a card of that type for your deck. So it doesn't make sense if the cards are powers like Flight, Heat Vision, Teleporting, Telekinetics... "I think I'll work in my ability to fly today!" - just doesn't make sense.

Instead, each Villain card indicates what skills are needed to defeat it (Strength, Speed, Smarts, Luck (I know you can't train luck, but I needed 5 things), and um... one more (maybe Focus?). There's a stack of cards for each of there (like there's a stack of cards for each of the basic actions in EmDo), and each turn you take 1. You also have cards for Family, Job, and Community - representing your ties to each of those Alter Ego aspects.

The game is about beating up bad guys in order to eventually beat up an Arch Villain, but the play revolves around constantly having to choose between your Alter Ego aspects and your Hero aspects. Which do you neglect in order to fight crime? Your family and friends? Your job? The community? Each of those comes with a benefit that you lose if you don't play those cards - but in order to beat up the bad guys, you really need to play Hero cards instead - and you can only play so many cards per turn.

I currently think there could be both a cooperative win condition and a competitive win condition in this game, and players who would like to play a fully cooperative game can do so, while players who would like individual wins could go for that. The team wins if they defeat one of the Arch Villains, while an individual wins if they defeat their own personal Nemesis. Everybody loses if the city is overrun with crime though, so players will have to make sure that doesn't happen, and that might even mean working together.

I think I even have a mechanism for working together - Teamwork Tokens. If you want a player's help (you need to use one of their hero cards in play), you give them a Teamwork Token and you get to use their card (they don't lose it). Teamwork Tokens can also be discarded 2 at a time to make up for any symbol in the game. I don't know if this will feel like teamwork or not, but it sounds like it might be a good way to allow "teamwork" in a competitive game.

I played the game (such as it is) with my incomplete prototype a couple of times in the last week, and I've solidified a few things...

- I like the basic structure, and the game flows the way it's supposed to.

- There needs to be piles for Family, Community, and Job cards alongside the Hero aspects for players to take if they want to.

- I like the game loss condition of running out of any single color of "civilian" tokens - and there needs to be a fairly small number of each (maybe only 5 or 6) for that to feel right, at least with the current set of Villain cards.

- I like the idea of each Arch Villain being associated with one of those colors (civilian types), and when they come into play, each Patrol Phase (so every player turn) they KILL one civilian of that type (remove a token of that color from the game). this is supposed to be a really big deal, and force players to deal with this baddie as soon as possible.

- There could be different types of each Arch Villain, so if you activate the Sadist for example, maybe he takes a lot of hostages, and waits for his minions to finish the game off... or maybe he kills civilians as described above. Or maybe he just forces more Villains to come into play, accelerating the potential game loss condition. Each Arch Villain could have several types, so you don't know which one will pop up each game.

- For the standard coop game, players would need to defeat only 1 Arch Villain. for a harder game they could need to defeat 2 of them, and for an Epic Win they could try and defeat all 3.

- Players could have a nemesis card (cards?) which represent their personal Nemesis, and you win a personal victory by defeating your own Nemesis before the group loses or wins as a team.

- It could be the case that the game is still fully cooperative, but you 'score better' if you defeat players' Nemeses as well as the Arch Villains (so a perfect game would be to defeat ALL of the Nemeses and also all of the Arch Villains).

- There could be some small supply of COP cards, and players could "Call the cops" if they play 3 or more Community cards (well, Community icons) in addition to their turn. This would remove a Villain from play, rescuing the hostage, but nobody would collect the card and therefore the benefit on it. Some Villains benefits would be that they return COP cards to play, giving the players more uses.

- Of course there could be Villains who provide more Teamwork Tokens.

- I need to completely re-do the Equipment deck (I already knew that). there could be some equipment that stays in play, some that is one-use only, and some that cycle through your deck.

- I need to design the Arch Villain and Nemesis cards to give players something to build their deck towards.

EmDo and Belfort are going strong!

2011-11-27T00:36:00.001-07:00

Maybe it goes without saying, but I couldn't be more pleased with the general reception that both Eminent Domain and Belfort have received. Of course I've got a lot of personal attachment to Eminent Domain, but I also put a lot of care and effort into Belfort as well. It's so exciting to hear the news that Tasty Minstrel has sold out of it's 2,000 copies of Belfort, and that EmDo is selling into the 2nd 5,000 copy print run!

I'd like to take a moment to thank all of the people who have bought, played, taught, and enjoyed either of those games, or anything published by Tasty Minstrel Games. It's a great feeling to wander around BGG.con and see these games being played and enjoyed!

I put some work in on EmDo expansion ideas, and I hope to get that into print-and-play testing fairly soon. It was much easier to get to work on that after seeing how much people are liking the base game! :)

BGG.con 2011 recap

2011-11-26T05:10:00.000-07:00

I spent last week at BGG.con again, and I had a TERRIFIC time this year! First, let me be clear... I've attended all 7 BGG.con events, and I've enjoyed every single one. However, the last couple of years (since Tasty Minstrel Games got started) my con experienced has been affected by having to man the booth much of each day. I've already got too many things to do and too many people I want to see than there is time in the week, so spending all those hours in the booth have put something of a damper on my vacation. It's not all bad though, as the whole TMG experience has been rewarding in its own right. This year however, Michael decided to sell TMG product through the Funagain store, freeing us up to play games!

I got to play a lot of mew games, with a lot of old friends. Here's a little recap:

Tuesday, 11/15
I arrived at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, made my way back to the convention area, and offered a little help setting up. I moved some boxes of giveaway games into a closet with Mischa and Adam, and then I stuffed envelopes for Yehuda's con-wide meta-game. I met Jess Danhurst, who's tireless work (along with that of Beth, Aldie, Lincoln, and everyone else) made the Essen reporting a joy to watch.

Envelopes stuffed, I bumped into Travis, a friend from a few years ago when I was hanging out in L.A. a lot... he's been touring the globe, and has just returned. Travis is a game designer type, and I had a nice chat with him about Social games.

The first game I played at the con was Kingdom Builder, with Steve and David. I played a second game with Steve, Sean, and Alex Rockwell. I'm not sure how much I really like the game - it's not terribly, but not amazing either. I've found that it can really hurt to draw the same terrain card in the first 2 turns of the game. It also seems like in games with the Boat action (move a house onto water), that ability is key, and the 1st 2 people to get it will be at a huge advantage.

The next game of the con was one that was high on my list of games to try out. Trajan (with Travis, Alex, and Gil) had a lot of neat things to do, many ways to pursue VPs... however the Rond-cala mechanism was a bit opaque. I'd have to play the game again to feel like I was doing anything on purpose. When I heard about the mechanism, my guess was that you would choose an action and it's intensity would be based on the number of bits in that actions bin... then you would Mancala those bits around the Rondel. It turns out I had that backwards - instead you pick a bin and Mancala the bits from it, and you take the action at the end of the line. That's a lot harder to wrap your head around, and I wonder if it wouldn't be worth trying my mistaken guess out as a main mechanism in some game of my own! To make the Rond-cala even more opaque, the bits are colored, and sometimes it matters which color combos are in which bins. Turns out to be a bit of a pain in the butt, but the game seems worth it. I wish I'd gotten a chance to play the game again during the con, but I did not.

The game took a long time, but went MUCH faster when Travis had to bow out to return his rental car, and we continued with 3 players who finally knew the rules than it did when we had 4 players trying to figure it out.

Next was Nefarious, with fellow Tucsonan Brian Poe, Steve, and Andrew. None of us liked the game at all. It seemed like Speculation was very weak - taking something like 5 rounds to pay off vs just playing Work for $4. our game didn't last a whole lot of rounds. We looked through a few of the other Twist cards, and they didn't excite us to play again.

Since Brian and Andrew had not yet played Kingdom Builder, we played that one more time. This time I finished dead last!

Wednesday 11/16
I started out the next day by demoing Eminent Domain. I was happy to see that game being played all over the con... and happier still that I didn't have to spend all con teaching it :)

The first game I actually played on Wednesday was Pantheon, with Snowden and Wystan. As we were starting to unpack the library copy, Travis came by and offered to teach us. I liked Pantheon pretty well, and played it 4 times total during the con.

Next up was another game from my "to-play" list - Singapore. Snowden taught Steve, Wystan and I, though we had a couple significant rules wrong (didn't know we could build roads for $1, thought we couldn't activate the tile we started on, a few other little things). The incorrect rules kinda killed the game for me, so I wanted to play again with the real rules to see if I liked it or not.

At 8pm I had a scheduled demo of Kings of Air and Steam. I had 12 people signed up for this, and I THOUGHT I had 2 copies of the game with me... however it turned out I only had 1 copy, so I was only able to run 1 game of KoA&S instead of 2 :( The game went alright, though some players seemed put off that 1/2 their final score came from Depots... though in reality, they paid money (and money is points) for the depots, and they collected a lot of money from deliveries, but spent it on upgrades and depots. In fact, the same players complained that they "did nothing but build depots" in some turns, so it seemed like they didn't feel like building depots was making progress... weird. I wonder if there's a better way to present that.

The last game for Wednesday was Pantheon again. Since I'd learned it earlier I was able to teach Andy, Herman, and Chris. I This game was a little weird, with Andy and Herman drawing fistfulls of cards, and Chris drawing every foot in sight, and doing the walk action really often. I am not a huge fan of how the Walk action (since everyone gets to "follow" it) can make a round end before everyone even gets a turn (this happened to me in round 4 or 5). One round I spent my last card buying the last God tile and ending the round, and the following round the event was the reset to 7 cards.... Andy and Herman had to discard 6+ cards each, while I drew 7 :) I guess that's the price you pay for hoarding cards. In the end, Chris won by a lot, getting all of his columns on the board. The sentiment at the table seemed to be that the game is primarily about building columns, and the god tiles and other points are secondary... but I don't think that's true. I've definitely seen a Column strategy lose to a God strategy. My concern at this point is that the game may be all about drawing either feet or money cards (especially early). Also, the 4 suits of cards you use to buy God cards seem so inferior to money and feet.

I started Thursday by bumping into Eric Burgess and John stumbling through the rules of Helvetia. They invited me to join, and it looked like the kind of euro game I would enjoy, so I sat in. Interesting mechanisms there, with the marrying of your dudes to your opponents in order to gain access to their buildings. Definitely wanted to play again so I could try to combo my buildings by placing them where 2 complementary buildings could both be woken up by the night watchman ability. I ended up winning by 1 point over Eric, but I didn't think I would. I took several majorities (for action tiles) away from him in the last round. I had built maybe 3 of the 3vp buildings, but didn't do as much trading. Also, due to poor turn management, I failed to score any points for completing my city, when I could have had 4 for doing so first.

At 1pm I had another scheduled demo of Kings of Air and Steam, and this one went much better. Everyone liked the game, and picked up the rules very easily. Afterwards I asked some questions about the depots to see if anyone had the same reaction as the players from the night before, but they didn't. We talked a little bit about the restriction of gentle turns and whether that should be stricken or not - everyone thought it was sufficiently thematic that it wasn't hard to understand or remember.

I got a chance to pay Singapore again, this time with Brian, Alex, and Steve. We played by the right rules this time, and it was better, but I have a new concern. It seemed very good to be in last place, so that you get to choose where to place your buildings - you can store up cubes over the coarse of the game, and score many points in a row near the end. I tend to dislike games where it's a fight to be losing in order to maintain preferential turn order (I dislike that dynamic in Power Grid and in Wildlife). I did not mind the Opium trade penalty system as much as I've read some people dislike it.

I played a game of EmDo with some new players, and did poorly. But I managed to finish 2nd (17-16-11-10). You can't win them all!

I played that tower building/smashing dexterity game in the lobby with Andy, Henry, and Alex... that game is almost cool, butt he destructive power of the destructor tools far outweighs the stability and structural integrity of any tower you can possibly build. The balls need o be less dense and/or smaller, and the tower pieces need to be more dense and/or bigger for the game to really work. As it is, you really never score any points for being the builder, while it seems like that's supposed to be possible.

Next I got Mikey, Gil, and Dave to play Exhibit. The game went well, using the most recent rules addition (for the first time) - when a tile is not won, it's available for the 2nd highest bid in the following round. I need to replace the "change die" (stage 1) tile though, I don't like that effect.

Gil went to bed after that, but we grabbed Brian Poe for a game of Andy's In Ruins, which I wanted Steve to try. I've actually played Andy's game at Brian's house, but he was busy with some other game at the time. I like in Ruins, and this game went well. There were some suggestions afterwards which were good - one which could really make the Danger mechanism feel more dangerous (and at the same time less fiddley). The other suggestion was to make the initially seeded buildings all have some scoring condition on them, something to give players some direction to head in. They may still get other scoring cards over the course of the game, but this would ensure everyone has a way to get Civ tokens, and would also inform their future draft decisions. Both good suggestions.

I learned that there was a disc golf outing, so I got up early on Friday morning to attend. I didn't love missing sleep, and I didn't love missing a couple hours of proto alley, but it was a fun outing, and I won one of the "closest to pin" holes and was rewarded with a new putter! It was fun, i might try to do it again next year.

After returning from Disc Golf, I tried to take a nap for an hour or two, but I don't think I really fell asleep at all :( So I was a couple hours late to Proto Alley. When I got there, I played a cooperative real time game where you build towers with blocks. It was pretty awesome, and I think Chris from Asmadi Games seemed really interested in it.

Since we'd just played a real time game, I brought out Dice Works. That went over OK, but what I really wanted to try was Martian Diceworks... but people had been waiting to play another designer's game, so we played that instead.

This game was by the guy with the werewolf style board game from last year (which I was not a fan of at all). This one was about a presidential election, and was pretty good. First we booster drafted a deck, then we used that deck over the course of the game to place influence in different states, trying to win over the state's electoral votes. The main problem with a game like this is that I thin kit either has to be historic, like 1960 the Making of the President, so people recognize the major players; or it has to be super generic, so as not to be dated. Nobody will know most of the people referenced in the game (except maybe Obama) in a few years. I did like the mechanisms though, and with some polish, I think the game could be very good - IF it could be genericized enough. I think the goal would be to model the Electoral Vote system, not any specific campaign.

My longtime friend Brian arrived near the end of that game, and so I gave up my seat... my next 3 turns were going to be completely non-productive anyway, and someone sat in for me. I told him what I was planning on, and I heard later that I actually won the game! I thought I'd have a shot, but I thought it would be very, very close between me and the designer.

Once Brian arrived, we grabbed a game we'd played last year - Navegador - to play with Snowden and Steve. Then we went to dinner at Red Robin, which I saw on the way out to disc golf that morning. When we got back I taught Brian, Steve, and Eric Carter (who did a lot of illustration for EmDo) Helvetia, which I'd just learned the day before.

Brian went home to have dinner with his family, and I finally got a chance to play The Manhattan Project. Too bad Brian had to leave, I think he would have liked that one. I played with Steve, Brian Poe, Henry, and Jennifer Geske, taught by the publisher James Mathe. James did something I don't like when teaching - he made strategy suggestions such as "you probably won't do mush Espionage, that actions not too good" and "There's no reason not to put all of your workers out at once..." I don't like that because (a) that's what the players are supposed to figure out on their own, and 9b) sometimes when people do that, they're just plain wrong! In this game I frequently DIDN'T place my workers on the buildings as soon as I built them, because frankly there was nothing stopping me from doing it next turn, while if I did put them out, there's no changing my mind later. It's simply better play, like using Fact or Fiction at the end of your opponent's turn rather than during your own Main Phase in a game of M:tG - you just don't do that unless you have some compelling reason.

In any case, I was at first annoyed that all the buildings I wanted were being taken by other players, a few of them by Steve. As a result I decided to use Espionage in order to take advantage of those buildings. Since I was not placing my guys as quickly as other players, I also wasn't pulling them all back as frequently. This seemed to annoy the other players, especially those who's buildings I was squatting on via Espionage! I was trying to time my Vacate turns for when I thought Steve would have to Vacate as well, so I could then Espionage him again and use those buildings I wanted! It worked, but apparently my play did not make my opponents happy. Eventually they decided to bomb the crap out of my board, damaging every single building pretty much beyond repair. Luckily I was able to collect enough Uranium to complete a bomb and load it into a plane for enough points to trigger the game end, winning the game! I liked the game very much, but I thin it would play out very differently the next time, or without the teacher coaching against using Espionage. I was the only person to use it, and I think I used it 4 times - and each time you can use one more building on an opponent's board.

Finally, Andy and I were going to work on the board for Admirals of the Spanish Main. Since Henry was there we thought his input would be good, but we decided to play a game with him first so he'd know how it went. I am dieing to use the new static abilities, but without the new board structure we've got in mind, one of them doesn't really make any sense, so we used the previous rules. In retrospect I think we could have used the static abilities and just said "move 1 space per blue die" for use with that board. Instead of discussing the new board, Henry had many suggestions to remove the board and make the game more "dynamic" - but Andy and I are not sure we ever figured out what he meant by that, or what 'problem' he was trying to fix. I think anyone playing a game like this will want to see a map board to move around on. One comment that does have some merit is that players may prefer to BE pirates, not hunt them.

Saturday morning started out with another game of Pantheon with Steve, Brian, and Snowden. I liked that game pretty well!

Then it was time for the puzzle hunt, one of my favorite events of the con. My team was me, Brian, Steve, Mike, and Jenny joined us part way through. I feel like Mike is interested in puzzles, but if he gets stuck on one he seems to lose interest altogether, so his attention kept drifting off. I really liked the format for this year's puzzle hunt, but we only got through 6 of the 7 rooms worth of puzzles :/ One of the bits of the puzzle hunt game me some info I might be able to use to one day make a board game based on the 12 trials of Hercules - something I've always sort of wanted to do.

All week I kept running into Cynthia Landon, but one of us was always on the way to eat, or play a game, or something. Finally we were able to get in a game together - Lancaster, with her brother,Eric Burgess, and one other guy whose name I didn't get. Eric was not thrilled with the game due to the way you lose your 'bid' if someone outbids you. Cynthia was kicking butt the whole game, and I was able to keep pace except for 2 blunders, and 1 unfortunate incident. There was a Law that would score me 9 points and the Other Guy 6 points, and not score anything for anyone else. However, rather than vote that one in, he actually voted it DOWN - intending to maintain a law that was already in play (a bad choice because (a) the law he wanted to maintain would only stay if ALL THREE new laws were voted down, and (b) the old law did not score points at all, and was not that amazing. So my vote was wasted, and I believe Cynthia was able to push through her "I score 8vp and nobody else scores anything" law that same round. That swing right there would have made it a very close game!

After Lancaster I got a chance to play a few short games with Miguel, who I often see at KublaCon. Toc Toc Woodman was a cute little dexterity game I'd heard people playing left and right. It was silly, you hit a plastic tree with a plastic axe, trying to knock off the bark without actually knocking down the tree. very silly! We also played some Fermat... it wasn't much of a contest, I doubled everybody's score every round, but it was a fun exercise anyway :) Wystan and Andy joined us. After Fermat, I asked Andy to pull out Ribbity Flickit, his frog flicking game where you pick up metal flies with your magnetic frog while you try to land on lily-pads. I like this game, and I'm looking into a possible supplier of magnets.

Late Saturday night Andy, Henry, and Eric somebody played a game of Alba Longa that I got out of the library. It seemed like we all did the same stuff, and maxed out our win conditions in the first half of round 3... we ended up with a 3 way tie, with Andy 1 resource short of a 4-way tie. :/

I generally don't sleep the last night of the con, and this year was no exception. I found Stephanie and friends playing Hanabi, and when one of them went to bed, I jumped in. Hanabi might be the best cooperative game I've ever played, and we played a number of games in a row. In one of them, Adam gave a poor clue right near the beginning, and I had to spend an additional Clue token to 'fix' it later. We managed a score of 24 that game - the best I'd ever done! If only that early clue were better, maybe we would have gotten a perfect score! (I actually doubt it, because that probably would have netted us 2 clues, but we needed 3 to 'win')

After some more Hanabi - I wanted to show Brian and Mike - we played 1 more game of Pantheon. I wanted to show that one to Mike as well, and he beat us all soundly.

Next I finally got a chance to learn Minion Games' other new euro release, Kingdom of Solomon. I liked that one alright, but was a little disappointed in the market mechanism. I made some bonehead plays, such as placing in a building that had no possible way of getting me any resources (I forgot they were piece limited)... and I managed to lose to Mike by only 4 points. I feel like I could have won that one :(

The last game of the con was Grave Business. Andy was about to teach some players, and he asked if I wanted to jump in. I actually like that game a lot more than I feel I ought to, so I sat down to play. I started by making several extra zombies, and using them to pull other zombies away from where they were in contest with my zombies for tiles. In the penultimate round I noticed that the three pieces of the Master were out, and I placed zombies so as to steal them (successful! 1 was for sure, the other was 50-50). So the following round I (going first) placed in my own Lab so as to fend off steal attempts. I also had 4 zombie part tiles to pad my stash. Alas, I ran out of zombies, and in the end someone got a chance to steal from me - and they made the 42% chance and drew one of the pieces of the Master. In fact, the guy who did that managed to win.

After that, Mike and I packed it up and headed to the airport. I felt pretty darn good for no-sleep! Another great BGG.con down, and I already can't wait for next year!

False Decisions and Distracting Decisions

2011-11-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking a bit about False Decisions and something similar which I've been referring to as Distracting Decisions.

False Decisions
False Decisions in a game are choices presented to the player which are so one-sided that there is really only one decision worth making. Any other choice is a red herring, or is simply so worthless that anyone who knows what they're doing would not take that option. These act as traps for new players who haven't learned about them yet, and they act as unnecessary time sinks as players. I view False Decisions as a design flaw - I prefer choices in a game to all be viable, or at least situationally viable. However I know at least 1 friend thinks differently - that red herrings are good to have, and that they are traps for new players acts as a test of skill at the game. As you get better at the game, you don't fall into those traps, and therefore you win against someone who does. While I see that as a valid idea, I still prefer choices to be viable depending on your situation, and I think False Decisions should be avoided in design.

Distracting Decisions
The new idea that I've been pondering is the idea of Distracting Decisions, which I'll define as being options presented to a player that do matter, but are redundant, or are not related strongly enough to the player's focus in the game. I'm not sure if I'm really putting this into words well enough, but the idea is that as I design, I want the players' focus to be on decisions that matter and directly relate to the fundamental problem of the game. If I present the player with a decision that is unrelated with the fundamental problem, or which is redundant to decisions they've already made, then I'm just wasting their time and effort. Does that make sense?

While one could argue that False Decisions are not a terrible thing, or even that they are desirable in a game; I certainly think that Distracting Decisions should be avoided. I suppose someone could disagree with that for the same reason they like to see False Decisions in a game though.

Example of a Distracting Decision
By way of example, I'm working on developing a game right now in which the player chooses one of several colors of dice each turn to add to his supply, and then faces a challenge which requires rolling some subset of dice. So one reason to choose one die over another is because you want to roll that color die in later challenges. That alone is kind of boring, so there's another reason you might want to choose 1 die color over another - the dice offer some benefit or ability based on their color, and that ability is stronger if you have more dice of that color in your supply.

The previous version of this game represented these abilities as a "Dice Action" you could do on your turn, in addition to picking up a die and facing a challenge. You could only choose 1 Die Action per turn, and the color you chose would then not be available to roll when facing a challenge. I believe that this Die Action introduced a Distracting Decision... the player has already been asked to consider the benefit of the die color when choosing which die to pick up. Asking them to choose between the 5 die actions each turn, and then further restricting that choice by saying they can't use those dice for a challenge serves to belittle the choice they made in the first place. In effect, you don't always get the benefit of the die action, while you do always get to roll the color you want, so the choice when drafting a die is too heavily weighted toward the challenge aspect and the benefit of the action is too unreliable or useless. Kinda like in Quarriors, when you roll your high cost creature die and come up with 1 Quiddity - the fact that you cannot count on the die behaving as advertised is a real downer for me in that game, and it's the same thing here. The decision on which action to use should already have been made when the die was chosen, and the player should not be faced with that again.

As such, the new version of the game, which is yet to be tested, but I highly expect to be an improvement, does not feature Die Actions. Instead, the number of dice you have in each color directly affects the actions you already take in the game (moving, choosing a die, facing a challenge). Since they're "always on" - these abilities will matter more, and the player won't be distracted by being asked which ability they want to use this turn. I think this will add weight to the die ability when a player chooses which die to pick up.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on both of these topics:

False Decisions - what exactly are they, and are they good or bad to include them in a game design?

Distracting Decisions - are they different from False Decisions? Should they be avoided in game design?

Why Deckbuilders seem to "play themselves"

2011-11-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

I've read many comments about deck building games (and here I generally refer to "Dominion games") suggesting that the decisions in the game are automatic, or that the game plays itself.

I think these comments are naive, off-base, and generally are a result of players thinking that the main decision points in the game happen as the cards are being played turn by turn. This is simply not the way deck building games (or Dominion games) work. The main decision points in Dominion are not which cards to play each turn, or what order to play them in... the main decisions in the game are which cards to add to your deck.

One major aspect that makes the deck building work is that early game decisions have a lasting impact on your game. The decision to buy that Silver on turn 1 instead of that Village (for example) will manifest over and over every time you draw that card. The sum total of these decisions (which cards you buy) combine to produce hands which, sure, play themselves to an extent. The point is that playing out a hand is the resolution of the decision, not the decision point itself.

When playing Puerto Rico, when you decide to choose the Trader you've made a meaningful decision. the fact that it seems really obvious which of your goods to trade (most of the time it's the one that will get you the most money, though occasionally complicated by things like which goods are on boats) doesn't mean the game plays itself - I think that's pretty obvious. However, when it comes to Dominion, I think people see the action as the playing of the cards, and therefore expect that to be the decision point.

So that's my theory on why some players think games like Dominion play themselves.

NYU PRACTICE Game design Conference

2011-11-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in Manhattan at the "first annual" game design conference called PRACTICE*. I stayed at my friend Gil Hova's house, and managed to get some playtesting in with Gil (Sword Merchants), Andy Van Zandt (Admirals of the Spanish Main), and Michael Keller (Titans of Industry) on Sunday night - and honestly, that might have been the most productive part of the weekend. I also playtested an upcoming game by David Sirlin and got a short game of Admirals in with Robert from Cambridge Game Factory.

I posted the schedule of the conference in a previous entry. As I expected / feared, the talks were heavily geared toward digital game design. I wish there had been more focus on non-digital game design, as ANY of that information is almost always useful to designers of digital games, while a lot of information about digital design is not useful outside of that space (like programming for example). I'll list the sessions again here, and note any takeaway I got from them that could prove useful in my future game designs:

Lecture (Reiner Knizia): A detailed case study of a best-selling board game design

It turns out they were referring to Knizia's new title Whoowasit. New to the US that is - apparently it was the best selling board game in Europe (all of Europe? Did I get that right?) for 2008 and 2009, slipping to #2 in 2010.

I had heard part of this before, but not the new stuff. Whoowasit is a cooperative "deduction" game for kids. I put deduction in quotes because as Reiner said in his talk, it's not really deduction... Someone has stolen something, and you go around getting clues by delivering food to different animals, and those clues let you eliminate suspects, trying to figure out the correct culprit before 6:00 - so you have a set amount of time to get enough items delivered and collect enough clues to single out the thief.

The game uses some technology - a box which talks to you when you touch certain spaces on it - which has evolved from the conductive ink used in the boards for RK's earlier titles King Arthur and The Island (which wasn't ever released in the US). Honestly, those 2 games and the brilliant-sounding ways they used the conductive ink to allow the game to 'know' which piece is where and track virtual pieces around the board sound MUCH more interesting to me than the simplified Whoowasit, where they removed the technology from the board and put it only into a box that accompanied the game. However, while King Arthur and The Island didn't seem to be very successful commercially, Whoowasit seems to have blown up! It sounded like there was subtlety in the design that was lost on the players. For example, there was a Knight in King Arthur who you could interact with in different ways to elicit different results - you could fight him, you could give him an item, etc. however, players seemed to approach him like an obstacle in the way, and chose to fight him... then when encountering him again later they thought "well, fighting worked last time, might as well do it again" and so the full potential of the mechanism was not being realized.

While I don't think that problem is worth removing the technology and all the associated possibilities from the game, I suspect there were also some commercial concerns, like cost of production, and perhaps the conductive ink didn't work or hold up well enough. I don't know.

The Takeaway: The thing I got out of this presentation was 2-fold...
1. When you find a unique mechanism or technology, look for other ways to use it.
2. Be careful with subtle mechanisms - if they're TOO subtle, players might miss them altogether.

Side note: Whoowasit allegedly keeps track of how effectively you play, and helps you out more the more you need it. Cool!

Panel: State of the Art Techniques: Best-practice methods for creating great games

This panel didn't seem to me to live up to its name. There was someone from Popcap (who, despite living in San Francisco, said he'd met Mohan!) talking about prototyping for social games, someone from Wizards of the Coast talked about balancing in a ccg like Magic: the Gathering, someone who'd worked on The Sims and Spore talked a little about math...

The Takeaway: Do the math behind your design, consider how important it is to balance game aspects before you worry too much about balancing them, when setting costs of things, pick a "skeleton" - a generic version of an object and decide what it should cost, and set the cost/power of other cards based on that (like a 1/1 Merfolk for 1 mana) BUT make sure you account for ALL costs of the object, not just resource costs (don't forget opportunity costs). And for social games, you really need...
- Single session engagement
- Retention
- Virulism

Lecture (Steve Gaynor): Helping Your Players Find Their Own Way - Lessons from Bioshock and other titles in progression gating and player tools.

This was a talk about level design in a video game, and as such you'd think it would not be very helpful in the design of non-digital games. However I actually found this talk very interesting, and I think the technique described COULD be used in board game design.

The focus of this talk was a technique called Staged Tool Gating. It's a technique to usher a player down a linear path through a non-linear space. Tool Gating is simply a locked door that requires a key (the door is the 'gate' and the key is the 'tool') - and you can replace Door and Key with any path blockage and anything that would remove that blockage. Staged Tool Gating is placing gates and tools in such a way that they lead the player through the intended path, even if that path crisscrosses a non-linear level.

The Takeaway: I've been thinking a lot lately about how to add a feeling of progression to a board game. Perhaps Tool Gating is a way to do that - making sections of the board, or various resources, unavailable until some other condition is met.

Panel: Designers, Players - Fight! Tournament players and developers on designing for expert play in fighting games.

David Sirlin started this talk off discussing game balance in a competitive game, and his presentation was very interesting and useful. Seth Killian (from Capcom)then discussed Street Fighter, and finally a high level Street Fighter competitor talked about Street Fighter as well. Apparently, everyone is enamored with Street Fighter...

The Takeaway: From David Sirlin's comments, the takeaways were that when balancing a game, there are some things you just can't do. You cannot change the flavor of a character just because it would make that character more fair. You have to find a different way to balance them. The example given was in his game Yomi, one of the characters is a rock golem who's very tough and very slow. In playtesting he proved to be too powerful, and playtesters suggested he'd be fair if his hit points were reduced from 100 to 70. While that would be fair, you just can't have a giant rock golem with the same amount of hit points as another character in the game which is a little girl, who's not even made out of rock!

From the Street Fighter discussion, the takeaway is that even a small change to a system can have a significant effect on the way the game plays. Speeding up a move by 6 frames (1/10 of a second) could take a character from being among the worst in the game to being one of the best. this holds over to board games as well - small rules changes can have a significant effect on gameplay.

Open Problems: A structured "open mic" session in which conference attendees present works in progress and share design problems for discussion and feedback.

They had more people interested in this than they expected, so each person got about 6 minutes to give their spiel and ask their question. The session went pretty darn well, though I think a little more time per person would be good (like 10-15 minutes instead of 6).

I asked about adding direct interaction in a euro-style game, and didn't get much response. The following suggestions came up:
- "Don't do it"
- "Do like Dominion - have attacks hurt everybody"
- "Attack only to your left" (structured targeting to avoid kingmaker type of attacks)
- "Cost it high enough that players can only do it if they really invest, and then you can see it coming" (this is what I was already considering)

I feel like Josh Debonais had a really good suggestion that I seem to have forgotten... of all the possible things to forget from the weekend, how could I have forgotten that!?

I forgot to ask / ran out of time to ask about what people thought would make a good expansion.

Lecture (Rogers Redding): The Game Design of Football: Evolving the rules of a nation's favorite sport.

This was interesting, though not terribly useful. I am surprised that someone hasn't sat down and rewritten the rules to Football from scratch. It was suggested that people fear change and wouldn't go for such a thing, but I think that's ridiculous considering they make rules changes every year. They're removing the Kickoff, because too many people get injured during the kickoff return.

The Takeaway: Examine your rulesets and make sure there's a reason for each rule. Remove any artifacts leftover from previous iterations and keep the rules as clean and elegant as possible, or you'll end up with a mess of band-aid rules and rules that don't really DO anything.

Panel: Game Design and Programming: A debate on the intersection and relevance of coding and design.

This panel was almost entirely an argument about whether knowing how to program would make someone a better game designer. Chris Hecker and Nick Fortugno talked past each other through 4 or 5 metaphors about a simple concept...

Chris: If you know how to program, than you can more efficiently bring your idea to fruition (rather than having to communicate with a programmer), which translates to a better quality.

Nick: You don't have to be a programmer to be a game designer.

More specifically, Nick suggested that the injection of creative juices by adding that programmer to the mix could provide a better creative environment than a single person designing and programming in solitude. Chris agreed that collaboration is good, but that you could still get that collaboration if you did the programming yourself. I think he missed that what Nick was suggesting is that if you knew how to program you wouldn't have another person there to collaborate with - so if you don't seek them out, then you won't have the collaboration at all.

The Takeaway: Collaboration is good, and so is being able to communicate your ideas to others. I think that panel could use a lesson on the latter!

Lecture (Matt Boch): Break it down: How Harmonix and Kinext taught the world to dance.

This was a history of various iterations and prototypes of the game Dance Central. It was very interesting to watch, and even had some information that could be useful for any prototyping or game design...

The Takeaway: Define your target audience, then be sure you're designing a game that would suit that target audience.

So there you have it. Even though the conference was heavily geared toward digital game deign, I managed to get a takeaway from each session that could help me improve as a designer. I'm not sure it was worth the $500 entry fee, but I'd consider doing it again. I'll just try to become more influential by this time next year so they invite me to speak (and let me attend for free) - then it'll certainly be worth the cost :)

* It was suggested by an attendee during the feedback session that PRACTICE is a terrible name for the convention. I agree with that, though I fear it's probably too late to change it now that they've begun. It just doesn't convey anything about the subject matter.

It was also suggested that the conference could run a bit longer. I believe they'll start Friday afternoon next time. 2-1/2 days isn't much more than 2 days, but it's still more!

BGG.con 2011 coming up!

2011-11-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

Michael has made the decision that we should spend more time playing games at BGG.con this year and less time selling them - so TMG products will be for sale in the Funagain store while Mike and I get to play more board games! I have posted a Geeklist about some of the games I'd like to play while at BGG.con this year.

I'll be happy to teach any of the TMG titles while I'm there, including the newly announced Kings of Air and Steam (now on Kickstarter!) and upcoming Ground Floor and I will have some TMG prototypes with me to test as well. I would like to spend a lot of time in Proto Alley of course. The geeklist covers some games I want to play, but I'll list them here as well:

Prototypes:
Admirals of the Spanish Main by Juan Carballal
My Little Vineyard by Scott Slomiany
Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages by Seth Jaffee
Dice Works by Seth Jaffee
Wizard's Tower by John Heder and Seth Jaffee
Eminent Domain Expansion by Seth Jaffee
I should really get a playable copy of Alter Ego together as well, shouldn't I?

Essen Releases:
Trajan by Stefan Feld
Singapore by Peer Sylvester
Kingdom of Solomon by Phillip DuBarry
The Manhattan Project by Brandon Tibbits
Venture Forth by Dan Manfredini
Nefarious by Donald X. Vaccarino
Kingdom Builder by Donald X. Vaccarino

And I was thinking about Urban Sprawl, but I'm quickly losing interest in it.

If you'll be at the con, leave a comment. We could meet up for a game or two! What are you looking forward to playing?

PRACTICE makes perfect? - Schedule update

2011-10-19T17:01:00.003-07:00

They seem to have updated the schedule for PRACTICE with some more detail...

Lecture (Reiner Knizia): A detailed case study of a best-selling board game design

Not sure which game they're referring to, but it's Knizia, so it's probably one of his (Lord of the Rings? Ra? Tigris & Euphrates? Samurai?). Hopefully it's not something I've heard before (I've heard Knizia speak at a few conventions over the years, and after a while it seemed like he was saying a lot of the same stuff).

Panel: State of the Art Techniques: Best-practice methods for creating great games

Still not sure if this won't be geared toward video game design or programming, but there might be some tips in there, some best-practice methods I could incorporate into my process.

Lecture (Steve Gaynor): Helping Your Players Find Their Own Way - Lessons from Bioshock and other titles in progression gating and player tools.

Another one potentially geared toward video games, but the interaction with the player is common across both video games and board games.

Panel: Designers, Players - Fight! Tournament players and developers on designing for expert play in fighting games.

I am seeing a trend here...
I suspect that this panel provides some interesting insight into what competitive players are looking for during a game. I think I generally use that sort of approach when I design (what will the players be thinking as they play), so maybe this will help.

Open Problems: A structured "open mic" session in which conference attendees present works in progress and share design problems for discussion and feedback.

This sounds pretty great! If I get a chance, the first thing that comes to mind which I'd like to get people's opinion on is this: How do designers feel about the inevitable request by players to add direct interaction into a euro-style game? Would they dare try? How can it be done without "ruining" the game?

Specifically I'm of course talking about Eminent Domain here. The game has barely hit the shelves, and already there are multiple threads on adding player vs player combat or attacking other players' planets. I have some thoughts on how I might like to add this in an expansion, but I'd love to see what I can glean from other designers in this regard.

In addition, it might be neat to hear how other designers feel about Expansions, and what makes a good expansion.

Lecture (Rogers Redding): The Game Design of Football: Evolving the rules of a nation's favorite sport.

I think this will be interesting, though perhaps not terribly useful. I play Ultimate which, like Football or any sport, is loaded with all kinds of rules to govern specific situations. It will be interesting to hear how they deal with that for a big-money sport like Football with lots at stake.

Panel: Game Design and Programming: A debate on the intersection and relevance of coding and design.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I suspect this will be more heavily geared toward programming, and therefore may be of little use to me. Hopefully I can learn something that will help with digital implementation of board games or something like that.

Lecture (Matt Boch): Break it down: How Harmonix and Kinext taught the world to dance.

Not sure what fruit this may bear - perhaps some understanding in how people as a whole behave and react to things like games?

I'm still excited to go to PRACTICE next week, but I remain skeptical that it will, in the end, be worth the cost of admission. Hopefully I can glean enough info off of the Video Game focused discussion to make it worth my while. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Tasty Minstel Games - A Retrospective So Far

2011-10-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

In a Gen Con recap post I said:

"...We had a booth, and brought 6 different games to sell, including Eminent Domain, Belfort, Martian Dice, Train of Thought, Jab: Realtime Boxing, and Homesteaders 2nd Edition. Our booth was rather busy all 4 days of the con, and we did many, many demos. Looking up and down our booth at all 6 of our offerings I noted that, while no game is for everybody... within their target demographic, each of our games is really very good. They are the highest quality game, and the art and production (now that we've moved to Panda) are also the highest quality. I felt proud to stand behind each and every one of them! Even Martian Dice, which is the type of game that generally doesn't interest me at all, is really very good for what it is - I heard people saying it was better than Zombie Dice (a similar quick filler)."

I stand by that comment, I really am proud of the games that Tasty Minstrel has published. Even the out of print Terra Prime, my first published title, stands out to me as a quality game. Yes, I'm a bit biased there, but lately I've been seeing more and more people on BGG making positive comments, and looking forward to a potential reprint (with expansion included). Let me take a moment to look at each Tasty Minstrel title and mention how I currently feel about it:

Terra Prime: I have a soft spot for this game, seeing as how it was my first published title. As I said above, I'm happy to see that people are finding this game and enjoying it, and I'm starting to feel a real demand for a 2nd edition. Hopefully Tasty Minstrel will decide to reprint (with Panda's excellent production quality) and include the expansion I've designed. That might happen in 2012, you never know!
Homesteaders 2nd Edition: Homesteaders is an excellent strategy game. I dragged it around with me to every convention I went to for 3 years, and even submitted it to game publishers for Alex in an effort to see it published. When TMG decided to publish it I was ecstatic - and when the manufacturer did such a bad job, I was heartbroken. Now that the 2nd edition is out, and the manufacturing is truly top notch, I want very badly to get a 2nd edition copy (I don't have one yet) and play Homesteaders again!
Train of Thought: Train of Thought is my absolute favorite party game. I love Times Up!, I like Taboo, and I've had fun with Catch Phrase and other similar games... but Train of Thought immediately supplanted them all the first time I played it. I played this a couple of weeks ago, and it holds true - it's still a lot of fun for me to try and figure out how to get from word A to word B!
Jab: Realtime Boxing: Jab is a truly unique game. I like the idea of real time games. indeed, I made one myself! The first time I heard about Jab, I knew the potential was there - I immediately suggested that TMG publish the game. Jab does an excellent job of keeping the players on their toes. Many gamers are not fond of real time, or don't like games that force them to react physically - preferring to ponder their move for a while. Well, this game won't be for those players. But for anyone who grew up playing Spit, Speed, Egyptian Ratscrew (like me)... Jab is just the game for them.
Belfort: Belfort has turned out so beautiful that it's a wonder to behold. I have always liked the game, ever since I played it for the first time (twice) at GAMA 2009. After many plays (BGG says 15, but it must be more than that!) I still think it's a very solid worker placement / resource management / area control game in the euro style... i.e. just my type of game!
Eminent Domain: What can I say - no bias here! I am thrilled at how EmDo came out, and I'm thrilled to read the positive comments coming in from people who have played the game. I have played over 120 games of EmDo, and I still like it and would play again right now. I can't say enough good things about this game - so don't get me started!
Martian Dice: I'm not the kind of player that really enjoys light filler dice games such as Martian Dice. But I continue to find that as a light filler dice game, Martian Dice really seems better to me than any other similar game out there. The additional layer of choosing not just whether to roll again, but also which type of die to set aside really pushes this game into more interesting territory without feeling any more complex or complicated than simpler press your luck games.
Ground Floor: Art is underway for this one, by Ariel Seoane (the guy who did Homesteaders) and it looks fantastic! A much different style than Josh Cappel's work, but no less awesome in any way. I haven't played this one in a while - too many other things to work on - but I've loved it for years. I first played it in October 2009, and I had a blast working on it with the designer David Short. This game scales incredibly well from 2 players to 6, and does a great job representing the balance between time and money. I'm really happy with it, though with it's theme and weight I fear the audience will be smaller than the game deserves. I guess that's where marketing comes in!
Kings of Air and Steam: We're getting close to crunch time for KoA&S - art is underway, and pretty soon TMG is going to kick off a Kickstarter campaign for it. There are a few rules details that the designer and I are still trying to decide on the best version of, but in any case the game play is still awesome! I may like pickup-deliver/routeplanning games more than the average Joe, but to me this game is a lot of fun.
For The Win!: Unless you religiously follow my blog, you probably don't even know what For The Win! is... and frankly, even if you do follow it you may be confused as it used to be called Mosh Pit. It's a game by a local guy here in Tucson (Michael Eskue, who happens to be David Short's brother in law). It's an abstract game, like Hive, but it's got some neat stuff in it budgeting actions being probably the biggest thing which sets it apart from other similar types of games. I haven't played this one in a while, but it's pretty darn good - I think if you like Hive, you'll love For The Win!

PRACTICE makes perfect?

2011-10-11T18:15:00.001-07:00

In a couple of weeks I'm heading to Manhattan for PRACTICE: Game Design In Detail. I had never heard of this before, but it sounds like it could be really interesting, and seeing as how I'm trying to hone, improve, and leverage my design skills, it certainly sounds like an opportunity I ought to check out!

I don't really know what to expect. Several of the time blocks on the schedule are merely labeled "Lecture" - I don't know who will be lecturing, or on what topic, but I'm curious to see what they have to say anyway. All of the speakers are well known designers in various gaming realms. Two of the units are labeled:

Panel: State of the Art Techniques
Panel: Game Design vs. Programming

I'm not sure how useful "Game Design vs Programming" will be for me personally, it sounds (just by the title) as if it's geared toward people who are trying to get into video game design, and might not understand the difference between designing a game system, and programming a computer to govern that system. I don't do any programming (nor do I care to), but perhaps that panel will give me some insight on what it takes to get a digital version of a board game going.

"State of the Art Techniques" however could be interesting. Like the other panel though, I'm not sure if they're referring to techniques in Game Design, or techniques in programming a video game... State of the Art can easily refer to technology.

I do hope this trip doesn't turn out to be a waste of time. There's a lot of crossover between video game design and board game design, so I think even if some of the lectures and panels are geared toward video games, the information and insight could still be useful for me. I'm tentative, but curious, and I look forward to the trip.

If you've ever been to PRACTICE, or know anything about it, please leave a comment!

How to acheive a feeling of progression in a game... initial thoughts

2011-10-03T17:47:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine was working on a game of his the other day, and said he's having problems with one aspect in particular - the game has no feeling of progression. So how do you provide a feeling of progression in a game?

I'm not sure I have a concrete answer for that yet, but here are some initial thoughts on the subject:

Increasing Scope
While I can't seem to find it in my blog at the moment, I've talked before about the "scope" of a game, and how I think that relates to an "epic" feel. I highly suspect that a feeling of "progression" in a game is closely related to this, if not exactly the same thing.

Consider Railroad Tycoon (and Age of Steam): In the early game your rail network and your engine size are both small, so your actions are limited to making specific short deliveries and building track. As the game progresses you will have increased your network by necessity (your short deliveries will dry up), and you will be forced to (and encouraged to via scoring incentives) upgrade your engine. At that point the number of delivery options available to you will have increased, as will the reward for delivering. And as you deliver more and more, your income ramps up giving you more money to build bigger, more expensive track with (crossing mountains for example). This ramping up of options increases the scope of the game, giving a tangible feeling of progression. I often find that at the beginning of the game I almost can't imagine making even a 3-link delivery, as I start with nothing, while at the end of the game I wonder how I was able to survive on those paltry 1-2 link deliveries as I scan the board looking for 5+ point delivery options.

I firmly believe that Railroad Tycoon does an excellent job of providing an "epic" feel and a real, tangible feeling of progression from the beginning of the game through the end, and I submit that it does so by expanding your ability over time.

Collecting Permanent Abilities
This may actually be more of the same thing, but many games offer a feeling of progression through a collection of permanent abilities.

Consider Puerto Rico: In the early game all players are at about the same position - 1 plantation and a couple of bucks. Over the course of the game players will purchase buildings which give them specific abilities, thereby weighting the value of some choices compared to others. When you have a Large and Small market, choosing Trader seems much more lucrative to you than it does to the guy with neither market and only Indigo and Sugar to sell. By collecting various permanent bonuses, you don't necessarily gain access to more abilities, but you do shift the value of options relative to each other, you do differentiate your position from that of your opponents, and you do thereby get a feeling of progression from the beginning of the game to the end.

Separation of Economy and Victory
In addition, Puerto Rico has another feature which offers a feeling of progression... a separation of economy and scoring. Money in the game is important because you use it to buy things that will score Victory Points for you. However, it's the Victory Points which make you win, not the money. In the early game it's important to set up an economic engine so that you can afford to do things that will generate Victory Points, but in the late game money becomes much less important, and VPs are really the focus of your game. It's this transition that gives the game a palpable sense of progression. This is a common dynamic in Economic Engine games, and I submit that it's created by the separation of economy and victory conditions.

These three things (and frankly, Collecting Permanent Abilities might just be an example of Increasing Scope) are all aspects which can provide a feeling of progression in a game. Are there others? Leave a comment if you can think of any!

I'll also note that my game Eminent Domain seems to provide a sense of progression, and I believe it stems from a combination of an increase in scope and a collection of permanent abilities. In the early game you are not well equipped to do big, powerful Roles because you only have 2 of any given card in your deck, and your deck is not focused toward any particular role. Later in the game, your deck composition will favor certain roles, and you will have collected some combination of symbols on planets in your Empire, making mid-late game plays feel a lot more impressive than in the early game. The tech requirements of multiple planets of the same type lend to this feeling as well - requiring you to have Surveyed for the appropriate planet types in order to get a particular ability out of the Tech stacks.

It's about damned time!

2011-09-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I have good news!

After 10 months of waiting for artwork, manufacturing, and shipping... experiencing delay after delay for one thing or another and disgruntled fans and customers (both reasonable and unreasonable)... I am ECSTATIC to report that people are FINALLY starting to receive their copies of Eminent Domain!

Woo Hoo! I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I'm looking forward to a wave of reviews, session reports, and strategy posts on BGG, hopefully positive.

Happy gaming!

The long wait is finally over... for some people anyway

2011-09-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I got news that the boat had landed, and all of Tasty Minstrel's games had arrived in the warehouse (ahead of schedule for once)! I was sworn to secrecy, but today it was announced that the Kickstarter copies started shipping out last Friday! That means people in the eastern US will probably be getting their copies any second now, while people like me on the west coast will be receiving their copies in the next couple of days.

I know the international orders will still take a while to arrive - I wish there were a better system for that. Hopefully there will come a time when TMG has a distribution partner, or a warehouse, in Europe and some of each print run can be sent directly there rather than sending it back and forth across the globe.

I have heard that our exclusive surprise for Kickstarters DID make it into the shipments, so Kickstarter supporters should be receiving those along with their copy of the game.

I look forward to seeing reviews, session reports, and strategy posts at BGG and Boardgaming.com starting to pop up this week!

In other news... My friend David (designer of Ground Floor, coming soon from TMG) helped me put together this official rules sheet for the Bonus planets:

This will be available in the files section of BGG as well as on PlayTMG.com in the near future. I think it looks great, and I love that it matches the rulebook.

Quarriors play at Strategicon: recap

2011-09-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

I played a game of Quarriors at Strategicon about a week ago. Here's how it went:

3 player game, me going first.
Turn 1: I rolled enough Quiddity to bu some 3vp blue die which had the special ability of drawing additional dice after it scored.

Turn 2: I rolled 3 Pawns, and activated them all.

Turn 3: Score 3 points, cull 3 dice. Rolled the Blue die, which came up creature and killed the Pawn one opponent had played. I think I bought another Pawn as well.

One opponent bought a Red creature die. That die came up 2 or 3 times, but never rolled the creature side the whole game.

Turn 4: Score 3 points, cull 1 die, drew 1 extra die (from Blue die ability). Rolled something unimpressive, I think I bought a Portal or another Pawn or something.

Turn 5: Rolled the Blue die again, came up Creature again, killed 1 of opponent's 2 pawns, killed the other opponent's pawn. I think I also activated a Pawn.

One opponent finally scored 1 point (not the one who bought the red creature die).

Turn 6: Score 4 points, cull 2 dice, draw additional 2 dice (from Blue die ability). I think I activated a Pawn or 2.

Turn 7: Rolled the blue creature die a 3rd time, came up creature side for a 3rd time. Also rolled 2 Pawns.

This game was over at 15-1-0, I made 1 choice (buy the blue die) and was completely hopeless for both opponents. I'm not sure if it mattered WHICH die I chose, the fact that it came up Creature every time and my opponents dice didn't meant I was going to win no matter what.

I'm not terribly impressed with Quarriors. I'm just sayin'...

EmDo Expansion update - part 2

2011-09-13T02:58:00.001-07:00

I just posted some thoughts about the EmDo expansion. The purpose of this post is to start revising the tech cards and stuff that I would like to include in the expansion, and some of the specifics.

Cross-type Techs
Level 1 (2 different required planets)
Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Colonize/Water (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Produce/Food(can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Research/Silicon (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Fertile/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Trade/Silicon (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Fertile/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Warfare/Iron (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Survey/Iron (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile

Level 2 (3 different required planets)
Synthesize
Action: Search your deck and discard pile for any card, put it in your hand, and shuffle the rest to create a new deck. Play another Action.
Symbol: Any Resource (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 5 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile/Metallic

Deep Space Probes
Action: Search the Planet deck and discard pile for any card, shuffle the rest to create a new Planet deck, and put the chosen card on top.
Symbol: Any Resource (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 5 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile/Metallic

Warfare Techs
Level 1 (cost 3 Fighters - Maybe OR 3 Research?)
Improved Colonize
Action: Same as Improved Colonize
Symbols: Colonize/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Fertile

Improved Production
Action: Same as Improved Production
Symbols: Produce/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Fertile

Improved Trade
Action: Same as Improved Trade
Symbols: Trade/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Advanced

Improved Research
Action: Same as Improved Research
Symbols: Research/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Advanced

Improved Survey
Action: Same as Improved Survey
Symbols: Survey/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Metallic

Improved Warfare
Action: Same as Improved Warfare
Symbols: Warfare/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Metallic

Level 2 (cost 2 Destroyers?)
Cryptography
Action: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from hand to the Stacks.
Symbols: Fighter/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were 2 fighters in your Empire)
Cost: 2 Destroyers
Pre Req: ??

Other New Techs
Wealth of Knowledge (?)
Permanent: Your standard Survey cards can be used to Boost or Follow any Role.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

OR

Wealth of Knowledge (?)
Action: Your standard Survey cards can be used to Boost any Role this turn.
Symbols: Survey/Iron? Survey/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

Thorough Scanning
Permanent: You may look at 2 fewer planets per Survey Role. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

Biosphere
Permanent: [Silicon Resource Slot] [Iron Resource Slot].
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Fertile

Scientific Method (Discovery?)
Permanent: You may purchase 1 additional Tech card each Research Role. Pay for each card separately (both cost and pre-reqs).
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Advanced

OR

Scientific Method (Discovery?)
Action: -1 Research cost for each Tech Card you purchase this turn. You may purchase 1 additional Tech card this turn. Pay for each card separately (both cost and pre-reqs).
Symbols: Research/Silicon? Silicon/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Advanced

Specialized Production
Action: Choose a resource type. Collect 1 Influence for each resource of that type you produce this turn.
Symbols: Produce/Food? Produce/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Fertile

Military Tactics
Permanent: -1 to your Warfare costs.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic?
[This is similar to - probably worse than - Scorched Earth Policy I thought it would be good if it costs Destroyers rather than Research)

Fighter Upgrade
Action: Discard X Fighters, collect 1 Destroyer [maybe X = 0]. Discard X Destroyers, collect 1 Dreadnaught.
Symbols: Fighter/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: ??

EmDo Expansion update

2011-09-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

Last time I posted about the EmDo expansion I mentioned that I was worried about the Exotic stuff, and preferred the idea of differentiating the resources more by making things cost resources. I thought maybe some tech cards could cost resources, and some planets could cost resources - and the specific resource costs would require players to get particular planets into play in order to afford them.

I whipped up a few such tech cards, as well as some techs that cost Fighters instead of Research symbols, some that require 2 different planet types, and some that contain a resource in lieu of a symbol (you can discard that card from our hand just like discarding a resource token from a resource slot in your Empire). Tonight I played a couple games with John, and got a chance to feel out how these cards felt.

The Good
I did get a feeling of exploration again while I tried to figure out ways to use these new technologies. Many of them were just Improved [X] techs, just like the level 1 techs, but the different costs meant you could get them without focusing on Research. For example, in the first game I spent my first 2 turns collecting 3 Fighters so that I could follow John's turn 2 Research even though I had nit flipped over my planet yet. While I'm not sure I actually want people to be able to do research without a planet in play, I do like the idea of a player not having to add research cards to their deck in order to get some tech cards.

The Bad
I constantly found it annoying and irritating to have a pile (even just a small pile) of tech cards with specific individual costs. It's a pain in the ass to remember which is which, and what costs what. I specifically chose to make all the level 1/2/3 tech cards cost the same thing (3/5/7 Research) to avoid this type of thing. As a result, I did not like the tech cards that cost specific resources.

The Ugly
Furthermore, in exploring the different ways to make the different resources do different things or acting different ways, I think I've decided that it's not worth doing. It represents a change to the fundamental design of the game, and no amount of monkey wrenching will make it feel right to me. It was worth a shot, but I think trying to add inherent meaning to the resource types is a mistake, considering that the game was built on th premise that the types themselves are not inherently different.

The correct way to make it matter that there are different types of resources is to provide more things like Specialization, Diverse Markets, and Genetic Engineering. To that end, I have come up with a new technology:

Specialized Production
Action: Choose a resource type. +1 Influence for each resource of that type you produce this turn.

Another type of thing I've had in mind to emphasize the importance of having one resource over another is like the Agendas I've discussed before. One thing I tried tonight (though in the 2 games we played neither John nor I made use of it) was a global effect (like an Agenda) in play from the beginning of the game. This one was called Trade Leader, and said "When leading a Trade role you may put the first resource traded onto this card (replacing any already there) instead of trading it. Resources of that type trade for +1vp." This affects the value of the resource type for ALL players, and anybody can change it if they want. I realized during play that I think you should be allowed to use a Trade Action to activate that agenda as well. I think it might be good to add one (some?) of these sorts of global effects to the 1st expansion as standard, then later in an expansion focusing on Agendas, add more and the Politics role to deal with getting them into play.

Techs that cost fighters
On the other hand, as I said, I did enjoy the techs that cost fighters. The fact that they can cost the same amount - 3 fighters for an Improved tech for example - but not require a big investment in Research. So I think those (or some form of them) will stay. They fit better into my vision of the expansion anyway.

The first draft techs of this type were simply the Improved Techs, with a cost of 3 Fighters and no planet requirement. I think I will add back on the planet requirement, and I'm toying with the idea of adding a Fighter icon to the native icon... meaning you could discard the card during an Attack action like it were a Fighter in your Empire. Thus, doing warfare based research gets you a tech card that can be used as a Fighter.

While I have not done it yet, I still plan on introducing Destroyers and Dreadnaughts (medium and large ships), and I think it follows that Level 2 warfare based tech would cost 1 Destroyer, or 2, or 1 plus some fighters... something like that. Level 3 warfare tech would cost a Dreadnaught. I'm considering various ways to go about obtaining Destroyers and Dreadnaughts, so the exact cost for the level 2/level 3 techs will depend on that.

Double Time
Play 2 additional cards during this Action phase
Of the few people who had playtested the Exotic expansion (and told me about it), the Double Time cards seemed universally popular. Everybody likes to play more cards, take more actions, do more things! I modified those for this playtest to remove the Exotic icon (replacing it with a resource icon), and put 2 different planet types on them. Requiring 2 different planet types is not much different than requiring just 1 planet, it's just more available to a player who begins setting up for a varied planet 'strategy' as opposed to the normal thing to do which is to double up on your start planet if you intend to go the research route (because the level 2 tech requires 2 of the same planet type). Also, it's not available from turn 2 because you do need a 2nd planet in play.

On that note, I think any Level 2 techs I add of this type should require 1 planet of each of the three main types (Fertile, Metallic, and Advanced).

KoA&S, Alter Ego, Nottingham, and a TMG submission

2011-09-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a little update on a couple of things:

Kings of Air and Steam
I got a good playtest session of Kings of Air and Steam in at Gateway last weekend. A 5 player game (I watched) where each player seemed to like the game. It dragged a little longer than I'd like, but not too bad - 5 players, learning rules, and a convention atmosphere took about 2:45. I was able to try some of the new rules Scott and I have been discussing, and I think they are working out very well. Tuning them a little further, here is what I think I will try next time:

* Cube values will range from $5-$9
* Depots will cost $5 for the first person to buy one, and $10 otherwise (this may prove to be too much) rather than $4/$6/$8.
* Passive income a straight $5 (used $3 last time, rather than an increasing amount). I thought maybe multiples of $5 would make it easier physically to play the game.
* No upkeep - with the 2nd+ Depot on each link costing $10, I don't know if it's really necessary to pay upkeep on your cubes.
* $15 starting cash (to help pay for the more expensive Depots)
* 1vp/$1, 10vp/Depot (same as 1vp/$10, 1vp/Depot, but maybe easier to count)

Alter Ego
I finally got a chance to play a couple rounds of Alter Ego, the latest version I posted about. My friend Jason and I played through a couple of turns each so I could see how the game flow felt. I thought it went really well. Now to re-do the villain deck again, and the equipment cards. Jason suggested that he liked the idea of a staged villain deck, maybe with some mini-bosses in it (which could be like the more expensive villains I currently have.

One clarification I thought about was that while players need to be able to attack more than 1 bad guy at a time, I think a bad guy with 2 hostages should only be able to be attacked once per turn. Their whole point is that they take more turns to defeat.

Another thing I noticed was that the Arch Villains being known from the outset - while good in theory - may not apply here. Since Alter Ego has become a cooperative game where you can help your buddies attack the bad guys, it's not so important to build your deck toward a specific endgame goal. So it may be necessary to address that somehow. Ideas for that:

* Maybe each player has a Nemesis which only they must face alone
* The Arch Villains could have interesting abilities, such as "Can only be faced by 2 Heroes at a time" or "Must be faced by a lone hero"
* ... other?

Nottingham
At Spielbany last April I played a cooperative game by Richard James called Nottingham. It was originally made for a Robin Hood themed Game Design Showdown at BGDF.com, and featured a neat theme where the players are on the side of Prince John, while a potential traitor would be on Robin Hood's side.

Tonight I played a new, revised version of the game, and I must say I think it's improved. It has a deck building mechanism which was interesting in that a good penalty for certain things was putting a junk card in your deck - though I'm not sure the deck building was utilized to the fullest. A relatively large part of the cooperation involved passing cards to other players decks, which was interesting. The game was a bit fiddly to play, but mostly that's because the prototype was not fully constructed - the fronts and backs of tiles were not connected, etc. I think with proper production it would be acceptable though. I liked a lot of stuff about the game, the 2 main 'problems' as far as I was concerned were...
1. Balance. The Merry Men's plots were weak (on purpose I think), and we were able to keep everything in check with no problems. The difficulty didn't seem to match our ability to do stuff and we were able to breeze through the game. However, I think this could just be a matter of tweaking things like the number of cards players get to hold, and how many plots (and what their exact effects) are. I did like how the plots usually had an effect who's intensity depended on the number of active plots in play.

Richard, if you're reading this: One thing that I think might be neat is if the plots did not get cleared at the end of each round - only when they're addressed by the players. Then the players would have to deal with them, and if they don't, the effects will snowball out of control. tonight it seemed like we could largely ignore the plots and just keep down the Merry Men and Corruption tracks (and we only ever got a couple Merry men in play). I also think it would be neat if one of the Outlaw cards was Robin Hood himself, always in play, and uncatchable - who's effect is to add like 2 Merry Men to the track.

2. The bigger problem I had was the turn structure. Jason said the point was to have players sort of pre-plan all the turn's actions, then after the plan is made, players take their turns. Jason and I were playing 2 characters each, and that might have made it more complicated - but we spent a lot of time planning out a turn, then still made mistakes by playing it out differently than we'd planned. It seemed like adding AP to the game on purpose. And with 11 cards per player (we quickly advanced the track that says how many cards you draw), there were a lot of combinations of options to consider.

One idea I had was to break that up - don't give players all of their cards right away, so they cannot plan out their whole round in advance. That might help, but I'm not sure.

the turn structure as it is does not seem like it would lend itself very well to a traitor (which is supposed to be an option for when there's more than 1 player).

TMG submission
Finally, I played a short dice drafting game submitted to TMG. It's not professional to talk about submissions, so I won't do that anymore - the game was neat though. It was a little easy to accidentally make an illegal play (both Jason and I did that), but maybe that's fine, players just need to be a little careful they don't do that.

Sidetracked!

2011-09-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

I SHOULD be working on EmDo expansions, Alter Ego, Kings of Air and Steam, Exhibit, Dice Works, etc...

Meanwhile though, I have been distracting myself with yet another deck building game idea. I thought of another game using deck building - this one was going to be a more typical style deck builder at first, but when it came down to the details, I could not bring myself to copy Dominion. So instead it's more like the Research mechanism from Eminent Domain broken out on its own.

Skyline
The game is called Skyline, and in it you use deck building to add cards to your deck, collect sets of cards in your hand, and use them to put those cards into play as buildings. The idea mostly came from the visual concept of the cards with silhouettes of a building on them, so when stacks of these cards are splayed side by side, it would look like a downtown skyline.

Here's a rundown of the game in its current form (obviously subject to change, as I have not tried it yet!):

Game turn:
Architect Phase: Play a card for it's effect, or draw 1 card.
Bid Phase: Play cards to purchase a card from the display, or draw 1 card.
Construction Phase: Play a card onto your tableau (pay by discarding cards), or draw 1 card.
Design Phase: Draw 1 card

In each phase you can EITHER play cards, OR draw a card (obviously in the Design Phase you just draw a card). This is instead of refilling your hand at the end of the turn. I don't know if that will work, but it sounded like a neat change to me.

Cards in the display will be from 5 face down stacks - one each for 0-cost, 2-cost, 3-cost, 4-cost, and 5-cost. Each stack has cards in some number of colors (5 or 6 probably). The more expensive the card, the more VP it's worth and the better the effect on it. The cost is the number of cards of that color which must be discarded to purchase the card, or to play the card to the table. Currently I'm thinking that except for the 0-cost pile (building bases, what you need to start a building), the stacks will each be shuffled and the top card revealed and available for purchase. there might need to be more cards available, I'm not sure yet.

That's the idea anyway. I hope to create some cards and give it a try soon. I'm sure you'll hear more about it at some point.

Aaaaaand another one...

Skyline has not been my only distraction. Just today I was inspired while reading the review of Funkenschlag: The First Spark on Opinionated Gamers. I thought of a resource gathering mechanism (which is completely unrelated to Funkenschlag). Tonight I created some hex tiles and sorted some meeples and wooden discs to give it a try.

The basic idea in this one is that you lay out an array of hexes, each with radial lines dividing the hex into 6 'spaces,' and a circle of color in the center. When joined, these lines create spaces for meeple placement, each touching 2 of the circles. After a few rounds of worker placement, players use the resources (colored circles) their meeples are touching to build some "technology" or "building". Also, each circle could have a token on it, maybe a 1-shot resource of a particular type (like the resource cubes in Olympos), or maybe 1-shot abilities (like the tiles in Hansa Teutonica).

That's about as far as I've got on this idea. Who knows if it will get anywhere.

Kickstarter Chronicles - Part V: Our influence on other projects

2011-08-30T00:24:00.001-07:00

If I had been on the ball, I would have started a series of blog posts about my Kickstarter experience with Eminent Domain. I would have called it The Kickstarter Chronicles, and it would be in several parts. I did not do that, so instead I'm going to pick up in the middle. I'll include a complete outline, and maybe one day I'll go back and fill in the missing chapters:

Part 0: What is Kickstarter?
Wherein I learn about an interesting new crowd-funding website, and implore Tasty Minstrel Games to use it.

Part I: Designing our first KS campaign.
Wherein I try to optimize pledge levels to offer desirable rewards in a cost effective way.

Part II: Running the campaign.
Wherein I observe several different ways of promoting a Kickstarter campaign, what worked, and what didn't.

Part III: Production post campaign.
Wherein I discuss the learning process of producing a game on a larger scale than expected, and the growing pains involved.

Part IV: Complaint department.
Wherein I enumerate lessons learned in customer service, and observe what Kickstarter means to the people pledging.

Part V: Our influence on other projects.
Wherein I note specifics of recent Kickstarter projects which appear to be a direct result of the events involving ours.

Part VI: The final word.
Wherein I form an opinion on the Kickstarter campaign after it's finally over - will I consider it a success? Would I do it again? What would I do differently?

Part VII: The future of Kickstarter
Wherein I examine earlier thoughts on the evolution of Kickstarter as a tool to fund board game publication, and form an opinion about whether I think it will be worthwhile, or even possible, for us to use it again.

Part V: Our influence on other projects

In the previous chapters I discussed (or would have discussed) a few different things about EmDo's KS campaign. We were not the first to successfully fund a game on Kickstarter, there were several games before us... most notably Alien Frontiers by Clever Mojo Games. Their campaign was a rousing success, bringing in almost $15k - 3 times their target amount. Of course, their target amount was low - probably a lot less than it actually cost to print the first run, which I believe was only 1000 copies of the game. The first run was such a success that the first run sold out immediately, and some people even had trouble obtaining pre-ordered copies.

I definitely wanted to learn from that experience, take what I thought worked well for Clever Mojo and avoid what caused problems. So my project was clearly influenced by others before me. As it turned out, through some confluence of quality, strength of character, coincidence, good marketing, or just dumb luck, Eminent Domain not only me but surpassed our lofty goal of $20k - bringing in an unprecedented $48k for a board game! After that performance, it only makes sense that other projects would look to ours, try to choose what we did right and avoid what we did wrong in order to enjoy their own success.

Well, that was then, and this is now. There has been an explosion of KS game projects, some well run and some not - some successful and some not. Until recently I could only see influences from our campaign itself in other, newer campaigns. Only now, 9 months later, have I started to see more lasting effects of things that have transpired (see Chapter IV), and the influence that has had on other projects. Here are a few things I've noticed about some of the new Kickstarter projects, where I see they may have been influenced by our experience, and in some cases my opinion on them.

Looking at some of the more successful recent projects: Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Glory to Rome Black Box Edition, and Carnival, each of which has surpassed their goal by a lot. One thing I see that may have been influenced by Eminent Domain is this: Tiers for multiple copies of the game. We included:
* A tier for a single copy of the game, for those who simply wanted to pre-order themselves a copy,
* A tier for 2 copies, for people who wanted to go in with a friend (this would save us money on shipping)
* A tier for 3 copies that was a better deal all around (cheaper per copy, Limited Edition) than the 2 copies, to encourage people to go in with *2* friends
* A tier for 6 copies - specifically intended to facilitate overseas orders

While the specifics vary, all of the current heavy hitters seem to have adopted a similar structure. Also, in-game real estate for a high dollar amount, like the planets and tech cards in Eminent Domain, went well for us, and I see it popping up in some of the current campaigns as well (such as Clever Mojo's new Sunrise City project).

Something that's decidedly different however is the number of different trinkets, exclusive items, and bonuses. I think giving everybody a little something more (i.e. adding something additional to the game) at certain thresholds after meeting your goal is a great way to encourage people to get their friends to pledge! However, for logistical reasons I think offering handfuls of different options will prove to be very difficult and potentially problematic. As for exclusive items, well - I've written about this elsewhere - I don't think they're a good idea at all... there's a setup cost involved, and once you've paid that, if it's not game content, then I think it usually makes more sense to add the item to the game altogether rather than making it exclusive. Give the value-add to all of your customers, not just a select few. And if it IS game content? Well, the thought of an ever growing group of people who will be forever unable to access all of the game content is just terrible!

I've noticed the following disclaimer at the bottom of a couple KS projects lately:

From DiceHateMe's Carnival project:

Without our Kickstarter Backers, DHMG would not be able to bring quality games to market. To show our respect and appreciation, DHMG promises that backer copies of Carnival will be shipped out before copies are available for purchase at retailers or conventions. DHMG also pledges that any reward marked as promotional in our Kickstarter campaigns will never be offered for sale in stores by DHMG, either alone or as part of any product.

And from Clever Mojo's new Sunrise City project:

We recognize and appreciate the important role that our Kickstarter Backers and Springboard Retailers are playing in the launch of Sunrise City and the success of Clever Mojo Games. Therefore, we make the following promises to you:

The promo cards and tiles noted as EXCLUSIVE will remain exclusive. We promise not to sell them individually or as a set, and not to include them as a part of any game expansion or re-printing. Once the Kickstarter Backers and Springboard Retailers have received their exclusive items they will NEVER be re-printed.
Sunrise City will be shipped to Kickstarter Backers at least two weeks before the items are available for purchase at ANY convention or store. Actual delivery dates will vary depending on your local postal service.
Stores who participate in Game Salute Preview Nights for Sunrise City will receive a preview copy for their Game Library in advance of the scheduled release date.

Both of these games look like fine products. I have read the rules to Carnival, and it sounds like a solid, lightweight filler. I don't know much about Sunrise City, but based on the video it looks like a fun city building game (I have fond memories of Sim City)... I have nothing against either of these projects. I bring this up merely to point out that, although potentially a coincidence, these "Our Pledge" sections appear to me to be in direct response to what has happened recently surrounding Eminent Domain (again, see Chapter IV).

So it seems that we've had an influence on the current crop of KS projects, but not necessarily in a positive way - more in a sort of "cover your ass" or a "what not to do" way. The two biggest complaints that cropped up about EmDo were that the "exclusive content" ended up in all of the first run boxes, and that the games were available for purchase at Gen Con when the KS supporters had not received theirs yet. I absolutely cannot fault either Dice Hate Me or Clever Mojo for taking that route - for including exclusive items and for promising that the supporters will get their copies first - that's clearly what people expect and/or want for their pledge (see Chapter IV again). They're not pre-ordering a game, and they're not helping a small company get off the ground... they're shopping for trinkets and exclusive items.

On the down side, this propagates a dynamic that I think is bad for the industry - exclusive game content - and it also degrades the efficiency of Kickstarter in the first place - trinkets. Things like pins and ball caps cost money to make and money to ship. Enticing someone to add $10 to their bid in order to also get a hat that costs you $9 a unit to make, well that's not getting you very far. when I was researching rewards for my KS campaign, I also found that a lot of people did not seem interested in a hat, or a t-shirt, or even a poster print of game art - and here I thought those were all great ideas!

So it remains to be seen whether a small company or self publisher will be able to succeed on Kickstarter the way *I* think they should be able to - offering people the opportunity to pre-order a game and help it get off the ground, or if it will be a novelty emporium for gamers to shop around for trinkets and exclusives. Is there room for both of those types of projects on Kickstarter?

EmDo Expansion - new tech and planet card ideas

2011-08-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do some brainstorming about new tech and planet card ideas, and if I do that brainstorming here, then it'll be here for me to reference later!

I had some neat tech card ideas that I was testing with the Exotic expansion:

Level 1:
Double Time: Play 2 more Action Cards

Level 2:
Improved [X]: Like level 1, but with "Play an additional Action" added.

Thorough Survey: Search the Planet draw and discard piles for any 1 Planet card. Shuffle those piles to create a new Planet deck and place the chosen card on top.
Synthesize: Search your draw and discard piles for any 1 card and put it in your hand. Shuffle those piles to create a new draw deck.
Cryptography: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from your hand to the stacks.
Coalition Victory: If you have 2 each Advanced, Fertile, and metallic planets in play (face up), you win the game.
Premium Product: Collect 1 additional Influence for each Unobtanium you trade. (Comes with an Unobtanium slot)
Cult of the New: Exotic icons in your Empire are worth 1 Influence. (Comes with an Exotic icon)
Deep Space Probes: When doing a Survey role, you may look at 2 fewer Planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.

Some of those, Coalition Victory, Premium Product, and Cult of the New, will absolutely have to wait for the exotic expansion, because they rely heavily on having an additional planet type in the game. The rest however are not unique to the Exotic expansion, and could be used in the 1st expansion instead. I especially think Synthesize and Thorough Survey should be in the same set, because they feel complementary to me.

So it stands to reason that Thorough Survey, Synthesize, and Cryptography should occur in the first expansion, as well as the permanent tech Deep Space Probes.

The Level 2 Improved techs kind of go along with Double Time in that they add a theme of playing additional cards to the game. Thus far only Productivity (a level 3 tech) has done that. So unless I want to come up with a handful of more unique techs, it seems wise to include that set of cards as well. Currently Double Time and the L2 Improved techs all have an Exotic icon on them, to tie them together with the Exotic expansion. If I'm moving them to the 1st (non-Exotic), perhaps I should remove those - but I was thinking it might be neat to include them, so that when the Exotic expansion comes along it will integrate better. Until then the Exotic icons of course just won't do anything.

That's all old stuff though - let's get to the brainstorming already! This will obviously be less detailed and less well thought out, by merit of it being... well, a brainstorm:

Different types of technologies I could use
* Techs with effects that trigger when the card is used to follow (or boost?) a role, such as:
- - Collect 1 Fighter when using this card to Follow a role
- - Collect 1 Resource when using this card to Follow a role
- - +1 Colony when using this card to Follow a role
- - Draw 1 card (2 cards?) when using this card to Follow a role
- - Remove 1 card (2 cards?) in hand from the game when using this card to Follow a role
- - Trade 1 Resource when using this card to Follow a role

* Techs that have Resources as symbols
- - These could be discarded in lieu of a Resource in your Empire

* A tech with all 6 role symbols on it.
- - What, if any, Action should this card have? Maybe no Action, but the text "After using this card to boost or follow a role, you may put it back into your hand." (so like a +1 of each icon, but -1 Hand size situation). maybe call it "Versatility"

* Techs that cost Resources (resource icons in the 'required planet" or the 'research cost' locations)

* Permanent tech that says "1x/turn you may place a FIGHTER on [this card]. Remove 3 FIGHTERS from [this]: Collect 1 DESTROYER. Remove 5 FIGHTERS from [this]: Collect 1 DREADNAUGHT."
- - Or perhaps better, each time you Lead/Follow a Warfare role - thus making Destroyers and Dreadnaughts obtainable through heavy use of Warfare.

I'll note that costing a resource is basically another way to indicate a planet requirement, since the resource types are based on planet types. It's actually a bit more 'expensive' because it requires not only that you flip the planet, but that the planet has a resource slot, and that you use an action to fill it. I did have an idea for a Permanent tech called Biosphere which gives you resource slots. I think it would be interesting if the cost for that was A Food and a Water, and the slots it provides are Iron and Silicon.

So here's what I'm looking at at the moment for expansion tech cards:

Advanced/Fertile/Metallic Level 1:
Double Time with 1 Native icon (and 1 Exo icon?)
Influence: 0
Double Time with the other Native icon (and 1 Exo icon?)
Influence: 0

Advanced/Fertile/Metallic Level 2:
Improved [x] with 1 Native icon and 1 Exo icon
Influence: 2
Improved [x] with 1 Native icon and 1 Exo icon
Influence: 2

Unaffiliated tech:
Improved Colonize
Cost: Food + Iron
Icons: Colonize + Food
Effect: Same as Improved Colonize, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Produce
Cost: Water + Food
Icons: Produce + Water
Effect: Same as Improved Produce, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Warfare
Cost: Iron + Water
Icons: Warfare + Iron
Effect: Same as Improved Warfare, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Survey
Cost: Iron + Silicon
Icons: Survey + Iron
Effect: Same as Improved Survey, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Research
Cost: Silicon + Food
Icons: Research + Silicon
Effect: Same as Improved Research, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Trade
Cost: Silicon + Water
Icons: Trade + Silicon
Effect: Same as Improved Trade, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Synthesize
Cost: Iron + Silicon + Water
Icons: ?
Effect: Search your draw and discard piles for any 1 card and put it in your hand. Shuffle those piles to create a new draw deck.
Influence: 2

Thorough Survey
Cost: Iron + Silicon + Food
Icons: ?
Effect: Search the Planet draw and discard piles for any 1 Planet card. Shuffle those piles to create a new Planet deck and place the chosen card on top.
Influence: 2

Cryptography
Cost: 1 Destroyer?
Icons: ?
Effect: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from your hand to the stacks.
Influence: 2

Biosphere [Permanent]
Cost: Water + Food
Icons: NONE
Effect: [Iron] and {Silicon] resource slots
Influence: 2

Deep Space Probes [Permanent]
Cost: 3 Research? 5 research?
Icons: NONE
Effect: When doing a Survey role, you may look at 2 fewer Planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.
Influence: 2

...

Next time I'll brainstorm ways to get and use Destroyers and Dreadnaughts. So far I've got a couple ideas, but nothing concrete.

Alter Ego - back to that again...

2011-08-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

The other day I re-read my last post about revamping Alter Ego and making it into a Cooperative Deck Building game. That was back in April, right after my visit to Spielbany. Sadly, I have not done anything with the idea since then!

Today I finally got around to working on updating my prototype. I added 2 more types of Hero cards/icons, like I discussed with Richard at Spielbany. In updating the Henchmen cards I think I've run into a potential problem. I've noticed that with my current rules, players will be bringing 1 henchmen into play each turn. However, in the very beginning of the game they will not be able to defeat 1 Henchman per turn (not the way I'm thinking of having the henchmen) - and if they could, the game would be pretty dull anyway. That means later in the game, players have to be able to defeat more than 1 Henchman at a time in order to catch up a bit.

It's possible that players won't need to defeat every single henchman - and in fact maybe it would be best if they could not. That might actually help encourage them to beat the ones with the Arch Villain symbols in order to 'awaken' the Arch Villains and defeat them.

In any case, I think I need to think about the design of the henchmen cards. Should they start out very easy to kill, then progress on, so that by the time players can defeat more than 1 of them at a time, they must choose between that and defeating just 1 bigger henchman, which would confer some benefit? Or should I re-define the way that henchmen come into the game?

For now I have created a set of 5 really wimpy henchmen ("Pest"), and a set of 10 almost as wimpy henchmen ("Nuisance"). These will come into play, take just 1 Civ token hostage, and offer no benefit for defeating them (except that they will release the hostage, of course).

I think this could make for a reasonable early game - on your first turn you'll turn up a Pest, and you'll choose a hero card (probably the one needed to defeat that Pest). On your second and third turns, you'll add a Nuisance, and you'll choose a Hero card based on that. Then you'll start drawing harder-to-beat henchmen, and there should be some number of them built up in play...

This is the part I'm a little concerned about - if the Henchmen come out faster than the players can defeat them, then how can the players win? Perhaps that is the tension required to actually make this game any good - maybe it's just something I'll have to try out empirically.

The last thing I have to do before I can try it is to assign how many and what types of Hostages will be taken by the Henchmen. The "hostages" aren't necessarily supposed to represent actual hostages - like kidnapped people - though in some cases that's applicable. It's supposed to represent a group being hassled by the criminals. How many groups/types of Civ tokens should there be? I want to say "3," because I always seem to want to say "3." also, I'm currently planning on there being 3 Arch Villains, so having 3 types of Civ tokens might fit with that - each Arch Villain, once in play, could attack a different Civ type.

Hopefully I'll finish the henchmen cards and print out the new prototype before I get sidetracked or lose interest again...

Game mechanic for a hunt

2011-08-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sitting at lunch today I had a random thought, about Seal Team 5 and their capture/killing of a terrorist. I heard someone say that Disney had bought the rights to "Seal Team 5" - as if to make a movie about it (maybe they're waiting for that not to be in extremely poor taste?)

Anyway, that thought led to game mechanics for searching for a hidden target. Imagine that each player represents a different intelligence agency, and they're all out to find (capture?) a hidden target, maybe a terrorist or maybe just a particular item or piece of information (the Holy Grail, like the Da Vinci Code?)

Suppose that there are first of all several Macro-locatins where the target could be located. Maybe these are countries for example. Players would go about getting information, trying to figure out which macro-location they should dispatch their Ops team to. When they think they have this information, they may dispatch their team, but so as not to tip off other players they would not reveal which location the team has been sent to. They would however have to lock that choice in.

While everybody else is still trying to figure out which location to send their team to, you can go about your business trying to learn more specific information - like where within that macro-location the target is hiding, or how to go about getting it. Meanwhile, since you have dispatched your team, you can (must?) spend some of your limited actions 'advancing' them... say you have an "Ops Team Progress track" for example, and you advance a marker on that track to indicate that your team is making physical progress.

Eventually there would be some trigger which would cause the correct Macro-location to be known to all players. Maybe at this time a specific board for that location is brought into play. Any player who has dispatched their team must reveal where they dispatched them to. If they were incorrect, then all the "progress" they made is wasted - they won't find the target. However, assuming they were right, then they have already effectively taken X moves on the new map (where X is the number of advances on the Ops Team progress track have been made). Thus, they have ahead start in the race to find the target.

I don't know how interesting this would turn out to be, or how fun, or exactly how the game would work - but it sounded like a neat way to implement a race for hidden information. I think this could jive well with the type of thing that Indiana Jones' Lost Adventures was doing with the game system knowing information that the players do not.

The state of things... games in development and TMG submissions

2011-08-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting as often as I'd like in this blog. For one thing I would like to keep my readers interested with what's going on in my gaming life, and for another I like to chronicle my thoughts for my own use later!

So here's what's going on with some of the games I've been working on lately for TMG...

I posted about a week ago about my latest thoughts on the 1st expansion for Eminent Domain, and about 3 weeks before that about The Untouchables (a simple coop game I was experimenting with). I haven't done any more with either of those since their respective posts.

Kings of Air and Steam
I have been worried about some aspects of Kings of Air and Steam that have not come together quite like I'd like, and I'd had some unfortunate playtests at Protospiel and Gen Con. I've been discussing some things with the designer, and we've finally addressed the boards (something I'd been leaving for later) as well as some other items that weren't working out too well. I think we've made some huge steps in the right direction, and I'm feeling much better now about the state of this particular game.

Josh Cappel will be doing the art for this one, and I'm looking forward to it looking every bit as good as Belfort.

Scott designed some new boards, hexes rather than rectangles, which I liked very much. They are more modular, and more attractive, and they don't have as many dead corners. I think the hex boards are definitely an improvement, but it's possible the playing area was too large in general - this is based on some of the negative feedback we'd gotten. You see, the interaction in this game comes mostly from the threat or worry that another player might be going for the same thing as you. If the board is so big that much of the time the other players are not near enough to you to matter, then the interaction seems to go away. Scott just made new boards (updating things like the number of cities and factories) and has made each with fewer hexes. We'll see if this makes the overall game feel more crowded and hopefully more fun.

The new boards also have a nice, more confined number of factories and cities of each color, which I think will create a good number of cubes over the course of the game, and a good amount of demand for those cubes.

One thing I was not happy with at all was the Depot buying mechanism. I've tried several iterations, each of which had their good points and their bad points. Something that I came up with in an effort to justify depot pricing and also fix another problem in the game (some players have more than enough actions and end up passing) was this - make depots worth money at the end of the game! Therefore, while buying a depot eats up your working capital, it represents a profit in points in addition to something you need in order to deliver goods. Also, when confronted with an action when you have nothing better to do, now you could purchase a depot thereby scoring points. The escalating cost of depots ($4/$6/$8 for the 1st/2nd/3rd depot on a line). Another way to look at this, which is technically the same thing, but I think is somehow a little nicer, is to say that instead of your score being the total money that you have, score 1 point per depot, plus 1 point per $10 at the end of the game. I played with this rule yesterday and it seemed to go well. Thematically your score is based on the 'strength' or size of your network, as measured by your depots in place. Of course, money counts too.
Thinking about is a little more right now I'm wondering if it shouldn't be 2vp/depot + 1vp/$10...

At Gen Con I was listing my concerns to Andy Van Zandt, and he suggested that perhaps passing could entail collecting a couple of dollars - maybe $1/depot you've already built. In addition to this being something a player could do when they have no reasonable action to take, this turned out to be good because it allowed players who are a little bit short of cash to get enough money to make an upgrade or buy a depot without them having to make a delivery. I decided it might be simpler to decouple that from the number of depots made (especially if depots are worth points, you already have incentive to build them) and instead make it that you get $1/round... so in round 1 you collect only $1 when you pass, while in Round 5 you collect $5. I like the way that scales, and it's easily communicated on the Market board.

The new production rule didn't seem to go over well in the 1/2 game played at Gen Con, but has seemed great when played lately. The current rule is that each factory produces 1 cube, and in addition, each market tile generates 1 cube per factory of that color. I think the number of factories changed between Gen Con and recent playtests, so that explain the difference in how it has worked out.

Bank Job - a TMG submission from Phillip Dubarry
I love the sound of Kingdom of Soloman (coming soon from Minion Games), so I was interested in checking out this submission by Phillip Dubarry. I like the theme - it's like a Heist movie, where you assemble a crew and go rob a bank and stuff. Michael was excited about it and enjoyed it. I like the idea of the game, but I am finding I'm not fond of Simultaneous Action Selection, especially when resolved in some arbitrary turn order. I had wrestled with that for Kings of Air and Steam (where it's less of a big deal) and solved it by sorting the character powers and allowing those with weaker powers to have better priority when in a timing conflict.

In Ruins
I played Andy's post-apocalyptic card drafting game In ruins at Spielbany, at Protospiel, at my friend's game night, and again at Gen Con. I enjoy it, and I like the theme of the game, as well as the innovative drafting mechanism. It may be a title that TMG eventually picks up. One thing I worry about is how well it'd go over (sell) - novel card drafting isn't as hot a mechanism right now like Dice Drafting is (was? Is it still big?) or like Deck Building or "dice building" (Quarriors) is. Or is it? Is the popularity of 7 Wonders (and potentially 51st State) enough to imply that players are interested in games driven by a card draft? One other potential turn off is that the core mechanism, the reason the whole thing works, MIGHT just piss off players (any new, awesome card that comes up may be blocked by a player, therefore more often than not it may seem like you're drafting the dregs of what's out there). The last thing I think might be a problem (commercially) is that it's not a 'quick, simple game' like 7 Wonders. Which is not a knock on the game - the rules aren't actually very complicated at all, but the cards are, and the game has depth and is subtle. I worry that people may prefer a simpler game like 7W which is easier to grasp - which is a concern really on the general state of gamers (one I'm sure I've discussed before) more than it's a concern about any specific game. I mentioned to Andy that I might like to see another, different, simpler game using this draft mechanism which may be more likely to become a "hit" in the way something like 7 Wonders or Dominion has. I mean, one could probably take a copy of 7 Wonders and replace the booster draft mechanism with Andy's draft mechanism and see how that goes!

My Little Vineyard
I haven't thought much about or done much with this since Protospiel. The designer hasn't either - Scott told me he'd been dealing with personal stuff rather than game design. I still generally like the wine theme and the dice drafting mechanism, but I'm beginning to wonder if the general game buying public is over both of them. If not, then I think it would make a nice addition to the TMG line, so long as all the kinks get worked out!

Quarriors
I apologize for the negativity that is about to flow here...
I finally played Quarriors. Frankly, I cannot think of a bigger waste of time or effort. The game is simpler/less interesting than Dominion, and yet it's more fiddly/complicated to explain/play. It's like playing Dominion with a severely diluted deck - like whenever you buy a Village, you gain 3 Villages, 2 Copper, and a Silver. The fact that the only choice you really make - which die to add to your deck - only MAYBE means you get the effect of that die I find entirely regrettable, I feel like that defeats the entire purpose of the game.

The worst part about all this is that despite Quarriors being so little of an actual game, it will sell thousands of copies because it's the first game of it's kind - the next twist on deck building - and because it's got lots of dice and comes in a nice tin with nice art.

I do however like the idea of a deck building game where the cards in your deck have variability to them (like dice). But how do you make such a game that isn't disappointing like Quarriors? I think some of the same reasoning I put into Eminent Domain to set it apart from typical deck building games may apply here as well. However, I also think that any die added to your 'deck' really has to do it's job no matter what face is rolled on it. Maybe the effectiveness or intensity of that effect could be variable depending on the face rolled, or maybe a secondary/alternate effect could be based on the face rolled but the general/standard effect should be based on the die itself, and the fact that you have chosen to add it to your deck.

A BGDF member has been working on a 'dice building' game for quite some time, and I think it's closer to what I'd expected to see out of Quarriors. I haven't seen the latest version, but I think it would be cool to check it out. If it's everything I want it to be, then I think it could make a good addition to the TMG line.

Quick Gen Con recap, and EmDo Hullabaloo

2011-08-21T22:32:00.001-07:00

I recently went to Gen Con for the first time, and in addition (perhaps related) there has been a lot of Hullabaloo about Eminent Domain on BGG. By way of disclaimer I'll restate up front that this is my personal blog, and opinions stated here are my own, and should not be attributed to Tasty Minstrel Games (with whom I'm often associated).

Gen Con
Michael, Erin and I went to Gen Con a few weeks ago. I have never been, I've always thought of it as more of a commercial event. I don't like he idea of going to (and paying for) a gaming convention and then having to pay extra to play in events, or simply to get into the Open Gaming room! However, this year I didn't attend the con in the capacity I normally attend game cons - We attended as Tasty Minstrel Games. We had a booth, and brought 6 different games to sell, including Eminent Domain, Belfort, Martian Dice, Train of Thought, Jab: Realtime Boxing, and Homesteaders 2nd Edition. Our booth was rather busy all 4 days of the con, and we did many, many demos. Looking up and down our booth at all 6 of our offerings I noted that, while no game is for everybody... within their target demographic, each of our games is really very good. They are the highest quality game, and the art and production (now that we've moved to Panda) are also the highest quality. I felt proud to stand behind each and every one of them! Even Martian Dice, which is the type of game that generally doesn't interest me at all, is really very good for what it is - I heard people saying it was better than Zombie Dice (a similar quick filler).

One of the best feelings was when someone who had bought EmDo or Belfort the day before would stop by and tell us how much fun it was or how much they liked it when they played it that evening! Another high point for me was when 2 different people stopped by our booth with a copy of Terra Prime asking me to sign it, and telling me how much they like the game! We also had a number of EmDo Kickstarter supporters stop by and reassure us, ask us to hang in there, and while they were anxious to get their copy of the game they were not upset about "all the hullabaloo."

Eminent Domain, and all the hullabaloo
Having copies of EmDo at Gen Con was good - we were able to show it, and sell a few copies in order to get the game out there some more. But it had a down side as well. There have been threads and posts all over BGG and on Kickstarter, but in case anyone is unclear on what happened, here's the story. This (the game designer's blog) is not the correct forum for further complaints on the subject, so I won't even approve any comments of that type. Please see the threads on BGG or contact Michael at TMG directly if you need to.

There were 3 mistakes made, and they combined to make for a very rough experience and a customer service nightmare:
Mistake number 1 - Traded limited exclusivity for Utopian planets
Originally Michael made a very big deal about the exclusivity of Prestige planets in the Kickstarter rewards. He wanted them to be entirely exclusive, but I veto'ed that because I did not want a good, useful portion of the game to end up being unavailable to everyone except the few people using Kickstarter. So he ended up saying "exclusive until the 1st expansion comes out" - and then played up the exclusivity part of that sentence quite a bit.

Somewhere along the line, Michael also decided to make the Utopian planets available - he planned to sell them as a mini-expansion through the BGG store. He hadn't actually asked me about it, and when I protested he said it was already done. Except then something fell through, and they weren't going to be a BGG exclusive after all.

I realized that it would be silly to have the Prestige planets given to kickstarters then also include them in an expansion (as was the original plan), because then people would have 2 copies of those planets... At about that time I also realized that it made more sense to combine the 3 Prestige Planets and the 6 Utopian planets into a 9-card mini-expansion and then NOT include them in the actual expansion (which by that time I had begun to work on).

Michael wanted to include these in copies pre-ordered from the Preview night promotion he had put together, and he thought that people would not mind that they were no longer exclusive (1) because this new pack was technically a mini-expansion, and (2) they would be getting more stuff than advertised. He was trading out the limited exclusivity (limited until the mini-expansion, which ended up being coincident with the first print run) for more cards. His thought process was "why would anybody complain about that? They're getting more cards!"

That's the second time Mike has underestimated people's propensity to complain. He said the same thing last year before BGG.con when he decided to give away copies of Terra Prime and Homesteaders - he thought that people would not complain about miscut or misaligned pieces since they got the game for free. Needless to say he turned out to be wrong.

Mistake number 2 - Bonus planets added to all boxes
Now that preview night pre-orders were going to get these Bonus planets, there was some number of Kickstarter boxes getting them (labeled as kickstarter copies), some pre-orders getting them (unlabeled), and some copies not getting the planets (also not labeled). In order to avoid mistakes and make it easier to deal with, at some point along the line Michael told the guys at Panda to just put the bonus packs into all the 5,000 first run boxes.

This was a mistake for 2 reasons. First and foremost, it directly contradicted the big deal he made about the (limited) exclusivity on the kickstarter page. As I mentioned, in his mind he'd already resolved this by giving the kickstarters the 6 additional cards. The other reason this was a mistake was more of a common sense one - unless every single first-run box has been pre-sold, there will eventually be a point where a store will have 2 copies on the shelf, one with bonus planets and one without!

I would have preferred (and I bet Mike would too, in retrospect) if he's instead told them "don't put the bonus planets into ANY of the boxes" - and then when shipping a particular box to a particular person, a bonus pack could have been sent along with it.

Something I have only just thought of right now - since we have a 2nd printing following the first one, we could have potentially decided to hold back the non-KS, non-preordered boxes from the first run (with the bonus planets in them), fulfilled normal orders with the 2nd run, and then sold the rest of the first run with bonus planets included as a separate item (EmDo WITH Bonus Planets expansion) for an additional $10. In fact, I don't think it's too late to do that. I will have to discuss it with Mike.

You see, this is the problem with "exclusive" or "limited" items - once you print them it makes so much more sense just to always include them!

Mistake number 3 - Copies sold at Gen Con
Originally the print run was supposed to arrive in April. When that didn't happen due to delays, it was still supposed to arrive in June or July. When further delays occurred such that the shipment would not arrive in time for Gen Con, Mike decided to air ship a small number of games to the con. I do not actually think this was a mistake at all. As a small publisher, TMG cannot afford to go to a big show like Gen Con and NOT have their new product. However, even though it wasn't promised in any way, some Kickstarter supporters were upset that they were not the first to receive their copies of the game. Like any pre-order, I can see the thinking there - they paid for the game 9 months ago, and especially those that would be at the con could watch another person walk in off the street and purchase a copy. However, I don't think that makes it a mistake to have done this. The delays were regrettable, but there's nothing TMG could do about them. Some of the more vocal complainers in this respect seem to imply that the game was made available to the general public - to everyone except the kickstarters. They don't seem to know (or care) about the facts of the situation and the numbers involved - just the principle that someone else got the game before they did. For the record, the number of people that got their game before kickstarters was about 10% of the number of kickstarters. We sold less than 200 copies at the con. That's not the general public, that's a handful. So, I understand the complaint, but for those who suggested that TMG (or especially ME personally, like it was my choice to make) is smarmy or disingenuous for selling copies at Gen Con before the kickstarters got their copies... I disagree with you. That's not smarmy, that doesn't lack class.

Solution
The combination of those three mistakes caused quite a stir in the forums on BGG, and it was rather disheartening to read wave after wave of criticism. The long and short of it is that some of the kickstarter supporters felt like TMG had changed what they were getting (they had - 6 Utopian planets were added) and some even canceled their order because they felt like they'd been lied to. Well, despite what you might read on BGG, Michael and I DO NOT want the kickstarter supporters to feel like we don't care about them or that we do not appreciate their support! As a result Michael decided to provide a new item, completely exclusive to kickstarter supporters, which will be added to their package when it's sent out.

I cannot wait for the people who asked for a refund to complain that they now cannot get this item, as it's exclusive to kickstarters.

TMG Game reviews are online!

2011-08-15T16:18:00.001-07:00

TMG's summer releases are still on their way from China, but we did have some copies with us at Gen Con, and they all seemed really well received! Lately I've seen a few reviews popping up online:

Belfort:
Drakkenstrike's Belfort Components Breakdown Video Review in HD
BGG Review: A Cranky Old Man Review: Belfort (9 out of 10)
BGG Review: Did you know that Gnomes are inherently pentagonal? - a mini-review of Belfort

Eminent Domain:
I Slay The Dragon
BGG Review: Is it really RftG + GtR + Dominion?
BGG Review: First Impressions (this one's neat because the OP chimes in after further play)
BGG Review: More First Impressions

Martian Dice:
Board Game Reviews By Josh
BGG Review: Know when to hold em', know when to fold em', know when to walk away, know when to take your cows and run!
BGG review: Martian Dice: Buy, Try, or Sigh

Homesteaders:
BGG Review: Homesteaders: Not only a great game, but it has Cowples!!!
Go Forth And Game: Under The Microscope - Homesteaders

Thanks to those who have posted these reviews! Everybody should check them out :)

EmDo Expansion - second thoughts

2011-08-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

I've posted about my thoughts for the Exotic Expansion I'm working on for Eminent Domain. I really like parts of what I have so far, but I'm not 100% happy with it yet. In addition, the expansion does not address the 2 biggest things that players seem to really want to see addressed...

1. People want the different resource types to mean more.
2. People want the different fighter tokens to mean more.

So lately I've been thinking about holding off on the new "Exotic" planet type, and instead adding some of the things I've had in mind to address those 2 main questions people have been asking. The expansion will still feature additional Role cards to support 5 players, and additional technology cards as well.

Resource types

Currently, the resource type is based on the planet type, so there is no difference between Iron and Silicon except that Iron comes from Metallic planets and Silicon comes from Advanced planets. There's a little bit of subtlety to that - it means that inherently Iron is a little harder to come by, since fewer Metallic planets have resource slots than Advanced planets do. That distinction does not really matter in game terms though.

There exist 3 tech cards in the base game that refer to resource types:

Genetic Engineering: +1vp for each TYPE of resource you produce this turn
Diverse Markets: +1vp for each TYPE of resource you trade this turn
Specialization: Choose a resource type. +1vp for each resource of that type you trade this turn.

I have some plans for another future expansion to use Agendas, some of which would refer to particular resource types - such as an Agenda making Water worth 2vp apiece instead of 1.

Lately I've been thinking about more things I could do with resources. The obvious thing is to make cards that cost resources...

* Planets which require expenditure of resources to flip over
* Tech cards which require expenditure of resources to purchase (or to play)
* Cards/Actions that allow you to trade resources in for something other than Influence (VP)

Fighter tokens

Many people see the 3 sizes of fighter tokens and immediately want to assign denominations to them - which is fine. However when they see that the rulebook does not do that, they immediately ask why not. Well, there IS a reason for that. Ever since it was known that we would have 3 different fighter token shapes I thought it would be cool to one day make the medium ships "Destroyers" and the large ships "Dreadnaughts," each with their own meaning.

I'm currently thinking of adding some of these types of cards to the first expansion, in lieu of the Exotic planets with the new icons I was playing around with.

Untouchables - Card Actions

2011-07-23T15:26:00.001-07:00

Here are the 13 card effects I had in the first draft prototype of The Untouchables. Based on my last post, I will need to change some of them, and I think I will need to create some more, so if you can think of a card effect you'd like to see in this type of game, please leave a comment!

1. Advance Investigation Track (this was originally supposed to be a little better than simply playing the card face down to bump the track, because it gave everybody information about which Suspect was in play)
2. Discard an additional card face down, Advance the Investigation Track twice.
3. Send a Cop to ANY location (rather then the location indicated on the card)
4. Discard an additional card face down, Send 2 Cops to ANY 2 locations
5. Reveal a card from your hand (again, this was supposed to help communicate information to your partners about which Accomplice needs to be surrounded.)
6. Look at 5 of the face down discards (allowing you to learn which suspects are in play)
7. Move any 2 Cops on the board.
8. Draw 1 card, then put 2 cards from your hand on the bottom of the deck (allowing you to remove potential suspects from the game, so to speak)
9. Put 1 card from your hand on the bottom of the deck
10. Remove a Cop from the board to advance the Investigation Track (send a beat cop after the Boss)
11. Remove 2 Cops from the board to advance the Investigation Track twice
12. No effect (ran out of ideas)
13. Ne effect

I think I've decided that I still want some cards to be face down, but I don't like how much of a memory element was involved, so the only Face Down cards will be those played face down in order to advance the Investigation Track. Also, to fix hand size issues as well as to give players something to actually do, instead of discarding additional cards to get the stronger action effects, players will have to flip a card from the deck, accelerating the game end, and adding an unforeseen suspect to the board (that may have to be dealt with). I liked the speed of the game when players were drawing 2 cards a turn in the 2nd playtest the other night, so I think it'll work well if player draw just 1 card, and flip another for a stronger card effect.

Here's my list in progress for the next iteration...

1. Advance the Investigation Track twice, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
2. Send a Cop to ANY location
3. Send 2 Cops to any 2 locations, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
4. Move any 2 Cops on the board
5. Remove a Cop from the board to advance the Investigation Track
6. Remove 2 Cops from the board to advance the Investigation Track twice, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
7. Turn all cards from the face down discard pile face up (instead of making progress, you gain information. Should this be a set number rather than "all"? Should it require a card flip? Should I make 1 more limited that doesn't require a card flip, and 1 that reveals all of the face down cards and does require a card flip?)
8. Place any Played card (face up discard pile) on the bottom of the deck, removing a suspect from play.
9. {Place any 2 Played cards (face up discard pile) on the bottom of the deck, removing those suspects from play, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
10. Move the top card of the deck into the face down discard pile (without looking at it), advance the Investigation Track 3 times. (not sure about this one - I kinda like it because it really helps you win, but also introduces an unknown element - a suspect you don't know about)
11. Move the top card of the deck into the face down discard pile (without looking at it), Move up to 3 Cops on the board.
12. ?
13. ?

I still need more ideas!

In general the way I see the game flow going is like this (and I think it's pretty thematic):

Early game players will send cops to interrogate suspects (play cards face up to put Cops on the board). Once they start to have duplicates (cards for where there are already suspects on the board) they'll start to use the stronger actions, adding unforeseen suspects which will have to be dealt with. Over time the board will materialize and players will be able to figure out which suspects need to be surrounded and which will not matter, then they can start moving the Cops around or sending them after the Boss (to advance the Investigation Track). Also, once they can do so 'safely' I expect players will play face down cards to advance the Investigation Track, because at some point that has to happen or you'll lose.

I think the card in players' hands SHOULD count as suspects as well, and the hand limit should be pretty low (for that reason, and to keep the total number of options on your turn to a reasonable level) - say 3 cards.

Leave a comment with any thoughts you have!

The Untouchables

2011-07-23T01:25:00.001-07:00

Last Monday I got a chance to test drive the first draft of my cooperative experiment. The game is called The Untouchables, and it's about... well, here's the flavor text I jotted down:

A Mafia Boss is on the loose, and a crack team of FBI agents has been assembled to catch him! You’ll chase down leads and catch the crook, it’s only a matter of time. But if you don’t catch all of his accomplices, they’ll just take over control of the operation. In order to shut down crime in this city once and for all you’ll need to find out how many accomplices this criminal has, where they’re hiding, and send cops to surround them by the time you catch the Boss!
Each marked space on the board represents a location with a suspect. Send cops to interrogate the suspects, surround the accomplices you think are at large in the city, and catch the Godfather before he slips through your fingers!

Here's what I had in the way of rules for the first draft:

GAME TURNS
Your turn consists of first drawing 1 card, then playing a card. Cards can be played in any one of the following ways:
1. Follow Lead: Discard a card face down to advance the Investigation track 1 space.
2. Interrogate Suspect: Play a card to place a Cop token on the indicated location.
3. Take Action: Play a card and resolve the Action effect printed on it.

GAME END
The game ends when one of 2 things happens:
1. The deck of cards is exhausted - when a player draws the last card, they finish their turn and the game is over.
2. The Mob Boss is caught - when the Investigation track reaches the final space (marked with a star), the Mob Boss has been caught and the game is over.

When one of these events occurs, players reveal all cards in their hands and the face down discard pile. All locations on those cards are considered to have Suspects (this can be marked with the transparent red discs). Not all of these Suspects must be captured in order to win! Any Accomplice space (unmarked) on the board which is COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Suspects represents an Accomplice at large. If all Accomplices at large have been COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Cops, AND the Mob Boss has been captured, then the players win!

After the first play it became clear that those rules have a few glaring problems. For one, several of the improved actions require you to discard an additional card, and if you only draw 1 card a turn, you soon get to the point where you're hand is empty and you are simply drawing a card and then playing it.

In the 2nd game we tried "draw 2, play 1" which somewhat helped this problem, because most of the time you want to use one of the 'discard a card" actions. The speed of the game seemed reasonable too. Another problem that I noticed was that the idea behind discarding face down and counting the cards in players' hands as suspects at the end of the game was to make it hard for players to know for sure which Accomplices must be surrounded. The problem with that is that you KNOW which cads you discard, so you KNOW whether or not you'll win, or where cops need to be sent. It turned out that communicating that info somehow wasn't a big deal, you would simply send cops to the space you know need them. One feature that was actually kind of cool in the first play was that at the end we didn't know whether we'd won or not until we checked. I like the idea of that, and if possible I'd like to maintain that feature. But if you know which cards you discard, that doesn't really occur. Also, since you get to choose your discards, you simply discard duplicates of spaces that you already know have Suspects, which is kind of anticlimactic.

Thinking about it afterward, I think a better 'cost' for the actions is to flip a card from the deck and add a suspect to that location. That way you always play just 1 card , and can draw just 1 card as well. And I hope that the injection of Suspects at surprise locations will give players something to actually do on their turn.

My goal is to emphasize the decision between helping the team win (catch the Mob Boss), and making sure you don't lose (fail to surround the Accomplices). Further, I'd like players to have to somehow figure out how many and which of the 4 Accomplices are in play in any given game. I like the idea that the longer the game goes on, the more Accomplices are likely to be "at large" - but I'm not sure I like the possibility of player rushing the Boss track and potentially winning because no Accomplice happens to be in play. I almost don't mind it as a strategy, but I think it would be a pretty disappointing way to play - win or lose.

So I think I'll update the actions and consider that all (or most) of them will require adding a Suspect to the board, and try the game again with the following updated rules"\:

GAME TURNS
Your turn consists of first playing 1 card, then drawing 1 card. Cards can be played in any one of the following ways:
1. Follow Lead: Discard a card face down to advance the Investigation track 1 space.
2. Interrogate Suspect: Place a Cop token on the indicated location.
3. Take Action: Play a card and resolve the Action effect printed on it. Then Flip a card from the deck and place a Suspect at the location indicated on that card.

GAME END
The game ends when one of 2 things happens:
1. The deck of cards is exhausted - when a player draws the last card, they finish their turn and the game is over.
2. The Mob Boss is caught - when the Investigation track reaches the final space (marked with a star), the Mob Boss has been caught and the game is over.

When one of these events occurs, the game is over. Reveal all face down discards and place Suspects at each of those locations. Not all of these Suspects must be captured in order to win! Any Accomplice space (unmarked) on the board which is COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Suspects represents an Accomplice at large. If all Accomplices a large have been COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Cops, AND the Mob Boss has been captured, then the players win!

Exhibit, and Gamesmiths tonight

2011-07-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

A note on Exhibit - I think it's pretty stable, I haven't changed anything significant in a while. A few things I may not have mentioned that I've been using are...

* Powers from tiles do not come into effect until you display an exhibit, and then only the power on top of the stack counts for anything. This makes you choose one power over another (tool vs weapon vs extra vp from art).

* You earn a new die from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th exhibits you display, for a maximum of 6 dice. For the first exhibit you get only the power from the tile. I like the rate at which dice enter the game, and I also like the difference between many small sets vs fewer larger sets this way.

* I'm zeroing in on a staging order and tile specifics for the Purple auction. I think I may try to go back to 2 4-tile stages (keeping the last tile the VP one) for easier setup and more variety game-to-game.

* Consolation prize = extra bid token seems to be working out nicely.

A few new things I might like to try:

* Reduce the value of the Art tile to 2vp (from 3vp) - 1 vp doesn't seem like enough, but it's possible that 3vp is too much. It feels disappointing to make a set of all Art vs splitting it up into several smaller sets. That becomes less of an issue if the bonus is smaller.

* If there are tiles in the discard pile, award a tile to 2nd highest bid (without going over) as well. If that turns out to be good, then I could even shorted the game a tad by starting with 2 tiles up in the first (or each!) auction. Should the Purple auction work like this too?

I will probably NOT get a game of this in a Gamesmiths tonight. It's David/Eskue's turn with their game Shadow Ops. After that I hope to get a test of my new cooperative experiment, The Untouchables. I'm skeptical that it's any good, but I'm very curious to see how it feels and if it even works at all.

Protospiel 2011

2011-07-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

In 8 years of game design I've always wanted to go to Protospiel - a convention for people to play each other's prototypes and comment on them. Three whole days of design talk. It sounds perfect, but the timing was bad - always about a week after my annual 11 day trip to Seattle (something I was unwilling to skip). This year however, with Tasty Minstrel things going strong, I figured it was a bigger deal to finally make my way to Protospiel, so I cut my Seattle trip short and finally got a chance to attend.

And it was great! I met a lot of good people, played a lot of games, gave a lot of comments, and even managed to get everything I brought to the table at some point (some of it more than once!) - I received good comments on each game as well.

Here's a rundown of what I played or saw at the con:

Thursday 7/7/11
Andy Van Zandt's goblins-bombing-buildings game
The basic idea was that players control goblins that are intent on blowing up buildings with bombs. They run around clamoring over each other trying to light a bomb adjacent to a building, then retreat far enough to survive the blast, but they want to be closest to the blast in order to claim credit for setting the bomb (even if they didn't). Mechanically, there's a nifty card drawing mechanism that essentially allows players to draw the good cards played by their opponents. I like the general idea of the game, but currently the mechanisms don't really come through the way I'd like to see them. For example, you currently get credit for setting the bomb whether you blow up or not, which means it doesn't matter if you survive, and in fact you are probably better off NOT surviving to ensure you get the points. In my mind it makes more sense for all the goblins in the area to be fleeing the blast, and if you look back and see someone behind you, you cannot refute their claim that they set the bomb... if the actual bomber dies in the explosion, then they also cannot refute any claim... so I think you should want to be closest to the blast without dieing. I think that works better mechanically as well.

Also, the action point system is currently a little cumbersome for the type of game it is, with 15 action points to spend and things costing anywhere from 1 to 8... I think the system should be a lot simpler than that for this type of game. I do like what the card drawing mechanism was going for (playing a card makes it available for later players) - and I gave Andy an idea for another way that could go.

Friday 7/8/11
I played a submission to Minion games called Wizard's Ring. It was kind of like a simplistic version of Small World. I was not impressed.

I got a game of Exhibit in - that's the Bluff Auction game I've posted about. It went over well - one suggestion was to change the Art bonus to be 1vp per tile in the set. The reason behind this was that it seemed disappointing to get a set of Art, because at 3vp bonus per tile you might prefer to break that set up and score just 1 tile at a time, the set would have to have 7 tiles in it to outscore several 1-tile sets. I tried that in a later game, but I think it just double rewards a big set! I think maybe a better reward is just 2vp instead of 3, so you only need 4 tiles to break even, and it is worth getting a 5 or 6 tile Art set. That way in the early game you have to choose between a 1 tile Art set that scores like a 2 tile set (for dice) and a 1 tile weapon/tool set for an ability. That sounds good to me.

Thursday night I was explaining to some people what I didn't like about trick taking games, and my ideas for a trick taking game I might enjoy. Francois said he had a game that sounded like exactly the kind of thing I was describing. I got a chance to try King Leech on Friday, and I was kinda disappointed - not in the game itself... it's a fine trick taking game, I just don't like trick taking games, and this was no exception. It did not really address any of the things I dislike. I also thought it was a bit fiddly (lots of exceptions and special cases it seemed).

I got Scott Slomiany's My Little Vineyard to the table 3 times over the weekend, I'll discuss it more later. I also got in a game of Dice Works with Nicholas Vitek and Kevin Nunn... Seems to be working fine. I still want to try the Martian Dice version, as soon as I get my hands on some Martian Dice :)

Exhibit hit the table, and I got some good comments on that one which might address one of the few things I am still unhappy with for that game - there's something not quite right about the feeling you get when you are outbid by 1. On one hand, that's kind of the mechanism - and if you make a bid, you have to know that you could be outbid and you should be OK with that. But it still feels crappy, and you can't really be all that accurate in knowing the true value of each auction (especially with the purples being wild). If you have a weapon, then an overbid by 1 makes the other guy's bid automatically worthless, which in some ways I feel is OK, but in other ways I don't like it either. The suggestion that addresses this is to award 2nd place a tile as well, if there's one in the discard pile for that auction.

We also discussed the possibility of putting a "recommended" number of players on the box, in addition to the full range of players. For example, Exhibit works for 2-5 players, but is probably best with 3-4 players. Some thought this was a good idea, so that first time players don't load up a game with the maximum number of players (as people are wont to do) if that's not the best number... others thought that it was a bad idea, because people would say "why even call it a 5 player game" or whatever. It was an interesting discussion, and in the end I think my opinion is to leave things like "best for X players" to BGG.

Next we played Andy's post-apocalyptic card drafting game called In Ruins, which I played at Spielbany in April. I think the game is pretty solid, but I'd like it to be a 1-hour game, not 90 minutes (and not 2.5 hours for advanced game, though maybe 90 mins for advanced game would be OK). I'd like to play this again and see how I like it on repeat plays.

Dice Works hit the table again real quick before a game of My Little Vineyard, where it came up that sacrificing a book as if it were a die of that number could be a good way to insulate against rolling extra dice to ensure a desirable result and then not getting a desirable result after all. I ended up trying this change in a later game and liking it, but I think the books, as good as they are (especially with this change) definitely need to cost a pair of dice (making them harder to get).

A suggestion I got for this game (via email, after the con) was that the main issue with the game at present is that while it's a neat idea to agonize over whether to roll extra dice to ensure your action is available, in reality the actual cost of doing so is too high compared to the benefit of die-starving your opponents, so once the pool drains, players tend to just roll 1 die and then use it. Andy's suggestion was to add a potential for failure - for example, instead of "any 1 die," something could cost "any 1 die with value 3+." This would mean there's a risk of rolling a 1 or 2 when rolling just 1 die, meaning you get nothing.

Another suggestion from that same email was to force a player to 'call their shot' - to choose which action they want to go for BEFORE rolling their dice into the pool. This way they couldn't fall back on a simpler-cost backup plan. I'm not sure if I like this idea or not, but it might help fix the 'problem,' it might help encourage people to want to roll more dice than the minimum.

Another idea that has crossed my mind is this: why does each player have their own 10 dice to roll? Why isn't there just 1 big pool, and on your turn you roll dice from the pool? Each round could start with 4 or 5 dice rolled into the pool, and each player could then be simply forced to roll a minimum of 2 dice or something (rather than the current 4 dice on the first turn of a round, 1 die thereafter). There is something interesting about budgeting your own dice, but I'm not sure it's really all that different from not doing so.

Saturday 7/9/11
I played a card game by TMG fan Alan Gearding. It was really not my type of game, and it was evidently based on some silly role playing world or something. I didn't feel like I had a lot of choices - the main mechanism was something like Rummy... you draw a card every turn until you think you have a 'good enough' hand, then you attempt to "go out" - other players can (in fact, must) "sabotage" you by playing a card to potentially damage your hand's strength... you have to play a sabotage card even if you'd prefer not to, which didn't sit well with me.

There was a game being played that looked like just my type of game, and I discussed some aspects with the designer without having played... later I was able to play the game (called Industrialist), having benefited from the prior day's playtest and discussion. The discussion mainly focused on the turn order mechanism, which at first was borrowing from Brass' where the player who spends the least money goes first, etc. I love that mechanism in Brass, but in this game, which is a worker placement game where the money you spend does not really correlate to the actions you take or your performance in the game, I don't think it was appropriate. When I played the game that was replaced with a simpler method to determine turn order, but one which was still lacking because it essentially still depended on money spent to buy Businesses/Factories, which all cost about the same anyway. There was a worker placement space which allows you to take over 1st player, but that was only for buying businesses, and then turn order was reset - so taking that worker space almost never actually meant you get to go first. After our test, he updated the turn order again to remove any link to money spent, which I think is the right move.

Industrialist featured a mechanism in which players could place their workers on Factories to get goods (1 worker per Factory), or Businesses to sell them - but more than 1 worker could go on a business, and the number of times you can sell that Business' combination of resources in a turn is equal tot he total number of workers on the Business. So by going there together, 2 players could each do 2 sales. At first glance I thought that would be totally new and different, but after playing I wasn't all that impressed. It's a solid mechanism, and it works well enough, but it didn't grab my attention during play like I thought it would. It did it's job, so maybe I'm being too harsh on that mechanism here.

Maybe I just didn't like that it introduced negotiation into the game - people saying "don't go there this turn, wait until next turn and I'll go there too, and we'll sell more stuff" - and I just don't enjoy that kind of negotiation in games.

Fianlly we talked about the VP balance (vp/cube), which looked like it was a little out of whack on some cards, and we talked about changing up the factories / businesses a bit. I think the game was pretty solid, and I'd actually like to play it again sometime - but I think there are a few more adjustments that need to be made overall before I'd call it "done."

Ken (who I met at Spielbany) and his friend Quintin had a very cute kid's game called Dragon in D(u)ress. I thought it seemed like fun, but don't know if kids would like it or not, seeing as I'm not one, nor do I really ever talk to them about this sort of thing! We
talked about card balance, my opinion is that they should be fair, and that it doesn't matter if people notice that. When they are unfair, people feel screwed when they see someone else get something better than they get. With a more fair distribution of cards I thought the game was really cool, for a kid's game.

I then taught Eminent Domain (learning game) to Ken, Quintin, and 2 others. Someone asked why we were playing that game at protospiel, and I replied that #1, Ken and Quintin specifically asked for a demo, and #2, I wanted to test the Exotic expansion I'm working on, but I had to teach the game first!

After a dinner break, Ken, Quintin and I DID play 2 games with the expansion as well, and I got some comments out of them, such as maybe the translators work both ways (making the cards with Exotic translators more versatile). And Quintn would have liked more ways to use the Resources, like sacrificing them to do something. Maybe in a future expansion... I don't think that would fit into this one.

I played a game called Dice Workshop, by a BGDF member. Not a bad dice combo game, but I didn't feel like there was any real "hook." To me it felt similar to "To Court The King," another game I don't feel the itch to play. I might like it better if it had a stronger theme... the mechanics seemed solid enough. The card balance was way off, because of what I assume was faulty assumptions in the math done to balance them. he next day the designer came back with a re-balanced deck with better assumptions and I thought it was much improved balance-wise.

Another game of My Little Vineyard, this time trying some different rules:
* any 2 dice to produce wine (instead of any 1)
* sacrifice a book like a die of that value

After playing I thought I'd like to go back to producing with any 1 die, but make books cost a pair. I liked the Sacrificing a book thing, as discussed before, but I can't think of a good thematic reason for it. Gil noted that not being able to ship only 1 barrel from your cellar with a pair is annoying - that should be "up to 2" or something. Another idea for shipping barrels is to number the categories, and you pay any 1 die to ship a barrel of that category from your cellar (discount: 1-6, table: 2-6, cultured: 3-6, gold medal: 4-6, Premier: 5-6).

Note: I played with this rule last night, and the entire final round both my opponent and I simply spent 1 die at a time to ship all of the wine in our cellars. It was boring. I don't know if that was this mechanism's fault or not.

A suggestion came up that Barrels should ferment at different rates - maybe ferment 2/3/4 units at a time depending on barrel (Kentucky/Alliere/Limousine). The reason for this is to balance the power of the different barrels - currently for the same cost you get either 1 Limousine barrel or Alliere barrels, and a Limo barrel is NOT worth 2x an Alliere barrel! I like this idea, and think I will start working that in. I'd still like to try basing the market on the grapevine type (Merlot, Moscato...) rather than the wine category (Discount, Table...). I think that would be much more interesting.

I still also think fertilizer should be cheaper, maybe 3/2/2/1/1 tiles for any 2/any 2/pair/pair/triplet? Note: I tried this last night, it seemed OK, but I'm not sure there should be anything that costs "any 2 dice" - as I think that exacerbates "the problem"
The Fertilizer values could basically be 1/2/3/4/5, plus a little bit extra on the higher level wine (so like in Chardonnay, Fruit Compost is 1 point, maybe in Pinot it is worth 2... Mushrooms are 4/5/8 vp in Chardonnay/Moscata/Riesling. Etc)

And finally, I still think the VP per barrel should come from the category, not the actual value
that defines which category it is. Thus, adding Volcanic Ash does not simply add 2 points, rather it helps you get your barrel 2 steps closer to the next category for a VP bump. I also think that Fermenting should be a major way to get that bump.

Sunday 7/10/11
Francois described to me his game called Code of the West. The game was (coincidentally) thematically similar to another prototype I'd seen before called Spaghetti Western, but I think this game might be better. It was a worker placement game with simultaneous worker placement, and a sort of combat system for when there's a conflict. At each location you can choose to Protect it or Rob it - be a good guy or a bad guy (Spaghetti Western had the same type of thing).

The cards had poker symbols on them (like 4 of hearts, or Queen of Clubs) - I suggested he use that instead of the more complicated combat system he had... when there's a conflict, all players involved play their cards (which was already the case), and then the single highest poker hand is the winner of the conflict. This system actually fit right in and worked well with several other mechanisms already in the game, and it really sounded fun and interesting to me. It worked pretty much like this:

Each card has 1 or maybe 2 poker cards on it. Your personal character card has a Joker (wild). Cowboys have an A, K, Q, J, or 10 on them. During combat you play a hand of cards - 1 cowboy (could be your character), and at most: 1 gun, 1 hat, 1 horse(?), 1 boots, 1 buckle... a shotgun has maybe 2 cards on it (low pair or suited cards) compared to pistol which has 1 low card or rifle which has 1 middling card. Make best 5 card poker hand and compare, best hand wins. Each location has a Protect and a Rob action, and each is guarded by an NPC guard. Guard's hand is represented by the 5 cowboys in the display (another space allows you to draw from them which would replace some/all of them), so you know how strong the guard is when you choose to Rob or Protect. Fights only occur if there are players/NPCs on both sides, otherwise...
... Protectors get Protect action which maybe lets you draw cards into your hand for immediate use.
... Robbers get Rob action which is probably a little bit better - but requiring you to gain cards into your discard pile to use later (as opposed to immediately)
... Upon losing a fight, the Cowboy used goes to jail, other played cards are discarded to a personal discard pile.
... Upon winning a fight, you get the appropriate action, AND, as Protector, you score points based on opponents WANTED value (which is based on their score)
... Other than that, you score points by getting money onto stage or train and protecting it, or maybe robbing the stage or train I guess. Also there are animal cards which you can score with, so there's a sort of Rancher strategy (Horse that you can use to fight might count as an animal for Ranch strat - pairs of like animals in your deck at game end could be worth vp, but they choke up your deck during the game (no poker cards on them, except horses, which are lower vp value than cows and sheep)
... Various cards like equipment for combat and animals appear at General Store for purchase/stealing

I'm not sure simultaneous worker placement is the way to go. Maybe just worker placement rounds.

Francois had another game, one I played a few years ago at Gamestorm in Portland, called Catch of the Day. I's a sort of structured storytelling game where players program their movement in secret, then iteratively reveal which location they'rey visited at each hour of the day, attempting to claim scoring tokens for various types of things (fish, birds, bugs, beasts) - or thwarting other players' attempts to collect by either having been there first, or spying on them at the same time they claimed to collect the prize. "At 11am I was at the bridge,and I caught a fish the size of my arm!" "No way, I was by the old oak tree at 11, and I saw you at the bridge! You weren't fishing, you were taking a nap!" Stuff like that. When you interrupt the story like that, you take over control of the turn, and you go on from location to location (in order) until you are interrupted or until you get to a part of the story you've already told.

The game seemed to me to have more interruption than I remembered from last time. I think it would flow better with less interruption, like the "me too" type of interruption gets you a score, but not takes over the story... I think that would lead to more continuity of story.

What if being the on-turn guy was better than "following" such that you might not "me too" because you want to play that tile later for the "leader" benefit on your own turn..? Maybe you would do that anyway to spy on someone (if the score were poor for example). I'm not sure.

Gil Hova had a game a while back called Wag the Wolf, but he didn't like the way it was turning out, so he took the very clever, brutal auction mechanism from that game and is using it in another game called Prime Time. Having worked on a game about TV networks (my friend Mohan's 8/7 Central), I know how hard it is to make that theme work without being too tedious. I am happy to report that Gil has done a good job abstracting the theme so that it's not tedious. On the down side, it also doesn't feel as much like running a TV network, but it seemed to me like an appropriate level of abstraction. I thought the game was pretty good, but we all thought it needed some work. The auction was too brutal, the winner reaped reward on top of reward while the losers had to pay for the privilege of getting nothing. We thought the reward for winner of auction needed to be toned down, and that bailing from the auction should EARN you money, not COST you money. We also thought Stars sghould be a little more avaiulable, since you need them for getting better shows - though I wouldn't want them to be TOO prevalent. I would like to see a couple of them for sale as turn action, maybe stars not obtained by auction are available as an action? Though, that sort of negates the Underbid mechanism, so maybe not. Or maybe all bids and underbids get a director, and winner gets a free star as well? I may be reconsidering this comment (or, auction prices might be too high). I really liked the upgradable tracks for Income, Stars, and Viewer conversion (ability to change money into VP). We all thought the Star track could be a bit stronger.

I played a game that was made for one of the BGDF Game Design Showdowns called Nightshade VS Milkweed by Chip Beauvais. It was exactly the type of game I'd expect to see in a GAMES! magazine, and hopefully Chip will find a way to submit it to them.

I also played Chip's Protospiel contest entry, Mission Control - it didn't win the contest, but it made the final round of 4 games, and I hear it was a very close finish between Mission Control and the winner. Mission Control had a little bit of deck building, and what was referred to as 'map building' - turn by turn you create a little map of cards, and you move your pawn from card to card. For an almost-winner of a contest, I fond it kind of disappointing. You build a map, but you don't really traverse it, and you start over each time you get to the end of the path.

I played a sort of connection game called Lemuria by Dave Ross. I thought it was a pretty cool game, though it lacked a real hook to make me want to play it again. However in talking about it afterward I think I liked it more and more. We discussed some little things to make the game better: allow trading (since you can approximate it anyway), remove the yellow cards (their direct interaction is a little out of place in that type of game, and they ONLY hurt an opponent, never help you), maybe add vp to cards, so trading could be more of a strategic path.

I was happy to have gotten as many games to the table as I had over the weekend, but I still had one more I wanted to playtest - upcoming TMG release Kings of Air and Steam
. Luckily I was able to get that to the table Sunday night. A lot of good comments were generated from that playtest, even if in the end I'm not sure if the comments about multicolored factories will make the cut. I have always known that the boards need to be examined, and some of the comments gave me an idea about what to look for.

Since that test I have discussed some things with the designer and updated the prototype to go back to 6 rounds, and I think we've corrected something I wasn't entirely happy with - Depots. For the next test I'm going to try depots costing $4, $6, or $8 depending on whether it's the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd+ depot on a link, and at the end of the game Depots will be worth 10 points. The fee to use the depot will also go down to $1/cube to make the balance work, but I think the value of cubes on the market board will start at $4 (not $6) and go up from there.

In order to fix some other things and normalize supply and demand, we're going to try upping the demand of cities on the board to 5-dots, while new Demand tiles will average 3 dots each - and there will be 4 of them per color no matter how many players are in the game, meaning the prices for each color will only range up to $12.

I think that with Depots being worth points, those couple of passed actions at the end of the game will turn into useful things to do, and I liked how the 6 round game felt.

LATE Sunday night I played another of Andy's games called Broker. It was intended to be a trading game that works with only 2 players - because most trading games break down with 2. In Broker there are trade cards with 2 sets of resources pictured. You can initiate a trade by taking 1 card and putting up one of the sets of resources on it. An opponent can 'trade' you the other set of resources for that set, and if they don't then on a future turn you can choose to release that trade offer and score points. I thought it was a really cool game, though a bit thinky, and it suffers from the same sort of dynamic as Kill Doctor Lucky does - when someone threatens to win, the player before them is sort of expected to stop them, so everyone can be on the verge of winning, with their right hand neighbor stopping them until someone cannot stop the win. Also, consider a 3 player game where 1 player threatens to win, the next player also threatens to win, and the 3rd player cannot stop them both - a complete kingmaker condition.

Monday 7/11/11
On the way to the airport on Monday, Andy and I stopped for lunch and discussed some aspects of cooperative games. In the process I think we stumbled onto a coop game design that I formalized on the plane and have since made a prototype. I don't really think this game will be "the best coop game ever," it's more like an experiment in the genre. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test it out soon!

Brain Freeze iPad app is live!

2011-06-27T01:56:00.001-07:00

It's been in the works since December, and finally it's done... the Brain Freeze iPad app is in the App Store! It's a free download, so give it a shot and let me know what you think!

@Mentions!

2011-06-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

At KublaCon I played some of my prototypes (Dice Works, Bluff Auction, and Eminent Domain) with some people who write for some board game blogs, and since then they have posted their convention reports, each with a section about my games! I thought I'd go ahead and link to them here:

Ian Noble (The Noble Gamer)

GeekInsight (Giant Fire Breathing Robot)

Also, Chris from DiceHateMe.com mentioned Mike and I in his podcast - you know, the one about getting kickstarted.

Enjoy the links!

Bluff Auction progress

2011-06-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have played a number of games of Bluff Auction over the last few weeks, and have been making tweaks and changes left and right. I believe I'm quickly zeroing in on a finished product. What I'd like to avoid id having a game with a great central mechanism, but underdeveloped structure around it. I recently learned a game called Pergamon (which, oddly, has a similar theme to my Bluff Auction game) which I think suffers from that a little bit. The central mechanism there looks very clever, but some of the scoring incentives and mechanisms look a little tacked-on, fiddly, or underdeveloped. I want my game to shine a little bit more than that as a whole package.

In a recent post I considered 4 tweaks - here's my current thinking on those:

1. Receive 2 new dice when Exhibiting a set rather than 1.

I was never sure about this tweak to begin with as I feared it would bring to many dice into the game too quickly. I believe I've found a better way to bring dice into the game at a more appropriate rate - see below.

2. Change the Extra Bid Token to some other power: "Regrowth"

I have done this, and so far I've been happy with that change.

3. Art scoring
Currently players are allowed to score leftover tiles in their museum as if they were sets, and they get a bonus set of star icons from their Art tiles in play (which is independent, so the art tiles could be parts of different sets). I think it might be better to simplify and reduce that - I would like to try final scoring like this:

Players get 1 point for each tile in their Museum (unexhibited,including special tiles), and each Art tile that is face up is worth an additional 3 points.

I believe I've found a slightly better way to do scoring - see below. It does involve 1vp per tile left in your museum storage, and it does involve 3vp for face up Art tiles... in your exhibits.

4. Go back to disallowing 2 bids on same track. While in some ways mechanically interesting, I think allowing 2 bid tokens on the same track is anti-thematic, and I don't like the dynamic it creates enough for the rules complication it requires.

Indeed, I have decided that 2 bids on the same track is not a dynamic that I want in this game. The current rule is that you may place a bid or move a losing bid on your turn, or pass as long as you have placed all of your bid markers.

NEW STUFF
One idea that came up when consternating about losing ALL of the powers when displaying a set was that perhaps you could stack the tiles FACE UP, so that you get to keep one of the powers. This immediately turned me on the the probably more appropriate rule, which is that you don't get the powers AT ALL until you display an exhibit! This makes you decide directly between displaying a small set for powers (and dice), and waiting for a bigger set for more points. Perfect! It also reduces the number of active powers in the game at a time, which actually feels kind of disappointing, but I think that's because I'm used to using all of the powers as I get them. This is probably a better rule all around, and it also reduces the power of having won more tiles - by winning 2 tiles in a round you don't necessarily get more powers than the guy that only won 1 tile.

So I've been using that rule for the last couple of games and I thin it's gone well. You can store a certain number of tiles in your Storage, and at the end of each round you may display at most 1 Exhibit (set of any number of tiles sharing at least 1 attribute).

I have removed any bonus for sets that share multiple attributes. They have a built-in benefit because they are easier to add to. This way the triangular scoring does what it's supposed to do - rewards a larger set more than a smaller one.

If you choose to display, you stack those tiles in your Exhibit area leaving the top one visible. The tiles visible in the Exhibit portion of your player mat are active and their powers count. The only funky thing about that is that the Purple tiles (which in production might end up being a different shape let alone a different color) need to take up space in your Storage, and yet be active when in your storage. I'm hoping a different shaped tile will help keep that from being too awkward to grasp or pay attention to.

For a while I had gone to a 3-tile-minimum requirement for sets, but that was in response to not liking how the double-set-bonus was working. Removing that bonus obviates the need for a 3-tile minimum restriction on sets. Now you can turn in any number of tiles, and of course the larger the set, the more points you get for it.

When displaying an Exhibit, you also get a new die to roll. I fully expect players to display a 1 tile set in the first round to get access to some power as well as a new die to roll, but I fear that when starting with 3 dice (which seems to be the best solution so far) that might put too many dice into play too quickly, especially in 4 or 5 player games. Based on a comment from my friend Chris, the solution might be to stagger when you get dice - for example, maybe your first Exhibit does not get you a die, it just gets you the power of the top tile. The second exhibit could get you another power AND a die. Etc. I'm not sure what the best pattern is, but it probably involves no die on the first Exhibit and 1 die on the second. after that it could either alternate, or simply be 1 die for each exhibit after the first (to a max of 6 or 7). I think that would slow down the influx of dice in the early game, and would separate the 'many small sets' strategy from the 'fewer, bigger sets' strategy fairly well. With fewer total dice in the pool, an extra die means more than when there are more dice in the pool.

I have also been considering another tweak that was mentioned by a playtester - what if all players always had to be outbid by 2? With a lot of dice out, I think that rule could be good - but with few dice (early game) I don't like it. It could be easily represented by double-wide bidding tokens, and those tokens could be placed on end when bidding for Purple tiles (and therefore you don't need to be outbid by 2 for that auction) since there's no additional color counting for Purple. I don't really think this is necessary, but it might be nice. Another idea is that it could be a benefit added once you've cashed in several sets (like instead of a die for your 4th set, you get the ability that you must be outbid by 2). That way it'll come into play later in the game, when there are more dice in play. I'm not sure if I want to add powers like that (for Exhibit thresholds), they just make it more tempting to make 4 1-tile sets and then go for a bigger set. but maybe that's OK.

I'm really happy with how this game is coming along, and I hope to get some more tests of it in soon!

KublaCon 2011 report

2011-06-01T19:47:00.001-07:00

I posted a con report in GeekList form over at BGG. Check it out to see what happened over the course of the weekend. In short, I had a lot of fun, played a lot of games, hung out with a lot of people, and of course, wish it could have lasted a few days longer.

KublaCon imminent!

2011-05-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday I'm heading up to San Francisco again for KublaCon. In preparation for my trip I put together a Geeklist over at BGG about games I'd like to play while I'm at the convention.

I don't know how many people actually read my blog, but I get the impression that the number has grown. Are you going to be at KublaCon? If so, leave a comment if you'd like to play a game with me this weekend, and check out my geeklist to see if we're interested in playing some of the same stuff!

Bluff Auction - Possible titles

2011-05-23T15:11:00.001-07:00

So far these are the nominees for a title of the Bluff Auction game. None of them even hint at the "highest bid without going over" mechanism, or the Liar's Dice inspiration (not that they need to). Which one sounds the best to you? What other title do you suggest?

Cura Galeria
Museum of Lost History
Treasures of the Ages
Exhibit
Exhibit: Museum of Lost History
Exhibit: Lost History
Exhibit: Treasures of the Ages
Exhibition
Exhibition: Museum of Lost History
Exhibition: Lost History
Exhibition: Treasures of the Ages

Chrono Gallery - Scoring

2011-05-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

I thought of a potentially better scoring system for Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost History. I am liking the sound of it more and more as I talk about it and refine it.
Rather than scoring at the end of the game for particular sets, and rather than having to put your tiles into 3 distinct exhibits, perhaps instead there could be 7 Trophies:

Most of any Culture
Most Tools
Most Weapons
Most Art (should this be "Sculpture" instead?)
Most Ancient artifacts
Most Medieval artifacts
Most Modern artifacts

As soon as you qualify, you claim one of these trophies and hold it until someone outdoes you by having more of that type of thing than you do. So if I have 3 Tools, I claim the Most Tools trophy to indicate that I have the most impressive Tools exhibit. If someone else gets 4 Tools, they have a more impressive Tool exhibit than me, so they take the trophy from me.

Whoever has the most trophies at the end of the game has the most impressive museum and wins the game. Or maybe trophies are worth 2vp apiece, so that certain tiles could be worth 1vp or something.

I think this scoring system has a lot of potential. I do sort of miss the idea of having to decide which artifacts to display, so I have a possible additional constraint idea...

Maybe each player can only display like 6 artifacts at a time, and when winning a new one, if you want to keep it, you must discard one you already have. The trophy tiles or cards could indicate their qualification requirement on them, and when you qualify for a trophy, you claim it. Then you flip it over to the back side which indicates a more stringent qualification condition, which a player must meet in order to usurp that trophy from you. Thus, you go for a trophy, claim it, then go for some other trophy. Due to the nature of artifacts having 3 attributes, you could potentially get another trophy without much additional work!

Rodeo Drive

2011-05-22T11:44:00.001-07:00

[This is an old post which I never published. I don't like having those around, so I have edited and published it.]

Rodeo Drive was at one time the title of a work in progress using the Bluff Auction mechanism I've been discussing recently. Here's one of the early posts from late 2007 describing how the game was coming together.

I think the basic structure will be to the effect of...

Some items will be "up for bid", and each person will roll some color dice (like the ones used in Wizard's Tower or Carolus Magnus). You won't know what your opponents rolled, only what you rolled. Then players will bid on the different items, which will effectively have some cost. The bid will be, in effect, how many times you think the cost is represented among all the dice people have rolled. For a simple example, suppose the item cost 1 Blue. If I thought there were 3 blues rolled among all players I might bid 3 blue on the item. If you wanted the item, and thought there were more than 3 blue, you might bid 4 blue on it. Then I could either pass, thinking you have overbid (or 'bluffed'), or I can rebid. On my turn if I'm winning the bid, I must pass. As soon as everyone passes, dice are revealed and the item is awarded to the player who bid closest to the correct number without going over.

I think the way it will work is that there will be more than 1 item up for bid, and players will probably bid on more than 1 item at a time.

So far there are 3 ways we've thought about going with this...

1. Straight scoring - as you win, say, Blue, you get better at winning blue, but each subsequent Blue is worth less and less points. So you are stronger to win future Blue things, but you'd rather win Red or Yellow because they're worth more points to you.

2. Special powers/emergent strategy a la Puerto Rico or Caylus - the item you win is like a building in Puerto Rico that gives you some ability or resource. Then you use the buildings you get to purchase things, convert resources to points, etc.

3. Area control/area placement - when winning, say, Blue, you put your house on the board in the Blue region. There would be maybe 8 spaces in each region, and the spaces would be connected by a web of roads, a la Thurn and Taxis or Web of Power/China. You'd score points per region (as mentioned, each successive house in a region is worth less points to you than the last), and you'd score points for chains of houses. The more houses in a chain, the higher the score for that chain.

That's where we're at currently, mulling over these options. We tested the Liar's Dice mechanic and it definitely seemed to work for a multiple item auction.

So comment on this post with what you think a good direction for this game would be, the simple, sort of abstract game, the divergent, multiple power building route, or the area control/placement scoring.

As to theme, we were racking our brains trying to think of something that works that way - something that is rewarded for "bidding" as much as possible without going over a certain number. So far the thing we thought of that best represents that is someone who is very rich, who will always buy the most expensive thing he can afford. So the dice represent different shoppers (each color is a different shopper), and the number of their color that comes up is their 'credit limit' - they're looking to buy the most expansive thing they can afford, and players are offering them things at a particular price (and for some gamey reason you can't offer the same price as your competitor). I'm not sure how that would fit into any of the 3 listed structures above, but it at least fits the Liar's Dice mechanic.

[edit 5/2011]
Since this post was composed, I have revamped the game and changed the theme (twice). For a while the Bluff Auction was a time travel mechanism, and players were going back in time to collect artifacts which were (until now) lost, damaged, or destroyed in history. Recently that theme has changed to one in which you're simply bidding for actual items with actual money (more recognizable), but if you bid 'too much' then your funding won't come through and you'll have to rescind your bid.

Now the items up for bid have abilities/bonuses on them, which are in effect until you Exhibit them, thereby scoring them.

Bluff Auction tweaks

2011-05-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

I've been considering a few tweaks, and I wanted to get them down before I forget all about them...

1. Receive 2 new dice when Exhibiting a set rather than 1.
I fear that giving up the abilities on the tiles AND the additional points one could get by waiting may be too much, so people won't Exhibit sets until they are forced to. Maybe that's OK, but I'd rather see a viable strategy wherein a player Exhibits early and often in order to get more dice, so those dice help that player win more tiles or at least the tiles they really want more often. Perhaps getting 2 more dice will be better, though I also think this could be a perception thing...

In any case, it seems like players only Exhibit about 3 sets anyway in larger player count games, so getting 2 dice at a time might get more of the total dice in play. Lower player count games seem to see players getting 4 or 5 Exhibits...

I am unsure about this tweak.

2. Change the Extra Bid Token to some other power: "Regrowth"
The Extra Bid Token has always been a powerful tile, one of my favorites. It is like an investment - you take this tile, which will not score, and will take up space in your museum, and you get something which can absolutely translate into winning more tiles than you would have otherwise. Of course, winning just 1 extra tile means you're breaking even, but winning 2 extra is a benefit. In this game, in addition to the possibility of winning more total tiles, having an extra bid also sort of increases the probability of you winning tiles with your other bids, or forcing other players to outbid (and not win tiles) anyway.

Having the Extra Bid Token come out in rounds 7/8 means you can use it only 1 or 2 times, which really seems to neuter it. Having it come out in rounds 1-4 really makes it too powerful. So unless I want to complicate the staging of the Special tiles even further, I might have to admit that the Extra Bid Token is not a good fit for the game. Also, the Consolation rule that you get an extra bid token seems good and appropriate, and that's lessened if an opponent has an extra bid token every round already (though still kinda fair because he won that auction and is committing a slot in his museum to that tile).

An alternative could be another tile I used to have in the old version of the game, a tile which you could exchange for any unclaimed or discarded tile. I'm not sure when you would do this - any time you want, I imagine, as it doesn't affect any other players. The value of that tile might go up or down depending on how the game plays out - in a game where no tiles are discarded, the tile would be worthless (though I'm considering another tweak that makes every tile you have worth something - see next point). And even in a game where tiles are left unclaimed or discarded, it's possible they won't happen to fit into a set for you (which is somewhat within your control), and so unless they're Art it's still kinda worthless. On the other hand, if you can claim a tile that fits nicely into a set, it could be worth 5 or 6 points!

I might give this a try.

3. Art scoring
Currently players are allowed to score leftover tiles in their museum as if they were sets, and they get a bonus set of star icons from their Art tiles in play (which is independent, so the art tiles could be parts of different sets). I think it might be better to simplify and reduce that - I would like to try final scoring like this:

Players get 1 point for each tile in their Museum (unexhibited,including special tiles), and each Art tile that is face up is worth an additional 3 points.

This would be easier to calculate, I think, and easier to explain... and more importantly I think it will encourage players to Exhibit more often rather than just waiting until the end of the game. The Art scoring means that you are rewarded for holding onto Art unless you happen to have a set of 7, in which case you ought to go ahead and Exhibit it and free up the space. You might want to Exhibit a set of 6, as you don't lose out on that much bonus, and it frees up your museum. It really rewards holding onto 5 or fewer Art tiles though, which is what I want - giving up abilities in return for bonus points.

I'll note that if ALL tiles (including Special tiles) are worth 1 point at the end, then getting a Special tile that doesn't end up helping you isn't worthless.

4. Go back to disallowing 2 bids on same track. While in some ways mechanically interesting, I think allowing 2 bid tokens on the same track is anti-thematic, and I don't like the dynamic it creates enough for the rules complication it requires.

Bluff Auction Game - Rules

2011-05-20T17:54:00.004-07:00

Bluff Auction Game
by Seth Jaffee
A game of bidding and bluffing for 2-5 players

Overview:
An old, eccentric archeologist has died and his private collection, rich with artifacts of various types from various Cultures and Eras, is being auctioned off. These artifacts have not yet been assessed, but as a museum curator, you don't want to wait for that, so you do your own research and you bid based on what you think the item's value is. Once all bids are in, the artifact will be assessed, and any bid that's higher than the actual value will not be approved by your board of directors! So the highest bid that is not greater than the actual value will win the artifact.

Components:
1 Auction board with spaces for 6 auction tracks (and score track)
45 Artifact tiles (9 each in 5 colors)
9 Special tiles (for purple auction)
25 player markers (5 each in 5 player colors) for bidding and scoring
1 Start Player Marker
40 Color Blob Dice (6 sided dice, with black/red/yellow/blue/green/purple sides)
5 Player screens
5 Player boards

Setup:
Separate the Artifact tiles by color, shufle each stack face down and place it next to the auction block of that color.
Sort the Special tiles into groups 1-4. Shuffle each group face down and stack them by the purple auction block with group 4 on the bottom and group 1 on top (groups 1 and 2 have 3 tiles, group 3 as 2 tiles, and group 4 is a single tile)
Give each player a player shield, a player board and the player markers in their chosen color. Each player should put 1 marker on the 0 space on the score track.
Players start with a number of dice behind their player shield and a number of bid tokens depending on player count. A number of community dice will also be used for some player counts:
2 players: 4 bid markers, 4 dice, 0 community dice
3 players: 3 bid markers, 3 dice, 1 community die
4 players: 2 bid markers, 2 dice, 2 community dice
5 players: 2 bid markers, 2 dice, 3 community dice
Each player takes 6 more dice and places them in the Exhibit circles as pictured. In a 5 player game the last circle is not used, there will only be 5 dice per player.
Randomly choose a Start player and hand them the Start player marker.
You are ready to begin!

Rounds:
This game is played in 9 rounds. In each round players will take turns bidding on artifact tiles or passing. Passing does not preclude you from bidding again later, but when all players pass in succession, the round ends and auctions are resolved.

1. Turn the top tile of each stack face up and place it in the auction block of that color.
2. Players roll dice behind their screens.
3. Any player with Tools in their Museum may choose to use them to re-roll some of their dice.
4. When all players are done using tools, bidding commences with the Start player.
* You may bid on any auction, but you must outbid the highest bidder on that auction.
* You may place a bid from your hand or move a bid that has been overbid by another player.
* High bids on each auction are locked in and cannot be moved.
* You MAY bid on an auction where you already have a token, but you cannot directly overbid yourself. [Not sure I like this]
* You may choose to Pass, even if your bids are not the highest bids on their respective auctions.
* You MUST Pass if all of your bids are the highest bids on their respective auctions.
* You CANNOT Pass if you have bid tokens that you haven't placed yet.
5. When all players have passed in succession, the round ends and the auctions are resolved:
* First players reveal all Purple dice behind their screen (keeping the rest of the dice secret). Whoever has bid the highest on the Purple track without going over wins the auction and takes the tile off of the Purple auction block and places it on the Museum board (see Acquiring tiles below)
* Purple is wild, and will also count for each of the other auctions.
* Resolve the remaining auctions in the same manner one at a time, revealing dice of that color and counting Purple dice as well.
* If all players have overbid, remove the tile from the game.
* Don't forget to take into account tile powers (see Tile powers below)

Acquiring tiles:
When you acquire a tile by winning an auction, you have the opportunity to Exhibit a set of Artifacts and score them. Alternatively, you may place the Artifact face up on your Museum board in one of the 6 circles (5 circles available in a 5 player game). If all of those spaces are full, then you MUST either Exhibit a set or discard a tile.
* A "set" consists of 3 or more tiles that share at least 1 attribute: Culture (color), Era (Ancient, Medieval, Modern), or Type (Tool, Weapon, Art).
* When Exhibiting a set, stack those tiles face down on one of your Exhibit spaces, claiming the die on that space for use in future rounds.
* Score points based on the number of tiles in the set. Score 1/3/6/10/15/21/28/36 for a set of 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 tiles (it's difficult to get an 8 tile set, but not impossible! It involves one of the special tiles which allows you to hold extra tiles on your board).
* Note that Exhibiting a set removes the Artifacts from play, so their powers no longer apply (see Tile powers below)
* There is nothing special about a set that matches more than 1 attribute (3 Ancient Tools for example).

Tile powers:
While in play, each artifact and special tile has a power that you can use:
Tools: Re-roll any number of dice before bidding begins.
Weapons: Virtual die that you can count when resolving an auction of that color (other players do not count it)
Art: If in your museum at the end of the game, score a bonus set of star icons (1/3/6/10... points for 1/2/3/4... star icons)
Special tiles:
* Stage I: Wild Attribute (Type, Era, Culture) -
* Stage I: 2 Virtual Purple Dice (1-shot) - After dice are revealed for an auction, you may discard this tile to count 2 virtual purple dice (opponents do not count them)
* Stage I: 2 Dice - Roll 2 additional dice each round
* Stage II: Extra Bid Token - place an additional bid token each round.
* Stage II: Outbid by 2 - Opponents must outbid you by at least 2
* Stage II: Extra Museum Room - You may hold 2 additional tiles in your Museum
* Stage III: Virtual Purple Die - Virtual purple die that you can count when resolving each auction (other players do not count it)
* Stage III: Overbid with Tie - You may overbid an opponent with a tie bid. You may only have one tied bid at a time [Not sure I like this]
*Stage IV: 4 points

Game end:
After the 9th round of auctions, the game is over. Face up tiles remaining on players' Museum boards may be scored as normal. In addition, all Star icons on Art tiles are scored as if they were a set.

The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner!
In case of a tie, the tied player with the fewest Exhibit spaces filled is the winner.

Chrono Gallery - needs a rename!

2011-05-20T15:59:00.001-07:00

I desperately need a catchy new name for what I have been calling Chrono Gallery. Here's the new thematic storyline:

An old, eccentric archeologist has died and his private collection, rich with a variety of artifacts of various types from various Cultures and Eras, is being auctioned off. These artifacts have not yet been assessed, but as a museum curator, you don't want to wait for that, so you do your own research and you bid based on what you think the item's value is. Once all bids are in, the artifact will be assessed, and any bid that's higher than the actual value will not be approved by your board of directors! So the highest bid that is not greater than the actual value will win the artifact.

Please let me know what you think about titles for this game! Leave a comment!

Chrono Gallery - Another playtest, and needs a new name

2011-05-20T15:51:00.001-07:00

Marty, Jasen and I played a 3-player game of CG last night, and it went well. Marty liked it and ended up winning by just a couple of points over me - he had scored maybe 5 sets, 1 with 5 tiles, the rest were double-scoring 3-tile sets. I on the other hand had a large endgame 6-tile set (21vp) including 4 art (10vp bonus) for 31 points at final scoring, to go along with my 2 other 3-tile sets (I think one was double-scoring)

We played that "double scoring" a set was not fully doubling, but rather a double set was worth the regular 1+2+3+... as well as an additional 1vp per tile (so in total 2+3+4+...) so most of Marty's sets were worth 9 points. I think I might like to try it next time without the added complication of double scoring sets - if you have a double-set, it gives you flexibility in what to turn in when cashing a set, maybe it doesn't need to be worth more points as well.

After the game we examined the Purple tiles and re-ordered them into 4 stages:
Stage 1: Wild (Type/Era/Culture), One-Shot Double Virtual Purple, +2 Dice
Stage 2: Extra Bid Token, Outbid by 2, Hand Size +1
Stage 3: Virtual Purple, Overbid with Tie (Marty thought this one was one of the strongest)
Stage 4: 4vp

The purpose here is to ensure that certain tiles don't come out at the very beginning where they would be too powerful, and that certain tiles don't come out past the point where they'd be completely useless. I think this might be a better distribution, and if it's been done correctly then I think David's suggestion to add 1/2/3 points to the Purple auction at the last couple of rounds could be avoided. If need be I can add a VP to the Stage 3 tiles by printing it on them.

We discussed the Consolation rule, and agreed that the extra bid token (which we tried this time) is a fine and appropriate consolation for getting no tiles. On the down side, it's relatively easy to forget it, and while I verbally checked each of the first few rounds to see if everyone had gotten at least 1 tile, as soon as I stopped asking, Jasen started losing out on tiles and forgetting to take his consolation.

We played with "Overbid with Tie" meaning only 1 such overbid at a time. I got that tile and found it frustrating to only be allowed 1 such overbid, as I was frequently winning a bid with a tie, and wanting to tie on a track I cared more about. Maybe with that tile coming out for at most 2 rounds of use, maybe players could have more than 1? With 2 players I imagine that would be ridiculous though. Maybe 2 - so in a 4 or 5 player game ALL of your bids can be overbids... Another question, SHOULD this tile combo really well with the Extra Bid Token tile? Not sure, jury is still out. It may be a preference thing - I do not see the overbid with a Tie as such a powerful tile, while Marty thought it was the most powerful. On the other hand, I thought the virtual purple die tile was much better than Marty thought it was, and in essence they are kind of the same thing.

Community dice
I forgot to use any community dice, but that's kind of OK for a 3 player game. I definitely think for a 4 or 5 player game they'll be necessary though. The first thing Marty said when I described it was the exact same thing I had first considered - he said he'd rather each player roll 1 more die and then choose 1 to reveal. I think that would be more strategic perhaps, but the problem isn't that there's not enough decisions or complexity - the problem is that people don't get enough info, and I think it's simpler to just roll the community dice. It could be an "advanced rule" to role-and-reveal-1 and the standard rule just to have community dice.

Purple dice
I think the simplest rule is to just leave it swingy and have the purple dice be wild, rather than try to nerf that somehow. I'll keep an eye on it and see if people are really disappointed by it.

So - for next time:
* No bonus for double sets
* New purple tile stack order setup
* You're allowed to bid on the same track that you're on, but not directly over your own token.
* Not sure about Overbid With Tie rule
* Double Purple Virtual Dice (1-shot) worked well, will try hat again

Chrono Gallery - Gamesmiths

2011-05-18T16:42:00.002-07:00

Monday night at Gamesmith's we had a great turnout and a great test of Chrono Gallery. Chris and Melanie (From Stratus Games), David were there, and Simon brought his roommate Matt with him. After all the great development recently I was really looking forward to another test of the game, and I was happy to see how it went with 5 players.

The game ran longer than I would have liked - we were at about 55 minutes going into the last round, but by the time it was over we were looking at about 90 minutes. I don't know why the last round went so long, and I don't know how much of the time-sink was due to player count.

Other than that, the game went pretty well. I learned a thing or two that will be very important for scaling the game for different numbers of players, and I may have found a better theme for the game.

THEME
One thing we talked about after the game is the theme. While technically speaking, the time travel theme fits the mechanism very well, it really doesn't feel much like that's what's going on during play. It's kind of a stretch and it feels forced. I think that's kind of a shame, partly because I couldn't think of anything that really matched the "bid highest without going over" mechanism better, and partly because I really liked the idea of displaying things like Excalibur and other mythical artifacts in your museum!

We talked about a few different ways to present the time travel portion of the story, but realistically, a better theme that evolved from our discussion was that you are bidding actual money (like a normal auction), and the reason you want to bid "as high as possible without going over" is that you are not sure if you'll get funded or not.

Suppose the number of green dice represents the actual value of the green artifact, which is unknown when you're bidding (though your research has given you partial information). You bid based on that, and then when all bids are in the artifact is assessed and the true value is determined. If the highest bidder has bid too high, their financial backers refuse to go through with the purchase, so the next lowest bid is checked - the highest bid that is not greater than the true value is the one that gets the artifact.

This theme seems more easily grasp-able, which is a plus. And it means I need to find a more catchy and more appropriate title. While I liked the subtitle Museum of Lost history," perhaps that's also a plus.

5 PLAYER DYNAMIC
One thing I noticed about the 5 player game was not too surprising - the Consolation rule came into play. With 5 players each with only 2 bid tokens, and some artifacts going unclaimed due to overbids, it's fairly easy for a player to go a round without winning an auction. The rule I used was to give such a player an additional die, to give them some power in future auctions. In order to keep from having to supply a ton of dice in the game, I had limited the number of dice per player to 6 (for the 5p game), which you get as you cash in sets. I said that the consolation die came from that supply (i.e. one of your 6 for the game). That seemed to work alright, but an alternative was suggested which I'd like to try as well: any player who does not win an auction in a round gets an additional bid marker for the next round. I don't know if that will prove better, worse, or simply different, but I'd like to find out.

Also as expected, players were not acquiring as many tiles as we did in the 3 player game, or even the 4 player game. Therefore the players' displays were not filling up and they were not forced to cash in any sets. It made me think that perhaps the number of tiles you can hold should decrease a little bit, like only 5 tiles for a 5 player game. Maybe even 4 (and then 5 slots for a 4p game) - but I think that would be too few. This however was not the biggest problem I saw with the 5 player game.

The biggest problem I saw with the 5 player game was that it was very chaotic. Players do not have enough information to perform very well, they begin with a mere 20% partial information. In comparison, the 33% partial info in the 3 player game felt much better. The easiest solution I can think of to increase this percentage is to add some Community Dice - a couple dice rolled in public which people can take into account when bidding. If there are 2 community dice, then in the 5 player game you start out knowing 4 of the 12 dice... 33% like the three player game. David suggested that wouldn't be enough, and that the more info you have, the better the auction would be. I might agree with him, so I might make it 3 community dice for a 5 player game (and maybe 2 for a 4 player game and 1 for a 3 player game). That would make the percentage of partial info known about 40% in 3, 4, and 5 player games. I think this will help keep the bids from becoming too frustrating. In general I prefer the simpler setup/play of NOT having these community dice, so it's possible the 5 player game should simply be more chaotic (or in fact should not exist).

With three community dice, the total number of dice needed for the game would be 40, which may not be too many.

MECHANISMS
We talked about some more specific mechanisms as well. These comments apply to all player counts...
* Originally, I had said that you cannot move a bid you'd placed until you had placed all of your bid tokens, and I'd also said that you cannot bid on an auction you're already on. Those rules just seemed like the obvious rules to have, but I didn't have any specific reason for choosing them. In one of the recent test games somebody placed their first bid token, got outbid, and on their next turn wanted to up their bid on that same auction (before somebody else did). It seemed like a reasonable thing to want to do, so I allowed it, changing the rule to simply be that you either place or move a bid token on your turn, and you cannot PASS unless you have both bid tokens out. That seemed OK for the last couple of games, but led to players holding back their 2nd bid token until the last minute, in order to hide information from other players or something. That didn't seem as good, so it was suggested that it not be allowed. The question remained though, what if you want to bid up on the same track you'd initially bid on, but haven't placed all of your markers yet (especially in 2/3 player games where you have 4/3 markers)? Well, one idea is to allow bidding on the same track. It didn't seem like you'd want to, but in the narrow case that you do - why not allow it? Well - the problem is, suppose you pass with a marker on 3 and another on 7 for the same auction, your opponent having bid 6, and the real number turns out to be 5. Should you win that auction? Having 2 bid tokens makes it more likely you'll win an auction, but at the expense of winning any other auction. Taken to it's logical conclusion, I may bid 1 on an auction I want, and if nobody outbids me I could simply lock it in by bidding 16 as well. Now nobody can possible outbid me, and as long as there's at least 1 die of that color, I'll win that tile. Is that OK? Maybe it is. I fear that such a dynamic will really break down the mechanism in a lower player count game, but it night be worth a try. If the mechanism is OK except for that lock-in exploit, the rule could be that you cannot outbid yourself directly (someone else's bid must be in between your two markers). Another solution is to disallow passing if you have 2 bids on the same track, but that's really the exact same thing as disallowing bidding on the same track (but allowing players to move their bid before placing all of the bid tokens). I'm not sure which way I want that to go. I think I'll try the double bid on 1 auction just to see. Any opinions?

* Purple dice being wild can be really swingy. If you happen to roll 3 purple, you are kind of at a big advantage for EVERY auction. Theoretically your behavior could belie that information, but not always. Is it worth doing something like "purple counts as 1/2 wild?" So like, for every 2 purple there's +1 of other colors? Or possibly distributing the Purple dice (after resolving the Purple auction) to the other columns 1 at a time, and applying only those distributed? that could be interesting, as the Yellow auction (2nd to resolve) would more likely benefit from Purple dice than the Red auction (last to resolve). Again, the SIMPLEST rule of just counting the purples as wild might be best just because it's simplest, even if it makes the game somewhat swingy.

* The Extra Bid Token tile is very good... If it comes out early in the game, a player could gain too much of a benefit. Perhaps the Purple tiles should be staged... I could label 4 of them with a 1 on the back, indicating that they will come out first, then label 4 with a 2, indicating that they will come out next, and then have the last tile labeled 3 - which will always be simply worth victory points (because after that last round, no abilities are useful). I think I have a good idea of which power tiles should come out in the first half of the game and which should come out later, so I will try this next time.

* David suggests a bonus of a couple of points for winning the Purple auction in the last few rounds, since the benefit of the tile will be lessened. Maybe 1/2/3 points for rounds 7/8/9. In that case the 9th round tile would be more like 2vp on it's own (currently 4), plus the 3 for the round is a total of 5vp. I could do this, but it's an added complication which I don't know is really necessary.

* I definitely like the idea of the Consolation rule, and an extra die makes sense... but that removes some of the incentive to cash in a set early. Another idea that came up was to give any player who won zero auctions in one round an extra bid token (for the next round only). I'll try that and see how it goes.

* The One-Shot Double Purple Virtual Dice tile seemed really strong, but at the same time kind of weak. Melanie used it one round, and it turned out there were plenty of purple dice (more than anyone thought) and she was able to win her bids even if she hadn't used her tile. I think it would be better if the tile could apply to any 1 auction (rather than all of them), and you don't have to use it until you see the result of the auction. So procuring that tile helps you win a particular tile that you really want later in the game.

* The Overbid With Tie tile was a little too annoying when all of your bids could do it. It was suggested that you could only have 1 such overbid at a time. I'm not sure I see much difference, but I am willing to try it that way.

* A more fundamental problem I've noticed is that it's too easy to make double sets of 2 tiles for 6vp - this is better than making a 4 tile set! Solution: require minimum 3 tiles per set. that should make it harder to get double points. Also, instead of double points for a double-set, maybe better to just award +3vp? Or +1vp/tile? Any thoughts on this? I'd like the double set to be worth SOMETHING as it's harder to get than a single set - and if nothing else I'm SURE players will ask the question.

All of these things are somewhat minor tweaks as far as I'm concerned - I'm really happy with the way the game is shaping up! Please post a comment with your thoughts - including your thoughts on a new title based on the new theme!

AdSense

2011-05-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

I guess I set up my blog to have AdSense - I have no idea how to use that! I see that there are ads on my blog now, but I am not seeing any money. I have received like 2 different 'gift card' looking things saying "here's $100 towards advertising your blog!" Not terribly useful for me right now.

I think I will be turning that off, as I don't see any benefit. Anybody know more about this and want to tell me if there's something I should be doing differently to get some passive income from my blog?

Playtest Day!

2011-05-15T06:21:00.001-07:00

I had a very successful playtest day yesterday!

Bios Megafauna

First off, Mandy, Jason, and Megan played a game of Bios Megafauna with Phil Eklund. I sat in on the rules and generated comments for Phil. His request for me to play and comment on that game was the catalyst which spurred my planning the playtest day.

Bios Megafauna was a much simpler game that I would have guessed, but in true Eklund fashion I believe it was presented as much more complicated than it needed to be. It also looked to be very well researched, and highly thematic. You have species of animals, and over the course of the game you obtain Adaptations to make them stronger and more versatile so they can spread to more places. At it's heart, the game is a majority scoring game, with Auctions as it's main mechanism - you bid for an Adaptation card each turn (which also triggers a random event when drawn, of course), which may allow you to spread to more spaces on the board. When a scoring card comes up (random event on card = scoring), whoever has the most units on the board scores 1/2 the available VP, and the rest of the players score the rest. After the auction phase, everyone gets a chance to grow or shrink 1 size level, flip from Herbivore to Carnivore or back, and reproduce and/or move on the board. After that, any space with more than 1 herbivore in it must be culled - only 1 herbivore and 1 carnivore per space is allowed. There are specific tiebreaker rules for this, and the adaptations help you win these fights. The idea is that the better adapted species eats the food, and the other one starves out. Carnivores have a similar hierarchy. Perhaps counter-intuitively, when you have a carnivore and an herbivore in the same location, the latter is not removed from the board, rather they co-exist in equilibrium (imagine a handful of lions and thousands of deer).

So the game is about getting the right adaptations and choosing to be a carnivore or herbivore based on whether you'll be able to survive and keep guys on the board. It seemed pretty solid in concept, but I did give Phil a handful of comments for some specific things that I thought would make the game better. Which he liked or whether he takes any of them I don't know, but I'd be interested to see.

Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost History

After Bios Megafauna, Phil, Mandy, Nick, and I played my bluff auction game. I made up a variant to the scoring system I'd used on Thursday's playtest at Brian's house - pretty much on the spot. It worked out pretty well, and I got a lot of good information from the test. Later that night, David came by and I discussed the game with him, and we brainstormed several other scoring systems, and when Ted showed up we tried a 3 player game and tried the most promising sounding system... and it worked really well! And it eliminates the need for Trophy bits.

Chrono Gallery is "in the fire" at this month's Gamesmiths meeting on Monday.

Eminent Domain - Exotic Expansion

Doug, Mandy, Sam, and Nick played a game of Eminent Domain with the Exotic expansion. Sam had maybe played once a long time ago, Nick had never played, Mandy had played EmDo a couple of times before, never with the expansion, and Doug has played a couple of times even with the Exotic stuff. We decided to dive right in with the full game (not the learning game), including the expansion (which is what I wanted to test, really). It went over pretty well - they weren't making expert plays, but both Sam and Nick picked the game up with no problem.

I liked the expansion stuff well enough that I've decided to finally upload it to DropBox (as I've been threatening to do) for interested people to print and play if they like.

All in all I believe yesterday was a highly successful, and a very fun day. I hope to do that more often, at least 1x/month.

Chrono Gallery - playtests and tweaks

2011-05-15T05:54:00.001-07:00

I finally had the opportunity to play Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost History a couple of times, and I tried the scoring scheme I figured out the other day... Not the worst idea in the world, but it didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. While players seemed to like the bluff auction mechanism, they did not seem to like the scoring trophies bouncing back and forth from player to player. I believe the crux of the complaint was that when you get a reward, you feel like that's yours, and it's disappointing to have it taken away from you.

SCORING

It's possible that trophy system could work with some tweaking of the costs and points - for example:
* When you get a trophy stolen from you, you keep most of the points - so you effectively score for getting a set and the trophy itself is a small additional bonus.
* create several trophies of each type, each worth 2vp, whose cost escalates as they are taken - i.e. the first player to get an Art trophy needs only 3 Art tiles. The next player to do it needs 4. In this case you cannot claim a trophy you already have.
* Somehow ramp up the costs of stealing the trophies so it's harder to do
* Make the trophies for larger Exhibits worth more points than the lesser ones, and then allow people to claim those too (rather than just being allowed to claim 1 trophy of each type).
There are other variations as well. I tried the second one listed above in a playtest yesterday, and it did feel like an improvement over Thursday's game where we were passing the trophies back and forth. That last version seems very promising as far as Trophy scoring goes, however I explored some other options and tried something different in yesterday's second game.

One of Brian's comments after Thursday's game (similar to what I wanted to do before I added trophies in the first place) was that you should turn in sets of tiles to score for them. His point was that you would be limited to 1 such turn-in per round, so if you keep too many tiles in play for too long, you may not be able to score them all. In general LI liked the idea, but as stated I didn't like the way that particular scoring would sound. Discussing with David last night, we figured out a better version of that. Here's what we tried (and it worked very well):

You are still limited to 6 Artifacts in play.
Upon winning an auction, you MAY 'cash in' a set of tiles. A set is any number of tiles which share at least 1 attribute. For example, 2 tiles that are both blue would be a 2-tile set. 4 Tool tiles would be a 4-tile set. A 3-tile set including 3 ancient Egyptian artifacts would be a 3-tile set, and it would score double (it's really two 3-tile sets). Upon winning an auction giving you a 7th tile, you MUST cash (or discard) at least 1 tile.
Cashing in a set means taking those tiles and stacking them face down (on an Exhibit space on your player board). Your reward for this is points - 1/3/6/10... for 1/2/3/4... tiles in the set.
You also get an additional die to roll when you cash in a set.
After the last round of the game, any tiles you have face up may be scored as if they have been cashed in (or, if it's easier to say, they all may be cashed in). During this "final Scoring," the ability of the Art tiles takes effect - which is that the Star icons on the Art tiles act as a bonus set (if you have 3 face up Art tiles, you'll score a bonus 6 points). It might be easier to say that face up Art tiles simply score 2vp or something before you cash in the sets during Final Scoring.

This worked out very well. When you cash in a set, you lose the abilities on the tiles, and you gain a die to roll, which gives you more information and generally makes it easier to win future auctions. I will try this rule again the next time I play, which will hopefully be soon.

TRADING

Another thing I noticed during Thursday's game was that there was absolutely no trading going on between players. There was a little too much ditching tiles for dice, making too many dice enter the system too quickly for my liking. I had really hoped that there would be some interesting dynamics involved with the trade aspect, but it simply didn't manifest. For yesterday's games I left that out completely and did not miss it one bit. I also left out the option to take 1 die rather than the tile and didn't miss that either - though I definitely wanted to create some way for dice to enter the game so that the bids escalate. In the first game I tried simply giving a die to the player who won a purple auction (in addition to the tile, which for that game were mostly virtual dice in a particular color). That wasn't too bad, but I prefer the solution I came up with last night - cashing in a set earns you a die.

CONSOLATION

I quickly realized during the first game that if you do not win any tiles in a given round, it would be good to get a consolation prize of an additional die. The problem is that without tiles, you are not only behind in scoring, but also abilities which help you get tiles... so it's kind of a slippery slope. If you get a consolation die, at least that makes it easier for you to get tiles later. This rule did not come into effect during our 3-player game last night, probably because there were more auction tiles to go around, and everyone gets to bid on 3 of them, while in a 4 or 5 player game you only get 2 bid tokens - much more likely you walk away with nothing.

NUMBER OF DICE

In order to make for nice clean rules and setup, each player will start with 3 dice, and will have 5 Exhibit slots on their player board housing 1 die each. When "displaying" an exhibit, you earn the die and place the stack of tiles in its place. If you get a consolation, you get to take one of the dice off of your player board - so it's a die you would have gotten anyway maybe, but you get it early. This way players get a maximum of 8 dice each.

As a side note, that would require 40 total dice, but I might rather use 34 dice - which I could do if I just say that in a 5 player game, players get a maximum of 6 dice apiece instead of 8, which I think is acceptable. I suppose I could allow more dice per player for fewer player counts (like 9 or 10 max for 2/3 players).

Other small tweaks

Tool ability going back to "Re-roll any number of dice" (rather than just 1 die) - to make it more in line power-wise with the Virtual Dice from Weapons and the extra points from Art.
9 rounds instead of 10 - no funky tile in each color column. Instead all of the funky tiles are in the Purple column
Adjust the Purple tiles - there are 9. Currently:
- +2 dice
- Overbid with tie
- Must overbid by 2
- May hold 2 additional tiles (effectively expanding your hand size from 6 to 7)
- Wild Culture/Type/Era (choose one - this tile helps you make sets bigger).
- Virtual purple die
- 2 Virtual Purple dice, Discard when used (would be used after all passing, but before any auctions are resolved)
- Extra bid token
- 4 vp - this tile will always come out in the last round, giving something worth bidding for in the Purple column on round 9.

Chrono Gallery Prototype update - Gamesmiths

2011-05-10T13:19:00.001-07:00

My Bluff Auction game, Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost History (I do NOT love the title for that one) is "in the fire" for this month's Gamesmiths meeting, so last night I took some time to (finally) update my prototype a bit. I created tiles for the auctions, and that took some design work as well. Here's what I came up with:

There are 5 colors of artifacts (well, 6 actually - but 1 is different from the rest):

COLOR	CULTURE
Green	Mayan
Red	Roman
Blue	Greek
Yellow	Egyptian
Black	African
Purple	Future

The Purple auction will be for tiles which give you an ability of some kind, not an artifact that you display for points. Also, the purple auction is strictly "how many Purple are there?" while the other auctions are "How many Red (for example) + Purple are there?" (Purple is wild).

For each Culture there will be 3 types of artifact:

Tools
Weapons
Art

And for each type of artifact there will be 3 Eras:

Ancient
Medievil
Modern

(Not sure exactly what a "Modern Roman Tool" might look like, but whatever) The artifacts will offer a small bonus as well:

Artifact Type	Game Bonus
Tool	+1 die of that color
Weapon	Re-roll 1 die before bidding
Art	+1 VP

In addition, the Purple tiles give you things like:

+1 die of a particular color
+2 purple dice (one-use)
Re-roll Any Dice

And each auction stack will have 1 special tile which also gives you no points but a bigger game benefit:

+1 Bid Marker
Overbid with a tied bid
+2 dice to roll

(Currently there are 2 of each of those tiles) I'm hoping these abilities will be interesting and fun enough. As for scoring, I'm not certain exactly how I'd like to do that. I have always considered that each player should be allowed 3 Exhibits, and that tiles in any given exhibit must share 1 attribute (Culture, Type, or Era). Part of me wants to go one by one and reward Culture sets, Type sets, and then Era sets - meaning if you have tiles that fit into more than one set, they'll score twice). Part of me wants to award 1vp per tile (so it's always worth getting tiles when you can) and rewarding a significant bonus for a set. And part of me likes the idea of some tiles being worthless to you after a point (they don't fit into your exhibits) and so you are encouraged to trade them with opponents.

I am going to stick with the recent structure change wherein upon winning an auction you may either trade your tile to an opponent (for any combination of dice and artifacts), 'sell' the tile to the game for +1 die, or keep the tile to score in your Exhibits. Maybe it would be wise to allow changing in a tile for a die later as well - in case you get a tile hoping to get a matching one later, and if someone takes that matching one, your tile is now useless... not sure about that.

I'm excited to finally playtest this game!

Kings of Air and Steam - thoughts on action economy

2011-05-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

Originally (well, when *I* first saw it)) Kings of Air and Steam was played over 7 rounds. Often players had a whole lot of nothing to do in the final round. demand would completely dry up such that there were cubes on the board that could not be delivered at all, all the other cubes having been delivered already.

To fix this I simply said "hey - let's cut that last round off, and only play 6 rounds!" This worked very well, as now players had things to do all the way through the game. It's still the case where you'll Pass an action or 2 near the end of the game rather than spend money, but I thought that was acceptable. So I've been happy with the 6 round game thus far.

However, taking another look, I think that actions really aren't tight enough. Players are still passing actions, even if only a couple, and they are upgrading their Airship and Train more than enough. I'd like to see Actions be in shorter supply so that players will not be able to build all their depots, upgrade both their Airship and their train all the way, and still be able to make all of their deliveries. If Actions are more valuable, then Character Abilities that amount to a free action here or there will have more value to them.

What I should really do is figure out about how many upgrades I expect or would like a player to make, and see how many actions that leaves them to do deliveries, and look at how many deliveries I think a player should be able to make in a game. I quickly looked at that just now, and I figure a 5 round game might actually work really well. 20 actions could break down something like this:

7-8 Upgrades (some Train and some Airship)
5-8 Depots
8-10 Delivery action
And a couple of Route Adjustments or partial delivery actions (moving part way to the destination).

Note that if you spend 16 actions upgrading both your Train and your Airship and buying 8 Depots, then you'll only have 4 left to make deliveries. Maximized that's probably 10 cubes at about $14, which probably won't be enough cash to win. 6 deliveries averaging 2.5 cubes/delivery and averaging $14/cube might be enough to win.

I think 5 rounds (20 actions total) may be the way to go! Time to try it...

Kings of Air and Steam - Character abilities

2011-05-03T14:29:00.002-07:00

For those interested, here are the current character abilities and special movement cards for Kings of Air and Steam. We tested the first draft and made some adjustments. these are not final, but are probably pretty close to what the final game will have in it.

Each movement phase will go in turn order, so move-1 cards will always go before move-3 cards, but given the same movement card, Harvey and Reginald will always act before Clint and Eli. As compensation, the later turn order characters have the more powerful abilities.

Each player will be assigned 1 team, and each team has 2 characters from which the player will choose. Each character has a special ability, and each team also has a special movement card and potentially unique Airship stats as well.

1a - Harvey Golding: Start with a Level 2 Airship and $20 instead of $12 (or $15?).
Harvey Golding is the stepson of Lawrence Golding, out to salvage his father's empire.

1b - Reginald Kain: Start with a Level 2 Airship. Place additional starting depot after other players have placed.
Reginald Kain was Lawrence Golding's business partner, he helped Lawrence found Golding Enterprises and would hate to see it crumble.

1move - Move 0*, + Action

2a - Aurelia Bayley: As an Action, convert 1 cube of one color to 1 cube of another color.
Aurelia is a quirky inventor, out to prove that what the industrial revolution needs is a healthy dose of science.

2b - ISAAC (Intelligent Steam Automated Airship Captain): Discard a Cube to get 1 additional Action (1x/action)
Aurelia's clockwork assistant I.S.A.A.C. is an adept Airship pilot.

2move - Move 7** (Straight line)

3a - Eva Blane: Start with Level 2 Train. May construct a new link for $1/tile and place a Depot on it.
3b - Victor Blane: Start with Level 2 Train. $1 discount on Depots.
3move - Move 2* + Ship 1 Good (execute during 2*move round).
Son and Daughter of one of the original Rail Barons, Eva and Victor's contacts in the rail industry reach far and wide. As Rail Barons, Eva and Victor have a jump on other teams when it comes to depots and rail lines, but they're not as adept with Airships, so their Engine and Cargo upgrades top out lower than other characters. We might add storage limits to Depots, in which case Eva and Victor would be allowed to store more goods in each Depot.

4a - Flora Kingston: Upon filling a city, draw 2 New Demand tiles and choose 1.
4b - Bishop Kingston: When Delivering 2+ cubes, may place 1 in supply rather than on City (that one doesn't count toward capacity limit).
4move - Move 2, then Move 2 (execute during 4move round).
British shipping magnates Flora and Bishop Kingston are experts in the industry, very in tune with the demands of the marketplace. With Lawrence Golding gone, they have come to British Colonial America in order to claim their rightful crown as the true Kings of Air and Steam.

Flora and Bishop's Engine upgrades slower than other characters, but their Cargo upgrades faster.

5a - Clint Castle: Free Route Adjustments, and 1x/round may make an additional Route Adjustment without using an action.
5b - Eli Diamond: Play a (1-3) movement card as an action
5move - Move 6**
Clint Castle's grandfather Beaufort Castle was the first to employ the Diamond Engine in an Airship - and doing revolutionized Airship Racing at the time. That event is what inspired Lawrence Golding to adapt the Diamond Engine for his shipping industry. Clint Castle, with his Grandfather's racing Zepplin, has teamed up with Eli Diamond, who's grandfather invented the Engine itself, to bring the speed of Airship champions to the industrial revolution.

As a champion racing ship, the Sky Castle's cargo upgrades slower than other characters'. But their Engine upgrades faster. When it comes to piloting an Airship, this team cannot be beaten.

6a - Sebastian King: When delivering, may pay up to $3. For each $1 paid, draw 1 Market tile. If any match the cubes delivered, +$3/cube.
A habitual gambler, Sebastian King has tried a lot of failed ventures. Having won an Airship in a poker game from a con man, King thought it might be fun to enter the burgeoning shipping industry that he'd heard so much about. Knowing very little about Airships, he teamed up with the only Airship pilot he knew, which happened to be the man who he'd won the ship from!

6b - Corday McQuinn: 3 times per game, may spend 1 "Swindle" token to deliver 1 off color cube with a delivery.
A con man by nature, Corday McQuinn's pride took a hit when he lost his Airship to Sebastian King. He was happy to be recruited to pilot it by it's new owner. Both Sebastian and Corday have something of a dark side, but they have become friends and partners in order to make it rich as shipping magnates.

6move - Move 0-3*

7a - Thaddeus Birch: Use opponents' depots for $1/cube instead of $2/cube
When Mafia lieutenant Thaddeus Birch gives you an envelope of cash in exchange for using your depot, you don't count it in front of him.

7b - Mort Flynn: When using 1*, 2*, or 3* movement card, may Steal at the end of movement (stealing counts as picking up).
Mafia thug Mortimer Flynn finds it easier sometimes to take goods from another depot or Airship then to fly all the way to a factory.

7move - Move 0* + Steal 1 Good (stealing counts as picking up).

Alter Ego Revamp

2011-04-26T17:45:00.001-07:00

I think I've made the decision to move forward with Alter Ego as a cooperative game, despite the fact that Midnight Men is in the works. It's a bit disheartening to work on a superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game when that superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game is getting so much attention, but I sincerely doubt the games are very similar at all and I do like the main design ideas in Alter Ego.

The cooperative version is nothing I haven't already discussed in this blog, I just have some more specific ideas in mind of how the game will look and play out. The purpose of this post is to document those ideas, and lay out a components list and rules set so I can move on with updating the prototype and playing it!

Alter Ego v2.2
A cooperative deck building game of heroism

You won't see Crime City on any map, but that's how people have come to know your hometown. Sadists, Anarchists, the Mafia, each carving out portions of the city they call their own. Hundreds of innocent bystanders caught up every day in their turf wars, or held under their oppressive thumbs. Precious few have the time, the money, the guts, or the wherewithal to do anything about it. You're one of those few... of course it means you'll have to give up that happy home life, or that cushy job. The paper paints vigilantism in a negative light - you'd be viewed by the community as a monster. But your city bleeds... the city bleeds and it calls your name. Will you answer?

You're a vigilante hero, one of the few in Crime City who have come together to put an end to the reign of terror the city's been trapped under. Banding together, you'll fight through a swath of henchmen in order to find and defeat several Arch Villains. But as you get stronger as a hero, you'll have to neglect some parts of your Alter Ego life - your family, your job, and the community.

Components:
XX Hero cards (5 types)
XX Alter Ego Cards
- XX Family Cards
- XX Job Cards
- XX Community Cards
XX Henchmen Cards
XX Arch Villain Cards (3 types)
XX Equipment Cards
XX Civilian (CIV) Tokens (4-5 types)

Setup:
1. Sort the Henchmen cards by level, shuffle each level separately and then sack level 2 on top of level 3 and level 1 on top of level 2 to create the henchmen deck. Place this deck in the middle of the table.
2. Sort the Arch Villains into piles by type, and randomly choose 1 Arch Villain from each pile. Those will be the Arch Villains used this game, put the rest back into the box.
3. Sort the Hero and Equipment cards by type and place them in piles in the center of the table, accessible by all players.
4. Give each player 4 of each Alter Ego card (Family, Job, and Community). Return the rest of the Alter Ego cards to the box, they will not be used this game.
5. Each player shuffles his deck of 12 Alter Ego cards and deals 4 cards face up into his "display" area, then draws a had of 4 from the remaining cards in his deck.

Turns:
Patrol phase: On your turn you must first bring a henchman into play:
* Draw 1 card from the Henchmen deck.
* If you have any face up Community cards in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community card.
* If you have at least 1 Community card in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).
Choose 1 Henchman card to put into play, and return the rest to the top of the Henchmen deck in any order. Do not discuss upcoming henchmen with your fellow players!

When a henchman comes into play he takes some number of civilians hostage! Place CIV tokens on the Henchman card as indicated. If a CIV token must be taken but the supply is empty, then the game is over and the Villains win!

Support phase: After a henchman has come into play, you may gain support from your family, allowing you to draw cards from your deck:
* For each Family card in your display, draw 2 cards from your deck.
* If you have at least 1 Family card in your display, also draw 1 card from your deck for each Family icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).

Equip phase: You may spend money on fancy equipment to make you a stronger hero:
* For each Job card in your display, collect $1
* If you have at least 1 Job card in your display, collect $1 for each $ icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).
You may spend these $s to buy or activate Equipment this turn.

Crime-fighting phase: Now that you have geared up and garnered the support of your friends and family, it's time to go fight some crime!
* Hero cards in your display may be spent to rescue CIV tokens currently being held on a Henchman card. Hero cards spent must match the icons depicted on the Henchman card. The rescued CIV token is returned to the supply.
* Other players may discard Hero cards from their own display in order to help rescue hostages.
* If the last CIV token on a henchman is rescued, that henchman is DEFEATED, and the current player may keep that henchman in his play area and gain the printed benefit (usually an icon).
* Whenever a henchman is defeated, check to see if it has any Arch Villain icons. For each Arch Villain icon, place a token on the matching Arch Villain card.
When enough tokens are placed on an Arch Villain card, that Arch Villain will come into play and terrorize the city by KILLING civilians (removing CIV tokens from the game) until he is defeated!

Recoup phase: After you're all spent from fighting crime, you get a chance to recuperate and plan your next turn.
* Discard all cards in your display.
* Play 4 cards from your hand face up into your display.
* For each Display icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area), you may play an additional card face up into your display.
* Choose a Hero card from the supply stacks and place it face up in your display.
* Discard the rest of your hand, and draw 4 new cards from your deck (shuffle your discard pile as needed) plus 1 card for each Hand Size icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).
Play continues with the next player in clockwise order.

When the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over, and the Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil!

PDF problem fixed!

2011-04-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

I had been experiencing some technical difficulties with my computer recently. In an effort to clean it up and make it work better, I moved and deleted some files, and my Pagemaker (1990 called, they want their software back!) decided it could no longer create a PDF. This wasn't the end of the world when it came to prototyping as I could still print from the Pagemaker program itself, but it meant I couldn't create PDF files of the EmDo expansion cards for fans and volunteers to print and play!

Well, I finally fixed the problem, and therefore will be able to release the Exotic Expansion cards (which are in no way final!) later this week for comments from the peanut gallery!

In addition, after my discussion at Spielbany with Richard James about Alter Ego, I should be able to move that design forward to a testable state, and if it goes well enough I could also offer those card files for print and play testing pretty soon.

So for those interested, watch for those announcements later this week!

- Seth

Spring Spielbany 2011

2011-04-20T18:35:00.001-07:00

4 years ago I attended the Spielbany game design meetup and got a chance to see and play a number of prototypes as well as meet in person several people I see online all the time. Last weekend I decided to do it again. I flew out Friday and returned Monday, and over the course of the weekend I managed to play 12 games (5 of them my designs or designs I'm developing) and have some good design talk and just hang out with some people I don't normally get to. I brought the following games with me, but didn't get to all of them:

Spaghetti Western - a prototype that had been submitted which I was simply returning to the owner.
Caravan Imperative - another prototype I had intended to return, however I forgot to give it back to Andy!
Eminent Domain, with Exotic expansion
Kings of Air and Steam
All For One
Dice Works (or Dice Werx, not sure about the spelling on that)
Alter Ego - not much of a prototype really, just an assembly of cards at the moment
Jab - manufacturer's sample to show off
Brain Freeze - current (almost final) version of the iPad app
Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost Time - partial prototype of the liar's dice bluff auction game

Here's what I played and how it went:

Ice Weasels - a cute, quick kid's game about collecting sets of frozen weasels. The game was inspired by Otter Pops, you have a line of various colored Weasel cards, and on your turn you can either claim a card off of either end, or you can break the line wherever you want (minimum 2 cards in each 'half'). The idea is to get triplets of the same color and then "thaw' them (score them), giving you another turn. Everyone has a 'favorite' color which scores more points for them, and there's a color that's bad for everybody (well, bad if you don't get a whole set and thaw them). I took a copy of this home with me to show Mike and his kids.

Eminent Domain - I got a 5 player game of Eminent Domain in - the first time I've played with 5. I did not include the Prestige, Utopian, or Exotic planets, and in fact used the Learning Game variant so I removed the 3 Advanced planets with Research icons as well. As a result I noticed that with 5 players the Planet deck ran out, which either means the 5p game needs to include expansion planets, or else for 5 players the planet deck running out should be considered a game end condition. I hadn't considered that for 2-4 players because by the time that happens, the game is over already. But with 5 players puling planets out of the deck, it can run out pretty quick. I think that's acceptable, that for 5p the Planet deck running out could be an additional game end trigger.

I also played with 1 or 2 (forget offhand) extra cards in each stack, and the game dragged on a little longer than I thought it should. I'm not sure if that's to do with using the learning Game variant, or just 5 players in general, or if I really didn't need to add extra cards to the stacks. I'll need to test that some more and find out. Generally speaking though the game seemed to go over very well.

Honor and Glory - A short, cooperative adventure game that's supposed to give the feel of an RPG. Each player has a character sheet with a Class card and a couple of Trait cards. When 'adventuring,' some encounter cards are drawn which each show a specific die result, and 1 or 2 Traits. For each Trait present, if a member of the party has that trait, they get an additional die to roll. The goal is to roll the specific number indicated on the card. Before rolling though, the group chooses one of the characters to be the leader, and therefore their leader ability is in play for that encounter.

Altogether a neat idea, though there were a lot of comments made about the leader abilities, how they work, and whether it made sense for them to only matter when that player was the leader. For example, unless chosen as the leader, the Warrior character was exactly the same as the Cleric character. Seems like they should behave differently even if neither one is the leader. I would like to see each character have a thematic "always on" ability which is a small but beneficial effect, as well as a Leader ability which comes into play if they are the leader. And I'd like to see that Leader ability be something you can count on, not a triggered ability that only works if someone happens to roll a 6. There's an opportunity cost of choosing 1 leader bonus over another, and for it to not come into play sort of cheapens that whole leader choosing decision.

Another comment that came up was that each Encounter should feel like progress toward the end goal. A solution discussed (which I think the designer implemented the next day) was to put prizes (equipment) into the Encounter deck, and when one comes up, it's replaced by another card, and it counts as the LOOT for the adventure, so the heroes will become more powerful over time, allowing them to have an easier time against the boss at the end.

Finally, each round of combat that the group doesn't defeat the bad guys, they take damage. They are allowed to choose who takes the damage. I'd like to see that be wrapped into the choice of Leader - the Leader is out front, they should take the brunt of the attack - maybe they take all the damage. Or maybe each player takes 1 and the leader takes the rest or something.

I would try that game again, with those changes implemented. I could see it being pretty fun.

Sword Merchants - At BGG.con a while back I played Gil Hova's game called Pax Robotica. A theme (and title) I rather enjoyed, and I liked the game for the most part too. Players were Arms Dealers, selling weapons (in that case Battle Bots) to different sides of various conflicts. To an extent you didn't care who won the battles, you would supply Bots to whoever would pay for them. One of the biggest drawbacks of that version of the game was the combat resolution which was obtuse, and a side effect was that the theme seemed to make people think it was a game about fighting robots, not about building and selling them.

Since then Gil has changed the game a lot, stripping his unique auction mechanism (from Wag the Wolf) and changing the theme to a fantasy setting. now Orcs, Kobolds, Dwarves and Elves are at war, and each race will purchase Swords, Axes, Pole Arms, and Maces from the players. There's a dynamic by which the more battles a race loses the more desperate it becomes, and the more desperate a race is, the more money they'll pay for weapons. In addition, there's an end game bonus for having supported the team that lost the fewest battles, which Gil found a nice way to do since Pax Robotica.

I think the game was pretty solid, though some of the numbers were off. The most important changes that were suggested were to give everyone level 1 technology in each weapon (normally you have to buy that) so that no matter what you can always build at least a really crappy weapon of each type (which can turn out to be important for another part of the game), to adjust the values and rates of change of numbers (of course, in a prototype the numbers are often off), and I made an additional suggestion to start with less money so that players can't afford to do as much from the start. I find that games are cool when the players are only able to do 1-2 of 3-4 different things at the start, because then they naturally diverge in player posture - making the rest of the game interesting. I hope to see this one again soon.

Nottingham - Originally designed for the Robin Hood themed Game Design Showdown at BGDF, Nottingham has been expanded into a cooperative game with a traitor that plays 7. The players are on Prince John's side, except the traitor who's in cahoots with Robin Hood. A great theme, and an interesting take on it if you ask me!

The game had a lot in common with Shadows Over Camelot, and any coop game with a traitor will draw that comparison. I did think that this game felt different because you seemed to have more to do in it. The learning curve was a little high, as there were a TON of unique cards, but that's kind of how thematic games go. The designer (Richard James) played the game twice over the weekend, and he was telling me some of the stuff he was planning on changing. It all sounded like steps in the right direction. I'd like to try this one again once the designer gets a chance to polish it up a bit. I'm a sucker for a Robin Hood theme :)

All For One -It's been a long time since I've done anything with All For One, but I was happy to get it to the table. We played a 4 player game (the game has always been best with 4), and I finally tried it without the guards altogether. I don't think I missed them. Some of the same old comments reared their ugly head - and I'm starting to agree that the voting mechanism using the mission cards is not the best idea. Some suggestions were made, maybe the best of which was to relax the hand limit, and to allow players to play any number of cards in a duel (irrespective of which ones), and choose either Offense or Defense. So a different kind of voting, where you sort of bid with your cards to support the result you want to vote for. I might try that next time.

Another idea that came up to promote interaction between characters (which may translate to player interaction) is to forget carrying capacities and simply force a character to pick up each token he walks over. This way more often players will need to move Plot Tokens from character to character via Transfer or Demand actions. Galloping on a horse would still mean skipping Plot Tokens of course.

Another thing I noticed was that perhaps the Bonus tokens should be worth MORE VP than the Required tokens, not less. When doing a mission with only the Required token, you get more VP/token than if you also get a Bonus token - it's often not worth your time to get the Bonus tokens. Also, with the way the Story Tracks are bumped upon completing a mission (which I like), having to bump the 2nd track is often a detriment, so that's another deterrent for going after Bonus tokens. It just makes sense to make the Bonus tokens worth more, so next time I'll switch them - 2vp for the Required token, 3vp for each Bonus token, and I think still 4 VP for arranging a Meeting, and maybe 5vp for the Any Character, 2 Required token missions because they're harder. These VP values could easily be printed on the cards so they need not be remembered.

There have been a few comments along the lines of placing missions face up rather than keeping them in hand, but I think that's just begging for people to disrupt other player's multi-turn efforts, which I think would feel crappy. I'm excited to make these changes and try the game again.

Dice Works - At first I liked the goofy spelling of "Dice Werx" - but I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe "Dice Works" is better. I keep waffling back and forth. Either way, I played a 3-player game on Saturday and it seemed to work fine. I have changed the Scrap Efficiency Upgrade (for even progress on all tracks) to 4/3/3/2 for 1 rather than 4/3/2/1 for 1. I don't ever want anybody exchanging 1 for 1, that's just lame. I like the feel of 3-for-1 though, so that's a reasonable upgrade. Also, I think I'll allow players to use that new exchange rate as soon as they get it, rather than starting next round.

In Ruins - Andy Van Zandt had told me a little bit about his post apocalyptic card drafting game and I was interested to play it. I like the theme, and Andy's designs are always very well thought out and thorough. I enjoyed In Ruins overall, but the unique drafting mechanism I thought had something fundamentally inelegant about it. The idea is cool, you put new cards out, then you get a chance to place your Squatter token on something that you don't want anybody else to take. Sadly, this means you can't take it either - and I wonder if that's just something I will not like about that mechanism (not something wrong with it, just a mechanism I simply don't like). The inelegance was caused by each turn, EACH PLAYER having to be asked to reevaluate which card they want to squat on, often only to decide they liked where they were.

A suggestion was made to instead have each player move their Squatter only on their own turn. The idea behind the Squatter is to keep players from being able to topdeck the perfect card, it gives everybody a chance to stop a lucky draw. The proposal is to have the player draw the new cards at the END of his turn, and then choose to move his squatter - allowing him the chance to block one of the two cards that just came up. I think this would smooth out game play tremendously, and cut down on down time and game length. Andy said he was 100% on board, so I'd love to play the game again with that change the next time I see him.

Currently the game is something like 90 minutes, which I think is a little long for what it is. If this could help cut the length down closer to 1 hour, I think that would be great.

Kings of Air and Steam - As I've mentioned, I'm developing a pickup/deliver game with a Steampunk theme called Kings of Air and Steam. The game supports 2-6 players, though I'd never played with 6 before. I was able to do so this weekend, and it was very informative. I had forgotten the exact setup of market tiles for each player count, so I just used all the Market tiles I had (6 of each color) and drew 4 out per turn. That's what you'd do for a 5 player game. For 6 players it was supposed to be 7 of each color tile, drawing 5 per turn. The game worked well enough, but in retrospect it did seem like the board was somewhat bare most of the time. I think the proper number of tiles would have been better. I had hoped to simplify setup by using the same setup irrespective of player count, but I just don't think the game will work very well that way. As an easy way to handle it though, I am thinking that the appropriate player counts should be printed on the backs of the tiles (2+, 3+, 4+ 5+, 6), and rather than sort them, each tile can be discarded as it's drawn if it's not appropriate for the current game.

Everybody seemed to like the game, and I got a couple of questions answered. For example, everybody agreed that the requirement to ship on 50% your own track was unnecessary. As for the look of the game, everybody was all for the theme, and one player suggested unique ship molds for each player - at first I thought that would be more expensive, but then I realized we could just make 1 mold with all 7 ships on it (6 for the game, plus 1 promo ship we've got planned). Also, Andy suggested a great player power - the ability to create a new link on the board between cities. One player could be given 5 or 7 track tiles (straight on one side, gentle curve on the other), and as an action they could be allowed to place them between 2 cities creating a new link - paying $1 per tile placed. This would come with a Depot on that link, and of course other players could build depots on that link as well. I really like that idea.

Alter Ego - To tell you the truth, when I heard about Midnight Men (which I never knew existed) being picked up by a publisher, I got a little discouraged and didn't really feel like working on Alter Ego anymore. But I do like some of the mechanisms and basic ideas behind the game - of managing your Alter Ego life, and the more recent pre-programming of card play, so I brought my pseudo-prototyp with me hoping to chat about it with Andy or whoever. I ended up talking to Richard James about it, and he asked some questions the answers to which I guess I knew, but hadn't really solidified. That was a big help, and also he got me to tweak how the icons on Henchmen work - once in play, rather than giving you that icon to use, they could work more like Eminent Domain where they boost the cards you play. So if I get a $ icon into play, it doesn't give my any $ to use unless I play a job card. This is a small difference, but it has a significant impact - as Rich pointed out, I had built a mechanism which undermined my original design goal. Currently, once I have $ icons in play, I no longer need to worry about playing a Job card as much. This proposed version instead amplifies my desire to play a Job card over a Hero card, which is what I was going for.

We also discussed how some of the Coop mechanisms would work, and in describing them to him I am more confident in exactly how I want them to be now. So I think that design is back on the front burner! I'm curious to see how Midnight Men pans out, seeing as how it's ALSO a superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game.

Hard Wired - I had seen the beginnings of this game discussed in BGDF chat, and was interested in it from the outset. I was glad I got a chance to try it this weekend. I love the idea of creating circuits and improving circuits, but in the current incarnation of this game you are able to steal the opponent's win condition, which to me feels like a long, drawn out game of hot potato. It's like Munchkin, where everyone stops the other guy from winning, drawing out the game, until someone manages to finally win.

When someone suggested that players be allowed to steal Circuits instead of the Light cards, that sounded perfect to me! you could "improve" their circuit by creating the same effect with fewer cards, thereby taking their cards for yourself - as a way to draw more cards at a time. It doesn't hurt the opponent, but it does something useful for you. In fact, if smallest circuit is tiebreaker, then it kind of HELPS the opponent, but you'd do it anyway because it gets you more cards in 1 action than drawing.

So my proposed change, which I hope Ariel tries and I hope works out for him, is that players on their turn can either PLAY a circuit (minimum 3 cards or so), adding a new light to their line, or IMPROVE a circuit by playing any number of cards to replace a longer circuit in play, taking the old circuit cards into their hand. Then they could draw 1 card (I like that as it otherwise might feel like it takes too long to build back up after playing cards). The object is still to either get 1 of each color light in play, or else have the most lights when the deck runs out.

I also liked the idea of another mode of play, where there's just 1 big circuit in play, and each player starts with a set of 1 of each colored light. You win by adding all of your lights to the circuit, or else by having the fewest left when the deck runs out. In this version on your turn you could either play a new circuit (min 3 cards?), Improve a circuit, or simply draw 1 card. Or I guess it could be the same (Play or improve a circuit, then draw 1).

I'd like to try this game again with the changes.

Love Means Nothing - I hadn't played Love Means nothing for a long time, and Ariel had a new version. The new version made the decisions a bit more strategic, but the game was much more slow and tedious. I don't think that's the right feel for a sports themed game, I missed the older, more streamlined mechanics. I was wondering how the decisions could be made more interesting with the old mechanics, and I jokingly said "maybe what it needs is a chess clock, like Brain Freeze!" - and then immediately realized that maybe that's not such a bad idea. the idea behind Brain Freeze was simple decisions + time pressure. Maybe a chess clock with 60 or 90 seconds on it would force people to make their simple decisions a little faster. I think that would feel more like a sports game. Maybe I'll dig up the old copy of Love Means Nothing that I have at home and give that a try.

On Monday morning I also got a chance to talk to Ariel about what each part of Ground Floor will look like. I originally thought the player boards would look like blueprints, but he had a different idea that's been really growing on me. I think it could come out really nicely!

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion - take 2

2011-04-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

I updated my EmDo prototype as discussed, and Michael played it 6 times with John tonight. I don't think John has grokked the game with the expansion yet, as Mike beat him every time. I was playing Carson City on the next table, but every time I looked up Mike seemed to have nothing but Exotic planets in play, and I guess he was using them to great benefit. One game he traded for 25 points - all from trading Fighters via Dr Mayhem's Weapon Emporium! This has given Mike something of a big head, as apparently he's 13-0 at EmDo with the Exotic expansion!

From those games, my current thought is that the Exotic icons do pretty much what they're supposed to, but I think they might snowball a little too quickly or easily. That might be less true with more players than it is with 2, or it might just be a perception thing, but I think I might need to nerf the planets a little bit. I might remove the Exotic icon from the planets which have the [Exotic]=>[X] abilities (and maybe add a couple of influence points to them) and put them back on the 3 planets which have no ability (but do have resource slots). I had wanted to add more icons so that people could get them and use them, I didn't want someone getting an Exotic planet and then not be able to do anything with the transform ability. But in fact, no matter which Exotic planet you get, you do have access to the Exotic technology cards - which each have an Exotic icon on them. So maybe just three planets with Exotic icons is enough. It may be disappointing to come across one of those without an ability to use the icon with, but those 3 planets will have 2 resource slots each, so they'll still be plenty useful. And maybe they'll encourage players to Survey up another Exotic planet!

Another idea I'd like to try is adding some more Tech cards. In particular, maybe a card that you play as an action which allows you to play 2 other cards, like the Village in Dominion. Amusingly, there's already a card like Smithy in this game (Improved Survey), and Moat (Survey) :)

I'm not sure if I want to add a lot of these types of things, but I'm currently thinking I could add 2 of these cards to each level 1 Tech deck. Each could have 1 of the icons in the game (so the Metallic deck would have 1 with a Survey icon and 1 with a Warfare icon). In the Exotic deck it would have 1 Exotic icon (and there might be 2 of them).

I might also like to add a Level 2 tech of each of the original types. not sure if it should be a permanent tech (and therefore double sided), or if it should relate to the Exotic stuff (like having an Exotic icon). Maybe 2 per stack, each with one Exotic icon and one native icon. I guess I get to think up another 3 or 6 Tech abilities :)

Any suggestions for tech abilities are welcome - leave a comment with your ideas!

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion

2011-04-07T15:48:00.001-07:00

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion

I mentioned recently that I was working on the first full expansion to Eminent Domain. For ease of communication I will refer to the Prestige and Utopian planets as a promo-pack or something, and I'll refer to the Exotic expansion as the "1st" EmDo expansion - that should be close enough for government work.

While I like the idea of keeping things a secret, I cannot ignore the benefit I get from using my blog to think things through, and the comments I get from people, though sparse, are also helpful. And let's not forget then my readership is pretty darn small compared to the gaming population in general, so when the expansion comes out, plenty of people will still be surprised by all the new stuff!

That said, here's what I'm looking at, 2nd draft now, for the Exotic expansion. I welcome comments, especially from those who have played the game before!

New Start Planets:
First off, as I'm adding a planet type, I clearly need to make a Start Planet of that type which is equivalent to the other Start planets. Therefore there's an Exotic start planet which costs 2/2 and has 1 resource slot. Currently the resource that Exotic planets make is called Unobtanium, though I suspect that will change by the time I'm done. Anybody have a good idea for what resource the Exotic planets might make?

In addition to the standard Exotic start planet, I've made an additional Start planet of each type (Adv, Met, Fert, and Exo) for a grand total of 5 NEW Start planets. Back in development I tried adding icons/abilities to the start planets, and I really didn't like it. I wanted players to EITHER flip their start planet and start doing Research, OR Survey up a better planet first to make use of it's ability. For alternate start planets I thought adding icons would be good, but to avoid the problem I had before I decided to make these 5 more expensive than their standard counterparts. Here's what they look like:

COSTS: Warfare: 6, Colonize: 5. Slightly higher than the average planets in the survey deck because these planets are a little better than the ones in the survey deck.. So far this seems ok.

ICONS: The Advanced. Metallic, and Fertile planets each have 2 icons on them - the appropriate ones for that planet type. So Fertile has both Colonize and Produce icons on it. The Exotic planet only has 1 icon (Exotic), and it also has +1 Hand Size.

RESOURCE SLOTS: None of the alternate Start planets have any resource slots.

INFLUENCE: Each of the alternate Start planets are worth 2 Influence.

Exotic Planets:
The main thrust of this expansion is the new planet type and the associated icon and technologies. I've created a 9-card cycle of Exotic planets similar to that of the other planet types.

COSTS: Each of the Exotic planets cost Warfare: 5 / Colonize: 4.

ICONS: Six of the Exotic planets have an Exotic icon (my prototype uses a cute little 1-eyed alien face) on it, as well as a new icon in the Game Effect box (where the Hand Size +1 icon appears in the original planet cards). This new icon looks like:

[Exotic Icon] => [Other Icon]
Meaning that all Exotic icons can be used in place of that specific other icon. So if I had a planet that said [Exotic]=>[Warfare], then (a) because it's got an Exotic icon, that counts as a Warfare icon already, and (b) if I get another Exotic icon in play, that icon would ALSO count as a Warfare icon! So [Exotic]=>[Warfare] means "all of your Exotic icons count as Warfare icons."

The implication here is that if you get multiple Exotic planets in play they sort of build off of each other, making all of your Exotic icons more flexible and more powerful.

RESOURCE SLOTS: The other 3 Exotic planets do not have any Icons. Instead they have TWO resource slots. Unobtanium is pretty rare, only produced by 4 planets (one of which is a Start planet), but when you find some, you find a lot of it!

INFLUENCE: The 6 Exotic planets with icons are worth 2 Influence. The 3 Exotic planets with Unobtanium are worth 3 Influence.

Exotic Technology:
To go along with the new planet type, I have a new Technology stack for the Exotic planets. In it there are 6 Level 1 technologies (3-cost, 0-Influence), 4 Level 2 Technologies (5-cost, 2-Influence, 2 of them are permanent and back-to-back), and 2 Level 3 technologies (7-cost, 5-Influence, permanent and back-to-back).

Level 1: Each of the standard "Improved" technologies occurs 1 time, with the appropriate icon as well as an Exotic icon. So the Improved Survey card has a Survey icon and an Exotic icon, and its action is "Draw 3 cards". Obviously it'll have the same illustration as other Improved Survey cards as well. The Exotic icons on these cards are not useful unless you have a card in play that allows you to use Exotic icons as some other icon.

Level 2: There are 2 Level 2 techs that go into your deck (with 2 Exotic icons on them), and 1 double-sided tech card that stays in play. The ones that go into your deck have 2 Exotic icons on them, which are useless unless you have a card that translates them into another type of icon, and then they are pretty good. If you have multiple translators then they become really good.
Deep Space Probes (Exo/Exo): Action: Search the Planet deck and discard pile and choose 1 planet card. Shuffle the rest to create a new planet deck and put the chosen card on top.
This is to be used before a Survey role in order to get exactly the planet you want.
Cryptology (Exo/Exo): Draw 3 cards, then place up to 2 cards in hand back in their respective Stacks.
Sort of the opposite of Artificial Intelligence. It allows you to thin your deck, as well as maybe lengthen the game a little bit.
Coalition Victory (Perm): If you have 2 of each (Adv, Met, Fert) planet face up in your empire, you win the game.
Alternate win condition, a bit harder than it sounds as you need 2 of EACH planet type - the three listed as well as 2 Exo planets in order to play this card!
Thorough Survey (Perm): Survey Role: You may draw 2 fewer planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional planet.
Allows a player to obtain 2 planets at a time, at the cost of requiring larger Survey roles.

Level 3: There is 1 double-sided tech card that stays in play:
Cult of the New (Exo): Each Exotic icon in your Empire is worth 1 additional Influence.
Bonus points for Exotic icons on planets in play (tech cards in your deck do not count). This one is actually worth 4 Influence in stead of the usual 5, because it also gives you an Exotic icon, which will score a bonus point at the end by itself.
Premium Product: +1 Influence for each Unobtanium that you trade.
The name on this one is really just a placeholder (that's true of several of these, actually). This one rewards you for trading Unobtanium, which is something you might be able to do a decent amount of if you specialize in Exotic planets. For the 2nd version I'm considering adding an Unobtanium resource slot or two to it.

5 Player Support:
In addition to the new stuff, I'm planning on providing additional cards and potentially a game end or rules tweak to make a 5 player game work. I haven't gotten a chance to play with 5 players yet, but I think that adding enough cards for another 10 card starting deck, and 1 or 2 more cards per stack would be good - and probably keeping the game end trigger on 2 piles (I think 3 would be too many, though I suppose it's worth a try). The rules tweak I am considering is only allowing players to Follow/Dissent Roles led by their neighbors. The main thing here is that I think I don't like players being able to Dissent 4 times in a row and then start their turn with 9+ cards. I'm also not sure I like so many opportunities to Follow, although in reality you only have so many cards in your hand, so maybe that's a self limiter. I'm curious whether players would be upset or not if they were hoping to follow Survey (saved cards for it), and one of the 2 players that they're not adjacent to called Survey - would that be an interesting dynamic? Or just annoying? I'd like to try it and see.

I welcome any comments on this. At this time I have still not assigned any meaning to the different sized Fighter tokens, I believe that will be part of another expansion. My early thoughts on that are Hostile planets, which must be flipped with Warfare, and perhaps Peaceful planets as well, which must be Colonized and not attacked. I think the medium sized token will become a Destroyer and the largest one a Dreadnought. There will probably be some mechanism to upgrade some number of fighters into a Destroyer, and etc... and for certain things you'll need Destroyers or Dreadnoughts. I haven't got that fully worked out yet, one thing at a time :)

Alter Ego - beaten to the punch?

2011-04-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

It appears one of the Game Artisans of Canada has sold a coop superhero deck building game to a (as yet undisclosed) publisher. This is good news for him and for GAC - maybe bad news for Alter Ego. I'll have to figure out if I care to continue working on it, or shelve it given that a game of similar scope and theme will be coming out...

Then again, maybe superheroes will be 2012's wine theme.

Alter Ego - should it be a cooperative game?

2011-03-30T14:23:00.001-07:00

A few people have suggested, presumably based on the theme, that Alter Ego might ought to be a cooperative game. A team of superheroes defending the city from arch villains does sound like it would lend itself to the coop genre. I hesitated at first because as yet I have not seen a good way to make a cooperative game, at least one that wasn't Solitaire by Committee. Coop games ARE somewhat popular though, even if they are SbC, and the theme DOES suggest cooperation... Maybe deck building will force each player to be in charge of their own contribution at least a little, as their deck is their own and would differentiate them from other players.

So if I were to revisit Alter Ego as a coop game, what would have to change? Maybe not that much. How does this sound?

First off, there could be a supply of Civilian (CIV) tokens. Villains would take CIV tokens out of the supply, and when that supply runs out, the villains have taken over the city, the game is over, and the players lose. Each turn a player turns up a Villain card, and place a CIV token from the supply onto it. That villain could be said to have taken that CIV token hostage. Upon defeating that villain, the CIV token could go back into the supply.

After the new villain arrives, the player gets to resolve the cards they have in play (from last turn, see previous blog post). It could be the case that villains show fewer symbols, corresponding to the 'cost' to knock a CIV token off of them, and they could take multiple CIV tokens at a time - removing the last CIV token would be how you defeat the villain. Defeating the villain would still give benefits to the player who did it.

Arch Villains
It might still work to say a player must collect enough of an Arch Villain's icons (on villains they'd defeated) in order to go after that Arch Villain. But perhaps rather than 'qualifying' to attack an Arch Villain, there could be a tracking board as well, and when 'enough' henchmen of the proper type are defeated, the Arch Villain of that type arrives. The Arch Villains would be big, bad versions of the regular ones, and would take a larger number of hostages, or maybe permanently remove CIV tokens from the game, or something similarly dastardly and difficult to deal with.

Winning the game could be defeating all (3?) of the Arch Villains before they and their Henchmen overrun the city (by removing all of the CIV tokens from the supply).

Flavor
For additional flavor, the CIV tokens could be tiles or cards which have various TYPES, and it could matter if too many CIV of a particular type are hostage - making different reasons to go after particular henchmen at different points in the game. Like you've got the cards to defeat this guy, or you like the abilities you'd gain, but THAT guy has the MAYOR hostage, so you need to save him first.

This is still very rough draft-y, so please feel free to chime in with comments! Does this version sound better than a competitive version of the game?