2020-2021: A playtesting retrospective

 A couple of years ago I posted a playtesting retrospective spanning late 2017 through the end of 2019, and I thought it as interesting to see the breakdown of time spent on various games, especially while considering the state that I know those games to be in now.

Now it's a couple years later, most of which has been spent in a global pandemic. Let's see what I managed to get playtested in 2020 and 2021...

2020

January
Throughout January, after a break for a Disneyworld vacation, we iterated a few times on the All For One revamp, and I brought Apotheosis back out after 6 months on the shelf.

All For One seemed to be working well, and I remember being pretty excited about the new updates. Unfortunately I haven't played it since, though in the interim I did create a Tabletop Simulator mod for the game, and I've even pitched it to a couple of publishers that way.

Apotheosis progress was coming along, and we ended up playing it a few times a month throughout 2020.

February
In addition to Apotheosis, February saw the debut of an Isle of Trains board game. First we played Dan's first draft version. Then a few weeks later I brought my own take on his concept, which was a lighter, more straightforward game, and we played that a few times.

March
March was weird, because I had to cancel most weekends for my Anniversary, and then a COVID scare. The 1 time we did play, we tested Apotheosis one more time, and enjoyed a published game: Glen More. Beyond that, I did play Apotheosis one more time at home with my wife.

April
Sadly, I had to cancel my weekly playtest meetup indefinitely due to COVID. I didn't test anything at all in April, but I did figure out how to implement prototypes on Tabletop Simulator, starting with Apotheosis.

May
Thanks to the technology of TTS and the internet, I was able to get a test in now and again online. In May we played Apotheosis a couple of times.

We also played the Isle of Trains boardgame once, and I think I've come around to thinking that maybe Dan was on the right track wanting to make a heavier game.

Finally, we played an updated version of Automatown which designer Michael Brown joined in on as a co-designer. He made a TTS mod and we were able to see his updates.

June
I was still getting the hang of making digital prototypes, and getting online playtests together. Unfortunately I didn't get any tests in June at all.

July
In July I pulled couple of older prototypes out of the woodwork. I played Reading Railroad at home with my wife, I played Exhibit online with my testers, and I got together with a designer who had come on board to work on Kilauea with me to check out his ideas for the game.

August

I got an online tests of Reading Railroad in August, as well as a couple games of Crusaders at home with my wife to test new faction powers I was developing.

I had an online pitch meeting for Apotheosis, which seemed promising. The publisher wanted to set the game in their fantasy universe, which was a perfect fit, so Rick and I reskinned the prototype with their art assets.

September

I kicked off the month with another test of the new Crusaders factions with Michelle. 

A few weeks later I had a prototype of a brand new game, Keeping Up With The Joneses, which I played twice with Michelle, and twice solo - and solo testing is something I almost never do!

Online I played one more game of Apotheosis with Rick and Aaron, my two main testers since going digital.

October

October was a busy month for testing, mostly on account of solo testing for Keeping Up With The Joneses - I played 6 solo games in.

I got in three online tests of Keeping Up with the Joneses as well, and three tests of Apotheosis too.

November
I revisited a couple more older games in November via digital prototypes with Rick and Aaron: Exhibit and Dice Works. I also played one of Rick's prototypes called Cwen.

December

We finished off the year with 4 tests of Apotheosis with some significant changes based on playing with the publisher who had showed interest, and the game got better and better.

2021

January
I started out 2021 playing games by a couple of my testers' latest games: Andy's Gemstone Pylons, and Rick's Stardock (later renamed Starlight).

We played Keeping Up With The Joneses once, and Apotheosis twice (once with the publisher)

February
I only had 2 test sessions in February, and we switched gears and played Sails & Sorcery, trying to figure out how to fix the issues with the Plunder action.

March
I didn't test any of my own stuff in March, but I played Rick's Starlight game a couple of times, as well as a skiing game that Andy was working on as a developer.

April
In April I revived another prototype, Deities & Demigods, to reacquaint myself and my players with the game. We also played Exhibit again, then later in the month I had the opportunity to pitch it to a big publisher (unfortunately, they passed on it). 

May
I started off the month with two more pitch meetings: Apotheosis and Keeping Up With The Joneses with one publisher; Riders of the Pony Express, Deities & Demigods, Sails & Sorcery, and Apotheosis with the other.

I played Rick's Starlight once more as well, then missed the rest of my sessions due to a vacation to Hawaii, lack of players, and technical difficulties.

June
Another tough month for playtesting... I had a first test of a new I-Cut-You-Choose game idea (later titled Division of Labor) with Rick, and a pitch meeting for Sails & Sorcery, then missed the rest of my sessions for one reason or another.

July
I got a 2nd test of Division of Labor and found some fundamental issues that would need to be addressed, and finished off the month with 3 tests of another revived prototype, Skye Frontier.

August
Another rough month for test sessions, I only got 1 playtest in: I got a gig developing expansion content for Amun-Re, a classic Eurogame from 20 years ago, and I tested some early content for that with Rick.

The rest of my sessions were canceled, but I did have a pitch meeting for Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (unfortunately that didn't go anywhere)

September
I started September with a solo test of Keeping Up With The Joneses, then spent the rest of the month working on the Amun-Re expansion - 3 live tests, and 6 solo.

October
Six more solo tests and 5 live tests of Amun-Re took up all my testing time in October.

November
One more Amun-Re test in November, then I switched gears to Deities & Demigods because (drum roll please)... it got signed by a publisher! The publisher requested some changes, and I spent November working on those.

December

I finished off the year with 3 more tests of Deities & Demigods iterations as I worked on addressing the publisher's concerns.

The switch to online playtesting was a setback in my playtesting throughput, and it cost me some of my regular testers, but TTS has allowed me to continue testing, and pitching games, through the pandemic, and I've got at least a couple of regular online testers.

I miss testing more, but the good news is that I am finally making a little headway with pitches. Over the course of the pandemic, Isle of Trains got picked up by a new publisher who's going to do the base game as well as the expansion Dan and I made what, 7 years ago now? Deities & Demigods has been picked up, and I got that development gig on Amun-Re. I've had a few meetings recently to try and find a publisher to ick up the EmDo and Crusaders game lines, hopefully one who's willing to pick up the entire line (base game, expansions, and as-yet-unpublished content). No luck with EmDo an Crusaders thus far, but I just had a promising meeting or two about them, so hopefully something will come of that.

Exploration mechanics

Exploration tiles 

I'm adding an exploration mechanism to one of my games, and iterating through a few variations on it has got me thinking about how exploration works. An obvious mechanism is to have face down tiles and flip them up when you get to them. I went this route in my first game, Terra Prime, and it worked alright. In an expansion however I modified that a bit -- set all the tiles face up so you could see where the planets are, then added a face-down exploration tile to each in order to maintain the exploration feel.

Another approach

Another approach though, is drawing multiple tiles to choose from. This could represent preparedness, or luck -- the more tiles you draw to choose from, the more likely you'll find something you like. Some years ago (circa 2007) I suggested this as a variant to the dig mechanism in Thebes, as a way to balance it out a bit, and I encountered a bit of pushback from some folks. Evidently, it can feel a lot less like exploration if you get to choose what you find.

In the game I'm currently working on, making changes requested by the publisher, the actions can be better or worse depending on how invested in them you are. In the case of this new exploration action, my first attempt allowed you to draw more and more tiles the higher your action level was. This is similar to my proposed Thebes variant - the more prepared you are to dig (or in my case, the more invested you are in that action), the more likely you'll find something you'll like. this works if you consider that the tile you choose is the one that's 'actually there,' and that you got to look at several first just means you're luckier, you tend to fid better stuff on average.

I still feel that's an OK mechanism, but I can see the point of the people who think that breaks the exploration theme... when you're making a choice, it does feel less like you're literally exploring what's there. So in my latest playtest, I just had players draw 1 tile, not several to choose from. If you were more invested in the action, you could do more than 1 explore at a time. Then I made sure that no matter what tile you draw, you get something of appropriate value, even if it's not the actual thing you had hoped to find. Also, I only have 5 tiles of each type, so in the late game, when the bags are low, you can have a pretty good idea of what you'll get.

So tell me what YOU think...

Does drawing multiple tiles to choose from break the exploration theme for you? Or do you see that as a way to represent spending more time, doing a better job, being more prepared, or getting more lucky?

In my last playtest, my players and I didn't miss the ability to draw more tiles to choose from, so I am very likely to keep the "surprise me" version. I could see adding a unique card or ability to the game that can let you draw 2 tiles to choose from when exploring, and if that breaks the theme for anybody, at least it's a specific piece of content, and not part of the game's structure.

Deities & Demigods - back on the table (... the operating table that is)

 I recently mentioned that one of my favorite designs, Deities & Demigods, has been signed by a publisher. I'm sure I'll talk more about details such as which publisher eventually, but for now I'll keep that under wraps.

Yesterday at my weekly scraped together playtest, Rick was the only player available, so we played a 2p game of Deities & Demigods so I could refamiliarize myself with the game, and to make sure he knew how to play -- he'd played it once back in April, and possibly one other time years ago.

Playtest Report

With 2 players, my notes said to put 2 neutral troops in each city, to make the City points a little harder to win. This is like a 3rd (and/or 4th) player fighting for control of the cities, and I think it's a good idea so players can't just drop 1 troop in each city and score 5 points just because their opponent never got to that side of the board. To be specific, my notes say to add 1 neutral troop for a 3p game, and 2 troops for a 2p game, and while I know I've played that way in several 3p games, I'm not sure if I'd ever actually played 2p with that rule. I think it worked out well though. It makes me wonder a little bit whether 3p ought to also have 2 troops, so you can't get 3 points for just 1 troop sometimes -- not sure (and TBH, I'm not sure that matters a lot).

I had a bit of an advantage just from experience, and in the early game I did a pretty good job of building up my engine -- I bought 3 monuments in a hurry, and did 1 quest in cycle 1, and another in cycle 2, so my minimum devotion was way up on several deities! Rick started in a more central location, and decided early to concentrate a bit on Ares so he could spread out from there... that was my downfall. I didn't do enough Ares, and besides starting next to 2 quests, I wasn't very close to much of anything else, and all that building of monuments removed my troops from the board, leaving very few in play. I never did spread out very much, though in the end I dominated 2 cities (for 5 points each) and tied the neutrals in 1 (for 3 points) - actually outscoring Rick on City points 13-11. He had 1 or 2 troops in each city, but also had 3 Ares Favor cards, so while he only had 11 points for city control, he had 15 points for those favor cards. I only had 2 Hephaestus Favor cards, also for 5vp apiece, so I only had 10 points there. Rick had a 4 point building, and all I had was monuments, which didn't help my endgame score (though gave me a lot of power on my actions). Finally, Rick did 4 quests to my 3, which gave him a 4vp lead there. In total, he outscored me by about 7 points or so, enough to pull off a solid victory.

Thoughts on upcoming changes

After the game, I briefly described the initial ideas I've got in mind to add the things to the game that the publisher is interested in -- more of a 4X feel, more relevance to the board spaces, an additional deity/action, etc. He liked the sound of what I have in mind, and would have liked to be able to do some of it that game, so that's promising at least. We'll have to see how it goes when I get the changes prototyped and implemented.

New Deity - God of Adventure

As I probably described before, my idea to add a God of Adventure (since we're going to make up our own pantheon, I'm not even going to try and pick a Greek god for this role) which allows you to sort of search a hex where you have a troop an add a feature to the board, seems like it would work, and I've now put a little more thought into it. Initially I imagined bags of tiles (one per terrain type) which you would draw from -- the higher your devotion, the more tiles you'd draw, and you'd choose 1 of the drawn tiles to place on the board. These tiles would also depict some resource or immediate benefit you'd receive. But when I sat down to try and list off board features, I was coming up pretty dry.

Then I had a revelation... looking at the board, which so far has been a good size, there are 4 mega-hex boards of 7 hexes each, and each one currently has 3 features: either 2 quests and 1 city, or 2 cities and 1 quest. The way it's laid out results in a range of 5-7 cities and 5-7 quests (totaling 12, so 5/7, 6/6, or 7/5). So far I've been pretty happy with that range, and I like the quests being face up from the beginning so that you can start to make a game plan from the outset. BUT... suppose instead there were just 1 city and 1 quest space per tile, leaving 5 blank tiles per hex (20 total blanks). Let's also say there are 5 types of terrain, color coded to the different deities. If that's the case, then for each terrain type, there could be just a few (4, maybe 5) different tiles, meaning just a few different features to add to the board. For example, in each terrain type, maybe you could find the following:

• Ruins (a city space)
• Portal (a quest space)
• Enemy Stronghold (a space where you can spend Ares points to sacrifice a troop and gain a specific benefit)
• Catacomb entrance (once 2 are in play, you can move from one to another as if adjacent)
• Monument space (perhaps monuments can only be built in specific spaces, and this would add a space to the board where someone could build a monument)

If I only need 4 of each type of tile, maybe each terrain type could lack one of those, or double up on another, just to give them a little different flavor.

Note: This could result in a range of 4-9 buildings and 4-9 quests, and they wouldn't be related to each other (9 buildings doesn't mean only 4 quests), but that's probably fine, and the likely range of these features in play will be pretty close to what I had before (I think), so the game should work about the same that way -- assuming players can (and do) utilize the God of Adventure. There may ought to be a rule that if you resolve the deity (i.e. don't pay), and you have a troop in a blank hex, you must choose that troop -- no intentionally choosing a troop in a non-empty hex just to keep the features off the board!

In addition, I had wanted the player to get some prize just for themselves, so it's always good to use this effect, even if the board feature doesn't matter to you. So in that respect I'm thinking of having 5 types of gems, again color coded to the terrain types/deities. Maybe you get 0 or 1 at level 1 devotion, 1 at L2 and L3, and 2 gems at L4 (that way even if the tiles have dwindled, L4 is still better than L3):

1. L1: 0 gems, draw 1 tile at random
2. L2: 1 gem, draw 1 tile at random
3. L3: 1 gem, draw 2 tiles, choose 1
4. L4: 2 gems, draw all tiles, choose 1

Or possibly:

1. L1: 1 gem, draw 1 tile at random
2. L2: 1 gem, draw 2 tiles, choose 1
3. L3: 1 gem, draw 3 tiles, choose 1
4. L4: 2 gems, draw all tiles, choose 1

Gems:

These gems could have 2 uses:

1. At game end, there could be a way to score points for the gems, maybe a Deity Favor condition is to collect a set of different gems
2. During the game, perhaps the gems could be spent when resolving a deity to resolve it at the next highest level. In that way, it'd be very similar to a cube bump.

So to test this out, I would need to put together the following:

• 1 starting God of Adventure card
• 8 additional God of Adventure cards (with scoring condition)
• edit player boards to include God of Adventure tracks
• edit the boards to add terrain types to 5 hexes (removing a city or quest space) - color coded with deities
• 25 new tiles (5 per terrain type with features as listed above)
• a handful of "gems" in each of 5 colors - color coded to the deities (and terrain types)

Fortunately, my prototype files already have each deity's name in a different color, and there's even a 5th track on each player board with Hades expansion material (that I never got around to trying). So some of that updating should come pretty easily.

Unfortunately, I still cannot find my physical prototype, which means I may decide to make an altogether new one sometime soon, as I like to have physical prototypes rather than just virtual ones on TTS.

New version of Favor cards and Monuments

The publisher also wanted to see more, and more unique, monuments and favor scoring conditions. Matthew will be working on some of this pretty soon, but I think the direction we're headed is this:

Favor Cards:

Currently the favor cards use the same components as the deity cards you add to the deck. This is an efficient/elegant use of cards that I'm a fan of, and it made sense to me when I built the game because the scoring conditions all go along with concentrating on for a certain deity. Do a lot of building, score a lot of Hephaestus' favor. However, there's not really a reason those have to be connected beyond elegant use of components. Matthew had an interesting idea to have a bunch of unique conditions, and deal them out (maybe draft them if you're experienced) to players, and whenever you get the chance to claim a favor card, you play one from your hand.

This sounds reasonable to me, though it means we need to come up with about 20 more scoring conditions, and ideally they'll max out at 8 or 9 points if you do a good job. I don't know how easy that part will be, but I guess we'll see!

Monuments:

Currently there are just 4 monument cards, and they are like big, fancy buildings. Their purpose is to allow you to increase minimum devotion to a deity (good in the early game), or claim a favor card from that deity (good in the late game). When the Monuments are gone (or if you don't care for the ones that remain), then you instead may choose a Building AND an Artifact, which could be viewed as a unique monument that has the effects of both that building and that artifact (though admittedly, it doesn't look that way). The publisher would like to see more, and more variety, of monuments, which I assumed meant making a bunch of additional cards on par with the existing monuments power-wise, which seemed like a lot of content to create, but this morning I had an idea that might be simpler. Maybe we could go another way with the monuments:

• Get rid of the cards altogether
• Have a monument mini above each of the devotion tracks on your player board
• Require that a monument be built on a monument space on the board (each City that starts on the board could have one, and as described above, maybe you could ad them via exploration)
• Require that the monument be built in a terrain type that matches the deity (?)
• Once built, an icon could be revealed on the player board - giving you an additional benefit (perhaps +1 to the resolution, like +1 Ares move per Ares phase for example)
• In addition to the above, you would also increase minimum devotion to that deity

Then, instead of "Building+Artifact" as an option for L4 Hephaestus, instead of building a monument, maybe you can claim (play) a favor card that matches a deity's monument where your troop is. In other words, you could move your troop to a monument to Zeus (belonging to any player), then use L4 Hephaestus to play a favor card with a Zeus icon on it (which presumably will care a little bit about how much you've been using Zeus)

An example of such a card might be:

Zeus/Ares:
Score 1 point for each Favor card you have played

Score 1 point for each city where you are at east tied for most troops

This might make you care about things like which monuments are in play, making sure you get a particular monument into play, and also about getting to specific hexes to do so.

 

Random idea for buildings (that I'm not necessarily fond of):

While coming up with the above idea for monuments, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps the buildings could also come off your board to reveal a benefit, rather than having benefits printed on the board. This way the buildings could be something of a tech tree... if you build a "coin" building, you get a coin. If you build a 2nd "coin" building, you get 2 coins Either way, your 1st "Troop" building gets you 1 troop movement. 

Then there could potentially be some kind of scoring for building different TYPES of buildings. I don't know if this is really necessary to be honest, I kinda like the buildings just saying what they're worth, and I also kinda like the desire to move to a particular city because you like the build reward printed there. But I wanted to note this down as an idea, because it could have merit.

Some good news about game pitches - one in particular!

 It's been a while since I posted much of anything at all on here, let alone anything about my games. But I did mention that I'd started pitching games to publishers, and though that hasn't gone too far yet, I may finally be making some progress in that arena!

Big multi-pitch meeting

The other day I had a meeting with a publisher who had turned down one of my games previously, and I ran through quick pitches for 8 of my games. One of them they said they'd like to give a play, and they were going to discuss a couple others to see if they'd like to try those as well. So that's promising, and it goes to show you that a rejection isn't the worst thing in the world - in this case it opened the door to making these other pitches. But that's not the headline for this blog post...

Deities & Demigods signed!?!

Another publisher I'd pitched to showed interest in 4 of my games, and wanted to play them in person, so I sent them prototype files to print out and use. Life happened, and time went by, and then there was Essen season, and I checked in every once in a while to see if they'd had a chance to try any of those games yet. Eventually, they did, and I got a nice email summary... 3 of the games they weren't interested in, but they would like to sign Deities & Demigods, if we don't mind setting it in the universe of some of their other games, and making a few changes to the game.

The other day Matthew and I had a meeting with them to discuss some of the particulars of the direction they'd like to go (make the game a little heavier, a little longer, and a little more 4X-y), and based on their email I'd already begin to think of what we could do to shape the game into what they're looking for.

So I'll be thinking about this quite a bit, maybe I'll post about it too. As soon as we figure out what to add, I'll need to update my prototype and start doing some playtesting! Fortunately, a few months ago I created a Tabletop Simulator mod for Deities & Demigods, which should help facilitate playtesting. Unfortunately, ever since then I have not been able to find my physical prototype box anywhere! I've looked everywhere I can think of two or three times each, and it's nowhere to be found! To be honest, I'm not sure when I'd really be able to get a physical playtest in anyway - but I'd still really like to find that prototype!

Changes on the Horizon for Deities & Demigods

I struggled with the Greek mythology theme for a while, and went with a somewhat bold idea when TMG was going to publish the game. In retrospect I don't know if that was such a good idea after all (still, might have worked out - I guess we'll never know!) When I started pitching the game, now that TMG is not the publisher, I'm figured I'm absolved of the problem! Someone else can figure out how to make the Greek mythology theme stand out, or what to change it to... well, the new publisher would like to port the game into the universe they're building, so the ball may be back in my court with respect to theme...

I'll be a little cagey, because I'm not sure whether the publisher would be happy about details being posted, or if they prefer to play things closer to the vest (the latter seems to be how most people do things, it seems more professional). 

The Pantheon

I can see a couple different ways to port the game over - a couple of different representations of the pantheon of deities to whom you show devotion and ask for favors. The front runner is just making up our own pantheon... something I'm told we have the freedom to do. They are building up their game world with each release, and so we have the freedom to create canon! That's going to be handy, as it should be pretty easy to find a pantheon that fits our game action if we can just make them up! The challenge I'd mentioned before of the deities being recognizable may crop up, but I bet we can take care of that with flavor (the name and image of the deity could make it clear which is the god of craftsmanship and which is the god of adventure, for example)

In addition to porting the deities to the new world, the publisher would like us to add 1 deity to the mix. Basically, they would like to see the game weight increased and more action on the board, and we can accomplish both of those things by adding a deity. The thing I'd like to watch out for is making the game go too long without the players having enough to do.

My first thought for a new deity, since they said they wanted more 4X aspects in the game, is something to do with exploration. I think the first thing I'll try will be something along the lines of a god of adventure, who allows you to "search" the hexes where your troops are and find resources (gold, devotion bumps, etc, as well as new Gem resources - see below), as well as new board features. Like, you'd draw some tiles out of a bag and choose one, get the pictured item, and then place the tile on the board to add some feature to that hex. This could be a new city added to the board, or some other special geographical feature, Matthew and I have to figure out what we could add.

A scoring condition for this new deity could be some kind of set collection of the gems I mentioned (like 1/2/3/5/8vp for 1/2/3/4/5 different gems), and maybe you can also use the gems to boost the effect of another deity (color coded to the gems) or something like that.

This sounds promising to me, and it pings just about all the things they wanted to be affected: additional deity track, additional meaning to the board spaces, more of a 4X feel, etc.

Deity Favor scoring conditions

There are currently 4 deities in the game, and each one has a scoring condition associated with it. The idea was that you could "concentrate on" one of the deities, do their thing a lot, then try and get multiple of their favor cards to reward your efforts. The publisher said they'd like to see more variety there, and they didn't like the idea of just picking one and trying to double- or triple-score it.

At first I didn't really have a good idea how to change that... I mean the deities each do 1 thing, and there aren't a ton of ways to reward having done a lot of that one thing. But Matthew had an idea that sounded decent: instead of claiming those cards from a supply, players could be dealt (or, if more experienced, maybe draft) them from a set of probably unique cards. Then, when you earn the chance to claim a favor, you just play one from your hand. If you don't like the ones left in your hand, then don't pursue Favor cards anymore. If you want to play them all, then go big into Zeus, or build some monuments or whatever!

This could work, and I'm sure there are different scoring conditions we could add once they're divorced from the actual deity cards (which was an elegant use of cards, but not strictly necessary). In particular, there could be cards that reward certain combinations of deities, and stuff like that. I think we'll need something like 5 per player to make sure there are enough.

More variety in monuments

There are currently 4 Monuments in this game, ne for each deity. They allow you to either increase minimum devotion to that deity, or claim one of that deity's favor cards. They're not trivial to get, at least not right away, and they're really strong early (or valuable late). You get them with a level 4 Hephaestus action, and if they're gone then the alternative is to get a Building AND an Artifact, which I felt covered the bases -- there's a bit of a race for the monuments if you want them, and if you don't (or are too late), then you still get good value out of an L4 Hephaestus action.

But the publisher would like to see more variety in the monuments. I suppose I can see the desire there -- getting a fancy, unique card seems "cooler" than getting 2 other, lesser cards. On the down side, I don't love the prospect of inventing a bunch of unique Monument cards that are on par with, but different than, the existing ones - especially when there's a working alternative already! Maybe this is something the publisher's internal developer can help with, because in my mind, the monuments are already doing their job exactly the right way, so I feel like I'll be coming up empty trying to figure out more different ones.

The story of the game

Hopefully without giving too much away, the story of the game (to fit the existing game world) is going to be something to the effect of the denizens of the world (us) exploring and sort of re-colonizing the ruins of their own ancestors' homeland. You see, the ancestors were driven from the land by an evil darkness that spread when the local Deities were defeated and imprisoned like genies in a lamp, so to speak. Now, a thousand years later, the Deities have been awakened, and the darkness is receding. It's time to take back the homeland! But it's been a thousand years, and everything is foreign to us. So we can explore the area, maybe fight off some remaining shadow creatures, rebuild the ruins back into cities, and maybe instead of "quests" we're closing portals to shut out the darkness once and for all.

Perhaps I'll post some more about this one as we develop it further for publication!

A development gig, and a list of games I'm pitching

It's been a while since I've posted anything in my game design blog, but I've actually been doing a little bit of design/development work...

Development Gig

I got a gig working on a secret project (ooh, secrets!) - an expansion for a well known, classic Eurogame that's coming on 20 years of age. That's a fun project so far, even if I'm not always seeing eye-to-eye with the rest of the team on different aspects of it. As part of that gig, though it wasn't requested, I started thinking about how a solo mode might work, and so I tried a couple of things. My first attempt was just OK, but then I got inspired by a comment from a friend on Twitter (thanks Ariel!), and now I think I have something even better! Still could use some tweaking, and I'm not sure if it's exactly the kind of thing a solo player would be looking for, but it seems to work in general.

Re-licensing my Games

With TMG in the state it's in (effectively out of commission), I've had a few people come sniffing around, looking to republish the Eminent Domain and Crusaders lines. I'm hopeful that whoever does so will include everything:
Eminent Domain [Base game]
Eminent Domain: Escalation [expansion]
Eminent Domain: Exotica [expansion]
Eminent Domain: Oblivion [expansion]
Eminent Domain: Promos [Bonus Planets, Elusive/Exclusive Victory, Cygnus Planet (from Joel Eddy), maybe even Mars]
Eminent Domain Origins [standalone prequel]
Eminent Domain: Microcosm [standalone microgame]
Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory [standalone dice game]

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done [Base game]
Crusaders: Divine Influence [expansion]
Crusaders: Amber Knight [expansion]
Crusaders: Crimson Knight [expansion]

Art for almost all of that new content is done and ready to go, so it would be a shame not to print them. And if a company chooses not to print, for example, Chaos Theory, then I don't know what I'll be able to do with an EmDo dice game :/

Pitching to Publishers

I've been trying to find ways to pitch some of my unpublished games to publishers. This is strange for me, because despite 12 years in the industry, I never really had to do much pitching. TMG was an avenue to get my stuff published, and that was good enough for me. Isle of Trains came out from another publisher, but that was because it was a content entry. A new publisher did sign Isle of Trains, as well as All Aboard, so maybe the expansion will finally see the light of day (6 or 7 years later)!

I've taken a zillion pitches from designers wanting TMG to publish their games, but I've only ever pitched a few games, and that was years ago. One was even signed by a European publisher, but that ended up falling through for ridiculous reasons.

This year I've made a few pitches, all online via Tabletop Simulator. One publisher showed a lot of interest in Apotheosis, but in the end they passed on it. A couple other publishers passed on that one as well, but I've got one who's still testing it with their fans to see if it's one they'd want to pick up.

Another publisher passed on Exhibit, which was a bummer, as that's probably my best unpublished design at the moment -- and I even had a cheerleader in my corner for that one (thanks Richard!). But at least now I'm passed the gate with that publisher, and they're going to look at my other games now.

I've put together this list of games (with super-brief descriptions) that I've got ready to pitch, and I'm hopeful I can just show that to publishers and they can ask me for more info on the ones they're interested in:

All For One [with David Brain]:
Thematic Euro-style Shared Piece Movement, Pickup/Deliver game about the Three Musketeers.
3-5p, ~60 mins

Alter Ego:
Cooperative Deck Learning game about vigilante heroism.
("Deck Learning" is a form of deck building as used in Eminent Domain. Could maybe use a little development polish)
2-4p, ~60 mins

Apotheosis [with Rick Holzgrafe]:
Worker Placement game where your workers level up and get better over time. Generic Fantasy (D&D) theme, since adventures level up with experience in that genre.
2-4p, ~60 mins

Deities & Demigods [with Matthew Dunstan]:
Sort of like a Deck Learning/Role Selection game where the game chooses the roles, and there's a single, common deck. Greek mythology theme: bribe gods of Olympus, then have them do favors for you.
2-4p, ~60 mins

Dice Works:
Real Time Dice Drafting game. Theme is about making inventions (originally was going to call it "Eureka!"), but it's mostly pasted on.
(This one could use a little development polish)
2-4p, ~30 mins

Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages:
"Bluff Auction" game that's like 6 simultaneous games of Liar's Dice. Theme is collecting sets of artifacts to display in your museum.
2-4p, ~60 mins

Harvest [with Trey Chambers]:
Compact Worker Placement game about farming. Originally set in the Gullsbottom universe by TMG. Draft turn order+bonus, placement spaces change round by round, wildly diverse player powers.
(Small footprint, play time, and price point, but as satisfying as a bigger game. Could easily expand to 6 players and wouldn't take much longer to play)
2-4p, 30~60 mins

Keeping Up with the Joneses:
Rondel game about showing up your neighbors in various parts of life while trying to keep up with the Joneses down the street, who seem to be so good at everything.
(The title is an idiom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses)
2-4p, ~60 mins

Riders of the Pony Express:
Low Bid Auction, Route Planning game about delivering parcels for the Pony Express.
3-5p, ~60 mins

Sails & Sorcery [with Michael Mindes]:
Deck Learning, Area Control game with a pirate theme (including monsters, like a kraken, a ghost ship, blackbeard's ghost, etc)
("Deck Learning" is a form of deck building as used in Eminent Domain.)
2-5p, ~60 mins

Suburban Sprawl [with Matthew Dunstan]:
57-card, Sim City style dexterity game where you toss cards into play.
(Lighter and quicker than the others)
2-4p, ~20 mins

Wizard's Tower [with John Heder]:
Little abstract-ish game of placing pieces on a grid and moving them to form (or attack) towers
(An older design, lighter and more abstract than the others)
2-4p, ~30 mins

Prototype feast or famine

Ever since Corbin was born (last summer), I have felt like I've been in a relative famine with regards to playtesting (and gaming in general). I have tried to make up for that with online play at BoardGameArena.com, Boiteajeux.net, Yucata.de, etc.

In October, Michael was in town for Rincon, and I manages to get a couple of plays in with him. Then I sent 4 of my prototypes to Utah with him in hopes that they would get played in the TMG office.

Finally, after 8 or 9 months off, my playtesting group is back up and running again! This was great news, and it came just in time to finish up last minute development on Eminent Domain Origins, the reboot of my first game, Terra Prime.

Now that that's done however, I've run into a problem. All my prototypes are in Utah, what do I test next? Fortunately, I had something. TMG is doing a Deluxified version of Emperor's Choice (I'm in charge of the art direction and rules updating, like I did for Yokohama), and someone suggested we add a 2 player variant to that 3-5 player auction game. So I came up with something, and the last couple of weeks we've been testing that.

Yesterday, I came home to a box at my door containing my prototypes! They appear to be in fine condition, and now I've got the opposite problem: which of these should I test next?

* Crusaders: Divine Influence (expansion)
* Deities and Demigods (now Olympus on the Serengeti)
* Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game)
* Alter Ego
* Sails and Sorcery (Michael's mash-up of EmDo and El Grande)

In addition to that, pretty soon I'll have a version of Worker Learning to test as well!

Crusaders: Divine Influence (expansion)

Since Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done arrived a couple of months ago, it seems to be very well received. This makes a perfect window for a Deluxified expansion to go on Kickstarter, along with the opportunity to get the Deluxified base game again, later this year. In anticipation of this, I designed an expansion before my playtesting haiatus, and I'm pretty happy with it so far.
Divine Influence adds 4 new building tracks (16 more buildings per player), a revamped (more involved) Influence action, and a few new knight orders to go with them.

Olympus on the Serengeti (fka Deities and Demigods)

I posted before about the theme of Deities and Demigods changing to re-imagine Greek mythology in an animals of Africa setting. Art is underway on this one, and I'm a little worried how it will turn out. I think that, like Eminent Domain's title, when players see everything in context, it will work well.

This one doesn't really need more testing, unless I want to add that Hades module to the game.

Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory

Last I checked, with the final tweak to 5p (and maybe 4p) games (everyone starts with 1 tech advance), I think this one is ready to go. It is in line to get art done after the more pressing Divine Influence, which will start as soon as we wrap up art for Eminent Domain Origins which is happening right now (about a month late, which means it probably won't make GenCon, unfortunately).

Alter Ego

I finally hired an artist and a graphic designer for this age old prototype, though I haven't seen anything from them yet. The game could use some finishing touches, but nothing that would change the major art pieces, so I figured starting art would be ok. There's no deadlude for this one at the moment per se, so maybe starting art now will mean when it comes time, I'll actually make it for once!

Sails and Sorcery

Michael impressed me with the thoroughness he was putting into his mash-up of EmDo and El Grande when he talked about it on the TMG podcast. He didn't really have a title, so I made this one up for now. He didn't want to let me in on the game until he'd gotten it far enough along - perhaps for fear I'd sort of take over the design (that's kind if my MO). In October, he brought the game with him and we played a few times. I think it was an excellent start! He was ready to let me start doing my thing...

Right away I had a few course grained suggestions, some of which we implemented on the spot. Others Michael didn't necessarily agree with. He left the game with me to work on, but my testing was on hiatus at the time, so beyond editing the rules to include what I wanted to try, I wasn't able to do anything.

Come December, Michael was in town again for the holidays, and I sent his prototype back with him, with my rules edit inside, so they could try it in Utah. I don't think they ever got to it though.

Now that I'm playtesting again, I asked for this prototype back, so we could give it some plays.

Worker Learning

I think I've mentioned that I recruited my friend Rick to help co-design one of my more promising ideas. After some good discussion back and forth, some solo testing on his part, and a couple revisions of the prototype, Rick tells me this game just got its first live playtest! Sounds like it went well, and generated good feedback. Rick will be bringing an updated version to Gamestorm next weekend, and after incorporating that feedback, I'll make a prototype and bring it to my group.

I'm excited to see this game in action! But some of the others have a little higher priority, so it might be several weeks before I get to try this one.

Deities & Demigods face lift - need a new title!

When getting serious about the production of Deities & Demigods, I had to face certain realities about the theme:

Tropes vs Cliches

On one hand, using a familiar theme is useful, because tropes are like pictures -- worth 1000 words. People can recognize things like "Ares is the one that moves your troops" because of what they already know about the Greek gods. Knowing that information up front reduces the cognitive load on the player, who can spend their cycles thinking about whether they want to build stuff rather than having to think "wait, what does Hephaestus do again?" Read this whole twitter thread for a good, technical description of what I've been thinking for years, but didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to express properly:

Oh, boy, I keep hearing people use the term "trope" like it's a negative. So let's talk about tropes and cliches.

— Jessica Price (@Delafina777) February 6, 2019

On the other hand, gamers tend to complain when a theme is overused. To be honest, while that complaint does come up at times, I suspect it's more of a complaint that the theme was used poorly than that it's really overused, because there are several popular themes that occur in many, many games every year that don't receive that complaint. However, a bigger issue may be presentation...

Looking at the many Greek mythology themed games out there, they all look exactly the same! The typical (maybe stereotypical) depiction of the Greek pantheon may be a good example of a "trope" that has become "cliche." It's difficult to tell any one of those games from another just looking at the artwork. Santorini does a good job of setting itself apart, with the awesome chibi-style artwork, but that's a rare exception:

The chibi style is cute, and works very well for that game, but (a) I'm not sure that kind of style would work as well for Deities & Demigods, and (b) it's been done already!

So how do I make Deities & Demigods stand out from the crowd? I had a few ideas about this...

1. Allocate a large art budget, so that if the game had to look like other, similar games, maybe it could look better. However, looking at some of the Greek mythology art from recent games, it appears they've already done that!

2. Change pantheons, moving from Greek mythology to something less commonly used, such as Egyptian mythology. For a while I thought this would be the right decision, as the art could look different, and people could comment on the unusual theme rather than the same-old same-old of the overused Greek setting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while the outfits would look different, the artwork would still probably look similar to the Greek games, and I wasn't finding Egyptian gods that fit as well with the game action.

3. Find a new style, like Santorini did. I came across the art for SPQF in the portfolio of one of the artists I was considering, and it got me thinking. SPQF is a card based civilization building game, with very nice art of anthropomorphic animals. There have been a couple other games with anthropomorphized animals lately -- one might even say it's the start of a trend, however I don't think we're there yet. This led me to consider a cross between Clash of the Titans and The Lion King... what if we re-imagined the Greek pantheon as animals of the African plain?

Clash of the Titans meets The Lion King

In the end, I liked the sound of this third option best, and have decided to go that route -- re-imagining the pantheon as anthropomorphic animals. This allows us to keep the tropes of Greek mythology, but use art that differs significantly from other Greek themed games, and could look pretty cool.

Photo of SPQF cards by BGG user lovemyfire

My initial picks for animals to represent each deity looked like this:
Zeus (king of the gods) -- the obvious choice is a lion
Hermes (messenger of the gods) -- a macaw seemed like a good choice
Ares (god of war) -- an elephant, or possibly a wild boar
Hephaestus (blacksmith to the gods) -- an ape of some kind (the opposable thumbs could help him build)
Hera (Zeus' wife) -- at first I thought maybe a peacock, but probably better would be a tiger, jaguar, leopard, or cheetah

With a change of theme, a few details will have to change as well. For example, animals have no use for gold, so perhaps food would be a better thing with which to show devotion. That said, perhaps Artemis (goddess of the hunt) would make more sense than Hermes, and as an added bonus it would get more goddesses into the game (something I'd been wanting to do anyway). To represent Artemis, perhaps a bird of prey would make sense.

For the player boards, I figure smaller animals would make sense, something like meerkats, gazelles, monkeys, and I don't know, some bird species perhaps. These are animals that are found in packs or groups, so it would make sense that you have 12 of them under your control. To represent your troops on the board, a regular meeple doesn't really evoke animals, so I've been thinking of something better. One thought is a sort of generic "animeeple" -- a 4 legged something-or-other which is not necessarily related to any of the player boards. The graphic designer suggested a paw shape, which could be cute, and would stack well, but might not be as fun for players to move around the board.

I'm open to suggestions for a meeple shape that would be good. I don't think it can really relate to the player board animals, or else (a) the player who insists on playing red all the time would always have to be meerkats, and (b) if we add more player boards with player powers in an expansion or something, we'd have to add 12 meeples to go with it!

What's in a name?

Deities and Demigods was a title I was kind of OK with, but it was always only a placeholder. 90% of the people who play the game point out that there's an old Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook with that title, which I don't actually think matters. In any case, I've always wanted a better title.

About 4 months ago, I finally put some effort into finding a better title, but didn't come up with anything fantastic. Some of the options were:

Titan's Tribute
Divine Interest
Quid Pro Quo (change pantheon to Roman deities)
Chrysos (Greek for "gold")
Favor of Olympus
Buy The Gods (pretty good, but maybe too "cute" for a real/serious title)

And for a good laugh:
In Gods We Trust
Invest In Vesta

However, now that the game is about animals in the African plains or Savannah, I don't think any of those would really work anyway. I could really use a title for this game, and the sooner the better so the graphic designer can make a logo for it! Please comment with your suggestions.

So far, the only idea I've had that I like at all is Pantheon of the Plains, but I'm sure there could be something better...

Thoughts on theme (Deities & Demigods) - and artist needed!

If you've been following this blog, then you probably know that the theme of Deities & Demigods is Greek mythology. You play as a demigod, showing devotion to the gods of Olympus, and asking them to do favors for you (the more they like you, the bigger the favor they do for you).

I like the Greek god theme because it's recognizable. People know that Zeus is the king of the gods. It makes sense that Ares helps you move your troops. Hephaestus is a blacksmith, so obviously he's the one that builds artifacts and buildings... it's the same reason I think generic fantasy works for games like Belfort: it's easy to remember that Elves collect wood and Dwarves collect stone because of the stereotypical traits of elves (associated with the forest) and dwarves (associated with the mountains). While you can argue "that's been done," I believe the familiarity there is useful, it helps the players grok the game.

Deities & Demigods game will be published in 2019 (and incidentally, it could use a different title), and I have been looking for someone to do the art for it. In thinking about the art direction, the Greek god theme looks like a worse and worse idea. While I still like the familiarity aspect mentioned above, if you look at all of the similarly themed games, they all kind of look the same. It's very difficult to stand out and not to get lost among other Greek themed games such as:

Immortal

Mythic Battles: Pantheon

Elysium

Oracle of Delphi

Olympus

Cyclades

etc.

So how do you do make a game with a common theme stand out? Here are some ideas I have had for Deities & Demigods:

First thought was to change the theme to something less common --perhaps Egyptian or Norse pantheons. Egyptian was the front runner here, and perhaps that's the way we'll go. Some of the familiarity may be lost, but to be completely honest, is everyone so familiar with Hephaestus to begin with? And some Egyptian gods, like Ra/Osiris, Horus, etc might be similarly recognizable. Unfortunately, the Egyptian gods seem a little less focused in what they actually do (or maybe that's a plus, as just about any of them could do just about anything in the game).

My first reaction to changing theme was "well, we COULD, but I'd really like to keep the Greek theme." In an effort to do that, my next thought was to just increase the art budget. Try and get some really fantastic looking art, which would stand out amid boxes like Oracle of Delphi. I started looking for artists with this in mind, but I think it's kind of a fool's errand. If you look at some of the games linked above, they've already done that. Not only would the art budget for "fantastic art" be enormous, but it wouldn't even solve the problem of standing out in this case!

Today I had a new idea though, and so far I think it might be a good one. I was looking at games like SPQF and Everdell, and I thought "Would it be totally stupid to do Deities & Demigods as Greek mythology, but with animals instead of people?" And right away the idea began to grow on me. I'm not sure it's the right way to go, but I think it's definitely worth thinking about. It could set the Greek theme apart from other similarly themed games, or it could even work with a change to another pantheon.

Here's a draft of a descriptive blurb I whipped up, which could be the intro in the rulebook, for example:

Atop a hill in the Big Clearing stands a mighty Baobab tree called Olympus. Most days, resting in the shade of Olympus, you can find the lion Zeus, the King of the Jungle. His wife, the lioness Hera, comes around on occasion to make her will known. By the watering hole at the base of the hill, or just inside the tree line, you can always find Hermes, the long-tailed macaw; Ares, the [wild boar][OR][solemn elephant]; and Hephaestus, the orangutan.

All other animals look up to these gods of Olympus, showing their devotion by bringing them gifts of [something to replace gold... food?], or begging for their aid -- the more devoted you are to these mighty animals, the bigger favors they'll do for you.

So what do you think? Is this a good idea? And if you had to re-imagine Greek gods as animals, what would you choose? Feel free to take liberties with changing which gods to use, but keep their game effects in mind:

Zeus: moves you up an Olympus track, which gives various bonuses as you go
Hermes: Gives you gold (food?) with which you show your devotion to the gods
Ares: Moves your troops around the board
Hephaestus: Builds you artifacts, buildings, and monuments
Hera: Bestows start player upon whomever best satisfies her demands for the round.

I wouldn't mind getting another female deity in there...
maybe Athena instead of Ares (though Ares works a little better thematically)?
Or Demeter (goddess of harvest) instead of Hermes (especially if changing people to animals and therefore gold to something like food)?

Let me know what you think in the comments below. And if you're an artist/graphic designer and you think you would be a good fit for this project (and think you can finish it by mid-April), please let me know ASAP!

2017 year in review

A lot of stuff has happened in 2017 in general, some of it good, much of it bad. In my own life, the good stuff includes getting married in March, and now expecting a little boy next May, so I guess that's big news. But as this is my game design blog, I suppose now would be a good time to take a moment and reflect on my experiences in 2017 on the games front.

I didn't keep specific notes or anything, so I'll just go through my calendar and blog posts and see what that reminds me of:

January

I started off the year wrapping up development on Eminent Domain: Oblivion, and coordinating art with Brian Patterson for the tech card illustrations and Ariel Seoane for the graphic design. A few people have grumbled online about how they don't like the look of the new tech illustrations, but as I have said in a couple of different threads already:

The main artists we had used for previous EmDo expansions were no longer available, and I wanted a consistent look within this set. Brian Patterson did all of the illustrations, and yes, he has a sort of cartoony style.

Many of the previous cards are a little bit cartoony, and there's a mix of styles from 5 or 6 different artists in them, so I don't think there will be much of a problem adding these new tech cards into the mix.

And as for the cartoony-ness of them, I kind of wanted that -- to an extent, Oblivion is a parody of government, and most of the time government could best be described as "cartoony."

I think Brian did a great job with these illustrations, I like that the expansion art is internally consistent, and I don't think there'll be any problems incorporating this set into the base game (or playing it with previous sets) based on that, but YMMV.

Also in January, Eminent Domain was featured in a Reddit forum called Game Of The Week, Redux. And I posted about a game idea sparked by an episode of The Game Designers of North Carolina podcast -- however, that game idea hasn't gone anywhere, and I don't expect it will. However, as I describe in the comments on that post, it did spark another game design idea which I think MAY actually go somewhere.

In addition, I was wrapping up rules edits for Harvest, and coordinating with Sergi on Pioneer Days art. I was pushing hard to get all three of those into production in time for a potential GenCon release, and failing that, at least an Essen/BGGcon release.

Outside of gaming, it looks like I flew to Dallas for a friend's divorce trial, a stark contrast to the time I spent on my own wedding preparations that month.

February

After January, I took stock of The List, a sort of compilation of games I've got at the idea stage, design stage, and published titles. I posted an update to kick off February.

Other posts in my design blog this month included:

• That game idea I mentioned above, which grew from the ideas that came to mind listening to that podcast.
• A sort-of formal definition of "Deck Learning," the term I've coined to describe Eminent Domain, which I feel is a significantly different type of deck building than games like Dominion, Ascension, etc.
• A request for Q's for a Casual Q&A, like those Reddit AMA's, but in a more laid back format. Only 1 person asked any questions in the comments.
• A summary of the beginnings of a new game about Joan of Arc, a design which I'd been tinkering with since Essen. It's intended to be a sort of sequel to Orleans, and spoilers: it did go somewhere, but now I've sort of backburnered it.

Not much else notable happened this month. It looks like I recorded a podcast episode with Isaac Shalev, though I don't think it aired until September.

March

I skipped SaltCon last year because it was 1 week before my wedding, which is a bummer, because that is a nice, relaxed convention which gives me a chance to hang out and catch up with my TMG cohorts. For the previous couple of years, Michelle came with me, we stayed at Michael's house, and we enjoyed the convention. I hope we can return in the future.

I think of March as the sort of deadline to get files to the printer in time for GenCon, so I furiously tried to finish Oblivion, Harvest, and Pioneer Days to give them their best shot at that.

I continued to think about that Worker Learning game idea, and had a "Eureka" / "Duh" moment about it, and I made a prototype for that Joan of Arc idea I'd posted about in February.

April

In April I had some promising playtests of the early versions of Joan of Arc: Maid of Orleans, and I updated my prototype accordingly.

I also went to Paris on my honeymoon, and unfortunately got a bit sick there. I did however get my new wife to play a game of Joan of Arc with me at a game cafe though!

May

I kicked off May by joining Lance to record Episode #3 of the TMG podcast.

Blog posts this month included:

• Progress on the Worker Learning game idea
• Follow up on the Casual Q&A post from February -- I answered the Qs from the previous post, and got a few new ones from another individual that I answered in the comments.
• Some thoughts on Minion Games' Manhattan Project dice game design contest. I ended up entering a little Roll & Write / Roll Selection game, just for fun, but that's not the scope of game James was looking for.
• Further development of the Joan of Arc game, including a significant change to the format.

I finished up the month with a trip to Birmingham with Andy, Aaron, and Daniel for UK Games Expo - a neat show, only mildly disturbed due to some terrorist activity nearby the week before.

June

I began the convention season in England at UK Games Expo, and continued in Columbus at Origins, where Andy and I had a number of meetings with designers to listen to game pitches. Not much interested me there, though we did see 2 things which we ended up signing later in the year.

My own design efforts were focused mostly on Deities & Demigods, which I hadn't tested since January, but which I revived at UK Games Expo and concentrated on throughout June, with a little bit of Joan of Arc thrown in for good measure.

July

I spent the first 2 weeks of July vacationing in Dallas and then Seattle. I managed to play a few games... Werewords and Wordsy went well at Michelle's family reunion in Dallas, and I introduced some of my Seattle friends to a new favorite: Barenpark. I also showed off a full art prototype of Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, which finally hit Kickstarter in July!

As could have been suspected, there was a slight backlash to the theme of Crusaders, but to be honest, it wasn't all that much. While the material holds potentially controversial subject matter, I think that game really sidesteps it -- it's not about the Crusades themselves, it's about the so-called "crusading orders," such as the Knights Templar. It's also not really intended to be historically accurate, though it is based on stuff the Templars did.

In July I updated The List again, since a lot had changed in the first half of 2017.

August

A lot of stuff seemed to happen in August...

• Crusaders finished funding with 4,162 backers pledging a total of $330,691 of support, mostly for the Deluxified version of the game. That's not TMG's BIGGEST kickstarter project, but it's close, and it makes the $48k we raised for Eminent Domain 6 years ago look like child's play.
• I worked with a sculptor on knight and building sculpts for the Deluxified version of Crusaders.
• I also worked with Ariel to get the art and graphic design for the upcoming Homesteaders expansion ready to go.
• I checked production proofs for Eminent Domain: Oblivion, and found (and corrected) an error with the card backs.
• And of course, I attended GenCon with TMG, where Andy and I met with a bunch more designers to listen to their game pitches, and attended 2 nights worth of Publisher Speed Dating.

Most of the Publisher Speed Dating events I've attended have been a bit of a bust for me. Out of 400+ pitches, I'd only been interested in a few games, and of those, even fewer turned into TMG products. This year at GenCon, the signal to noise ratio seemed a lot higher for some reason -- just lucky I guess. There were several games I was interested in, and upon closer examination we took several of them home with us, and ended up signing more than one!

In addition to all of that, I started a new game design (Automatown rules), I revived an old game design (Alter Ego) and enlisted a design hobbyist to do some blind PnP testing of it, I re-posted some nuggets of design wisdom from Matthew Dunstan (with his permission) from a Twitter thread, and I revisited the Casual Q&A idea again.

September

September was similarly busy. This month I...

• Submitted my Roll & Write / Roll Selection game to the Manhattan project dice game contest
• Formalized a regular weekly playtesting group and set up a google sheet to track games played
• Evaluated the various games picked up this convention season
• Continued playing Alter Ego, Deities & Demigods
• Revived the Eminent Domain dice game I made a long time ago, but hadn't touched for four years
• Revisited Casual Q&A one more time

The big ticket item here is probably getting more organized with playtesting. I have been meaning to do that forever, and now I can much more easily track what gets played and when, and by whom.

I ended September by attending RinCon (Brian had a great geeklist from RinCon this year, and I didn't so I'll just link his), for once as an attendee rather than an organizer. I took on the responsibility of running the convention because I wanted it to happen, and it was very relaxing to finally just sit around and play games rather than answer questions and put out fires. Unfortunately, this reward was short lived, because I had to fly to California for a wedding on Saturday morning, so I was only able to enjoy RinCon for 1 day.

October

By comparison to the last couple of months, October sounds fairly uneventful:

I skipped Essen this year -- TMG usually sends 4 people, and this year we had a booth, and so wanted to send someone new to help run it, so I stayed home to make space. It's too bad, because two of the games I put a lot of work into, Harvest and Pioneer Days, made their debut at Essen. I hope to return in the future.

Instead of flying to Germany, I finally started updating Terra Prime for a new life as a prequel to Eminent Domain (it will be called Eminent Domain Origins), and I kept working on the Eminent Domain dice game ("Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory"?). I worked almost exclusively on those two games in the month of October.

November

November was a big month for conventions for me. I kicked it off with a trip to Seattle for Sasquatch, and followed that up with my annual trip to Dallas for BGGcon. Michelle came with me to both of those this year, and we took a day trip from BGGcon to Rockwall for Michelle's 3 year old niece's birthday party.

I wrote a post examining variable player powers, since I'm currently working on adding them to two different TMG games, and I started testing those, while continuing to test Eminent Domain Origins and Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory.

I had another new game idea as well, but this one is not as exciting or interesting as some, so it'll probably just sit in the toolbox, waiting to be combined with something else down the road.

December

I rounded out the year playing a lot fewer games than I normally do, but I did get a lot of testing done of the upcoming TMG game Embark (one of the summer pick ups) with player powers, and I worked with an illustrator and a graphic designer to get that game put together for submission to the manufacturer. I'll be wrapping that up in the next couple of weeks.

2018

I'm starting off the new year with 1 game project finishing art, two more about to start, two games in production, and two just waiting to be sent to the manufacturer. If things go well, I should see all of the following games (each of which I've had a heavy hand in) on store shelves by the end of the year:

• Eminent Domain: Oblivion
• Crusaders: Thy Will be Done
• Homesteaders 10th Anniversary Edition (by Alex Rockwell)
• Homesteaders: New Beginning (expansion, by Sean McCarthy)
• Eminent Domain Origins (Terra Prime 2nd Edition)
• Embark (in the Gullsbottom universe, by Philip duBarry)
• Old West Empresario (by Stan Kordonskiy, presented as a sequel to Pioneer Days)
• And maybe even Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory.

As for my designs, once these are all out of the way, I hope to return to Alter Ego, Deities & Demigods, Joan of Arc, and maybe Automatown.

And of course, I'll be doing development on another couple of TMG games.

Recent testing: Deities & Demigods

It's been about 3 months since anything has happened with Deities & Demigods. The last changes I made were adding Hera cards to determine start player each round (instead of the Olympus track), and on Matthew's suggestion I added 1 Demeter card to the Olympus deck -- when Demeter comes up, each player individually chooses any deity to either show devotion to or to activate. I also created a whole bunch of player powers to try out, but before using those, I really felt I needed people who knew the game.

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to teach my new group of regular playtesters the game (without player powers). The first time we played, we used Demeter, and I'm a little unsure about that card. It does add some interesting dynamics to the game, but it also makes the game a lot longer, and it allows all players to get a LOT more done, to the point where I fear it feels too much like everyone can do everything. One solution could be to make things cost more (quests harder to achieve, etc). Another is to just not have Demeter (I've played dozens of games without him, and the game seemed fine), though that does miss out on the interesting aspects of adding him. He could be a sort of promo card (a single card that makes a significant difference in the game).

The following week, we played again - this time without Demeter. I still feel like he added interesting things, but I'm not sure I really missed him either.

A bigger problem is that I worry buildings are too strong (and therefore Hephaestus is too important), at least relative to the other deities. One reason might be because the Favor of Hephaestus rewards you for building, and buildings are worth points. By contrast, Hermes favor rewards you for having high devotion, which is decidedly NOT worth points, and therefore ought to be worth a lot more (maybe 0/2/4 instead of 0/1/2 for example). Ares rewards you for spreading out, which is worth a little bit of points, but it also encourages you to not fight for majorities, which is a little weird. I was thinking I should amplify the Ares scoring card to something like "double your endgame city points" or else "3/2/1vp for majority/tied/present in each city." That latter would be the same as it is now if you put 1 guy in each city, a little more if that 1 guy earns you majority or ties for it. The former would help whether you spread your guys out, or pile onto a couple of cities. It actually favors piling onto 2 cities and getting 1st, but that leaves points for other players in other cities too, so maybe it's OK.

A couple of new buildings I tried might be a little out of control - for example one that says "double the number of favor tokens you have." Most of the buildings are worth 4 points or so, maybe a little more if you do a good job (collecting 5 Gardens of Babylon for example makes them worth 5 points each). There's not much upper limit on the score for a building that doubles your favor tokens. If you happen to have 13 of them when the building comes up, then you get a HUGE benefit, in some ways due to luck of the draw. I'm also not sure I want to be the player who feels like he has to take that building for little or no benefit to stop another player from getting such a boon.

I had been thinking that game was about done, but maybe it could still use a few tweaks, and that's before even trying the player powers. And I still would like to one day try the Hades module!

TL;DR: Things to try in future plays...
* Double reward for Hermes favor
* Increase reward for Ares favor (double city vp? 3/2/1vp for 1st/tied/present in each city?)
* Don't use Demeter, see if it's really necessry
* Watch out for certain buildings that are potentially worth too much
* Consider reducing the benefit of some of the artifacts - maybe they don't need so much benefit. They should be worth about the same as 3 gold or 2 troop movement, I think. Which probably just means not having the icon in the corner at all.

Recent testing: TMG submissions, Deities & Demigods, AlterEgo, and the revival of EmDice!

I haven't been posting too much lately - I managed 4 posts in August, but it's been almost a month of silence since!

Part of that is me being a bit busy, another part is me being lazy, and a third part is that much of what I've been doing on the game design front has been evaluating submissions I brought home from GenCon. I am usually very open and transparent in my blog, but until we officially sign a game, I don't feel it's right to talk about them in public.

That said, I brought home quite a few prototypes from GenCon, and I had a few previous submissions that I received updates for, and things like that. I've been pretty happy with all of them so far! Whether we sign them or not will have to do with manufacturing quotes (which I've requested), and I'd like to play them all with more different people to get a better idea of how well they'd be received.

Without giving anything away, here's some teaser information:

Submission from Speed Dating event:
I liked this dice drafting game game when we saw it at GenCon (obviously, since I brought it home with me). It reminded me a little of Pioneer Days, and I thought it could do with an old west re-theme anyway. There was one aspect that seemed more work than necessary, so I tried implementing it in a different way, and my playtesters all thought it played much more smoothly that way. If we do pick this one up, I am currently thinking of making it a "sequel" to Pioneer Days -- in PD you're heading out west, and this game deals with building up a town once you get there.

Submission from designer we know:
We've met with this particular designer a few times, and I've played a few of his submissions. Of those, we've only published one so far, but this new submission might just be the 2nd! The first time I played it with 2 of my testers, they both loved it and said I should publish it immediately. Then I played again with 5 players, and that went over well too (and I managed to win when I thought I would be nowhere close :) ). The theme on this one is awfully similar to one of the games we've already done, and it superficially resembles an existing, well known published game that just got a reprint. It's nothing like that game except in a superficial way, but it will likely draw the comparison. I'm not sure if I care though, and I can't really think of a great re-theme opportunity (the existing theme fits well). So if we pick it up, then we might just not worry about the comparisons.

Submission #1 from before where we'd asked for a change:
There's a game I have played a few iterations of so far. The core mechanism of the game is great, and works well, but the first time I played it the supporting stuff just wasn't there yet at all. I gave the designers some notes, and said that if they were to address the things I mentioned, I'd be happy to re-evaluate.

We met with them at Origins, and played an updated version of the game, but while they did start to address my concerns, they didn't address them as fully as I wanted to see, so I gave them some more notes, and suggested that if that was the direction they wanted to go, then I'd be happy to see what they had at GenCon. It's kind of convenient the timing of Origins and GenCon for this type of exchange :).

We met with them again at GenCon, and they're new version was MUCH closer to what I was looking for, so I took the prototype home with me to examine it further. I played a couple of times at GenCon, and another couple of times after I got home, and while the game is definitely a lot closer to what I had envisioned, and I do think we'll sign it eventually, I sent notes one last time. I expect to sign the game after taking the new version at BGGcon in November, assuming the designers latest changes work out as well as we all expect they will.

Submission #2 from before where we'd asked for a change:
We had a submission that is kind of a roll & write version of one of TMG's existing titles. The original version of the submission seemed too much to us like just the board game, but also with dice. It didn't take advantage of the roll & write format (namely: minimalism and portability).

I corresponded with the designer a bit as he updated the game, and at GenCon we played an updated version that seemed to be a much better use of that format, and still evoked the source game well. Andy brought the prototype home to Utah with him, but I got files from the designer and made my own copy, and after a handful of games (and some commentary from Andy), I made some tweaks to the record sheet, and I think it's probably in pretty good shape. We're waiting on some quote info before we decide whether to sign it or not.

Submission from before Origins and GenCon:
I have one submission that I had originally seen a GenCon several years ago, and was interested in, but another company had it for a while. More recently I heard that the designers got it back, and since I had been interested in it before, I had them submit the game to us. I liked the main mechanism, and I thought it could be fun to set the game in the Harbour universe and give players unique characters to use (like we did with Harbour and Harvest). Unfortunately, initial reaction from players wasn't as enthusiastic as I'd expected, but I'd still like to play some more before making any decisions on it. However, Essen is coming up, and I don't want to hold this game hostage so to speak, so I told the designers to go ahead and show the game around at Essen, and if they don't find another publisher interested, then I'd continue to evaluate the game.

Submission I've known about for a year, and finally got:
A couple of years ago at Essen, I was talking to a designer friend about Crusaders, and other mancala-rondel ideas. Some of that inspired an idea for him, and he emailed me asking if I minded his using that mechanism in a game (of course not, why would I mind?). Some time later (about a year ago) I learned that he had successfully created a game based on that mechanism, and I played a prototype of it and thought it worked pretty well. But they said they weren't done yet...

Finally, a few weeks ago, they sent me the files and I made a copy of the prototype! I have enjoyed it so far. It's very tight, and seems a little short with 2 players (though the right length, just seems so quick!). I look forward to trying it with a few more folks to test the reaction to the game.

That's about it for the TMG submissions. As I got through all of those with my playtesters, I haven't had a lot of time to work on my own games, but I DID get a few of them to the table recently:

Deities & Demigods:
A couple of weeks ago I decided to teach Deities & Demigods to my new group of regular playtesters, so that they could get acquainted with the game before trying to test player powers. I'll go into specifics of that in a separate blog post.

Alter Ego:
After bringing Alter Ego back to the table after 2 full years, I wanted to keep it in rotation, lest it find its way back to the shelf for another couple of years. So we played a 4 player game of it last Friday. I'll make a separate blog post with more details of the playtest.

EmDice:
Looking through my blog, it appears that it's been a full 4 years or more, I think, since I have played my Eminent Domain dice game (affectionately titled EmDice, though I could use a better before going to print).

FOUR YEARS!

I had considered the game "basically done," and figured it would eventually get the green light from TMG to go into production. I even got some manufacturing quotes, including one as recently as January of this year. Now that my big projects are finally done out of my hands (Pioneer Days and Harvest debuting at Essen, Crusaders and Oblivion in production), it's about time to prioritize what to work on, and revisit some of these older titles to see if they're up to par.

So for the first time in ages (it was not trivial to actually find the prototype!), I got EmDice to the table. I'll post separately about how that went, but one player surprised me by saying that he liked it better than the card game!

WHEW!

So that's what I've been up to lately. How about you?