Heading to Essen, and some "spring" cleaning

Tomorrow I leave for Essen.

I've been waiting several years to say that, and I'm really excited to go to Germany and see the spectacle that is the Essen Game Fair! I'm not sure I'm prepared for the enormity of the show, but that's OK - I count this first trip as a sort of scouting mission to see how Essen goes. I am not sure if or when it'll happen, but I suspect in the future TMG might have a booth there, and it'll be nice to know what to expect before having to do the show "for real."

I got a little lucky with this trip, as I didn't really expect to go and I didn't prepare in advance at all. When it looked possible, I posted online that I was thinking of going, and I got an email from someone offering me a place to stay. I'm pretty sure finding a hotel would have been problematic, so I was happy to get that offer! In exchange for putting me up for the week, my host has asked me to spend some time in his booth, signing copies of Eminent Domain... sounds like a win-win to me!

So if you are at Essen, swing by LocWorks booth (4-230) and say hello! I'll probably be helping demo Ground Floor, and if you buy a copy of Eminent Domain, I'll sign it for you :)

In addition to spending some time in the LocWorks booth, I look forward to seeing what the rest of the con has to offer. I'm not sure I plan to do much in the way of shopping - I know a lot of people rush to buy their most anticipated games, but frankly I'm not sure how I'd get them home, and the one's I'm interested in will be available in the US before too long (specifically T'zolkin: the Mayan Calendar, which will be released by Rio Grande Games before too long). I do have a short list of games I'm interested in checking out though. I hope to see a few of those at the show.

One game I might actually pick up is the new version of Hanabi. I love that game, and have not got a proper copy of it. I like the cards in the new version - the first version is unavailable, and the 2nd edition - even if available - has square cards that are a pain to use. From what I've seen this new version should be easier to read and use.

In other news... 

I've been doing a little bit of "spring cleaning" (only a couple months out of season). I cleaned out a shelf where I kept some of my unpublished prototypes. Some of those are prototypes of my own design, some are prototypes of other people's games. Like an archeologist uncovering an exciting find I came across a wealth of interesting things!

8/7 Central - I came across 2 different prototypes of this card game about running a TV network by my friend Mohan which I worked on with him for a summer several years ago. This game always seemed like a good idea to me, but it also always suffered from the same problem. I think that problem boils down to information overload - it's difficult and cumbersome to try and track each player's schedule of shows, even if you've only got one 1-hour time slot, 5 days a week. I do think the core concept worked, and I remember having fun playing the game though, and if I had infinite time I would definitely like to make this game work.

Moctezuma's Revenge - A game about collecting treasure and avoiding curses. I liked the idea of this one too, and I recall playing the prototype... not sure what stopped me moving forward with it. I think I'm not a big fan of push-your-luck mechanisms, and this game had quite a bit of that in it. This is another one I'd like to revisit sometime.

Blockade Runner - Originally designed for a card game design contest (never entered), then co-developed with another designer, this game was intended to be published by a publisher at one point but that fell through. Then later it was intended to be published by another publisher, and I sold my rights to it in order to facilitate that. I notice the game is not out, which means I believe the rights have reverted, but I'm not sure what good that does me. This quick game of bluffing and double think seems destined to live on the shelf :/

Nursing coop game - I came across a prototype I made of a game my friend Brian wanted to make. He's a nurse, and he had an idea for a cooperative game set in an ER. I thought it sounded cool and I liked the main mechanism he had in mind, so I went home and made a prototype. We played through it once or twice, but then kind of forgot about it.

Reading Railroad - Originally to be titled Conjunction Junction (and I submit that could be a good name for an expansion), Reading Railroad was an idea I had with an online BGDF friend Scott Slomiany. I maintain that it's a fabulous idea, combining a word game with a connection/railroad game. You gain money by spelling words with Scrabble-style letter tiles, and you spend that money to buy track to connect cities. Connecting cities allows you to collect a different type of letter tile (I would actually like them to be little tiny alphabet blocks, with 3 different letters on each). Your final score will be based on words you can spell using those Alphabet blocks. But this game is intended to be one that wordsmiths can play along with their vocabulary-challenged friends, so the end game scoring words are actually found on reference cards - so really you are just collecting specific sets of cubes. You see, a wordsmith could do well making larger words with their Income tiles, leading to more income for buying track, but a player who is not good at word games could still do well with strategic connections and set collection without needing to make big or complicated words.

I entered Reading Railroad into a game design contest once, and it didn't go over very well - even though I actually had people playing and enjoying it at game night. The judges thought it was some underhanded ruse to sell the game to 2 different demographics (word gamers and strategy gamers) - which in a way could be true, but really it was an attempt to make a game that players from both of those genres could enjoy together. I really want to get back to this one some day, as I think it has real potential.

Odysseus: Winds of Fate - A game about making bets on outcomes (of encounters as well as the entire game), then trying to make sure your bets pay off. I tried pretty hard to make this game work, and I was never really happy with it. I think it's got potential, and I'd like to revisit it again sometime.

All For One - One of the oldest designs I ever worked on that was worthy of being published. I'm actually not sure why this one never did get published! David Brain's original design, which I worked on with him for years, was very well received at conventions I brought it to, but never found a publisher. Now I feel like it might be a little old fashioned and in need of an overhaul. One day I'd really like to see this game in print!

Templar - I've been putting some thought into this, my most recent project. Based on what I thought Trajan's mechanism would be, Templar is about a year old at this point... and while I have a prototype made up, I've not tried a playtest yet!

I even found prototypes of published games, such as Gil Hova's Prolix, Alex Rockwell's Homesteaders, Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim's Belfort, and my own Terra Prime! And amongst all that, I found prototypes of other people's games as well:

Smoothie King -When in London 7 years ago, I met Ian Vincent, and played his game based on Power Grid. It was about making Smoothies, and I liked it quite a lot. He sent a prototype home with me, and I frequently wonder why I don't play it again.

Roman Emperors - Another BGDF member Juan Carballal had a game I found very interesting in which players take turns running the Roman Empire. It's not a cooperative game, you want your stint as Emperor to be remembered as the greatest time in Roman history - but since players take turns controlling the Empire, the resources are largely shared. I think the game has a ton of potential, but I don't think the designer and I were seeing eye-to-eye on some of the specifics of how it should work. I'm also not sure what the designer did (if anything) with it since I saw it. I think it would be fun to one day take a stab at making "my version" of that game, and then send that to the designer and seeing what he thinks of it.

Admirals of the Spanish Main - Another game by Juan, we were trying to make a "dice building" game which did a better job than Quarriors, and he came up with a game about hunting pirates in the Spanish Main. It was a good start to what I was looking for, but it was too random, and my friend Andy Van Zandt and I worked on trying to mold it into what I was really looking for... in the end though, many playtesters said that if they're playing a pirate game, they want to BE the pirates, not hunt them, so we eventually gave up on it. I think the game had some good things going for it, but for whatever reason it just wasn't all the way there.

Equilibrium - Shea Parks had a game that I thought was really interesting called Equilibrium. It was like a response to the Deckbuilding craze... each player starts with the same deck, and over time you remove cards from it. Quit when you want, each card in your deck is worth -1vp, and cards played are worth positive vps (most of them based on which cards remain in your deck). I like this game, and think maybe it deserves another look...

Lost Adventure - More friends from BGDF, Jeff Warrender and Steve Sisk, made a deduction game with an Indiana Jones theme which I think is fantastic. The only real problem with it might be that the end game phase seems too different from the majority of the game. Also, originally it was "too Euro" and could use a lot more theme to immerse players in the Indiana Jones action. I fear the designers may be overdoing it with the changes they've been making along those lines, but I haven't really been keeping up with their blog about the game as much as I'd like.

It was fun running across and thinking about all these games. Makes me want to spend more time working on them!

The List - revisited

It's been a while since I've given any thought to old game design ideas. Last night I had the opportunity to recount some of them to a friend, and it reminded me how awesome some of them are! So I thought I'd revisit The List:

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere Yet, But Probably Should - some of these have been getting stale as well:
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- Moctezuma's Revenge

I have lots of ideas for several of these games, so many that I think I'm overwhelmed and am not making any progress on any of them! The good news is that I have at least made SOME progress on my games, like Exhibit, Alter Ego, and The Knights Templar.

I think the best of the bunch are:

Dynasty: The Spread of Culture in Ancient China
Build villages and learn advances, assimilating opponents' cultures as you go. Your villages give you access to resources to spend on things like advances. If you cannot afford what you want, you can "trade" with an opponent (they cannot say no) - but if you do then you must take one of their Culture Chits onto your player board. This is both good and bad, as filling up your player board gives you benefits, but each of those Culture Chits represents scoring for your opponents. The first player to fully fill their board becomes the Emperor (and scores a small bonus), but it's the player who's culture is best represented who is the real winner!

Hot & Fresh
Delivering pizza can be frantic work! Plan your route and push your luck with the traffic laws to make deliveries and earn tips. There is a simple set of traffic laws, and the more laws you break, the more likely you will get busted. Driving safe for a while will turn the heat down, but your tips decrease over time so you're encouraged to press your luck at least a little bit. Originally the routes were intended to change as traffic lights turn from green to yellow to red - a newer development involves placing tiles between the main roads to represent shortcuts that you know about but your opponents do not.


Red Colony
Players build colonies on Mars, first by claiming property (building tubes and domes), then constructing various buildings under those domes. Income is customizable and ranges from early game building materials to late game higher level materials, to people. You'll have to spend time and effort to modify income over the course of the game. The goal will be to house as many people as possible in your Colony by the end of the game. A lot of the ideas for this game came directly from The Case For Mars.


Alter Ego
Cooperative deck building game of vigilante heroism. Save the city from Arch Villains - but as you become a stronger hero, you'll need to neglect some aspect of your Alter Ego life. In the early game you start with Family, Job, and Community cards which each give you some benefit. Each turn you must take another card, either another Alter Ego card or a Hero card. You'll need Hero cards to defeat henchmen, but you can only play so many cards per turn... so playing more Hero cards necessarily means playing fewer Alter Ego cards! This game will have a Cooperative mode, and possibly a Competitive mode as well where each player has a personal Nemesis in addition to the Arch Villains.

The Knights Templar
After hearing about Trajan's Rond-cala mechanism I had a guess as to how it would work. I was wrong, but I thought my idea might make an equally good game, so I combined that main mechanism with an older idea I had for a Knights Templar theme. In this game you'll Move your knights, Crusade against Moors and other enemies, Erect buildings, and spread the Influence of the Order of the Temple. But when the Order gets strong enough, King Philip will become nervous and issue arrest orders for the Templars! Race to Portugal (and maybe Scotland) where you'll be safe while a wave of destruction radiates from Paris, destroying buildings as it goes. When a building is destroyed, players with that type of building still standing earn some points, so it could matter which buildings you erect and where you erect them.

10/11/08 playtest: 8/7 Central and Invasion of Trishula

According to my record keeping, I haven't played 8/7 Central since January 2007. I've been meaning to get back to it and fix the stuff I didn't like all this time, but it seems I just never got around to it.

Mohan has asked for the current state of the game, and I have yet to get him any information (sorry Mohan!) - I sat down to figure out what exactly to send him and realized Eric was coming over to playtest, so I would be able to try 8/7 Central again, with the latest ideas implemented, and then send Mohan up-to-date information.

8/7 Central
I incorporated the recent ideas into the game:
* No auctions - instead you buy programs from a track like Civ cards in Stone Age.
* During Setup, players were simply dealt a random program for each day, then paid for those out of a starting $30.
* As an action a player could purchase a program and place it directly into their lineup, or move a program from one time slot to another. As a result of the move/placement, another program could potentially be 'bumped' into the player's 'hand' - which doesn't count as being in play, but may be moved back into the lineup with a future Move action.
* All advertisement cards were removed from the deck (even the special ones I planned to keep). Any card could be placed face down as an Ad. Placing an Ad rewards a player with $1 immediately, and $2 each time that program is viewed. There can still be 1 ad on a 1/2 hour program and 2 on a 1-hr program.

All of these changes seemed to work well. I believe $30 is too much to start with, it used to be $30 when players would start with 6 programs, for which they would bid in an auction, and I felt like that was a good number. Now the prices are a little lower (due to no bidding), and they started with only 5 programs, so they had plenty of money to start with and weren't pressured to get more in the early game. However it did seem that as they spent their money, it got appropriately tight, so this wasn't a problem.

I think the next time I will start players with fewer shows. My first thought was to have people start with a random program on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and let them buy new ones for Thursday and Friday... but Ben suggested starting the first week on Wednesday and just having a 3 day week. I think the first week or week and a half will be mostly a setup week to get your lineup going, so having a short Week 1 seems like a really good idea.

I'd like the early game to be about filling out and building up your lineup, and the late game to be about aggressively going after Victory Points by moving strong programs to compete with your competitors. Maybe to emphasize this there should be a ramp-up of Victory Points... I was going to say "award 1vp/Genre during Week #1, 2vp during Week #2, 3vp during Week #3, and 4VP during Week #4" (I'd like the game to last at least 4 weeks) - but 4vp at a time seems way to much compared to 1 in the first week. Maybe 0/1/2/3 would be alright. Or maybe 1/1/2/2 VP for weeks 1/2/3/4.

Alternatively, maybe the game should only last 3 weeks, and then 0/1/2 could be feasible. There's a problem with a shorter number of weeks though, which I'll talk about later. Ben also suggested giving more weight to Friday programming because thematically, that kind of thing happens in real life (I guess more people watch TV on Friday nights). I don't think this is necessary, and in fact I think it kind of happens naturally since there are lots of actions available each week before Friday is scored - while there are only a couple before Tuesday is scored. However it might be interesting to offer an extra VP in each category for Fridays to give players something to concentrate on (the big point Fridays, or easier, smaller points the rest of the week). It's an idea worth considering.

The Moving/Placing programs as an action seemed fine to me. There was a small problem with the purchasing mechanism though. When the queue fills up with programs that are unattractive, then nothing will change that except purchasing a program. But nobody want's to purchase an unattractive program! So what I think needs to happen for that mechanism to really work is either (a) as an action, a player can wipe all or some of the queue clean and replace with cards from the deck, or (b) at the end of each day simply remove the program in the cheapest slot and slide the rest down. The removed program could be discarded, or placed on the bottom of the program deck, or whatever. If deemed necessary, this could also happen an additional time at the end of each week.

The new advertisement mechanism worked beautifully - just as I'd hoped it would. Players now have the choice between Fundraising (discard a card for $2), and playing an Ad (for $1, and potentially more later) - which seems good. Normally an Ad is better, but if you are in a bind and need that extra buck, you can get it. Also, in the endgame there's a way to get more than $1 at a time (via Fundraising action).

The game really needs to be longer (more weeks) so that shows can build up, gain Ratings counters, ads can yield revenue, etc. Maybe an additional die roll at the end of each week would help - ALL programs would be checked for hits, allowing more programs to be viewed, gain ratings counters, and yield revenue. This could be a tricky way to add virtual weeks to the game without adding to the game length.

The game length was an issue - we played for 2 hours and cut the game short after 2 weeks. People's turns were taking entirely too long. I think the fact that this was a 4 player game (maybe the first time this was played with 4 players) might have been part of it, as well as the fact that it's difficult to see who has what on each day - the information isn't organized very well. I've had an idea to make a central board where you place your programs, so it's easy to see who has what on each day - but even better than that might be a central board which has a chart for each Genre on each day, and each player has a marker in each column - this would simply show your current level in each genre on each day. Then at a glance you could tell which genres you're winning on a given day, and how close you are if you're behind. I think that will cut down on people's turn lengths considerably, but I still worry the game might take too long.

Let's see... in a 4 player game lasting 4 weeks (with the 1st week curtailed to 3 days) each player gets a total of 18 turns, and there are 22 status update phases. That's about 94 'turns' worth of time. For the game to take a reasonable amount of time (with 4 players, maybe 75 minutes, max) then each of those turns needs to average just 45 seconds. I just hope that's realistic.

The good news is that the players felt the game worked alright (aside from the information processing snags, and some number balancing), and was fun. They said they thought it's definitely worth pursuing.

The Invasion of Trishula
After some discussion on 8/7 Central we played Eric's game: The Invasion of Trishula. I'd played this before, but not since a year ago June. The basic idea of the game is pretty neat - 3 players are co-existing on a planet, sort of fighting amongst each other for territory (and therefore resources). Then a common enemy arrives to invade their planet. The game is won by the Invader player if they reach the Temple. If the Trishulans (the other three players) successfully defend the temple until the end of the game, then the Invader loses, and the winner of the game is the Trishulan with the most VPs.

You gain VPs by (1) occupying ("Defending") the temple, (2) sacrificing (or donating) resources to the temple each round, and (3) defeating Invader units in combat. it costs a couple VPs to attack Trishulans. There's a neat mechanism wherein at the beginning of the game, the Trishulans aren't very aware of the Invader, so the amount of resources they can gather and a few other things are at a certain level becasue they're not worried or concerned with the invasion. As the Invader kills your units or contaminates your territory, you become more and more aware or upset, and after a point you become more dangerous to the invader, and at that point your rewards/incentives shift away from bickering with your fellow Trishulans. The idea is that you begin fighting amongst yourselves, and over time you become aware of an ever-increasing invasion force, so you are supposed to band together and protect against it (or die).

The biggest problem with this game, for me, is that any game with a common enemy and a single winner is just begging for a Kingmaker. Some people don't mind that in games, where at the end of the game it comes down to player A making a choice which either makes player B win, or player C win, and neither option has a net effect on themselves. In fact, one could argue that every game is like that, but the "kingmaker" decision is not obvious, and occurs well before the game is actually over. However I for one agree with those who feel that is a design flaw. When playing a game and coming to such a decision, I feel deadlocked. I feel I can't reasonably choose one over the other, so what am I to do? Randomly choose the winner of the game? Vinci is a game that I actually enjoy, which sometimes comes to a kingmaker decision in the end. Tyler used to argue that the point was to get so far ahead you couldn't get kingmade out of the win. In that respect you could consider a win one in which you were that far ahead, and anything where kingmaking happened a tie I suppose - or you could consider the game a sort of diplomacy game, where you don't want to be the guy that was picking on the eventual kingmaker the whole time - or he won't make you king!

That said, I don't think there's anything that can be done about kingmaking in such a game. One idea might be to hide Victory Points, so that it's not obvious ho is winning. However, if VPs are hidden but trackable, then in essence they're not really hidden at all (many people don't bother hiding trackable information, and there is good reasoning behind that, even if I don't necessarily agree with it). The next logical step would be to make VPs hidden and not trackable. Not sure how that would work exactly...

The rest of the game seems a lot better than it was the last time I played. The game attempts to balance an exponential growth of the invading force with a linear regression of the strength of the Trishulans in such a way that at the climax of the game it will come down to player action as to whether the Invaders succeed or fail. In that respect I think the game is succeeding. There are still some balance issues, and some aspects of that system that aren't right, but I think it's getting pretty close. In our game it did come down to the wire, and while a couple of us had a rule or two wrong, in retrospect the Invader may have in fact been able to win.

Suggestions made after the game were, in no particular order...
* The Trishulans started with 65 units in play - WAY too many. That could be scaled down to 40 or maybe even fewer.
* The first round was intended to be for the Trishulans to do some stuff without the invaders in play yet, so the invaders start on the 2nd turn. Maybe better would be to 'pre-play' that first round, and start the game with the Trishulans in a reasonable position (where they'd be after 1 round of play) and begin with the Invader arriving.
* The invader never sacrificed any resources - she couldn't afford to. There's a mechanism wherein something happens if the invader sacrifices more than the combined Trishulans, but since the invader cannot afford to sacrifice, that thing will never ever happen. I suggested that this other thing that the Invader can (and wants to) pay for right before the sacrifice be folded into the sacrifice - where "as long as the invader sacrifices X resources, that thing happens." There's an analogous thing for the Trishulans, so I think it fits well.
* Eric forgot a rule about movement which would have helped - that you can move 2 spaces if moving through friendly territory. This is important because otherwise units get stranded on the board and cannot do anything. But moving 2 when attacking is too good, so the rule should be that you can only move 2 spaces if you're moving through your own territory (probably ending in your own territory), and you can only move 1 if you're attacking a unit or in fact moving into territory that's not your own.
* The points awarded for occupying the temple were atrocious. Originally it was a straight 25 points for being in the temple. That was too much. This time it was 3vp per unit in the temple (irrespective of who's unit) - which meant when Eric and I each brought 12 units into the temple, we gained 24*3=72 points against Rif, two rounds in a row. There's no way he could come back from that - so obviously that was not the right reward. Eric's intention was to reward players for 'cooperating' to defend the temple. I see where he's trying to go with that, however I think the long and short of it is this: The reward for cooperating in the temple (being friendly and not killing each other in that location) is "being able to defend against the invader". The penalty for not doing that is "you all lose the game". Therefore I don't think it's so necessary to have a VP reward for cooperation in that respect. The VPs from the temple need to be more in line with the other VPs in tha game (mainly the VPs from sacrificing - as you sacrifice 1x/round, and you get temple points 1x/round). Note also that you sacrifice resources for points each round, while temple points don't cost you anything. So maybe a better VP reward (if it must increase for sharing) would be "each player in the temple gets 3vp per player in the temple" - which means you either get 3 points on each opponent, or 6 points on 1 opponent, or you net nothing if all three players are present. This is also irrespective of the number of units there... the reward for having more units there might be defending vs the invaders anyway...
* Actually, this is counter to my last statement... a thought I had last night was that there should be an opportunity cost to hanging out in the temple en-mass. So if temple VPs is based on the number of people you have in there, then those units are getting you VPs instead of getting you something else. I'm not sure what - maybe you should need a unit on a space to get resources from it? Or maybe having a static VP reward is the answer, so piling guys into the temple simply doesn't do much for you in the early game - except keep you from being kicked out by your opponents.

That was sort of a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness report, but hopefully helpful in some respects.

I'm such a slacker!

I have been seriously slacking where it comes to game design lately. The Hippodice (game design contest) deadline is approaching, and I'm not sure which game - if any - is in good enough shape to submit!

Of the games on the list, there are several which are (still) partially prototyped, and I'm spinning my gears trying to decide what version of rules to use. The list is only getting longer, here's an updated list:

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, some of them going on 3 years now:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad
- Rodeo Drive

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere Yet, But Probably Should - some of these have been getting stale as well:
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Knights Templar

New Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere Yet, But Probably Should:
- Dating Game

New Ideas that I've started actually prototyping or testing:
- Ticket Please
- Moctezuma's Revenge

I have lots of ideas for several of these games, so many that I think I'm overwhelmed and am not making any progress on any of them!

8/7 Central - thoughts on the plane

In the airport on the way to L.A. for Gateway 2008 (convention report forthcoming) I pulled out my notebook and wrote the following:

Friday 12:30: Leave Tucson, 2:00 arrive L.A.
On the plane I should either work on Ticket, Please! cards or else 8/7 central. We'll see how that goes. Time to board!

With that in mind, I went through all the 8/7c cards on the plane and read them, looking for what adjustments would be necessary to jive with the recent ideas I intend to implement for the game.

As a side note, I happened to notice that many of the cards were in sleeves backed by not junk, but good Magic cards, such as Beta Sinkholes, Hypnotic Specters, Ehrnam Djinns, Contagion, Hymn to Tourach, Dark Ritual, Winter Orb... I could have made a pretty good deck out of that!

I removed a couple of cards from the deck that no longer made any sense, and I made minor adjustments to about 8 other cards, some to make them work, some just to clarify.

I also postulated a central board which would display each player's lineup, and the Monday shows would all line up on Monday. This might read better than having the program cards in front of you and having to read everyone's cards upside down and backwards. The board could also house the Program Track from which I hope programs will be purchased.

Now to playtest!

8/7 Central - Proposed changes

Proposed rules changes for 8/7 Central

Issue: Auctions take a long time and though the auction mechanic is cool, the auction system is problematic (causes problems with moving/placing programs as well).

Proposal: No auctions. Instead, there will be a display with 4 slots for programs which will be turned up from the deck. Actually, I'm thinking 2 decks (1/2-hr shows and 1-hr shows), 2 displays (4 and 2 cards) costing $3/4/6/9 for the 1/2-hr shows and $5/8 for the 1-hr shows. As an action you can buy a Program from the display for it's current cost. Then all programs behind it slide forward (become cheaper) and the last slot is filled from the deck. Programs purchased might go directly into play, but maybe instead they will go to a Holding Bin (see below).

Alternatively: 1 deck not 2, 1 display not 2... 1-hr programs cost X+$3 (where X is the cost based on the slot it occupies).

Issue: Moving/Placing programs rules have always been clunky, takes a lot of time, and will be affected by the removal of auctions from the game.

Proposal: Move a Program as an action. For no money cost, you can move a program to another time slot. If there is already a Program in the new time slot, it is "bumped" into a Holding Bin. A Move action could be used to move a Program from the Holding Bin into the Lineup (of course, potentially bumping another Program to the Bin). Programs in the Holding Bin do not count for scoring and are not checked for hits. Ads and modifiers cannot be played on Programs in the Holding Bin. Ads on Programs being bumped are discarded. Modifiers stay with the Program in the Holding Bin (or maybe they are discarded as well). Whenever a Program is moved for any reason, it loses 1 (all? 1/2?) Ratings Counter.

Issue: Starting Lineup - how to handle if not auctions?

Proposal: Deal out some programs to each player. Probably 8 of which they will choose 6 to be in their starting lineup. Because some programs may be "better" than others, the starting configuration will dictate how much money each player starts with. Basically players will start with some amount of money (probably 30 or so), and then will have to pay for their 6 programs at some rate. Maybe $3 per 1/2-hr show and $5 per 1-hr show... or $4 and $6 or something like that. or maybe each Program will have a printed value which is it's cost.

Alternatively: If programs have printed costs, then the Display could be redone to be COST+1/2/3/4 - which might automatically take into account 1-hr shows.

8/7 Central, the current state

The current state of the rules for 8/7 Central is "in flux." the most recent printed rules I have are from December 2006, and they follow. The current ideas floating around to amend those rules are:

- Strike auctions. Initial Programs dealt to players in some manner. New Programs are available for purchase as an action, from a sliding display where each Program in line costs more than the previous one, and as one is purchased, the rest slide down and become cheaper (like the Civ cards in Stone Age, or the Civilizations in Vinci).

- Remove Ad cards from the game. Instead, any card can be played as an Ad, placed face down behind the program. Ad categories also removed from the game. When playing an Ad, you'd collect $1 per ratings counter immediately, then $2 each time the program 'hits'. Compare this to the Fundraising action, wherein you get $2 immediately and no money later at all, and consider that Ad space is limited.

- Reconsider Move/Bump Programs mechanics. It's important to be able to move a program, but it's important that 2 players not be able to go back and forth forever moving programs. Currently a moved program loses 1 ratings counter. Maybe losing all of them would be easier.

- Game length seems short to me. i'm hoping with the removal of the Starting Lineup and Supplemental Auctions there will be time for more game turns, which I hope will let the game develop more. I'd like to see shows get better and then see players move their good shows to combat opponents' programs and fight for the demographics.

8/7 Central

A card game for 2 to 4 players in which players control television networks and vie for the attention of the viewing public.

The game is made up of cards. Program cards represent various television programs which you run in your two 1/2 hour time slots each day, Event cards effect the state of the game and Programs in your lineup, Modifiers alter Programs in play, and Advertisements establish Revenue to pay the costs for other cards.

Game play is interactive as you bid against rival networks for Programs and place them in time slots to compete with opposing Programs.

General viewership for Programs is determined by a roll of the dice and tracked throughout the game. As your Programs gain a following, they become more valuable. But watch out! If a Program gets too popular it runs the risk of Jumping the Shark! Attach advertisements to your Programs to generate Revenue when the Program is viewed (when it's number comes up). Program Modifiers temporarily increase the likelyhood of your Programs being viewed, or otherwise make your Programs a little better or opponent's Programs a little worse. Event cards have a lasting effect on the game: altering the state of the game or cards in play.

New Programs become available to bid on each week. With careful choice of Programs and management of Revenue you can come out on top and run your competitors into the ground, blowing their Programs out of the water and stealing their viewers for your own.

Properties of Program cards:

Programs are television shows that players can run on their network.

* Title of Program

* Minimum Bid [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

* Hit#s (numbers which when rolled produce a 'hit' indicating that the Program has been viewed)

* Genre (what the Program "counts as" - COMEDY, NEWS, DRAMA, or NICHE)

* Genre Level (a number reflecting how deep the show is in that particular genre)

* Ad Symbols (What type of ads can be attached to the Program) [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Properties of Advertisement cards: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Advertisements are the your source of income. Selling ad space on your Programs creates Revenue each time the Program is viewed by the general public (represented by rolls of the dice).

* Name of product or service being Advertised

* Revenue ($ provided by the ad PER MATCHING AD SYMBOL per hit)

* Ad Symbols (What type of product or service it is. Determines which Programs it can attach to)

* Special Rules

Properties of Modifier cards:

Modifiers give bonuses to your Programs, or hinder an opponent's Program.

* Title of Modifier

* Cost (monetary cost to play the card)

* Additional Hit#'s (if any) supplied by the Modifier

* Effect (special rules)

* Duration (how long it lasts - End of Day, End of Week, or End of Game)

Properties of Event cards:

Events can have an effect and then go to the discard pile, or stay in play and have a long term effect on the game.

* Title of Event

* Cost (monetary cost to play the card)

* Effect (special rules)

* Duration (how long it lasts - End of Day, End of Week, or End of Game)

Game Rules:

Setup:

Begin by shuffling the two respective decks (Programs and Play). Deal out 5 cards from the Play deck face down to each player (you may look at your cards at this time). Determine via some random method who will begin the game as Player 1. This title will change hands each week throughout the course of the game. Decide how many weeks the game will last (we recommend 1 week per player). Finally, distribute $30 worth of $ chips to each player.

The Starting Lineup: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

To begin the game players bid on Programs to fill their lineup. This bidding is done in 6 rounds, and in each round a number of Program cards equal to the number of players in the game are revealed from the Program deck for auction. Players bid on Programs in turn order, starting with Player 1. Bidding continues as described below under "Bidding." Players take turns bidding first each round (i.e. in round 1, Player 1 bids first. In round 2, Player 2 bids first, etc.)

EXAMPLE: There are 3 players: Bob, Jim, and Sally. Bob is randomly selected to be Player 1. For the first round of the Starting Lineup 3 Program cards are revealed from the Program deck. Bidding ensues as described below, starting with Bob. For round 2 of the Starting Lineup, 3 more Programs are revealed and Jim (who is sitting left of Bob) begins the bidding. This continues until there have been 6 rounds of bidding.

Bidding: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Each time it is your turn to bid on a Program, first take back any of your bids which have been outbid by another player. Then you may either pass or increase the current bid (or place an opening bid) on ANY available Program. Players may not bid more $ chips than they currently hold. When all players pass in succession, the auction is over and the Programs are awarded to the last player to bid on each. Those players surrender their bids to the bank. Programs with no opening bid are placed in the discard pile. For the Starting Lineup this process is repeated 5 more times with players taking turns bidding first. Notice, it is possible to win more than one bid in a round, and to pass then bid again.

In our example, Bob decides to place a $3 bid on Program #2. He places 3 of his $ chips on the Program #2 card, on the edge closest to him. Jim then decides to bid $2 on Program #3, so he places 2 $ chips on the edge of the Program #3 card closest to him. Sally wants to outbid Jim and therefore places 4 of her $ chips on the edge of the Program #3 card closest to her (Jim leaves his bid alone for now). Bob is happy with the way things are going and passes. Jim now takes back his losing bid and can either pass or place another bid. Let's say he decides to bid $2 on Program #1. Sally passes. Bob, still happy, also passes. Jim can now end the bidding with a pass, or he an outbid either Bob or Sally. Technically he could up his own bid, but that probably won't happen very often.

Once bidding on the Starting Lineup is over players place their Programs one at a time in their 10 alotted time slots, following the rules for Movement and Placement of Programs (below). Once all Programs have been placed, fill vacant days with the Placeholder cards so everyone can tell which Programs run on which days. Remember, the time slots correspond to days of the week: two consecutive 1/2 hour time slots per day, Monday through Friday. Note that some Programs are indicated as 1-hr. These are printed sideways and take up both time slots on a given day.

Begin Play:

Play begins with Player 1 at the beginning of Monday and continues through a series of rounds called Weeks.

A Week consists of five Days (Monday through Friday).

A Day consists of the following:

* The player with the most Victory Points becomes Player 1 for the day. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most money becomes Player 1. In case of a further tie, the tied player closest to the right of the current Player 1 becomes the new Player 1 for the day.

* Each Player in turn (beginning with Player 1 and continuing clockwise) may take up to two actions as defined below under Actions.

* Player 1 rolls the 2 sets of dice. Each pair of dice produces a number which is used to check for hits.

* Programs on the current day are checked for Hits.

* Actions that occur on Hits are resolved (Programs receive Ratings Counters and players collect Ad Revenue).

* Players score points based on the Genres and Genre Levels of their Programs- See Scoring below.

* Check Durations of all cards in play and discard any that have reached their Duration. Modifiers and Advertisements on Programs are checked at the end of the day their Program is on, Events are checked at the end of EACH day.

After turns have progressed through Friday the week is over. Before the next week begins there is some Week End business to attend to.

* Discard any cards in play with Duration: End of Week

* Roll to see which Programs (if any) Jump the Shark (see Jumping the Shark)

* Supplemental Auction- 1 Round of bidding for new Programs. [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Jumping the Shark:

As Programs become popular it becomes more and more likely that they will Jump the Shark. This is a term named after an episode of Happy Days when the Fonze jumped his motorcycle over a shark, which is generally considered to be the point at which the show started to go downhill (see www.jumptheshark.com). At each week's end, players roll a die for each of their Programs. If the roll is LESS THAN the number of Ratings Counters on the chosen Program, then that Program has Jumped the Shark. Remove all Ratings Counters from that program.

Supplemental Auctions: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

New Programs become available for auction, ONE PER PLAYER (so in a three player game, 3 new Programs are revealed). Bidding on this Supplemental Auction is identical to the process used in The Starting Lineup. There is only one round in the Supplemental Auction. Players place and move Programs in the same order as bidding, and according to the rules for Moving and Placing Programs (below). Play then continues on Monday. The next section is a description of each step of the day listed above.

Moving and Placing Programs:

Managing your Programs and Time Slots is key to victory, but moving Programs means losing viewers. Any time a Program changes Time Slots for any reason, remove a Ratings Counter from it. If there are no Ratings Counters on the Program then ignore this rule (noone appears to be watching it anyway).

Whenever one or more players have Programs to place (we'll call that "in their hand"), players take turns PLACING a Program in an open time slot; BUMPING a Program at the cost of $1 (any Ads on such a Program are discarded and a Ratings Counter is removed) - a bumped program goes into the player's hand; or Passing. Players may not pass if they hold any Programs in their hand. Moving and Placing ends when all players have passed in succession.

Steps of the Day:

Pass Player 1:

The player with the most Victory Points becomes Player 1 for the day. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most money becomes Player 1. In case of a further tie, the tied player closest to the right of the current Player 1 becomes the new Player 1 for the day.

Player Actions:

Players are allowed to take up to two actions during their turn. Each action can be any of the following:

* Play a card from hand.

* Refill hand from the Play deck.

* Fundraising.

Play a card from hand:

Play an Ad, Event, or Modifier card from your hand. Pay any associated costs (printed on card) and put the card into play or follow it's instructions as appropriate. Since Programs have limited Ad Slots (1 Slot for a 1/2-Hr Program, 2 Slots for a 1-Hr Program), an Ad may be replaced when a new Ad is played. Discard the old Ad.

Refill hand from the Play deck:

Hand size in 8/7 Central is 5 cards. When taking this action a player may discard any number of cards before refilling their hand (to 5 cards) from the Play deck. The first card can be discarded for free, but the player must pay $1 per card discarded this way after the first.

Fundraising:

Discard a card from your hand and collect $2 from the bank.

Roll dice:

Viewership is determined by a roll of the dice each day. The probability of rolling a particular number on two 6-sided dice represents the expected viewership of a Program. The more viewable or popular a Program is, the better (or more) Hit#'s it will have. A total pip number [or pie chart] below the Hit#'s serves as a graphical representation of the Expected Popularity (or hit probability) for the Program. This number represents the chance (out of 36) that the Program will be Viewed.

After each player has taken their Actions, Player 1 rolls the 2 pairs of dice. Each pair results in a number which is used to check for hits.

Programs on the current day are checked for Hits:

Programs each have Hit#'s printed on them. These numbers represent how likely the Program is to be viewed. When the dice are rolled check each Program on the current day. If either or both of the resulting numbers matches one of a Program's Hit#'s then the Program is considered to have been viewed. Represent this by placing a Ratings Counter on the Program. While the Hit#'s represent the EXPECTED relative viewership of a Program, the number of Ratings Counters represents the ACTUAL viewership. Remember, only Programs in the current Day's time slots are checked for Hits, and it is not possible for a Program to hit twice in one day.

Actions that occur on Hits are resolved:

Some cards will have actions that occur when a Program is Viewed such as Revenue from advertising. Follow directions on cards to resolve each action. Resolve Player 1's actions first, then other players' in turn order.

Ad Revenue:

Revenue from Advertising is calculated as follows. If there is no Ad attached to the Program, collect no Revenue. If there is an Ad attached to the Program, collect the Ad's Revenue value for each matching ad symbol. EXAMPLE: Station Identification has a Revenue of "1 card". This means that on a hit you draw 1 card per matching Ad Symbol. Station Identification matches categories NECESSITY, CONVENIENCE, and LUXURY. On a Program with both NECESSITY and LUXURY a hit would provide a total of 2 cards, 1 for each matching ad symbol.

Scoring:

Players score victory points for the quality of their Programs. For EACH GENRE, the player with the highest Genre Total (total of Genre Level plus Ratings Counters for all Programs on the current day) scores a Victory Point. Note that two 1/2 hour Programs on the same day that share a Genre BOTH contribute to the Genre Total. The winner of the game is the player that collects the most Victory points before the game ends.

SCORING EXAMPLE: I have a News-4, Comedy-3 Program with 2 Ratings Counters on it, and I have a Niche-5 Program with 1 Ratings Counter on it. You have a 1-Hr Drama-3, Comedy-4, Niche-4 Program with 2 Ratings Counters on it. At the end of that day I would score 1 VP for my News Program (you aren't competing) and you would score 1 for Drama (no competition) and 1 for Comedy (you have Comedy-6 total, I have Comedy-5). We each score for Niche because we both have Niche-6....

Winning the Game:

The game ends at the end of the final week. The player who has collected the most Victory Points by that time is declared the winner.

Living in the past?

I actually haven't been living in the past for once - but in some respects I wish I were. In particular, I'd really like to revive and "finish" an old game design... well, I'd love to revive and finish several old game designs, but right this minute I'm thinking of one game in particular...

I've always been interested in game design, I just didn't always know it. The first game I really worked on with any kind of success was an idea by a friend of mine about competing television networks. The idea was sort of like Magic, where your TV shows are the creatures, facing off against each other each day (for a very loose description). Mohan had this idea for some time, and he told me about it one random Thursday when he was in town for the summer. At the time he didn't really have any plans on how the game would work, just an idea of the general scheme of the game. All weekend I could think of nothing else, and on Monday he was at my house again, I described in great detail how I thought the game could work. I'd dreamed up an entire game's worth of mechanics based largely on what he'd described to me the other day, and my experience with Magic.

The game was called 8/7 central, and Mohan and I worked on it all summer. It changed tremendously from one iteration to the next, and by the end of the summer we had a prototype of a game that certainly worked - though I think we both thought it could be better. Mohan went back to school, but I kept working on the game and corresponding with him about it. I posted about it on the Board Game Designers Forum - it was one of the first games in the Game Design Workshop over there.

After some time though, things sort of stopped. That was all several years ago now, and once or twice I stumbled across old cards and brought the design back to life, but those times were short lived, and he game has been relegated to the back burner ever since.

When I visited Mohan in Seattle last month, we mentioned the possibility of reviving 8/7 Central and thinking about "finishing" it and maybe trying to get it published. Since Jackson Pope at Reiver is looking for a card game or something cheap to produce, I got to thinking about 8/7 Central again... I suppose now is as good a time as any to revive the game. So I sent Jack a short description of the game, and if he thinks it's interesting then I'll be hitting up Mohan to think about the game again.

I just re-read the rules and remembered a significant change I thought of the last time I'd looked at it*. I remember being unhappy with certain rules**, but I'm sure with a little thought and some testing those can be ironed out in no time.

So watch for some posts about this, my first ever "real" game design prospect that I seem to have avoided posting about thus far...

* There is a deck of cards in the game that is 50% Ads and 50% Events/Modifiers. This can lead to getting a draw of too few or too many ads. The brilliant idea to fix that is to allow ANY card to be an Ad - just play it upside down. Then the deck doesn't have to have any regular ads in it - maybe just a few special or better ones.

** In particular the rules for moving programs, as well as perhaps the auction for programs, though I kind of like that, as it's a somewhat unusual auction mechanism.