Packing for BGG.con - What are you bringing?

I just packed up a backpack with some games to take to BGG.con with me this week. Plane leaves Tuesday, T-minus 36 hours!

I don't like to bring published games to conventions - other people have published games - con libraries are full of them. Bgg.con in particular has a Hot Games room, which is where most of the game I'll want to play will probably be located anyway. What people won't have is prototypes... not my prototypes anyway. That's why I like to bring the games I'm working on.

So here's what's in my backpack right now:

Odysseus: Winds of Fate is an old favorite design, and one I feel has real potential, but that I never was able to "finish." I brought it up at Sasquatch last week in conversation with David Chott, and it made me realize how long it's been since I've even thought about the game. David thought it sounded interesting, so I've dusted it off to bring to Dallas with me. I recall wanting to make certain changes for a new version, but I don't believe I've done that yet - so if we play it it'll have to be with the old version.

EmDice, my dice game based on Eminent Domain is probably as done as it's going to get. I rebuilt the prototype recently (following the unfortunate robbery of my prototype bag). I haven't played it in a while, but if anyone's interested, I'll have it with me in Dallas.

And of course I'm bringing EmDo with Escalation, it's no longer a prototype, but the ship bearing the production copies of Escalation doesn't arrive for another week, so my advance copy may interest some EmDo fans :)

Belfort: the Expansion expansion is on that same boat, so I'm bringing that with me as well. It'll require a copy of Belfort from the library though, because I'm not schlepping one of those with me!

Rockin Roll, a dice game follow up to Dungeon Roll, is getting closer to finished, but still isn't quite there yet. I'll have the current version with me, and I'll be looking for opinions on what to change (I already have some changes I'm considering)

I've got a current prototype of KoAaS: World Fair expansion, in case anybody wants to see what's coming up for that game in 2014.

MicroCiv, my newest idea - an attempt at a "microgame," with just 16 cards and 15 tokens, this 2 player civ game seems to be working out so far. I'm hoping to find out if people like it or not.

Battlecruiser, by Philip DuBerry, is a card game that plays like a microgame, but with a lot of variability from an abundance of different cards (of which you only use 5-8 per game).

And finally, I've got a prototype of Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages, my bluff auction set collection game which I'm happy to say has been picked up by a european publisher :)

So, what are you bringing to BGG.con this week?

Belfort: The Expansion Expansion

As you may already know, TMG is finally coming out with the first full expansion to Belfort. The expansion features Assistants and Expansions, and is called Belfort: The Expansion Expansion.

The Expansion Expansion is on Kickstarter right now, and in the first 2 days it has garnered the support of 600 backers, to the tune of $18,570! I never cease to be amazed by the support of the TMG fan base. The minimum funding goal is set at $20,000 but to include all the realistic stretch goals will take $50,000 or $70,000. I am not sure if we'll make that or not, but if the project goes crazy and reaches $100,000, then there will be some surprise "bling" added for everybody! It hasn't been announced what this "bling" might be, and I'm not sure it will be even if we make that goal... but rest assured it'll be something cool. I'll be surprised if we reach $100,000 with this project anyway.

One nice thing about running a Kickstarter project for an expansion, as Michael points out in this blog post on BGG, is that it renews interest in the base game. I've seen more traffic on the Belfort forums in the last couple of days, and over 100 copies of the base game have been ordered through the expansion kickstarter (via "combo packs" - both the base game and the expansion for $65 - a decent discount!).

In the spirit of revisiting the base game, I dug up this old Under the Hood blog post about Belfort. I wrote this about a year ago, but now that people are revisiting the game, or discovering it for the first time, it seems prudent to revisit that post as well.

Belfort is a strong title, which has proven to be popular amongst the TMG fan base. It's a eurogame of the type I enjoy, and I put a lot of work into it along with designers Jay and Sen. I think it's safe to say we're all very proud of the final version of the game, and we all had a great time putting together an expansion for such a great game as well.

For those interested, Jay and Sen wrote up a designer diary for the expansion on their blog. Check it out, and if it sounds interesting to you, then visit the Kickstarter page and see if Belfort: The Expansion Expansion is something you'd like to support.

Expand Belfort!

P.S. Some notable features about this kickstarter project:

* 17 day duration: Another "quickstarter" - we won't be begging for your spare change for 6 weeks!
* No gameplay-related stretch goals - we designed a full expansion, and that's what you'll get, no matter the funding level.
* Belfort Comic!?! - there exists an online comic by artist Rob Lundy about Belfort. If we reach $35,000 in funding, each copy of the expansion will come with a physical copy of that comic!

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!

TMG is rocking and rolling this year

I got word that inside the latest issue of Buyer's Guide/GAMES 100, Belfort, Village, and Martian Dice have been listed among their picks for the best games of the year!

In addition, Tasty Minstrel Games has some games nominated for Golden Geek awards over at BGG:
* For The Win is up for Abstract Game
* Belfort is up for Art/Presentation and Strategy game
* Eminent Domain is up for Card Game
* Martian Dice is up for Children's Game and Party Game
* Village is up for Family Game, Strategy Game, and Innovative Game
* Train of Thought is up for Party Game

Way to go TMG! Take a look and cast your votes!

KublaCon 2012 - Here I come!

I stayed up all night preparing a full art prototype copy of Ground Floor to bring with me to KublaCon today. If you're going to be at the convention and you would like to try out the game before deciding to pledge for a copy, find me and we'll make it happen!

I'm also bring my prototypes for the following upcoming TMG games:
* Belfort : the Expansion Expansion
* Eminent Domain: Escalation
* Kings of Air and Steam
* Titans of Industry - NOT Titans of Industry! I guess we need a new title for this one :(
* Alter Ego

As well as a couple old standbys that may or may not be upcoming TMG releases (at the moment they are not officially "on the list," but they may be soon):
* Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages
* Dice Works
* Wizard's Tower

I've been known to bring more than this in the past, but this is it this time. Unless you count Brain Freeze on my iPad :)

I posted a geeklist of stuff I might like to play, but it's pretty half-hearted this time, including mostly those prototypes I am bringing. I just want to hang out with people and play something fun, I don't even know what. I would like to play Trajan though. And of course I intend to show Ground Floor to people and encourage them to pledge on Kickstarter. David and I even made business cards with a URL and a QR code leading to the KS page for Ground Floor - they look awesome!

I'll also be promoting RinCon while I'm there - which really just means mentioning it, and potentially handing out some flyers we made.

T-minus 6 hours and counting!

Under the Hood: Belfort

"Under the Hood" is a series of strategy articles about the inner workings of games developed for Tasty Minstrel Games. Watch for these posts a couple months after the release of the game so that players have a chance to explore the game for themselves first!

Under the Hood: Belfort

Belfort is a game with a jovial and lighthearted theme – as a Master Architect, you direct a workforce of fantasy characters who toil to erect buildings which make up the city of Belfort. But don’t be deceived by the cute elves, dwarves, and gnomes on the box! Belfort is a heavy game of resource management, area control, and strategy!

Large vs small workforce
Like many worker placement games, Belfort rewards players for increasing their workforce. While it’s possible to win without your full complement of Elves and Dwarves, it’s very difficult if you don’t at least hire 1 or 2 more workers. With no upkeep cost, the only real down-side to hiring is the upfront cost – a placement and 2 Gold to go to the HR Department. After a point, the return on that investment diminishes – if you hire a Dwarf in round 4 for example, he’ll only provide 3 placements before the game is over. A round 4 Dwarf will pay for itself, and may contribute to resource majorities and points, but it’s nowhere near as useful as a turn 1 Dwarf! And while a turn 1 Dwarf is awesome, it does cost a significant portion of your starting capital. So be sure to hire when the opportunity arises and you can afford it, but also make sure you’ll get your money’s worth out of your new employee!

Gardens and Pubs are good Properties when working with a small workforce. They are inexpensive, they increase your income, and by turning a worker into a Master, they allow you to increase your resource gathering ability.

Income generation vs Taxes
There are 3 types of buildings in Belfort – Properties, Guilds, and Walls. Properties have a wide range of cost and effects. Guilds are expensive, but do not require a card – meaning you can build them in whichever district you want. They provide income when used, and that income comes at an interesting time: during the Placement phase. Walls are moderately priced, but provide no income at all, making them very poor choices in the early game. The strength of a wall is in the late game, when you know which district you’d like to build in, but do not have the correct card to build there.

Deciding which Property to build is one of the interesting things you’ll do in a game of Belfort. You’ll want to consider the ability – would you like to use many building powers and fight for Gnome majority? Maybe the Tower is a good choice – but you should also consider the income of the Property. The Inn is a good building for expanding your workforce, but with no income it can really hurt when tax time comes around. The Keep is expensive and only good for scoring, but it does give 1 gold income as well.

If you can produce more income from buildings than you are paying in taxes, then you’ll have a lot more gold to spend on things like Gnomes and Guilds!

Majority scoring
It’s easy to forget while building properties and collecting resources that you only score for 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd majorities in each district. Placing additional ownership markers in a district where you’re already way ahead may be a waste of resources! Also, keep in mind when hiring new workers that there are points to be had for controlling the most Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes.

One more note about area majority scoring – it’s better to score 2^nd place in two districts than it is to score 1^st place in one!

Belfort has another area majority mechanism in addition to scoring – bonus resources from the Forest, Quarry, and Mines. Being the last player to pass gives you the advantage of seeing where other players have sent their workers, but every placement spent stalling means 1 fewer worker to send for resources. Earn majority bonuses where you can, but make sure you’re getting the resources you need to build this turn, and don’t forget about your taxes!

King’s Camp
Turn order in Belfort is unusual – it doesn’t change unless you go to the King’s Camp and change it. And when you do that, you get to CHOOSE your turn order. It can be advantageous to go first for the best worker placement choices next round, but that can also make you a target for another player to take your turn order crest. You could choose to go 2^nd, hoping that a future player will choose to take the turn order crest from player 1 rather than you, while still getting an early placement order. You could even choose to go last, which is especially strong in a scoring round so you can see where other payers have placed their ownership markers. However, going last runs the risk of the spots where you’d like to place drying up.

Some guilds, such as the Thieves’ Guild and the Bandits’ Guild, make the King’s camp a much more important consideration, so it’s important to look at what guilds are in play when you decide how you want to deal with turn order. Maybe a trip to the King’s Camp is the right play!

EmDo and Belfort are going strong!

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! :)

Tasty Minstel Games - A Retrospective So Far

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!
  

TMG Game reviews are online!

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 :)

Tasty Minstrel goings on

Tasty Minstrel is working hard to get this year's games finished this year. Due to some scheduling mishaps, Belfort will not be ready in time for BGG.con, but there are some nice art samples up of the board and card art! Josh Cappel is once again doing a fabulous job making the game come alive.

Even if Belfort isn't ready in time, we are hopeful that we'll have at least demo copies if not copies to sell of both Train of Thought and JAB: Realtime Boxing! Both of these are different sorts of games - different from each other, and different from Terra Prime and Homesteaders.

JAB: Realtime Boxing is a real time card game for 2 players which simulates a boxing match. Since it's real time, there are no turns - you are free to play your Punch cards at your own pace - and you may be surprised at how much strategy is involved! It's really the closest thing you'll get to actual boxing without getting punched in the face ;)

The Rulebook for JAB is online, please check it out and then fill out the survey so that anything unclear can be fixed before it goes to press!

Pretty soon (within a week, I hope) the rules for Train of Thought will be online as well, and along with them another survey regarding clarity. To tide you over, here's the current version of the back of box blub:

All aboard! This party game challenges you to stay on track. Score points by giving clues and guesses against the clock as you and your friends ride the Train of Thought!

Don't be alarmed, while these games are a different style than Homesteaders and Terra Prime, we're still bringing you more strategy board games (such as Belfort) as well! We're looking forward to bringing these games to our fans, and here's a sneak peak at stuff to come in the near future:

Eminent Domain, by Seth Jaffee: A civilization building game in which your civilization's abilities are based on a deck of Role cards. At the beginning of the game each player has the same deck of cards, with just 2 cards for each Role in it. Every turn you must choose a Role to execute (and like Glory to Rome or Puerto Rico, your opponents will get a chance to follow suit), and in doing so you will add one of those Role cards to your deck. When executing a Role, you can boost it's effect by playing cards out of your hand matching the Role you have chosen. So for example, the more you Research, the better you get at Researching (because you'll have more Research cards in your deck).

For The Win!, by Michael Eskue: A strategic game for 2-4 players that’s easy to learn but a challenge to master. Budget your 5 actions each round; Placing, Moving, Shoving, Using or Refreshing your tiles. Group your Ninja, Pirate, Monkey, Zombie and Alien together for the WIN!

No Honor Among Thieves, by Richard James: A game of greed and double-think.

King's Kilt, by Gordon Hamilton: A card game of backstabbing and climbing the social ladder in a power struggle for the Scottish crown.

Recent playtesting: Ground Floor, Eminent Domain, Belfort, and All For One

I've gotten a lot of playtesting done lately, which is great! I've been able to play several games each of several different prototypes. In no particular order...

Ground Floor
In the last game of Ground Floor I tried a few of the new tweaks I've been talking about:
Remodeling (for $5,i5) allowed at any time, not just at the end of a round
I'm not sure how much this will really get used, but it's certainly better than having to wait for the end of the round. I believe it was used twice this game. I think it's a keeper! I do wonder if ($5,i5) is too expansive for a remodel - mathematically it's not too much, but realistically I think it might get used more if it were ($4,i4). The question is whether that's "too good" or not. It would certainly be the thing to do at the end of the game - rather than pay ($3,i3) for a VP players would sooner remodel their rooms. Maybe that's OK though, as you only have so may rooms to remodel.

I'm probably full of crap - ($5,i5) is a fine cost - especially considering one of the other tweaks...

Boosts based on Popularity
David and I settled on some specific little boosts, chosen in Popularity order at the end of the round, like Age of Steam has. We decided to have 5 choices, and the least popular player in the game doesn't get one. You can choose between:
Temporary Employee: +(') next round
Money: +$2 ("Petty Cash"?)
Info: +i2
Supply: +1 Supply
Remodel Discount: ($1,i1)

The Remodel discount could be applied more than once in a turn, so that reward could be worth a bit more than the others if you set yourself up for it. Other than that, they're all worth about the same, but depending on your situation at that point in the game you might really rather have the $2 than the i2.

The point of this is to make Marketing more important, and in that I am not sure it's successful. I guess we were spending more time and money on Marketing, but then we were getting a little more [something] back in return... so what's the difference, really? Getting the rewards is kinda fun, and it helps differentiate people's income a bit, but I wonder if it's really worth the effort. It does take some time to deal with, and just 1 more thing to think about both when placing Time units (do I try and get popularity?) and when choosing the reward (should I take the supply, or do I need a little extra Info to do what I want to do next turn?). I expect it to add 15+ minutes to the game length all told, and that's the opposite of what I was trying to do (which was reduce the game length).

There were some questions such as when exactly do you get the boost. We did it at the end of the turn, after dropping popularity (should be before though - especially considering the "No Drop" TI). It worked fine, and people liked it, but I'm not sure I liked all that much. Maybe it helps give people a little income boost (customizable), which might help make up for the weakening of the Phase I TIs - but I think it will add a significant amount of time to the game. It's a decision point, and you don't always know just what you want. In Age of Steam it works better because it's a bigger portion of the game - in Ground Floor it's just "a little more income" and so I don't know if it's worth the extra effort or not. I guess we should try it a few more times and see how it goes, and how much time it takes.

Starting job market
Starting with the option of hiring an employee (at $5,i5) seemed a little overwhelming to me. It was certainly an interesting thing to consider, but I found myself missing the succinctness of the first turn where you had like 2 good options - either you buy a TI, or you start investing in income with Production and Consulting. This time I also had to consider Marketing, and hiring an employee... I felt like this bogged down the first turn more than it served to jump start the game. I would like to try it again, but I'm skeptical that I'll love it.

Hiring prices
For a 7 round game at least, I think the hiring prices should shift down a notch to 2/3/3/4/4/5/6/X and maybe the marker should start the game on the 5. This should make them a little cheaper so that they more likely pay off over the course of a shorter game, and get them in play sooner to jump start the game a little. Honestly though, I think I liked it when you couldn't hire in the first turn, it focused your first turn onto fewer options, which felt less overwhelming and kind of made the first turn go faster. Thematically it makes sense too that you're not hiring right out of the gate. So I'd also like to consider the cheaper track mentioned above, with the marker starting on X, so that you're hiring people on the 2nd and 3rd turn (and they're cheaper so they pay off better/sooner) rather than turns 1 and 2. But maybe it's OK to have a first turn option of hiring an employee. this would be especially attractive to the player with the Training specialty.

Merchandising price adjustment
I found the Merchandising price adjustment based on the economy to be too fiddly and annoying, and totally not worth it. Though it sounds neat to have the economy affect the price - the price brackets already sort of do that. I don't think I even want to try that change again.

Nerfed Phase 1 TIs
I'd have to try it again, but the weakened Phase I TIs seem so weak! The stronger versions really jump started the game more... the potential down side is that maybe noone ever buys a floor or TI in the first Phase over hiring or saving money for the better Phase 2 stuff. Needs more testing to see if that happens.

Belfort
We played 4p Belfort with Moneylender, Library, New Bandit, New Spy, and Recruiter guilds. I think the new spy ought to be 2 cards (everyone reveals 1, spy takes 2 of those) instead of just 1. The new Bandit's guild is a less directly interactive guild - instead of stealing resources from players, you get to choose Wood or Stone, collect 5 of it from the supply, then you have to give 1 to each of 2 opponents. New Bandit seemed OK... I personally thought it was boring. I suspect the point leaders will not get the freebie resources and the point trailers will, and I guess that held true. Often the freebies were given to players who had already taken their Action phase, so they couldn't use them that turn. Not sure how much difference that makes in the general case though. It felt more like a Resource guild than an Interactive guild. Not BAD, just not a game changer at all.

I'm not against including these various guilds, but I think I'm leaning toward leaving the old "mean" Thieves and Bandits guilds in as a standard. Maybe the setup for your first game should tell players to use the Spy or Wizards guild rather than the Thief or Bandits.

Otherwise, the game was great!

All For One
Playing All For One was nice, but it really just served to remind me how annoyed I am that all of my balanced and tweaked Mission cards and board layout have disappeared. I guess at some point I'll just have to go through it all again and re-tweak and re-fix everything, maybe it'll approximate what I had before that I was happy with. Let this be a lesson to all would-be game designers: Use computer files and keep them up to date (rather than hand changes on components), especially if you're sending the game off to submit to a publisher or something. More than once now I've lost prototypes or parts of prototypes as a result of submitting them.

Eminent Domain
I played a couple of 2 player games of Eminent Domain with Tyler last Sunday, and a 4 player game on Monday as well. I implemented the "combine Trade and Harvest into 1 card" idea and it seemed to work fine. In retrospect it really seems like that matches the power level (point-getting potential) of Colonizing and Warfare, with a higher top end - which is OK because it's limited by your capacity so it's really hard to reach that high end. When reducing to 5 actions though I put Warfare cards back in the starting deck because I like a hand size of 5 and a starting deck of 10 cards. I liked it better when you didn't start with Warfare though, so I wanted to replace it in the starting deck with something else. I thought about adding another Role to the game, perhaps Politics... but I couldn't think offhand of what it might do - then I thought hey, it could be a sort of wild... no action, but boosts all Roles. So I made 8 of those cards (1 for each starting deck) before we played on Monday. It was an interesting idea but ultimately didn't solve my problem because you still effectively had Warfare cards in your deck! I was going to try removing the Warfare symbol from the Politics cards, meaning you simply can't use them to boost Warfare, but I think I've got a better idea - they should have an action, but not boost any Role. In thinking of what that action might be, I came up with "Take any 1 Role card into your hand," making it still kind of a Wild boost (because you can take a card for the Role you're about to choose), but it costs you your action for the turn, and it puts a card in your deck.

Here are some tweaks and changes I want to try for Eminent Domain:
1. Try multiple pile exhaust as end game trigger (try 2 piles)
2. Make 1 Technology card into this: Action: Place up to 2 Colonies on any 1 planet. Or maybe Play 2 Colonize cards as actions (so you could add then flip, or add to 2 different planets). Maybe make it "Up to 3" since you have to have them in your hand. These would probably be the level 1 X/Colonize techs
3. Remove Warfare from Politics cards.
4. Reconsider Politics cards - maybe only an action and no boosts... where the Action is...
- Take any Role card into hand (which makes it effectively wild, but it uses up your action and fills your deck with that role) <- I think I like this.
- Reveal the top 2 (3?) cards from your deck, you can use symbols on those cards to boost your Role this turn
- Something else?
5. Specify on Harvest/Trade cards...
- Action: Produce 1 Resource OR Trade 1 Resource for 1 VP.
- ROLE: Produce 1 Resources per Harvest symbol OR Trade 1 Resource per Trade symbol for 1 VP each. (not 2vp anymore)
- FOLLOW: Produce 1 Resources per Harvest symbol OR Trade 1 Resource per Trade symbol for 1 VP each. (not 2vp anymore)

Playtest night!

Last night I had a Tasty Minstrel Playtest night, and about 10 people came over to play Belfort, Ground Floor, and another prototype that was sent to me... I had intended to play Train of Thought (with slightly different rules) but it didn't work out that way.

Train of Thought - new rule:
Train of Thought is a great game, and the only complaint I have about it is the possibility for a player to shortcut the rules and subvert the game by structuring their 3 word clue as follows:

Say the required word, then give a completely unrelated 2-word clue
Last post I said "I'm not sure there's any way to fix the rule, but maybe a simple thing like phrasing the rule as "3 related words, 1 of which is the starting word or a prior guess" - so the words could be related by being part of a sentence, or by free association even, but the unrelated 2-word clue would be clearly outside the spirit of the rule.

I wonder if the game should be tested with merely 2 word clues - one of which has to be the starting word. That would certainly eliminate this issue!"

Until now I've been of the opinion that forbidding this "cheating" type behavior would be bad, because some people have had problems being able to come up with a 3 word "sentence." I don't want to tell potential players "Sorry, you're just not creative enough to play this game. Go play something else!" However after OrcCon's playtest I would really like to try that 2-word clue idea, it sounds better and better all the time.

I had intended to test that last night, but the way things happened it didn't work out that way. Jay and Sen, designers of ToT and Belfort, are meeting this week and promise to try it out and let me know what they think. I should be able to give it a try later this week as well.

Belfort:
I ran a 5 player game of Belfort, using one of the guilds I'd changed but not used yet. I chose for the interactive guild the Spies Guild, which reads as follows:
Each opponent discards 1 Property card. you may take one card discarded this way into your hand.
The original Spies guild was "Look at 1 player's hand and steal one of their cards." I didn't like that very much, and thought this modified one would be better. As it turns out however, I didn't consider what would happen as soon as players ran out of cards (due to playing cards and being Spied on)! It was extremely difficult to ever build another building because if you buy a card during your turn, it will very likely no longer be in your hand by the time you would be able to play it.

This was a very interesting situation, and the purpose of the Guilds (especially the Interactive Guilds) is to change the game a lot so it's different every time... but in this case, no matter how interesting int might have been, all 5 players did not like it. They all seemed to like the game, but they all thought that guild was broken, and that it broke the game. I have an easy fix though, which I still think is better than the original guild... instead of discarding, each player should reveal a card from their hand, and the spy can steal 1 (maybe 2?) of them. That will keep the parts I wanted, without causing the game to lock up. John suggested a corollary: that you cannot steal a player's last card. I'm not sure if I like that or not. I think if the Spies Guild is in play, you probably want to keep your hand well stocked with cards by buying them frequently and by trying to get and build a Library - I think that would be a good effect for that guild to have on the game.

The Belfort game only took 2 hours and 15 minutes, including rules explanation - which is pretty good! However I think that's in part because there were a lot of turns when nobody could really do anything, so that might have sped some things up.

Sebastian's Prototype:
I don't know how much I should say about another designer's prototype (which is currently being reviewed by a publisher), so I won't be specific at all. I printed out the stuff and made a copy of Sebastian's game the other day, and Sunday night I was able to play a 4 player game of it. It went OK, and I communicated my biggest concerns to Sebastian that night. Last night we played a 5 player game, and it didn't go nearly as well. Too chaotic, not enough actions/turns to do anything, and a problem we had with the 4 player game got exacerbated in the 5p game. I sent our comments to Sebastian, hopefully he'll find them helpful. I'm afraid that game simply isn't a 5 player game.

Ground Floor
We ended the evening with a 4 player game of Ground Floor - modified down to 7 rounds. I was hoping this would shorten up the game length (on the clock) without really impacting the feeling of getting stuff done. We also implemented a number of tweaks to the T.I.s based on a lot of analysis and thought (as chronicled in my prior posts).

The long and short of it was that while I liked the shorter game, David was less convinced. I went with the complete opposite strategy from last time - I hired NO employees, just got an Internship Program first turn, bought all of the 'drip income' floors (Network Admin for i3, I.T. Dept for i4, and Investor for $3), and made do with my $12 and i7 income each turn. I used my 6 (')s fairly effectively in Merchandising and at the Consulting Firm in order to make some good money and info when the economy was up. I was able to churn out floor after floor, and finished in the lead by about 10 points (a huge margin). I'm not entirely sure why I was able to do so well, but we attributed it to a couple of things:

1. I was playing like the game was going to be over in 7 rounds... it's possible other players were playing as they would have if the game still lasted 9 rounds.

2. I started with the Meeting specialty, which has already been shown to be "too good." I used it about 2x as much as "average" (the numbers I based the balancing on in the previous post) and therefore gained probably 8-12 extra units worth of stuff compared to other players.

3. The Internship Program, Network Admin, and Human Resources are demonstrably better than most of the other Floors and T.I.s out there. They are nicely balanced against each other, but it's highly possible that all three of them are too powerful. I had 2 of these from turns 1 and 2, while other players had 1 or none of them.

4. It's possible the I.T. department yields too much info, but I'm skeptical about that because it's just info - as Eric pointed out after his last test, there's no way to turn info into money (well, not directly) but there are ways to turn money or Supply into Info. Thus there's a diminishing return to getting a lot of info, in that you need a lot of money to use it all. I might want to reduce IT Dept to i3 to match the Investor's $3, but I kinda like the asymmetry.

Other than that, I just played a pretty good game - the couple mistakes I made were minor, and I had some advantages from my buildings that were a little too good. David got Human Resources, went the Employee route, and got Construction Administration (also under-costed for its ability), but he didn't get it until late game and only got to use it twice. I am still surprised I finished that far ahead of him.

After the game, Tyler and I looked at the possibility of buying the following buildings, which you could do without ever placing a (') anywhere except on your ground floor meeting room (even un-remodeled) and the Construction Company (and one time on Research and Testing to sell your starting cube)...
Turn 1: Network Admin
Turn 2: Internship Program
Turn 3: Construction Admin
Turn 4: IT Dept
Turn 5: Investor
Turn 6: Executive Bonus Floor
Turn 7: Either one of the +3 Bonus Floors, or 2 T.I.s (one of them the Bonus T.I.)

That adds up to 38-40 points (depending on what the Bonus T.I. is worth - we're knocking it down a few points to start). It's worth noting that this completely boring strategy is NOT a winning score! I managed 45 points in yesterday's game - though this 38 points would have beat all the other players. That just illustrated how the Construction Admin and/or Network Admin and Internship are too good.

David made a good point - while it's nice to see a competitive strategy wherein you don't have to hire a single employee, David does not want that to be a winning strategy. A player winning this game should have to have employed at least 1 person, that's his view. And I can get behind that, because the game is about growing your business - not NOT growing your business.

Floor and T.I. tweaks
The resulting tweaks are as follows:
Remodeled Meeting: (')('): i3 (not ('): i2)
Network Admin: i2 instead of i3
Human Resources: discount of $2, i2 (not $3,i3)
Internship: (') (not (')('))
Construction Admin: (')(')(')(') to activate (not (')(')(')) <- mathematically this is right, but with (') limits I'm not sure it's such a good idea*. Another option is to leave the activation at (')(')('), but move the floor back to phase III - then it would be mathematically sound, and might be just the right time to buy it (round 5, in time to help you afford your last 2 floors)

* Alternate idea - rather than make the Construction Admin worse, what about boosting ALL the floors to be worth as much as CA? Then anything you buy instead will net you just as much... Not sure that helps though, because one issue we don't want to see is players becoming completely self sufficient - the Street is supposed to be better than even your good floors.

Other building tweaks which are unrelated to that power discussion...
Marketing: move to Phase 2. This one might be undercosted, but since the benefit is indirect maybe that's OK? I guess we'll see if it gets used now. Makes sense though - no need for much advertising in the last couple of turns.

Public Relations: Make it a T.I. instead of a Floor - it's simply not being used, a TI would be cheaper and that might see more use.

Warehouse: Cut! It's simply not needed... that prompts another change though...
Production Bonus: +3pp per Supply (not +1). So it's 3 or 6, but for 6 you have to flip your Closet.

Customer Service: New name = Premium Product.

Bonus T.I.: 0pp +1pp/T.I. (not 3pp +1pp/T.I.) <- I'm not sure I like this... I think it needs 1 or 2 pp on it. It's a minor point though. My reasoning is that any player will have 1, maybe 2 T.I.s on their board, so buying this late game will be worth just 3 points - no more than any other T.I., though you could build another one after that (or along with it) and get 1 more point out of it. I guess that's reasonable considering how easy it is to afford a T.I. in the first place. For the price of your 4th Floor ($4,i4 + $10,i10) you could get 2 T.I.s - the Bonus one and 1 other... which is probably 4+3=7pp. your 4th floor if it's a bonus floor is probably worth 7-9pp So I guess it's about right, but I think it could use 1pp on it rather than 0. If that 2 TI turn was your 2nd and 3rd T.I. then you're only getting 6vp, just like buying any other T.I. for the same price as that 4th floor...

Rules tweaks
Like I said, I liked the 7 rounds, David didn't. Tyler mentioned that he felt like there might not be enough time for your Employees to pay off, which is a valid concern. Employees turn $3 (3 units) into 3(') (more than 3 units based on building powers). So an employee is probably worth 6 units a turn (so you're paying 3 to get 6, or netting 3 units a turn). They cost a hefty amount (6, 8, or 10 units). This means to break even, you really have to get that Employee by round 3, any employee after that will be a waste unless you get it cheap, or eke out more than 2 units per (') by doing a good job on the street. Currently you can't really afford an employee until round 3 because they start off so expensive. So one Rules Tweak is to start the Employee track with some employees available (at $5,i5), so the first player, and maybe the second player have an interesting choice - they can actually hire on turn 1, spending almost all their money. Another option is to build a T.I. first turn, also spending all your money. And you're other good options are Production and Consulting.

Another tweak is to help make Remodeling more attractive. We considered reducing the cost to ($4,i4), but I'm not sure that's necessary - is it good for the remodeling to be a better deal than the T.I.s in the late game? Or should people want to get into the Construction company? Instead I think we'll try this: David suggested that maybe you
should be able to do a Remodel any time you want - not just at the end of the turn. I think waiting until the End of Turn to do it introduces an unwelcome lag, and by the time you can make use of your newly remodeled room, you don't really want to anymore. If you could remodel and then use the new room right away, then there would be a lot more reason to do it (this is feasible because you get income AFTER you have to remodel - hence the lag).

David had another idea, that the price become ($4,i4) and the action be done at a standard Ground Floor room which costs (') (... so (')+$4+i4: Remodel a room) - which could also work, but I'm not sure I like it as much as just paying ($5,i5) whenever you want and not having to spend a ('). I think the reason is because you want people to remodel in the early game, and at that point they don't have a lot of (')s to be throwing around.

Popularity tweak
Tyler suggested that the Popularity fight wasn't a big enough deal. I was hesitant to agree, because in just about every game I've played there has been some contention for turn order. Some games more than others of course, and in some games there's the guy who ignores it altogether... which is OK too. Popularity matters for 3 things:
1.) Merchandising sales when supply exceeds demand
2.) Turn order - this is a worker placement game, and at times it's good to go first. however at other time's it may be better to go later in turn order, but not usually.
3.) Endgame tiebreaks - the most popular tied player wins. This may not metter very often though.

Tyler had an idea, that there could be some 'roles' which players would choose in turn order and they would gain that role's benefit for the round. This is very Wallace-esque, just like Age of Steam or Automobile. It's not a terrible idea, and in fact some of the Floors/TIs that are unpopular could easily be made into these Roles. We may try that at some point, but what we're going to try next instead is this, and I'm not positive if I like it or not...

We've attached a little income boost to being more popular. At the base level, where everyone begins, you get nothing extra. Each space above that on the popularity track yields a better item...
i1, i2, $1, $2, $3, Supply, Supply, Supply+$1+i1
Thus there's an incentive to fight for popularity even if you don't want to go first. I'm interested to see how this works. I'd also like to see how a Role Selection type of thing would work (and that could reduce the number of Floors/TIs in the game).

Jackson Pope of Reiver Games posted some interesting stuff in his blog: Board Games - Creation and Play recently.

The linked post is about receiving submissions... Reiver is a small operation, much like Tasty Minstrel Games. Jackson says he's received something like 150 submissions in the last 3 years, and has published 4 games. Tasty Minstrel is just publishing 2 games to start, and they were games that were in the works for a long time, and had been played many many times. Going forward, TMG will be getting a lot of submissions (indeed, I've already received a handful!), some of which will make the cut and some of which will not. Jackson's post was about how to respond to all of these submissions.

I submitted a comment to the linked post basically agreeing with what Jackson had said. There are only different responses possible to a submission: "Yes, we'll publish it," and "No we will not publish it." But it's more complicated than that... the "No" response can be broken down into 3 categories:

1) We're not interested at all.

2) We won't publish as-is, but if you make changes based on our feedback we'd consider it again.

3) We won't publish as-is, but would like to work with you on improving it.

Where my job comes in is (a) deciding which of those 3 responses is appropriate for a submission that we're not going to publish as-is, and (b) if response #3, then I have to work with the designer to make the game better. That's the fun part for me, but it's also difficult to say whether a game will ever be "good enough," and how much work and time it'll take before the game would be considered "good enough."

Tasty Minstrel's next big game Belfort definitely has potential, and I think it's quickly approaching the "good enough" point - but theres still a lot of work to do on it!