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.

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

At an impasse -- a peek at The List and where some of my designs are at the moment

I'm at a bit of an impasse when it comes to my game designs right now... I feel like I can't make meaningful progress on any of my current designs, and with playtest sessions being so few and far between (not to mention more of a hassle on Tabletop Simulator), I feel a reluctance to start anything new. Maybe if I take a look at my active designs and their current status, it'll help me figure out what to do next. Here are some excerpts from The List:

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print]

- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [Art on pause]

These EmDo universe games may yet see the light of day, but due to some issues (that it would probably be inappropriate for me to talk about), they are on hold at the moment. Too bad, because I was really excited about the prospect of releasing the Terra Prime revamp on TMG's 10th anniversary, and the dice game has been done for a pretty long time now.

- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [Ready to print - fix faction powers!]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [Ready to print]

These Crusaders 5th and 6th player expansions have been ready to go for months, but the 1st expansion (Divine Influence) has just been sitting in China, waiting to be shipped to the US and released. Crusaders continues to be talked about (thank goodness), and I hope it remains in the zeitgeist at least until Divine Influence drops, so that doesn't end up being completely wasted effort. If that works out, then it could revitalize the game, and create some demand for these 5th/6th player expansions as well as a reprint (there's already been demand for a reprint of Deluxified Crusaders).

In the meantime, I looked at the files for some reason, and noticed that we were duplicating a couple of the new factions (because Crimson and Amber Knight expansions were supposed to be identical except for player color). That didn't make sense to me, so I developed 2 more faction powers, and we just need to swap those in before going to print.

- Olympus on the Serengeti  (FKA Deities and Demigods) [Art on pause]

I was excited to have a big name artist work on this one, but due to some of the issues mentioned above, Olympus on the Serengeti is on pause now too. Also, I'm becoming skeptical of the odd theme choice, and I wonder if just leaving it "normal" Greek mythology would be better.

- Exhibit (BGG) [Unlikely to be published due to conflict] [Abandoned]
- Dice Works (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion) [Abandoned]
- Suburban Sprawl [Abandoned]
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]

These are all basically abandoned. I did make a TTS mod for Exhibit, and played it once with my testers a few weeks ago (and again yesterday). I think it holds up, and I'm tempted to try pitching it around. It's been several years, and the person instigating that ambiguous conflict I mentioned has disappeared as far as I can tell, so that might not really even be an issue anymore (I'm skeptical that it was ever REALLY an issue, TBH).

I also made a TTS mod for Dice Works as well, and finally gave it a partial playtest yesterday. I was surprised how well it actually worked on TTS (like, physically), so maybe this one could be tested or pitched that way now. Comments from the players led to the idea of loosening up the specificity of the board spaces (like, "[ ] < 3" as opposed to "[1]", or "[ ] < [ ] < [ ]" as opposed to "[ ] = [ ] = [ ]"). The players were also concerned about the possibility of an all-out scrap strategy being sort of dominant. I don't think that's the case, but it might ruin the other player's fun, which would be a problem all its own.

Maybe for something to do I could make a TTS mod for Wizard's Tower - that might be fun to revisit.

Current Active Designs:
- Alter Ego (BGG)

After a lot of testing about this time last year, I had made a lot of progress on this one. I had made a TTS mod for it a long time ago, and had been meaning to update it with all the most recent files, but never got around to it. I guess that's something I could be working on.

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe)

Most of my playtesting time (such as it has been) lately has gone to updating Apotheosis. I pitched the game virtually to 2 different publishers... the first wasn't interested, but the 2nd did show interest. They have a line of games in a particular universe, and Apotheosis fits pretty perfectly into that universe, so Rick and I have (a) revamped the prototype graphics and set the game in their universe, (b) addressed some items the publisher commented on after our playtest with them, and (c) fixed a major issue that came up in our pitch. I just reached out to the publisher to set up a time to show them the game with the updates again. I'm excited about the prospect of getting a game published by another publisher, just to sort of get my name out there more, and also to see how the process goes from the designer's end with another publisher.

- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain)

I was feeling pretty good about the latest playtestes of All For One, almost a year ago at this point. I have been wanting to make a TTS mod for it and play it online, but I have been waiting for my co-designer to do some updates to the maps and missions. He had said he was working on it, but I suspect he got sidetracked, and he didn't even reply to my last email about it.

Maybe my best bet is to go ahead and either take a stab at the board/card redesign myself, or just upload a version like my physical prototype so I can at least play!

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG)

I'm pretty happy with the status of Riders of the Pony Express content-wise, I think one of the biggest things I wanted to do was try and make it less physically fiddly to play. I had an idea for that, but I am stalled out on trying to implement it. Maybe the thing to do is to forget about that for now, and create a TTS mod so the game can be played.

- Isle Of Trains: The Board Game (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

I had prototyped a version of this, even made a TTS mod and played it online once or twice with my testers since the Pandemic hit. But I haven't had much opportunity to get together with Dan about it, and I was starting to shift my feeling toward what he wanted for the game -- for it to be a more complex, deeper game than what I had put together. So I kind of stalled out on it and haven't thought about it in a long time. I don't really know what I could do with this one right now.

- Keeping Up With The Joneses

My latest game project, which came together pretty quickly, has taken up the rest of my recent playtest and design time. At this point I feel like the game is stable, and I don't really see how I could make progress without more, ideally more widespread, playtesting (if you want to PnP/blind test this game, leave a comment below, or email sedjtroll@gmail and let me know!). I do have a TTS mod, so I could theoretically set up more, and more widespread, playtesting, but the logistics of playtesting online are difficult for me right now, so I don't see this happening anytime soon.

That's about it for my active designs. I guess I could take a look at some of my back-burnered designs as well:

            - Automatown [Michael Brown on board]

When Michael Brown came on board as a co-designer on Automatown, the game took some great leaps forward. However, it's been quite some time since I've heard from him, and since I played the TTS mod he'd made with my testers. I guess I'm not sure what I can do for this game at the moment.

            - Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG) [a designer has showed interest]

A friend showed interest in Winds of Fate, but ultimately got busy with other life events, and the pandemic hit as well, making playtesting much more difficult. So unfortunately, this game did not get revitalized as I had hoped it might.

            - Reading Railroad

For the first time in AGES, I broke out my old prototype for Reading Railroad and not only made a TTS mod for it, but even played it in person with my wife!

I was excited to revive this game, but after a couple of tests and some consideration, I kinda realized that using word-building as a mechanism just didn't seem to be that big of a deal after all. So my interest in Reading Railroad waned again, and it's back on the back burner.

            - Moctezuma's Revenge

Nobody really showed interest in Moctezuma's Revenge, which I thought was too bad because I like the theme and idea of this one a lot -- it really sounds like something that I could imagine existing. But without someone jumping in as a co-designer, I'm not sure this game will ever go anywhere. At least not anytime soon.

            - Kilauea [a designer has showed interest]

I met online with the designer who contacted me showing interest in Kilauea. He had made a new version, and I made a TTS mod for it so we could try it. We gave it a partial play, then discussed what worked and what didn't and came up with some ideas for him to try in the next iteration. Unfortunately, I haven't heard from him since then, and I haven't really thought about the game since then either.

            - Joan of Arc [a designer has showed interest]

A strong design duo showed interest in Joan of Arc, which gave me some hope that it would see some real progress, but as yet they have not gotten to it. Time is in short supply, and I know they have their own projects to work on, and I'm still hopeful they'll get to it eventually. In the meantime, I have left the game on the back burner.

            - Dynasty

One of my oldest ideas that I think is any good, I've been re-reading my old posts about Dynasty, and thinking that this might be the game I work on next. As always, it seems like it would be so easy to put together a prototype and try it out... now that I'm not doing regular playtesting anymore, it might be harder to actually get the game to the table, but I could probably make a TTS mod for it fairly easily if I just got some prototype files together for it.

I'll start a new post to describe a couple of new, or recently revived games that weren't necessarily on The List.

Riders of the Pony Express - map board thoughts

I originally tried to use a thematic prototype board for Riders of the Pony Express:

(I had drawn routes on this image)

But while iterating on the design, I quickly switched to a more schematic type of board:

A few iterations later, and that schematic turned into a bigger, more grid-like schematic:

I had originally wanted the routs to be asymmetric, so the board geography would be more interesting, but then I realized that that's what the hazard tiles are for! So I made the symmetric board shown above, with the "shortest" routes being the north-south and east-west ones, and the longest routes being the diagonal ones. The "cost" of the routes is supposed to represent the distance and danger of taking the route, and you pay it by advancing that number of spaces on the time track. At the end of the round, you collect a bonus based on your position on the time track - the farther you have gone, the less money (points) you receive as a bonus.

Hazard tiles will be placed in each of those red squares along the routes, which will add anywhere from +0 (tumbleweed) to +5 (mountain) to the route. These randomly placed hazards serve to make the board asymmetric, and to make certain towns easier to get to than others, or certain routes more expensive than others. This way, the board itself can be a simple grid, but the routes can be dynamic and interesting.

That's all well and good for testing a prototype, but when it comes to getting serious about the design, it would be great to figure out how to represent this schematic board in a more thematic way. In addition, the game is currently a bit fiddly to set up due to having to draw a bunch of hazard and items tiles, place them on the board, and then return some of them to the bag. One of my testers had the great idea of combining a few of the hazards onto single, bigger tiles, so that setup is easier, quicker, and less fiddly.

I wasn't sure how to do that at first, and I'd prefer to also make the board look less like a grid and more like an organic map. However, so far I've only managed to come up with this tessellation, which I think will work just like the schematic above, but with the hazards printed on them. Some of those hazard spaces could be empty, to be filled in later rounds as normal:

 This could work out OK, but I don't know if it attracts me as much as an organic-seeming geography. In any case, it could be a step in the right direction.

If the board were made up of tessellated tiles like this, then it might be good to keep the name of the towns fixed. To facilitate that, I was thinking that each tile could have a hole in it,  so the town would show through the holes. This could hep keep it both thematically more accurate, and also easier or players to remember which town is where!

So what do you think? Should I stick with this tessellated tile idea? Or find another way to improve the board for the game?

Riders of the Pony Express update

A few months ago, I dusted off my Riders of the Pony Express prototype. It went over really well with my current playtest group, which is always nice to see -- they don't love every game, and it makes me feel bad forcing them to play the ones they don't enjoy enough to "finish" them.

I played RotPE a couple more times lately, and tried the changes I listed in my last post:
1. Increase value of Bears from +2 to +3. I wanted to make the Bears more different from the Bandits (which are +2), and I wanted to make the Shotgun item better... a shotgun can be discarded to remove a bear or bandit from the board, but that's really not worth using ever. This change to +3 accomplished both of those goals, though the shotgun STILL wasn't good enough. Yesterday I tried an improved version of the shotgun: ONCE PER ROUND you can "kill" (turn face down) a Bandit or a Bear. This way you can use it twice, for 2-3 each time, which is a little better - maybe worthwhile. But I'm considering not even having that limit (after all, removing the tile helps other players too!)

2. Deal mandatory parcels face up instead of face down, they don't use up inventory slots. This change seemed good, and simplifies the rules quite a bit. Along with this change, I reduced the max inventory back down to 4 items. Of course, this means you must deliver it before the end of the round.

3. Instead of random parcels for rounds 2 and 3, let players draft from a face up supply of N+1 parcels when they arrive back at the post office. This worked well. It might be a little awkward to have to deal more cads out when you're done auctioning cards for the turn -- maybe better is to deal them at the same time you deal he cards to auction (put the auction cards on one side of the board and the new parcels on the other side)? Anyway, it seemed like a good change.

4. Movement change: Move from town to hazard, or hazard to town... This was proposed by Hoss because he did not feel like it made sense the way I was doing it (move from town to hazard, and on your next turn, finish moving into the town you were heading towards). However, we found hazard-town-hazard to be sort of tedious, and didn't like how that felt. As a compromise, we went back to what I had, but explained it a little differently: you move from town to town, but you ACT at the BEGINNING of your turn, not as you arrive in a town. So you move to the next town, paying whatever cost (by moving your time marker). Then next turn you deliver (if you have anything, costs 1 time), buy an item (if you want, costs 1 time), and then move to the next town (costs some amount based on route, hazard tile, and items you have). This format worked well, and I think it communicated better also.

In addition to those changes, one of my players had a good suggestion: the time track started out going down $1 per space, then later along the track it went 2 spaces per $ drop, and eventually 3 spaces. Aaron pointed out that that felt backwards... once you're already spending a lot of time, spending even more time didn't really cost you anything. So I reversed that... now at the beginning of the track you move several spaces before your reward drops, but farther along the track you lose $1 per space, and near the very end of the track you actually lose $2 per space! I also added a dead stop at the end of the track -- if you hit that, then your delivery phase is automatically over, and you lose $10 for each undelivered parcel. Those changes have all helped combat dynamics I didn't like in the game, and they work toward making sure players care how much they bid for things.

As I mentioned above, I beefed up the shotgun item, which is a definite improvement (side note, it combos with Spurs now, since you can remove the hazard AND then get your spurs discount). In addition, I tried changing the maps to say "ignore the hazard tile when moving to town X" rather than a discount of 2. This made the maps a little more variable, potentially more attractive (at least in some cases), and reduced some of the match involved in calculating your route. As it turns out, this makes maps better for Mountains (+5) and Bears (+3), the same for Banidts (+2) and Lost! (+2), and worse for Snakes (+1) and Rivers (+1). At first I didn't like that (I fear the maps are already not good enough), but you CAN discard them to any Lost! tile, and players seem to think they're worth getting, so maybe they're fine. I think I'll try the "ignore hazard" rule again to see if I want to keep it.

Similarly, Compass should say "ignore Lost! tiles" to help minimize the arithmetic in the game.

Finally, one of the worst parts of the game is the fiddly setup -- drawing a million square tiles and placing them on the board, then removing the tumbleweeds and snakes. Then in week 2, adding more tiles, only to remove tumbleweeds again, etc. I'm looking for a way to do bigger tiles that each cover several hazard spaces, so that setup can be simpler but the map board could still be somewhat variable with respect to where the mountains, rivers, and Lost! tiles are.

It would be cool to make the map not look like a schematic/grid as well!

Riders of the Pony Express - current status and new ideas

Back in August I had found an old strategy article I'd been looking for, which applied directly to one of my game designs, but I didn't revisit the game itself at the time.

The other day I posted about a playtest session in which I took that old prototype off the back burner and got it to the table: Riders of the Pony Express (BGG link - looks like I ought to edit that description a little bit!).

As I mentioned in the August post, I have experienced an issue, mostly with the 5-player game. And as I mentioned in the playtest report post, I found a hand-written rules edit that I don't remember every trying before, which may solve the 5p problem for me as well, at least in the blind bid version of the game (the one which is the most gamer-y, and which I will probably stick with):

The winner of the bid must leave their winning bid card face up on the table, it is not available to them for the rest of the round.

That's it! It's so simple, and it made for some very interesting bidding dynamics all around.

With respect to the 5p problem I outlined in the August post, I had showed some math which explained why winning each bid for the minimum of $3 was fairly dominant -- you would get $24 while each opponent would get only $14. Sure, you would have to spend more traveling, and you would get a lower bonus upon returning to the post office, but even if that did kind of even things out, it isn't fun for the other players to just go through the motions of riding across the board while you visit town after town to deliver all your parcels.

In the comments on that post, I posited two solutions which could change the math, evening up the amount of money you would get compared to each opponent if you won all the bids at $3: upping the total amount from $10 to $15 in a 5p game, or allowing a minimum bid of $2 instead of $3. Neither of these really solve the problem, they just punish the player who does the annoying thing. That's a sort of "soft" solution, in that players who are trying to win probably won't do something so bad, therefore the game won't be ruined. However, the reality is that, whether they want to or not, players don't always "play to win" as much as you might think. This is especially true in the case that they haven't played before, or fully analyzed the costs of delivering.

This new solution of leaving the winning bid card face up DOES solve the problem, because it means you simply CAN'T bid $3 on every auction! If players really think that bidding the minimum is the way to go, then at least the parcels will be spread around between the players. And savvy players may start to realize they can do better if they bid higher (though if a different non-savvy player does undercut them every time, it might not be very fun, even if they do win).

I'll note also that the current rules give each player a mandatory parcel to deliver. This may be thematically awkward, but it means everyone is going SOMEWHERE each round, making certain other parcels "on the way."

Things to try in the next test
As I mentioned in the last post, I had a hard time finding something I thought really needed changing. Here are a few changes I'll try for the next playtest:
* Increase value of Bears from +2 to +3. This should make them more distinct from Bandits, and will make the Shotgun item more valuable (currently it is probably not really valuable enough)
* Deal round 1 mandatory parcels face up instead of face down, to see if that makes the auction phase any more interesting (it might actually be worse, but it's worth a try!)
* Instead of dealing mandatory parcels for rounds 2 and 3, layout N+1 face up and let players take one when they arrive at the post office (so drafting them in the order they finish the round).
* Treat the mandatory parcel just like the ones obtained by auction - keep it face up and you're required to deliver it that round

Currently the mandatory parcels are face down, they take up space in your inventory, and they aren't required to be delivered until the end of the game, while face-up parcels obtained in the auction phase are required to be delivered that round, but they don't take up your inventory space. Here's a quote from a previous post when I implemented it:

One issue that's come up in the past is the face down parcel cards. Some players feel they "force" a certain path, and I can see that... so I tried a change. Face down parcels aren't from your boss, they're like side jobs. You're not REQUIRED to deliver them each round, but they take up space in your inventory. I made player boards to help show this - you have room for 1 face down card and 4 items (expanded from 3), and if you don't deliver your 1st face down card, then the next one takes up 2 of your item slots (this is obvious graphically). Currently I'm saying that you have to deliver them by the end of the game, but another option is to simply apply a penalty if you don't (so if it's more expensive to deliver than to take the penalty, maybe you just take the penalty).

But you do get the mandatory parcel before having to claim other parcels, and now maybe you'll have chosen it (per tweak listed above), so maybe it'll be fine to treat them the same as the parcels you get in the auctions. I could do with more elegant rules here, so maybe all parcels should just be face up, required to deliver that round.

* Treat each hazard and each town as a space, and let players move from space to space, rather than from town to town. One of my players thought this would be way more intuitive, and it does have the advantage that if 2 players arrive at the same town at about the same time, the one that fiddles around less (spends less time acting int he town) will leave first, irrespective of turn order.

Originally, I had players moving from town to town. Here's another quote from a previous post about why I changed that:

to better represent what's going on (and to make fair races between players), I specified that you don't move from town to town - you move from town to hazard tile, then on your next turn you arrive in the town, discard any parcels, pick up an item if you like, and then move to the next hazard.

So now you basically move from hazard to hazard, and do some stuff in a town as yo pass through. Though it has't bothered me at all, it IS a little weird. So I'll try alternating (move from hazard to town, town to hazard, etc). I thought it might be odd to have twice as many turns, where half of them are 0-1 time cost. When paying 0 time, do you just go again right away? If that's the case more often than not, then why make it a separate turn? But maybe I should make town turns a little more costly -- like you spend 1 time for each thing you do, minimum 1. So like, you had to rest or change out your horse at the very least (1 time), and if you go around making deliveries or shopping for items, it'll cost you more time.

So for a hazard space you spend the listed amount, plus hazard modifier, minus item modifiers (minimum 1). And for a town space you spend 1, plus 1 for each delivery you make, and for at most 1 item you pick up. Which means you could spend 1, 2, 3, even 4 time in a town (in fact, I think it could theoretically max out at 5 if you have both parcels and a package item to deliver, and if you pick up an item).

This change will make longer, more circuitous routes quite a bit more expensive, which might have the side effect of encouraging players to bid higher on parcels, or more often say "no thanks" and let the auctioneer take the parcel. I'd like that to be something that can happen if you choose wisely and want it to, or choose poorly and get stuck with it, but hopefully not too often because things are just too expensive! I'll have to see if that goes too far.

Playtest day: revisiting Automatown and Riders of the Pony Express

The ball is back in Michael's proverbial court for the game I've been testing lately (Sails & Sorcery), so Saturday I brought two games I've had on the back burner for a while: Automatown and Riders of the Pony Express.

Automatown

It's been 2 years since I initially prototyped this worker placement game where you use your workers to build more workers, and it's been almost as long since I got it to the table. The basic premise is that you're building robots out of head, arm, torso, and leg pieces of high, medium, and low quality (as well as scrap). You can make a generic robot with anything, which gives you another works, and adds 1 strength to your army of robots, but if you get the correct combination of head, arms, torso, and legs, then you can complete a blueprint and make a better robot -- stronger, or with a cool ability you can use each time you send it out.

Challenges with this one include things like (a) the scary look of 13 different resources (even if there are really only 4, each with 3 levels of quality -- but since the blueprints require specific levels of quality, it kinda IS like there are 13 different resources), and more importantly (b) the "combo-y" nature of the abilities does not seem to be coming through, so there isn't a strong feeling of engine building to be had.

I got some good notes, some of which had come up in previous tests, but it's been so long I'd forgotten about them, and I hadn't updated my prototype (friendly reminder: keep our prototypes up to date!). Things like making a specific set of starting worker placement cards, to ensure the first round has useful actions for example. Also, reducing the game end trigger for 4 players, so that the game ends before players have 10+ workers each and the blueprint deck runs out (also, I could make more blueprints). Also, I think I need to improve the engine building aspect / combo-y nature of the robot abilities (again), because it seems like players weren't feeling like they were able to build combos.

Some good ideas that came up this time include:
* Rather than taking any card from the 3 available blueprint cards, take the 1st (if you placed 1 worker), 1st-2nd (if you placed 2), or 1st-3rd (if you placed 3 workers). Ether that, or take any one you want, but to access the cards deeper in the row, pay resource cubes onto the ones before it (as is common in games with a card row). I like both of those ideas, and I'm not sure which I like better.
* Possibly making the higher level resources cost more to get, since currently it felt easy to get what you needed. Currently things are designed and balanced such that the high quality resources are worth more than the low quality ones -- a low quality torso is worth 2 (scrap + upgrade), and a high quality torso is worth 4 (scrap + 3 upgrades), which IS more, but with so many workers, and so many ways to get, upgrade, and swap resources around, it didn't feel hard for players to get what they needed (though by definition, they were paying more for it). I think overall the system might just be too flexible. If I re-balance things so that going up a level requires not just an upgrade action, but also a scrap (+2 units), then that might make the higher level resources somewhat harder to get, and it might also simplify the worker spaces, some of which are oddly designed in order to get the values right.
* Maybe cut a whole resource type, and just have head/torso/legs, reducing the resource variety by 3, and the cost complexity by 25%

Some ideas that I'm less sure about, but which certainly bear considering or trying include:
* Separating scoring from building robots. Make it so you build robots for workers and abilities, but then do scoring some other way.
* Making a sort of Master Blueprint that you could improve/update, to give a better sense of "that player wants that type of resource," so that you can plan and block better.
* Maybe don't require 1 of each type per robot -- instead maybe have a robot that requires multiple heads and only 1 torso, for example. Or change the resources to be things like actuators and power cores instead of heads and torsos. With good iconography, the costs would be clear enough, it's not necessary to make sure each robot has each of the 4 types of resources. This may also help the engine building aspect, since you won't need to always get all 4 resource types (something the swap ability was supposed to help with)

I definitely got a lot to think about for this one, and I'll be revisiting my prototype soon to try another version.

Riders of the Pony Express

This is another "oldie-but-a-goodie" from the back catalog. My last blog post about playtesting this one was 4 years ago (whew!), but I might have played it since and not posted about it. The premise of this one is that you're a rider for the Pony Express, tasked with delivering parcels to various towns on our way from Missouri to California and back. You haggle with your fellow riders, trying to get people to take your parcels for you, and offering to take parcels that are on your way, before riding from town to town to make deliveries. This was my attempt at a low-bid auction, initially a "count-up" auction, where the auctioneer would count up from 1 to 10 or until another player jumped in to claim it, I think it works better as a blind bid (even though generally speaking I hate blind bids). However, it's possible that the "count up" auction could be a variant rule, because non-designer/social gamer types seemed to like it.

This game went over pretty well with my playtesters, and a new rule I found hand written on the rules page was a great change that I don't think I'd tried before. In the past I'd had some trouble with the 5 player game, and decided maybe it should just be a 4p max game, but this new rule might actually make 5p work just fine after all. The rule is that you leave your bid card out, so you can't bid the minimum ($3) over and over again. We clarified that to be that the bid winner leaves their card out, which must be what I had meant in the first place :)

I was hard pressed to find anything I really wanted to change for the next test of this. I think I'll boost the Bear hazard up by 1, to make them more different than the Bandits, and to make the Shotgun item more attractive. I also might try a tweak to the delivery phase based on some comments that one of my testers felt strongly about.

All in all, a good playtest day. We even played Dave's video game prototype, which is a pretty fun spaceship building/dogfight/king-of-the-hill ting based largely on one of my favorite old arcade classics, Rampart.

Blast from the past! Applying "basic strategy" to Riders of the Pony Express

For YEARS I've been searching for an article I once read about basic strategy, why it's not always bad to make a trade that's not obviously in your own favor. Nobody seemed to recognize it when I described the article, or the hypothetical gem trading game used in it as an example. Google searches had left me high and dry. At times I started to wonder if the article never really did exist...

The other day I was exchanging emails with my friend Rick, who's come on board to help me with my Worker Learning game, and he referenced (and linked to) an old article about "bombs" in games by Jonathan Degann. I clicked the link, and recognized the article. I'd read it some years ago. On top of that, I kind of recognized the look of the page. I wondered what else I had seen on it. I didn't see any navigation buttons, so I deleted the last part of the URL (showing the title of the article), and what I got was a text list of links to different article by name. I recognized that too...

Clicking through some of those links, I saw more and more articles that I remember having seen or read years ago. One of them, oddly enough, I have a printed copy of sitting right next to me at my desk!

And then it happened. One of the links I clicked on made my eyes light up. FINALLY, after all this time, I had found it. I had found that article about trading gems! It's by Greg Aleknevicus from 2004 in The Games Journal: Basic Strategy 1.0

I wholeheartedly recommend reading this short article, which talks about why it's not always bad to make a trade that's not obviously in your own favor. It's insight that applies to games, of course, but also to real life. Here's a highlight, maybe my favorite single line from the article:

When most people contemplate a trade, they consider only the two involved parties and this is why they fail to appreciate the value of "unequal trading". There are really three parties involved: you, your trading partner, and the other players. Even though your trading partner has gained more victory points than you (on any single trade), you've gained on everyone else.

By the way, I also recommend the next article in that series, Basic Strategy 2.0 -- it gives a great and very simple description of how to start considering all the factors in your strategic decision making.

I am SO HAPPY to have found this! Now, to show how it is relevant to a game designer, let's consider one of my own designs: Riders of the Pony Express.

In Riders of the Pony Express, there's sort of a low-bid auction where you receive $10 and a parcel to auction off ("Anyone want to do this delivery for me? I'll give you $3. $4? How about $5?"). If someone claims the parcel for $4, then you keep the remaining $6. Each player will do that twice per round. There's a dynamic that has come up in which players can simply bid the absolute minimum ($3) for parcels, claiming every one right away. Since you only get $3 for doing that, I had hoped that it would not be worthwhile (except perhaps in rare circumstances). But in fact, especially in a 5 player game, claiming every parcel for the $3 minimum bid can be a dominant strategy for exactly the reason outlined in that strategy article linked above!
This is true for 2 reasons:

1. In a 5 player game, you can get away with significantly more money than each opponent if you take every parcel for $3 (you get $3 x 4 opponents x 2 parcels/opponent = $24, and they each get $7 x 2 parcels = $14). This is less true in a 4 player game (you only get $18 to their $14, which is much closer), and in a 3 player game you don't actually make out ahead. So the issue is most pronounced when there's a full complement of 5 players.
2. The costs of making a delivery that's out of your way do not appear to be high enough. As one playtester put it, you have to traverse the entire board anyway, so nothing really seemed out of the way. Now, I'm not 100% sure he's right, but it's possible the costs need to be a bit higher to go "off course," in order to make the route planning and parcel claiming properly interesting.

Again, it may be that this is only a problem in a 5 player game, which might just mean the game should only be for 2-4 players. If simply reducing the player count solves the problem, then it seems a reasonable solution. Besides, I've had complaints about game length and stuff in 5 player anyway. However, I'd hate for that to be the solution, I'd rather understand the problem and fix it! And re-reading Basic Strategy 1.0 might remind me how to do just that!

General update to The List

About a year ago I revisited The List to take stock of the status of my game projects. I thought it might be nice to update that list a little bit, as some of the games on it have made some progress...

Published Games:
- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG)
- Isle of Trains (BGG)
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion)

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Exhibit (BGG link)
- Eminent Domain: the Dice Game
- Dice Works (BGG link)
- Wizard's Tower (BGG link)
- Now Boarding
- Suburban Sprawl

Current Active Designs:
- Deities and Demigods
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (expansion)
- The Pony Express
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)
- Alter Ego (BGG link)

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad
- All For One (BGG)

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere (Yet) - some of these have been getting stale as well:
- Rondel Role Selection
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- Moctezuma's Revenge
- Scourge of the High Seas

Let's take a closer look at some of these:
Published games:
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
I'm excited to say that Crusaders is moving forward at TMG! Adam McIver, now a full time TMG employee, has been spending some of his time working on the art and graphic design of the game (I shared the box cover recently), and it looks fantastic!
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion)
Dan Keltner and I finished our expansion to Isle of Trains for Dice Hate Me/Greater Than Games almost a year ago, and we've recently been told that it will finally be on Kickstarter in the next week or so! The final title of the expansion is Isle of Trains: All Aboard.
- Terra Prime (BGG)
In the near future (perhaps for TMG's 10th anniversary) we will be bringing back Terra Prime as a 2nd edition, with updated rules, expansion included, and set in the Eminent Domain universe. It'll be called Eminent Domain: Origins.

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Exhibit (BGG link)
I'm disappointed in the current status of Exhibit. A European publisher was very interested, but a difference of opinion between me an another designer on "IP rights" sort of nixed that deal. I checked with an IP lawyer to ensure that my understanding was correct, which it was, but the whole thing has left a sour taste in my mouth.
- Now Boarding
I worked on this with Tim Fowers (Wok Star, Paperback, Burgle Bros, and most recently Fugitive). Since we made this game he has taken it in a bit of a different direction, and I think he might be making that version of Now Boarding his next project.
- Suburban Sprawl
Based on another DHMG/GTG contest - this time a dexterity game (which uses 57 cards, plus score sheets)- I designed Suburban Sprawl with Matthew Dunstan. In Suburban Sprawl you toss cards into play to build Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Civic buildings. I was going for a light, quick game with a sort of SimCity feel that's easy to learn and play, and at that I think we succeeded. Unfortunately, we didn't win the contest :(

Current Active Designs:
- Deities and Demigods
Another attempt at Deck Learning, Deities and Demigods is like a role selection game, but the game calls the roles, and in random order. Players will have some control over which roles are in the deck, and can upgrade their efficiency at each role. The effects of the roles will allow players to move armies around a map in an effort to complete quests and control cities. Matthew Dunstan has been working with me on this one, and it has taken shape quite well, dare I say it's nearing completion. I still would like to add some more interesting board elements (terrain, or at least water), and I have yet to try the "expansion module" featuring Hades, a deity that was cut from the base game.
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)
I keep circling and iterating on this one. I need to implement the mot recent change ideas and try it again.
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (expansion)
3rd expansion to Eminent Domain. I worked out how this would play several years ago, and once Exotica was in production I finally started prototyping and trying it. I've gone through an iteration or two so far, and I think I'm close to something I could call the final phases of development, but I've been concentrating on other games lately so this one hasn't been played in a while.
- Alter Ego (BGG link)
Mike's always been a fan of this one. Alter Ego was finally shaping up, but it hasn't hit the table in a while now. I think with a little TMG Utah input and some nice art, this could potentially be ready for a GenCon 2017 release, but looking at the release schedule, that seems really ambitious (I don't think I can count on TMG development help on this one... too much going on over there).

Recent Designs That Are Not On The Front Burner:
- Rondel Role Selection
Another variation on role selection, this one got off to an OK start, but hasn't gotten any attention in a while.

Old Standbys:
- Hot & Fresh
I'm a little disappointed I never finished this one, but the most recent changes (several years ago now) seemed like a big step in the right direction. I'm just not sure how excited I am about a press your luck pickup/deliver game anymore.
- Dynasty
This is my shelved design that I'm probably most interested in, or at least the one I think might have the most promise as a "mediocre euro."
- Reading Railroad
I always think that Reading Railroad would be a fun word-building / connection game, but the truth is that people who like word games probably don't want to play a connection game, and people who like connection games probably don't want to play a word game. Still, I'd like to finish this one day.
- All For One (BGG)
All For One might be my single biggest disappointment. It is the game that really got me into the design hobby, and I thought it was good - really good - but it never got any publisher interest. It's suffered some setbacks, and now, almost 10 years later, I feel like it might be a bit old fashioned and in need of an overhaul, but I don't have the impetus to overhaul it.

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere (Yet):
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
I think a game where you put together parts of stories and embellish them to make them work would be a cute and fun game, but the theme may not really be very desirable, so I never revisited this idea, even though I think I had the main mechanism completely thought out.
- Ticket Please
A game about controlling gates in airports and moving people to their destinations, in the same scope as a Ticket to Ride seems like it could be really successful, I'm not sure why I haven't revisited this yet.
- Moctezuma's Revenge
Maybe it's because I don't really like press your luck games or deduction games much, but I never got back around to Moctezuma's Revenge, even though it sounds like a system that could make for a solid game.

A quick Pony Express update (and a new title!)

I got a chance to play The Pony Express twice recently, with all the recent updates. The updates were pretty good, but there are some other issues I needed to address. In no particular order:

Title:
I wanted to add this to the database, but there are too many games called Pony Express. I think The Pony Express is probably too close to that, so I decided on Riders of the Pony Express.

Express deliveries and 2 parcels to each town:
I don't miss the Express Deliveries, I like just awarding a static reward for arriving early. And I haven't had any issues yet with going back to 2 cards for each town.

I may have an issue with the 5 player game, so I might go back to 3-4 for a while, at least until I'm happy with the game at that player count.

Specific additional delivery items:
I like this change a lot, and since I needed 2 more items, I added 2 more of them. The ones that go to the corner cities are worth $8, and the ones that go to the central cities are only worth $6 (I figure they're easier to deliver). So you pick these up, you're not REQUIRED to deliver them, but they sit in your inventory taking up space until you do, and you get paid upon delivery (no sneaky picking it up, then dropping it later after collecting your $$!)

Start with a Map item in each town:
I liked this change as well. Each town starts with a Map and one random item out of the predetermined starting set, though I suppose I could just make that completely random. I kinda want the torches and Saloons to come out early though. Maybe I should make the saloons permanent... that's a thought.

Face down parcel cards:
One issue that's come up in the past is the face down parcel cards. Some players feel they "force" a certain path, and I can see that... so I tried a change. Face down parcels aren't from your boss, they're like side jobs. You're not REQUIRED to deliver them each round, but they take up space in your inventory. I made player boards to help show this - you have room for 1 face down card and 4 items (expanded from 3), and if you don't deliver your 1st face down card, then the next one takes up 2 of your item slots (this is obvious graphically). Currently I'm saying that you have to deliver them by the end of the game, but another option is to simply apply a penalty if you don't (so if it's more expensive to deliver than to take the penalty, maybe you just take the penalty).

So far I like this change, but I have to try it a few more times.

Blind bid with cards rather than count-up auction:
I've been very hesitant to try this, as I think the count-up auction is fun and tense, and was kind of the origin of the game. I keep saying I should at least TRY the blind bid to see how it goes before dismissing it outright, and I even added cards to the box to try it with. I finally gave it a shot - here's how it went.

I gave each player 3, 4 5, 6, 7, and Jack from a deck of cards (bonus points for using a deck of cards in an old west theme game, I guess). After the auctioneer selects a parcel, players each select a card to play simultaneously. The numbered cards are the amount of money that player will do the delivery for, the Jack means "no thanks." If all opponents play a Jack, then you keep the parcel for yourself (and you keep all $10).

This actually worked alright, and one player said they didn't necessarily think it was "better," but it was more like what he would expect. I need to try it a few more times, but it's possible I could include both versions in the rules - one for gamer-types who want the specificity of the blind bid, and one for casual players who prefer the count-up auction.

One thing about the count-up auction though. I needed to find a way to eliminate players jumping in with a bid prematurely, before other players are ready to begin (like before the auctioneer even starts counting). The easiest thing was to start the counting at $1, since NOBODY should be claiming at $1, and then all players know when $3 comes up - it's not perfect, but it's better than premature bidding!

Turn order specifics:
I had a weird turn order effect that had to do with the order of play reversing when time markers land in a stack, so I think I'm going to reverse that to be that when markers are in a stack, they play from bottom to top.

Also, to better represent what's going on (and to make fair races between players), I specified that you don't move from town to town - you move from town to hazard tile, then on your next turn you arrive in the town, discard any parcels, pick up an item if you like, and then move to the next hazard.

Turn Order Track:
A player at Sasquatch suggested that it would feel better if players didn't have to pay for their trip at the end. Instead of starting at $0 and going up as you travel, I could start at, say $25, and go down... then award that money when players arrive. So instead of paying $15 when you arrive at the post office, you'll just collect $10, while I collect $13 (rather than paying $12) for may shorter trip.

We're coming up on the holiday season, which means this game is almost a year old! I think it needs some more testing, but I think it's making progress!

Pony Express update

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with all the outstanding game projects I've got going on... between that and a week long trip to Essen (and playing a few of the games we brought back to evaluate), it's been a while since I've really made any progress on any of my designs.

A few weeks ago at RinCon I got a chance to play Pony Express again, implementing some of the updates I'd written down back in May. After that game (and a late night de-brief with a friend from California who came to town for the con), I made some notes for more changes, and today - spurred by the upcoming Sasquatch game convention in Seattle - I finally got around to updating the prototype. The changes of note include...

* During setup, put out all the terrain type hazard tiles (River, Mountain, and Lost!), along with all the tumbleweeds, then remove the tumbleweeds. So the terrain things will be in play from the beginning, which is most important for the Mountains, but also it just makes sense.

* I took the Express Deliveries out of the deck - they were causing too many problems. Instead of using them, I went back to 2 cards per town - which used to be the case, but I didn't like people auto-claiming a parcel if they already have one for that same location. I think with how the rest of the game has evolved, that might not be so bad anymore. This also means there's enough cards for 5 players again - maybe even 6!

* I made the Additional Delivery items specific - instead of drawing a card, you take the item into your inventory, it counts as a parcel you need to deliver, and it has a specific location to deliver it to. I believe I need to add 2 more items, so I might add 2 more of these ($5 ones to towns #6 and #7 perhaps).

* I'll try awarding a small cash bonus for arriving at the Post Office... 1/2 the End Game Bonus printed (so like $4/$3/$2/$1/$0 for arriving 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th) in rounds 1 & 2, and the full bonus for round 3 (since turn order isn't helpful anymore after round 3).

* I will try starting each town with one of the Map items in it, as well as one of the "I" items (rather than an "I" item and a random item).

* I clarified that $7 is the last chance players have to claim a parcel before the Auctioneer gets it for $10 (not $8). I'm hoping that makes the parcel choosing in the Auction phase more interesting.

I hope to give this game another try in Seattle next week.

The List - July 2015

GenCon is coming up in two weeks, so it's probably a good time to revisit The List and take stock of my designs and prototypes. It's been a while since I've done this, and I'm interested to see just how much this list has changed over time!

Published Games:
- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG)
- Isle of Trains (BGG)

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Exhibit (BGG link)
- Eminent Domain: the Dice Game
- Dice Works (BGG link)
- Wizard's Tower (BGG link)
- Now Boarding

Current Active Designs:
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
- The Pony Express
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (expansion)
- Alter Ego (BGG link)
- Isle of Trains More (expansion)
- Suburban Sprawl

Recent Designs That Are Not On The Front Burner:
- Deities and Demigods
- Rondel Role Selection

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad
- All For One (BGG)

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

Let's take a closer look at some of these:
Published games:
- Terra Prime (BGG)
I'd love to bring back Terra Prime as a 2nd edition, with updated rules, expansion included, and set in the Eminent Domain universe. It'd be called Eminent Domain: Origins, and one of these days it may be possible.

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Exhibit (BGG link)
I'm disappointed in the current status of Exhibit. A European publisher was very interested, but a difference of opinion on whether a certain person's IP rights were infringed has caused it to be delayed - maybe indefinitely. I checked with an IP lawyer to ensure that my understanding was correct, which it was, but the whole thing has left a sour taste in my mouth.
- Now Boarding
I worked on this with Tim Fowers, who's recently finished a kickstarter for his co-op game Burgle Brothers. Maybe he'd like to print Now Boarding as his next project? Maybe I'll pitch that idea to him :)

Current Active Designs:
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
I'm happy with this one as-is, but there's a desire from the TMG staff to add super-unique faction abilities (with unique upgrades and buildings, like the factions in Terra Mystica).
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)
I keep circling and iterating on this one. I need to implement the mot recent change ideas and try it again.
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (expansion)
3rd expansion to Eminent Domain. I worked out how this would play several years ago, and now that Exotica is in production I've finally started prototyping and trying it. So far, so good!
- Alter Ego (BGG link)
Mike's always been a fan of this one. Back on the front burner, Alter Ego is finally shaping up. I think with a little TMG Utah input and some nice art, this could potentially be ready for a GenCon 2016 release!
- Isle of Trains More (expansion)
Dan Keltner and I are working on an expansion to Isle of Trains for Dice Hate Me/Greater Than Games to follow up our contest winning entry.
- Suburban Sprawl
Working on the next DHMG/GTG contest - this time a dexterity game (which currently only uses 54 cards, plus 8 scoring cards) with Matthew Dunstan. In Suburban Sprawl you toss cards into play to build Residential, Commercial, industrial, and Civic buildings. I'm going for a light, quick game with a sort of SimCity feel that's easy to learn and play.

Recent Designs That Are Not On The Front Burner:
- Deities and Demigods
Another attempt at Deck Learning, Deities and Demigods is like a role selection game, but the game calls the roles, and in random order. Players will have some control over which roles are in the deck, and can upgrade their efficiency at each role. The effects of the roles will allow players to move armies and fleets around a map in an effort to complete quests/tasks and control cities.
- Rondel Role Selection
Another variation on role selection, this one got off to an OK start, but hasn't gotten any attention in a while.

Old Standbys:
- Hot & Fresh
I'm a little disappointed I never finished this one, but the most recent changes (several years ago now) seemed like a big step in the right direction. I'm just not sure how excited i am about a press your luck pickup/deliver game anymore.
- Dynasty
This is my shelved design that I'm probably most interested in, or at least the one I think might have the most promise as a "mediocre euro."
- Reading Railroad
I always think that Reading Railroad would be a fun word-building / connection game, but the truth is that people who like word games probably don't want to play a connection game, and people who like connection games probably don't want to play a word game. Still, I'd like to finish this one day.
- All For One (BGG)
All For One might be my single biggest disappointment. It is the game that really got me into the design hobby, and I thought it was good - really good - but it never got any publisher interest. It's suffered some setbacks, and now - almost 10 years later - I feel like it might be a bit old fashioned and in need of an overhaul, but I don't have the impetus to overhaul it.

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere (Yet):
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
I think a game where you put together parts of stories and embellish them to make them work would be a cute and fun game, but the theme may not really be very desirable, so I never revisited this idea, even though I think I had the main mechanism completely thought out.
- Ticket Please
A game about controlling gates in airports and moving people to their destinations, in the same scope as a Ticket to Ride seems like it could be really successful, I'm not sure why I haven't revisited this yet.
- Moctezuma's Revenge
Maybe it's because I don't really like press your luck games or deduction games much, but I never got back around to Moctezuma's Revenge, even though it sounds like a system that could make for a solid game.