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Finished But Unpublished Games: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Finished But Unpublished Games: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.

The List - revisited

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

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

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

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

I think the best of the bunch are:

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

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


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


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

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

Ticket, please!

I spent about an hour last night drawing a schematic-type proto board for "Ticket, Please" - the airport game. I probably could have done that better on the computer, but oh well... I have a full board in mind, this draft is just to test out some mechanics.

This first draft of the board has 9 airports in a 3x3 array. The center is the "hub" - none of the tickets originate or terminate there. There are 2 "gates" (player cube queues) at the Hub (and perhaps a third for later in the game).

The corners are smaller airports... they have 1 Gate, and another which appears later in the game. All tickets originate from one of the corners. The last 4 'cities' are just destinations, and they have only 1 gate.

There are "1" routes between orthogonally adjacent cities, "2" routes between diagonally adjacent cities as well as from 1 corner to each 'adjacent' corner, and "3" routes from each corner to the 2 'destination' locations which aren't right next to them. Corner to corner is the longest trip, and there's no direct flight there... though there are tickets which go from one to the other.

EDIT: I drew a schematic that describes the board!

There are 2 of each ticket at the moment from each corner to each other location except the hub in the center. I think the game will have 3 phases, in the first phase only the "1" routes can be used, so there will be more stops and layovers. In the 2nd phase, technology has advanced, so "1" and "2" routes can be used. Finally in the 3rd phase technology has advanced again, so any route may be used.

Now I just have to decide which mechanics to test out... I think I'm going to try the following first:

Begin by giving each player the 10 cubes in their color - one goes on the income track (which will be modeled after Brass' income track for the time being). Deal 3(?) Ticket cards to each player, then turn up 3 Ticket cards to form a draw pool. Each player should start with a couple of bucks - probably 10 or so.

On your turn you first collect income according to the Income track, then you choose a Ticket from the face up pool or play one from your hand. Finally, you turn a new card up to refill the draw pool.

You have 3 options of how to play this Ticket:
1. Place/advance a cube in the gates in each of the cities listed on the Ticket card.
2. Place/advance a cube in any 1 gate on the board.
3. Complete the ticket.

In more detail...
A "Gate" is a column of boxes located at an airport in which players place their cubes. No player may have more than 1 cube in any given Gate, but some airports have multiple gates, so a player could have more than cube at an airport (1 in each Gate). Whenever a player places a cube in a gate, they pay $2 and place their cube in the first available space (from the top of the gate down). If a player already has a cube at that gate, they can pay $1/3/6/10 to advance 1/2/3/4 spaces at that gate. Their cube is moved up the appropriate number of spaces, bumping other players' cubes down 1 space as they go.

Completing a ticket is how points are scored and income is advanced. I explained it a bit in a previous post, each card has a Base Income and a Point value. The Point value is a number of points you get for having completed the ticket. To determine how much Income is earned, you take the Base Income on the card and subtract off the Cost of the trip. The Cost is the sum off all Route numbers used on the trip as well as the numbers in the Gates occupied by that player's cubes (Gates are numbered 1/2/3/4/5 from top to bottom). The minimum Cost for a trip occurs when the player's cubes are at the top of 2 airports and those are the only 2 airports used (i.e. they are both listed on the Ticket card). If the route is a "1" route, then the minimum Cost would be 3. I'd love to post a graphical example of this, because it's hard to explain properly.

When Completing a ticket, players also receive points for being "on top" at each Gate used. this may or may not be the player who's turn it is.

Also when completing a ticket, the active player must move his cube to the first available space at each Gate used, with other cubes in line sliding up. thus, when you complete a ticket, you move to the end of the line in each of the gates used.

There needs to be a score track as well, to count the points you get for being on top when a gate is used. I'm not sure if it would be better to add the points from Tickets to the score track and shuffle them back in for later rounds, or to simply keep the tickets out of the game and count their points later. The latter might be interesting as it would change the distribution of cities in the deck, and would also make later phases (which are more profitable) a bit shorter. I'll go with that for now.

Each phase will end when the deck is exhausted, and the game will end after the third phase. The cards dealt to players during setup are each 1-use cards which do not get replenished. they can be used at any time during the game, but only once each. The winner will be the player with the most points. If tied, the player who completed more tickets should probably win, with 2nd tiebreaker going to the Income track.

I think I've kept the game simple, yet interesting. I'm curious if it'll play out the way I expect - I guess I'll have to try it and see!

Board for Airport game

I was thinking about what the board would look like today, so I printed out something and started sketching it out.

Also, with regard to theme, perhaps this ought to really be a game about Travel Agents. Players are Travel Agents who can get access to seats on planes (doesn't matter what airline) - and they do so to satisfy the "tickets" representing trips passengers wish to take.

In this case it doesn't make sense for players to pay to upgrade their planes to fly farther, so maybe the game would be in 3 rounds... in the first, all planes can only use the "1 distance" routes, in the 2nd phase of the game, plans can use the 1 and 2 distance routes, and in the final phase players can move passengers across any route. Each round/phase might end once all tickets have been exhausted?

Airline game

I've given some more thought to the ideas I'd had about an airline game, and I think I've come up with a basic structure of a game themed on the airline industry - specifically routing passengers from Origin to Destination in an efficient manner. On the down side, it doesn't incorporate my favorite part of the initial thoughts: the Rush and Cheap passenger types... but on the up side I think it could be simple and elegant.

The game is something of an area control or area influence thing, where you gain influence in different airports in order to complete tickets. Tickets have an Origin airport and a Destination airport, and when you play one, you score some number of VPs and some amount of income. The VPs will probably be static and dependent on the ticket (i.e. printed on the card), while the income will be variable. There will be a maximum value, and the player will receive less for any extra stops or layovers the passenger would have to make.

The board would look like an airline Route Map, with a simple web of routes to and from a couple of 'hub' locations and several other airports. Each route would have a circled number along it relating to the 'distance' - 1/2/3 unit (roughly relating to hours of travel). There would also be an Income track like in Brass (or potentially a score track tied to it, as in Railroad Tycoon), and a Plane Level track indicating what size route your planes can use and how much it costs to improve them.

Turns would be pretty simple, along the lines of Ticket to Ride: Either you buy influence in an airport, you upgrade your planes, or you complete a ticket. Buying influence in an airport means placing a cube in a column of boxes by that airport on the game board, or if you already have a cube there, bumping it up a level relative to other cubes. This 'stack' of player cubes acts like a line where the player 'on top' of the stack has priority. It would probably cost a unit of money (or 2) to place a cube in an airport, and a unit of money to bump your cube up the line. Perhaps in one turn you are allowed to buy influence in 2 different airports, or three, or maybe you get 2 (3?) units of influence to spend wherever you like...

The upgrade action is simple - pay the indicated amount of money and move your marker to the next space in the Plane Level track.

Playing tickets is where the points are made. I imagine tickets with a printed value X on them. Income for playing the ticket would be equal to that value X, less the "cost" of the trip, where "cost" is the sum total of all Distances on routes used, as well as any Layovers (1 unit for your cube at the airport, and 1 unit for each cube ahead of yours in line). After a ticket is played, the player's cube at each airport used is either moved to the bottom of the queue, or removed from the board entirely.

I feel like the cost description wasn't clear, so here's an example or two:
I have a ticket which has origin LAX and Destination PHX. There is a route between L.A. and Phoenix which is distance 1 (has a 1 in the Distance circle). My cube is 2nd from the top at LAX and at the top in PHX. The "cost" is 2 (at LAX) + 1 (Dist) + 1 (at PHX) = 4. Perhaps the printed value (which I was calling X) on the ticket was 6... I'd earn income of 6-4=2, so I would move my marker 2 spaces on the income track. The minimum possible cost for that trip would be 3, if my cube were on top at both airports. In that case I'd increase my income by 3.

I'm not sure this is a complete game as is, but as a main mechanic I think it might be solid. I'd like to think about it some more and see what else could go into the game. I feel like there ought to be more to it, but then when I look at what games are popular coming out right now - Stone Age, Ming Dynasty, Aquaretto... I see simplistic games, not complicated ones. So I'm trying not to get too complicated with the design of this one. To me, Stone Age is a "light filler" type of game. To a lot of people it's a "meaty strategy" game. I have to remember to keep that in mind when considering a design...

Airlines as a theme (instead of trains)

Someone on BGG started a thread asking why there aren’t games about the airline industry like there are about the train industry.

In the thread several plane games were mentioned, maybe the most relevant is the upcoming Aviation Tycoon from Z-Man games, but as someone in the thread said, based on the description, that could be a game about any kind of transportation system. That poster was pretty adamant that any airline game would have to be a detailed simulation of the airline industry, including things like the difference between a 727-100, 727-200, and 727-200A. Not surprisingly, he said his numerous attempts at such a game have thus far led to nothing.

I maintain that there are several different ways to go about an airplane game, and I think they could all produce an interesting game. Off the top of my head I could list a few basic structures for an airline game. Sure, maybe some of them would also work with other forms of transport, so someone interested in a plane game that couldn't be re-themed to something else wouldn't be too interested. I got news for those people though - almost every game can be re-themed.

• When I think of airlines, I think of a map with lots of lines connecting cities. I think a connection-type game could be made where you need to get your airline established in cities... it's not physically the same as laying train track on the ground, but I think it's analogous. In order to have a scheduled flight between 2 cities, you have to have some semblance of control in each of them. This version of the game would concentrate less on the specifics of that control, and it would deal with getting control of the right cities to 'build' the right routes, similar to a train connection game, but in a different way. There could even be technology, as planes could have limited range until you upgrade them.
  
• Another version of a plane game could eschew the connections, and deal more with the passengers in the airport itself. You need to get passengers through ticketing and security, to their gates and onto their flights.
  
• It was mentioned to me that the real business in running an airline is securing time slots and gates. So a game could be made which concentrates on earning/buying/bidding for certain gates and/or time slots at airports in order to put together flights that go from point A to point B. This last idea I thought about just a little bit, and here's something that might be an OK start:

I imagine a board with a number of airports, each with a list of time slots. Perhaps there are multiple spaces at each time slot (1 for each gate). During the "scheduling" round players attempt to control these slots via some method. Then, during a resolution round, passengers would take the scheduled flights to their destinations.

There could be passengers that are in a big hurry, willing to change airlines at every stop if it'll get them there faster. There could also be passengers who would rather stay on the same airline the whole way, no matter how long it takes or how many stops on the way.

I didn't intend this to be a new project to think about, so I probably won't do anything with it - at least not for a while. I just wanted to mention it and get some thoughts down where I can find them later :)