Spring Spielbany 2011

4 years ago I attended the Spielbany game design meetup and got a chance to see and play a number of prototypes as well as meet in person several people I see online all the time. Last weekend I decided to do it again. I flew out Friday and returned Monday, and over the course of the weekend I managed to play 12 games (5 of them my designs or designs I'm developing) and have some good design talk and just hang out with some people I don't normally get to. I brought the following games with me, but didn't get to all of them:

Spaghetti Western - a prototype that had been submitted which I was simply returning to the owner.
Caravan Imperative - another prototype I had intended to return, however I forgot to give it back to Andy!
Eminent Domain, with Exotic expansion
Kings of Air and Steam
All For One
Dice Works (or Dice Werx, not sure about the spelling on that)
Alter Ego - not much of a prototype really, just an assembly of cards at the moment
Jab - manufacturer's sample to show off
Brain Freeze - current (almost final) version of the iPad app
Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost Time - partial prototype of the liar's dice bluff auction game

Here's what I played and how it went:

Ice Weasels - a cute, quick kid's game about collecting sets of frozen weasels. The game was inspired by Otter Pops, you have a line of various colored Weasel cards, and on your turn you can either claim a card off of either end, or you can break the line wherever you want (minimum 2 cards in each 'half'). The idea is to get triplets of the same color and then "thaw' them (score them), giving you another turn. Everyone has a 'favorite' color which scores more points for them, and there's a color that's bad for everybody (well, bad if you don't get a whole set and thaw them).  I took a copy of this home with me to show Mike and his kids.

Eminent Domain - I got a 5 player game of Eminent Domain in - the first time I've played with 5. I did not include the Prestige, Utopian, or Exotic planets, and in fact used the Learning Game variant so I removed the 3 Advanced planets with Research icons as well. As a result I noticed that with 5 players the Planet deck ran out, which either means the 5p game needs to include expansion planets, or else for 5 players the planet deck running out should be considered a game end condition. I hadn't considered that for 2-4 players because by the time that happens, the game is over already. But with 5 players puling planets out of the deck, it can run out pretty quick. I think that's acceptable, that for 5p the Planet deck running out could be an additional game end trigger.

I also played with 1 or 2 (forget offhand) extra cards in each stack, and the game dragged on a little longer than I thought it should. I'm not sure if that's to do with using the learning Game variant, or just 5 players in general, or if I really didn't need to add extra cards to the stacks. I'll need to test that some more and find out. Generally speaking though the game seemed to go over very well.

Honor and Glory - A short, cooperative adventure game that's supposed to give the feel of an RPG. Each player has a character sheet with a Class card and a couple of Trait cards. When 'adventuring,' some encounter cards are drawn which each show a specific die result, and 1 or 2 Traits. For each Trait present, if a member of the party has that trait, they get an additional die to roll. The goal is to roll the specific number indicated on the card. Before rolling though, the group chooses one of the characters to be the leader, and therefore their leader ability is in play for that encounter.

Altogether a neat idea, though there were a lot of comments made about the leader abilities, how they work, and whether it made sense for them to only matter when that player was the leader. For example, unless chosen as the leader, the Warrior character was exactly the same as the Cleric character. Seems like they should behave differently even if neither one is the leader. I would like to see each character have a thematic "always on" ability which is a small but beneficial effect, as well as a Leader ability which comes into play if they are the leader. And I'd like to see that Leader ability be something you can count on, not a triggered ability that only works if someone happens to roll a 6. There's an opportunity cost of choosing 1 leader bonus over another, and for it to not come into play sort of cheapens that whole leader choosing decision.

Another comment that came up was that each Encounter should feel like progress toward the end goal. A solution discussed (which I think the designer implemented the next day) was to put prizes (equipment) into the Encounter deck, and when one comes up, it's replaced by another card, and it counts as the LOOT for the adventure, so the heroes will become more powerful over time, allowing them to have an easier time against the boss at the end.

Finally, each round of combat that the group doesn't defeat the bad guys, they take damage. They are allowed to choose who takes the damage. I'd like to see that be wrapped into the choice of Leader - the Leader is out front, they should take the brunt of the attack - maybe they take all the damage. Or maybe each player takes 1 and the leader takes the rest or something.

I would try that game again, with those changes implemented. I could see it being pretty fun.

Sword Merchants - At BGG.con a while back I played Gil Hova's game called Pax Robotica. A theme (and title) I rather enjoyed, and I liked the game for the most part too. Players were Arms Dealers, selling weapons (in that case Battle Bots) to different sides of various conflicts. To an extent you didn't care who won the battles, you would supply Bots to whoever would pay for them. One of the biggest drawbacks of that version of the game was the combat resolution which was obtuse, and a side effect was that the theme seemed to make people think it was a game about fighting robots, not about building and selling them.

Since then Gil has changed the game a lot, stripping his unique auction mechanism (from Wag the Wolf) and changing the theme to a fantasy setting. now Orcs, Kobolds, Dwarves and Elves are at war, and each race will purchase Swords, Axes, Pole Arms, and Maces from the players. There's a dynamic by which the more battles a race loses the more desperate it becomes, and the more desperate a race is, the more money they'll pay for weapons. In addition, there's an end game bonus for having supported the team that lost the fewest battles, which Gil found a nice way to do since Pax Robotica.

I think the game was pretty solid, though some of the numbers were off. The most important changes that were suggested were to give everyone level 1 technology in each weapon (normally you have to buy that) so that no matter what you can always build at least a really crappy weapon of each type (which can turn out to be important for another part of the game), to adjust the values and rates of change of numbers (of course, in a prototype the numbers are often off), and I made an additional suggestion to start with less money so that players can't afford to do as much from the start. I find that games are cool when the players are only able to do 1-2 of 3-4 different things at the start, because then they naturally diverge in player posture - making the rest of the game interesting. I hope to see this one again soon.

Nottingham - Originally designed for the Robin Hood themed Game Design Showdown at BGDF, Nottingham has been expanded into a cooperative game with a traitor that plays 7. The players are on Prince John's side, except the traitor who's in cahoots with Robin Hood. A great theme, and an interesting take on it if you ask me!

The game had a lot in common with Shadows Over Camelot, and any coop game with a traitor will draw that comparison. I did think that this game felt different because you seemed to have more to do in it. The learning curve was a little high, as there were a TON of unique cards, but that's kind of how thematic games go. The designer (Richard James) played the game twice over the weekend, and he was telling me some of the stuff he was planning on changing. It all sounded like steps in the right direction. I'd like to try this one again once the designer gets a chance to polish it up a bit. I'm a sucker for a Robin Hood theme :)

All For One -It's been a long time since I've done anything with All For One, but I was happy to get it to the table. We played a 4 player game (the game has always been best with 4), and I finally tried it without the guards altogether. I don't think I missed them. Some of the same old comments reared their ugly head - and I'm starting to agree that the voting mechanism using the mission cards is not the best idea. Some suggestions were made, maybe the best of which was to relax the hand limit, and to allow players to play any number of cards in a duel (irrespective of which ones), and choose either Offense or Defense. So a different kind of voting, where you sort of bid with your cards to support the result you want to vote for. I might try that next time.


Another idea that came up to promote interaction between characters (which may translate to player interaction) is to forget carrying capacities and simply force a character to pick up each token he walks over. This way more often players will need to move Plot Tokens from character to character via Transfer or Demand actions. Galloping on a horse would still mean skipping Plot Tokens of course.

Another thing I noticed was that perhaps the Bonus tokens should be worth MORE VP than the Required tokens, not less. When doing a mission with only the Required token, you get more VP/token than if you also get a Bonus token - it's often not worth your time to get the Bonus tokens. Also, with the way the Story Tracks are bumped upon completing a mission (which I like), having to bump the 2nd track is often a detriment, so that's another deterrent for going after Bonus tokens. It just makes sense to make the Bonus tokens worth more, so next time I'll switch them - 2vp for the Required token, 3vp for each Bonus token, and I think still 4 VP for arranging a Meeting, and maybe 5vp for the Any Character, 2 Required token missions because they're harder. These VP values could easily be printed on the cards so they need not be remembered.

There have been a few comments along the lines of placing missions face up rather than keeping them in hand, but I think that's just begging for people to disrupt other player's multi-turn efforts, which I think would feel crappy. I'm excited to make these changes and try the game again.

Dice Works - At first I liked the goofy spelling of "Dice Werx" - but I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe "Dice Works" is better. I keep waffling back and forth. Either way, I played a 3-player game on Saturday and it seemed to work fine. I have changed the Scrap Efficiency Upgrade (for even progress on all tracks) to 4/3/3/2 for 1 rather than 4/3/2/1 for 1. I don't ever want anybody exchanging 1 for 1, that's just lame. I like the feel of 3-for-1 though, so that's a reasonable upgrade. Also, I think I'll allow players to use that new exchange rate as soon as they get it, rather than starting next round.

In Ruins - Andy Van Zandt had told me a little bit about his post apocalyptic card drafting game and I was interested to play it. I like the theme, and Andy's designs are always very well thought out and thorough. I enjoyed In Ruins overall, but the unique drafting mechanism I thought had something fundamentally inelegant about it. The idea is cool, you put new cards out, then you get a chance to place your Squatter token on something that you don't want anybody else to take. Sadly, this means you can't take it either - and I wonder if that's just something I will not like about that mechanism (not something wrong with it, just a mechanism I simply don't like). The inelegance was caused by each turn, EACH PLAYER having to be asked to reevaluate which card they want to squat on, often only to decide they liked where they were.

A suggestion was made to instead have each player move their Squatter only on their own turn. The idea behind the Squatter is to keep players from being able to topdeck the perfect card, it gives everybody a chance to stop a lucky draw. The proposal is to have the player draw the new cards at the END of his turn, and then choose to move his squatter - allowing him the chance to block one of the two cards that just came up. I think this would smooth out game play tremendously, and cut down on down time and game length. Andy said he was 100% on board, so I'd love to play the game again with that change the next time I see him.

Currently the game is something like 90 minutes, which I think is a little long for what it is. If this could help cut the length down closer to 1 hour, I think that would be great.

Kings of Air and Steam - As I've mentioned, I'm developing a pickup/deliver game with a Steampunk theme called Kings of Air and Steam. The game supports 2-6 players, though I'd never played with 6 before. I was able to do so this weekend, and it was very informative. I had forgotten the exact setup of market tiles for each player count, so I just used all the Market tiles I had (6 of each color) and drew 4 out per turn. That's what you'd do for a 5 player game. For 6 players it was supposed to be 7 of each color tile, drawing 5 per turn. The game worked well enough, but in retrospect it did seem like the board was somewhat bare most of the time. I think the proper number of tiles would have been better. I had hoped to simplify setup by using the same setup irrespective of player count, but I just don't think the game will work very well that way. As an easy way to handle it though, I am thinking that the appropriate player counts should be printed on the backs of the tiles (2+, 3+, 4+ 5+, 6), and rather than sort them, each tile can be discarded as it's drawn if it's not appropriate for the current game.


Everybody seemed to like the game, and I got a couple of questions answered. For example, everybody agreed that the requirement to ship on 50% your own track was unnecessary. As for the look of the game, everybody was all for the theme, and one player suggested unique ship molds for each player - at first I thought that would be more expensive, but then I realized we could just make 1 mold with all 7 ships on it (6 for the game, plus 1 promo ship we've got planned). Also, Andy suggested a great player power - the ability to create a new link on the board between cities. One player could be given 5 or 7 track tiles (straight on one side, gentle curve on the other), and as an action they could be allowed to place them between 2 cities creating a new link - paying $1 per tile placed. This would come with a Depot on that link, and of course other players could build depots on that link as well. I really like that idea.

Alter Ego - To tell you the truth, when I heard about Midnight Men (which I never knew existed) being picked up by a publisher, I got a little discouraged and didn't really feel like working on Alter Ego anymore. But I do like some of the mechanisms and basic ideas behind the game - of managing your Alter Ego life, and the more recent pre-programming of card play, so I brought my pseudo-prototyp with me hoping to chat about it with Andy or whoever. I ended up talking to Richard James about it, and he asked some questions the answers to which I guess I knew, but hadn't really solidified. That was a big help, and also he got me to tweak how the icons on Henchmen work - once in play, rather than giving you that icon to use, they could work more like Eminent Domain where they boost the cards you play. So if I get a $ icon into play, it doesn't give my any $ to use unless I play a job card. This is a small difference, but it has a significant impact - as Rich pointed out, I had built a mechanism which undermined my original design goal. Currently, once I have $ icons in play, I no longer need to worry about playing a Job card as much. This proposed version instead amplifies my desire to play a Job card over a Hero card, which is what I was going for.

We also discussed how some of the Coop mechanisms would work, and in describing them to him I am more confident in exactly how I want them to be now. So I think that design is back on the front burner! I'm curious to see how Midnight Men pans out, seeing as how it's ALSO a superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game.

Hard Wired - I had seen the beginnings of this game discussed in BGDF chat, and was interested in it from the outset. I was glad I got a chance to try it this weekend. I love the idea of creating circuits and improving circuits, but in the current incarnation of this game you are able to steal the opponent's win condition, which to me feels like a long, drawn out game of hot potato. It's like Munchkin, where everyone stops the other guy from winning, drawing out the game, until someone manages to finally win.

When someone suggested that players be allowed to steal Circuits instead of the Light cards, that sounded perfect to me! you could "improve" their circuit by creating the same effect with fewer cards, thereby taking their cards for yourself - as a way to draw more cards at a time. It doesn't hurt the opponent, but it does something useful for you. In fact, if smallest circuit is tiebreaker, then it kind of HELPS the opponent, but you'd do it anyway because it gets you more cards in 1 action than drawing.

So my proposed change, which I hope Ariel tries and I hope works out for him, is that players on their turn can either PLAY a circuit (minimum 3 cards or so), adding a new light to their line, or IMPROVE a circuit by playing any number of cards to replace a longer circuit in play, taking the old circuit cards into their hand. Then they could draw 1 card (I like that as it otherwise might feel like it takes too long to build back up after playing cards). The object is still to either get 1 of each color light in play, or else have the most lights when the deck runs out.

I also liked the idea of another mode of play, where there's just 1 big circuit in play, and each player starts with a set of 1 of each colored light. You win by adding all of your lights to the circuit, or else by having the fewest left when the deck runs out. In this version on your turn you could either play a new circuit (min 3 cards?), Improve a circuit, or simply draw 1 card. Or I guess it could be the same (Play or improve a circuit, then draw 1).

I'd like to try this game again with the changes.

Love Means Nothing - I hadn't played Love Means nothing for a long time, and Ariel had a new version. The new version made the decisions a bit more strategic, but the game was much more slow and tedious. I don't think that's the right feel for a sports themed game, I missed the older, more streamlined mechanics. I was wondering how the decisions could be made more interesting with the old mechanics, and I jokingly said "maybe what it needs is a chess clock, like Brain Freeze!" - and then immediately realized that maybe that's not such a bad idea. the idea behind Brain Freeze was simple decisions + time pressure. Maybe a chess clock with 60 or 90 seconds on it would force people to make their simple decisions a little faster. I think that would feel more like a sports game. Maybe I'll dig up the old copy of Love Means Nothing that I have at home and give that a try.


On Monday morning I also got a chance to talk to Ariel about what each part of Ground Floor will look like. I originally thought the player boards would look like blueprints, but he had a different idea that's been really growing on me. I think it could come out really nicely!

OrcCon imminent, and Winds of Fate thoughts

This weekend is the first Strategicon event of 2009, OrcCon, in Los Angeles. I enjoy the Strategicon events because they are close, and therefore cheap, I have friends in L.A., and these conventions have a lot of tournaments - it's a good opportunity to do some competitive gaming and if I perform well I even get to walk home with some prizes :)

For the last couple of years I've gone by myself, but this time my friend Mikey is coming with me. This should be fun - I've been trying to get my friends to come to these conventions with me ever since I started going several years ago, but Mikey's got a wife and 2 kids now, so I guess it's not as easy for him to get away. Usually the cons conflict with swordfighting events for SCA or ECS, which Mikey used to do, and which Tyler and Jake always go to.

In addition, some new friends I've recently begun hanging out with - Elisa and Jeff - will be going as well. It should be fun to go to a convention with friends for once.

In other news, I've been putting together another prototype of Odysseus: Winds of Fate - my original is still in New York. So far I haven't made any adjustments based on the feedback I got from Jeff Warrender and Gil Hova and they're playtest last month at Spielbany, but I've been giving it some thought and I have some ideas... I'd like to try it again as-is with those ideas in mind and then see about implementing some of them. My next post on the subject should shed some light on details of these changes. I'd also like to talk to Nando about them and see what he thinks.

Winds of Fate - Spielbany verdict

Well, I don't think the publisher actually played the game, but I did hear that Gil taught the game to 3 other players, and that they played it and it was interesting to get some immediate feedback. While at a hotel in Santa Monica, I got a phone call from the playtesters and we had a nice conversation about how the game went.

It turns out Winds of Fate didn't go over as well as I had hoped. I got some excellent feedback from the playtesters, and Jeff followed up with some emails with comments and ideas to fix what they thought were lacking in the game. I have been mulling these ideas over, and will likely be incorporating some of them in one way or another. The one I think that has the most promise is probably the idea of making the Bet Chips more specific. Suppose the supply of Bet Chips each showed a specific location. When placing a bet with that chip, what you'd be saying is that you think Odysseus will visit that location on (or near) a particular round. Thus, you're more limited in what you can bet on, and different players are betting on different things (as opposed to all players betting on which round Odysseus will reach a specific location - Ithaca - or die.)

Another good suggestion was to associate each location with a specific Greek god - adding more characters than just Athena and Poseidon. Then the player who contributes the largest value to the adventure could win a token of that particular deity. In later rounds, players could be rewarded by the deity based on how many tokens of that deity they hold. This would help differentiate players and give them varying incentives as to where they want Odysseus to go.

I'll be thinking about these ideas and others, and hopefully the next incarnation will be better still!

Winds of Fate - last minute edits

This is c&p'ed from Pastebin, so formatting is lost, but here are the rules I'm sending to New York tomorrow to be played at the annual Spielbany playtesting event. I'm hoping my friends get a chance to play it (preferably with Zev, who said he would be willing to try it there) and I can get some good feedback. Who knows, maybe Zev will love it and decide to publish it!

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, I have been working on this largely with Randall McClain from the BGDF - in fact it's based on a Game Design Showdown entry he made a couple of years ago. It began as my version of what I thought he had in mind. Early prototypes of my version were disappointing, and this version I believe is closer to what Nando originally had in mind with his GDS entry.

Odysseus: Winds of Fate
By Seth Jaffee (based on a Game Design Showdown entry by Randall McClain)
Contents:
15 Destiny cards (5 each: Safe Return/Dead/Stranded at Sea)
54 Adventure cards in 2 suits, Help & Hinder
15 heart shaped Crew tokens (10 small, 5 large)
2 black cylindrical markers (1 Odysseus marker and 1 Round counter)
50 Player markers in 5 colors (One marker for score, one for reward tiles, the rest for bet ownership.)
Score board
50 Bet Chips
Game board
Round track
10 Turn Order tiles (2 of each Turn Order tile labeled 1 through 5.)
12 Reward Tiles (The Reward tiles have black backs.)
10 Encounter Tiles
6 Olympus Cards (The Olympus cards are in sleeves backed with Mountains – for mount Olympus. They represent Athena and Poseidon’s influence.)

Setup:
· Place the game board, round track, and score board in the center of the play area
· Shuffle the Encounter tiles and place 9 of them face up on the 9 spaces on the board. The last encounter tile will not be used, but can be placed face down on Troy after the first adventure is over.
· Place the Odysseus marker on Troy and the Round counter on space 1 of the Round track
· Count out the appropriate number of Crew tokens and place them near the board. Set unused Crew tokens aside.
3 players: Use 25 Crew
4 players: Use 30 Crew
5 players: Use 35 Crew
· Give each player a set of Destiny cards (1 Safe Return, 1 Dead, and 1 Stranded at Sea). Return unused destiny cards to the box.
· Separate the Adventure cards into 2 decks – Help (blue back) and Hinder (red back). Deal each player 3 Adventure cards from each deck. Place the decks near the board.
· Shuffle the Olympus deck and place it near the board.
· Place 1 set of Turn Order tiles near the board. With fewer than 5 players, leave the unused tiles in the box. Randomly distribute the other set of Turn Order tiles to the players.
· Mix the Reward tiles face down and place them near the board
· Place a supply of Bet Chips near the board and give each player 2 Bet Chips.
· Give each player the ownership markers in their color, placing 1 marker per player on the Score board and one near the Turn Order tiles.
· Have each player shuffle their set of Destiny cards, place them face down in their area, and then place one of their Bet Chips on one of the face down Destiny cards. After this is done, players may look at their face down Destiny cards at any time.


Overview of play

Odysseus: Winds of Fate is played in a series of rounds. Each round consists of an Encounter phase followed by an Adventure phase and finally a Journey phase. During each round Odysseus will lose some crew and will travel from one Encounter tile to another. The game ends when one of three conditions occurs: If at any time Odysseus loses all of his crew, then the game ends immediately and he is considered Dead. If after round 12 the Odysseus marker has not reached Ithaca and Odysseus has not lost all of his crew, the game ends with Odysseus being Stranded at Sea. If the Odysseus marker reaches Ithaca and at least 1 crew survives the Adventure there, then the game ends and Odysseus has returned safely home.
Encounter Phase
During the Encounter phase, instructions on the current Encounter tile are followed:
· Troy – Each player may Place 1 Bet (in turn order). After the adventure phase, place an unused Encounter tile face down on Troy.
· Isle of Aeolia – Each player scores 2vp per unused Bet Chip. Each player may take a Destiny action. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, move the Odysseus token directly to Isle of Scheria.
· Isle of Calypso – Advance the Round marker twice. Each player may take a Destiny action.
· The Dreaded Charybdis – Double the value of the Olympus card for this Adventure. Each player may take a Destiny action.
· Isle of Circe – Each player may Place or Move 1 Bet (in turn order), or take 1 Bet Chip
· Isle of the Cyclopse – Lose 1 Crew. Add 3 to the Hinder total for this Adventure.
· Isle of the Laestrygonians – Lose 3 Crew.
· Isle of the Lotophagi – Advance the Round Marker. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, return 3 lost Crew.
· Isle of Scheria - Each player scores 2vp per unused Bet Chip. Each player may take a Destiny action. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, move the Odysseus token directly to Ithaca.
· Cliff of Scylla – Lose 6 Crew. Each player may place 1 Bet (in turn order).
· Isle of the Sirens – Each player draws 2 Adventure cards (in turn order). Return 2 lost Crew.
· Ithaca (Suitors) – Double Adventure. Add 3 to the Help total for each adventure. The game ends after the second Adventure (No Journey phase).

Some definitions:
Return Crew: Add Crew tokens to the Crew supply. There is no limit to the number of Crew that can be in the supply.
Unused Bet Chip: A Bet Chip held by a player that has not been placed as a Bet.
Destiny action: Take a Bet Chip from the general supply and place it on one of your face down Destiny cards.
Draw a card: Whenever a player draws cards, they may choose which deck to draw from (Help or Hinder). When drawing multiple cards, choose which deck each card comes from before drawing any cards.
Place a Bet: Place a Bet Chip that you have collected onto any space on the Round track that you don’t already have a Bet on. For each space between the current round and the space of the bet, add a Bet Chip from the general supply. Place a player marker on top of this stack of Bet Chips to indicate ownership of the Bet. (see example). It’s also You may instead place the Bet Chip onto one of your Destiny cards when placing a Bet. Place 2 Bet Chips from the supply along with it.
Move a Bet: Slide 1 bet to an adjacent space on the Round track. You may end up with 2 bets on the same round due to this.
Double Adventure: For the Adventure at Ithaca, reveal 2 Reward tiles per player instead of 1. After the first Adventure, each player will claim 1 Reward tile. Then start a second Adventure with the new turn order and at the end players choose Rewards from the remaining unclaimed Reward tiles. All Reward tiles contribute to crew loss in the case of a lost Adventure.

Example of Placing a Bet:
Tom has a Bet Chip and is given the opportunity to Place a Bet in round 2. Tom cannot place a Bet on round 10 because he already has a Bet there. He places his Bet Chip on round 9, and adds 7 Bet Chips from the supply. Tom then puts his player marker on top of the stack to indicate that it’s his bet. If the game ends on (or near) round 9, Tom will win (some of) those Bet Chips.

Adventure Phase
During the Adventure phase players play cards to influence the outcome of each Adventure. There is a process to resolving each adventure:
1) Reveal Reward Tiles
2) Play cards / Pass
3) Claim Rewards
4) Resolve Adventure

Reveal Reward Tiles
Mix all 12 Reward tiles and reveal 1 tile for each player in the game.

Play cards
Players take turns playing a card face down or passing. The first card played can be either a Help card or a Hinder card, but once a card is played, subsequent cards must be of the same type (EXCEPTION – there are 3 special cards that are not played face down… they are played face up instead and the color of their back does not matter. These cards give some effect such as “Draw 2 cards,” “+2 VP,” or “Advance round marker.” They count (–2) toward the value of your contribution to the Adventure.

Pass
When a player cannot or chooses not to play a card on their turn, they Pass. That player places their current Turn Order tile face down near the Turn Order tile supply, and takes the highest numbered face up Turn Order tile from the supply (the first player to Pass will be the last player in turn order in the following round) and places it face down in front of him to indicate that he’s out of the Adventure. That player receives the reward printed on the tile:
1st: Gain 4 VP.
2nd: Gain 2vp. Draw 1 card.
3rd: Draw 2 cards.
4th: Draw 3 cards.
5th: Draw 4 cards.
Once a player Passes, he is done with the Adventure. After all players pass, all Turn Order tiles are turned face up.
Claim Rewards
In turn order players choose Reward tiles and gain the rewards printed on them. Place an ownership marker on a reward tile to show that it’s been chosen; another player may not choose the same reward tile.

Resolve Adventure
Reveal all cards played by players. Each player totals the value of cards he has played, subtracting 2 for each special card played. The player who contributes the largest value to the Adventure scores 2VP, moving his marker on the Score board accordingly.
Reveal the top card of the Olympus deck. Its value is added to either the Help or Hinder total for the Adventure – Athena [hearts] supports Odysseus and uses her influence to help him. Poseidon [spades] hates Odysseus and adds his influence to the hinder total.
Compare the total of all Help cards and all Hinder cards, including any modifiers due to the Encounter tile. If the Hinder total exceeds the Help total than Odysseus has lost the Adventure. Lose Crew according to the total of red numbers on the Reward tiles for this adventure. Otherwise, Odysseus has won the Adventure.


Journey Phase: Lose 1 Crew and Advance the Round marker
After each Adventure, Odysseus and his crew journey on to the next Encounter. The journeys are arduous, and 1 Crew is lost in each Journey phase. There are 2 possible paths from each Encounter tile, a Calm path and a Stormy path. The path taken (Calm vs Stormy) depends on the outcome of this turn’s Adventure - if Odysseus won the adventure, he takes the Calm path. If he lost the adventure, the stormy path is followed. The Encounter tile just left is flipped face down. Advance the Round marker on the Round track.

Face down Encounter tiles
If Odysseus arrives at a face down Encounter tile, the Encounter, Adventure, and Journey phases are modified as follows. Advance the Round counter one time as Odysseus wanders through the Mediterranean, no matter how many face down tiles Odysseus visits in a row.
· Encounter: If arriving via a calm path, each player draws 1 Adventure card (in turn order). If arriving via a Stormy path, lose 1 Crew.
· Adventure: No cards are played. Reveal the top card of the Olympus deck. Move the Odysseus marker to the next Encounter tile according to the Olympus card If it shows Athena, use the calm path; if Poseidon, use the stormy path. No Crew is lost during the Adventure phase. Repeat this process until Odysseus arrives at a face up Encounter tile.
· Journey: Skip the Journey phase.

Game End
The game ends when one of three conditions occurs:
· Dead: All crew is lost
· Stranded at Sea: After the Adventure phase of round 12 the Odysseus marker has not reached Ithaca
· Safe Return: After the Adventure phase in Ithaca, if at least 1 crew remains
At that time players collect payouts for the bets they have made. Any bet that is on the same round as the Round marker on the Round track is given in full to the player who placed it. For all other bets, remove 3 Bet Chips for each space away from the Round marker and give the rest to the player who placed the bet. For example, if a stack of 8 Bet Chips is on round 9, and the game ends in round 7, the payout would be 8-3-3=2. The player who placed that bet receives 2 of the Bet Chips from the stack and must discard the rest.

Then, players reveal their Destiny cards and receive the Bet Chips that have accumulated on the Destiny card that correlates to the game end condition. Each Bet Chip is worth 2 points. The player with the highest score wins! In case of a tie, the tied player with the most Bet Chips wins. In case of a further tie, all tied players win.

I'd like to one day publish a game!

I emailed Zev from Z-Man games to see if he'd like to look at All For One again (he played it once at one of the Spielbany meetups)... he got back to me the other day giving me the go ahead to send it in. So this weekend I'm making new cards and a new board (I hope) and I'll be sending it to him next week! That's exciting, though I have a pretty good feeling he will not want to publish it. Hopefully I'm wrong about that!

In addition to that, I have this new BrainFreeze! game that everyone seems to like. It's fast and fun, but it requires a chess clock and I'm afraid that might make it prohibitively expensive to produce. I plan to talk to Mike Nicholoff and see if his company Sorvent can help find a publisher for it.

Blockade Runner is intended to be published by Shifting Skies Games, but that's in a holding pattern for a couple of weeks, and there are funding issues that may or may not take a while to resolve. Sadly, I don't really have money to throw at it.

And finally I have Wizard's Tower which is ready to be shown to publishers, I'm just not sure how to go about getting it there. A friend in Seattle who works in the industry has shown Wizard's Tower to a new game company, but I haven't heard anything about that company at all yet - i know it's tough to get a new company off the ground.

I have some game prototypes by other friends that are worthy of publishing... Ariel's Love Means Nothing tennis card game, Alex's Homesteaders heavy strategy game... As far as I know they wouldn't mind if those games were published, and if I could help them achieve that I think it would be cool.

As for my other games "in development," I have Terra Prime which is probably "mostly done" and could be made ready for a publisher if, say, one were to ask for it. Kilauea might also be more or less done, though I haven't touched that in forever.

Of course I have a bunch of other designs in the "idea stage" - the most promising of which are probably Dynasty and Hot and Fresh.

So if I'm to uphold my new years resolution to get a game in line to be published, I'd better get to work on that!

All For One changes update

All seems well. I tweaked the scoring to get some more separation in the Story tracks, but then had to inflate the Mission scoring as well. Now players get +/- 20 points off the story track and anywhere from 10-30 points off of missions for scores in the 40s or so rather than in the teens like in the ID version, or the 20s like the previous hybrid version.

I maintain the "So Far So Good" assessment. I hope that Zev from Z-man will try it again this weekend at Spielbany, but I don't want to try and force it on him... so I've sent him an email and plan to send the game to New York just in case he's interested in trying the new version.

Playtests at Spielbany

I attended Spielbany, a meeting of game designers from the Board Game Designers Forum, last weekend and I managed to get some playtesting done. Of the games I brought, All For One, Terra Prime, Blockade Runner, and Wizard's Tower were played. I also managed to play games by other designers:
Acts of the Disciples by Jeff Warrender
Push and Shove by Tom Kiel
Prolix by Gil Hova
Love Means Nothing by Ariel Seone
Othberon by Tom Kiel

I also saw but didn't get a chance to play Wag the Wolf by Gil Hova and Lost Adventures by Jeff Warrender and Steve Sisk.

Since this is my game design blog, I'll only post about the games I'm working on here. If you want to know about the others, check out BGDF! The only game I have
extensive comments on is All For One...

All For One
Of course I'm always happy to play this game... I've been working on it with Scurra (David Brain) for something like 3 1/3 years - my first email correspondence with David is from March 2004. In that time, this game has gone through waves of development followed by waves of sitting on the shelf. For the last 2 years there have actually been 2 different versions, "my" Identity (ID) version, and "David's" Story version. The main difference being that David's crew added Story tracks instead of the secret identities in order to try and (a) separate the players from the characters in a more complete way, and (b) make for a more thematic, King vs Cardinal feel overall (maybe adding some story arc to the game). His 3 Story tracks had a player goal at each end, and each player got a goal card indicating which goal they wanted each track to lean toward. Points were scored depending on the position of the tracks... you would earn points for each track if it were further toward your goal than the opposite one.

When I visited London in November I finally had a chance to play the Story version, and while I like the results it tried to achieve, I did not like the way it went about trying to achieve them. After some thought and some discussion with other testers, I came up with a sort of hybrid Story Track version of the game - one which attempts to achieve the same goals (fixing some of the more common complaints about the game), while preserving the good things about the ID version that I liked and that have earned compliments from many testers. This Hybrid version was the version I brought on Saturday, and Saturday was the 2nd time this new version had ever been played. Important to note may be that we played a 5 player game, and I'm happy to report the potentially unfair distributions of goals did not appear to be a problem at all. I had originally forgotten about the handicap I intended to give the players who started at a disadvantage until someone suggested the exact thing I had in mind...

Of the 5 players, 3 had played once or twice before and 1 was brand new. I of course have played more than probably anyone else on the planet. I was very interested to see how the people who'd played before fared this game, and what they thought of the new version.

I didn't take any notes, but from what I recall the consensus was that the Story Tracks were an improvement over the secret IDs. Everyone managed to do 3 or 4 missions (which is typical) except for Jeff. I couldn't figure out what was holding Jeff up, but according to his report it appears he was trying some longer term planning. Unfortunately, this game with 5 players doesn't really allow for much long term planning. With 4 players it's ore possible, and with only 3 players it's VERY possible to plan long term plays (spanning 2, 3, or 4 turns), but with the chaos introduced by 5 players it's simply not a viable strategy to plan much more than 2 turns out. 2 turns is still very possible, because a player can get 2 turns in a row using their One For All card. That being the case, it's not impossible to really plan a 3 turn play if people don't seem to be using the character you need... beyond that, all bets are off - too much stuff happens between your turns to count on the board position more than 2 turns down the road.

Since the chaos is a feature of the 5 player game, and the game still works as a tactical game that way, it doesn't concern me too much. That said, Jeff's suggestion of a 7th character for the 5 player game is an interesting one which deserves consideration. I'm not sure how that would work in, perse, but it may be worth trying anyway. I'm not sure it would really help the situation though. Perhaps a hand size of 3 instead of 4 (so there are fewer mission cards out there) may help, but I doubt that would be a net gain either because 4 Missions sees to be the sweet spot with regard to having a play you can reasonably work toward without having way too many options.

I'm fairly happy with the game as is, and wouldn't mind sending it off to publishers this way. The only thing I'm currently considering as a change is trying to find a way to inject some long term strategy into the game. So far I've had 2 ideas to do this, one of which I didn't like when I tried it, and the other of which has sounded pretty bad to the testers I've mentioned it to...

I had tried a system (the last iteration) in which you got Blue points or Red points depending on which character did the mission (Musketeer or Agent), and then only counted one of the two depending on how the game ended. I thought it was too swingy or "all-or-nothing" for my liking, but it does offer the benefit of a long range plan. I'm not entirely sure how this would jive with the story tracks, but I think it can work - maybe I'll try that again.

The more recent idea had to do with set collection - I didn't want to change the game at all, so I was looking for some way to reward stuff players already do if they plan ahead to do it. Since at the end of the game you can see which missions you've done (they're lined up in front of you on the table), it would be easy to give a bonus for some configuration of missions. The regular scoring rewards doing any mission, and the Story Tracks reward using the same character a lot, so I wouldn't want to reward, say, 3 missions by the same character. Nothing in the game rewards using a variety of characters... so my thought was to give a bonus for using each character at least once (with "any character" missions counting as wilds). The down side there is that you really only do 3 -5 missions per game, and there are 6 characters... I suppose there could be a reward for 3 different characters, and a bigger reward for 4 different, but that sounds a little weak to me, and as Jeff mentioned there's already a lot of functionality to the mission cards.

If anyone can think of a reasonable way to add long term planning to the game, please let me know - or if you think it's really not necessary, let me know that too.