Recent Gaming: Keltis

At KublaCon in May Aldie had Keltis with him but he hadn't printed out the English rules. When he went to bed he left the game with me in case I was able to find out the rules... to no avail. So I had the game, but no rules.

Sunday Andrew and I figured out how to cheat the boarding pass printing station into letting us open a browser window, and I was able to print out the game rules... so now I had the rules, but no game!

I did not end up playing Keltis at the convention, and now it's gone and won the Spiel des Jars, so of course I thought I ought to give it a try. I was finally able to do so last weekend, as Wystan and Liz brought a copy back with them from their trip to Europe.

Keltis sounded OK, like multiplayer Lost Cities but with a little more going on than the card game. Generally speaking I like the idea of building a bigger game out of a smaller game which is basically just a mechanism by itself. I had my issues with the execution of Zooloretto, but in general I liked the idea of building a zoo using the Coloretto mechanic. I had had a similar inkling based on something Jim Cote had said, about making a bigger game out of the mechanism that is eXXtra, and I also was working on a game built on the basic mechanism of Liar's Dice with Boyan before he moved to Atlanta. So I think the idea of building a multiplayer game out of the Lost Cities card game is cool, and was anxious to see how it turned out. I like Lost Cities, but in general don't play a lot of 2 player games.

On Sunday I played 4 games of Keltis, and I must say, I'm disappointed. I will note that the rules we played by turned out to be incorrect (I found out by talking to Sebastian, who works with Knizia on a lot of stuff), but even with the correct rules I think the game is simply based too much on having to draw amenable cards.

In case you're not familiar with the game, there are 5 paths, each corresponding to one of the 5 different suits of cards in the deck. players have a hand of 8 cards, and on your turn you either play or discard one, then draw a new one. When you play a card, it goes into a 'stack' for that suit in front of you - there can be only 1 stack for each suit in front of you. When starting a stack, any card can be used, and there are 2 of each card labeled 0-10 in each suit. When adding the second card to a stack, the card added can be either higher or lower (or equal) in value to the previous card, but all subsequent cards must continue this ascending/descending trend. In other words, for each suit, once you start a stack, you must play cards in either ascending or descending order. When you add a card to a stack, you move one of your markers 1 space along the path on the board that corresponds to that suit. Along the paths there are tiles which offer small bonuses in points, extra advances, or stones. Each step along the path is worth some number of points as well - the first few steps are actually negative points, while later steps are worth more points.

Instead of playing a card and adding it to a stack in front of you, you can discard it - there is a separate discard pile for each suit. Then you draw a card, either one from the deck, or the top discard from any of the discard piles. The game ends when either the draw pile runs out, or when 5 markers advance past a certain distance on the paths.

Like Lost Cities, the idea is that you don't want to begin down a path without enough cards to get past the negative spaces, and preferably you want to advance to the further, higher scoring spaces. If you start down all 5 paths, you may not get very far in any of them, and your score will suffer. If you only start down 2 paths, you might run out of cards for them and be equally screwed. In theory the game sounds fine, but in practice it simply didn't work out.

In Lost Cities the discard mechanism is interesting, because as a 2 player game, there is a zero sum. If you don't use a card, it's possible your opponent can, therefore you want to discard only when it's "safe" (the opponent can no longer legally play the card, or it appears they wouldn't want to play it anyway) to do so. In Keltis, because (a) there are more players, and (b) you can play cards in either ascending or descending order, it is never safe to discard. Almost never anyway. Also, in Lost Cities it's good to discard because you can't afford to start new expeditions willy nilly - there's a severe penalty for not reaching a 20 point threshold. Sometimes you start a 'junk' expedition instead of discarding, when you are reasonably sure you'll hit the threshold before the game ends, but there's a risk involved there. In Keltis, the penalty for starting down a path and not getting very far is not very severe. It only takes 3 or 4 cards (and it doesn't even matter what they are) to get out of the negative point spaces, which means that instead of discarding 4 cards you could play them, and maybe come out a little ahead. Considering that any card you discard is very likely useful for at least 1 opponent, there's really very little incentive to discard instead of simply playing a card (even if it's to a 'junk' stack).

So the multiplayer game, and the distribution of points on the board (low barrier to entry on each path), effectively break the interesting mechanism of Lost Cities. The 2-player game uses that mechanism to get some back and forth play between the players - discarding and building up hands with which to go on expeditions. Holding cards you know an opponent needs, collecting a color until you feel it's safe to begin an expedition. In the multiplayer Keltis, without any discarding going on (as discussed above) there's no building up of a color in hand, you simply have to play the cards you're dealt, and the cards you draw - and there's no telling what those might be. In addition, there are rewards for getting out on the paths in the form of bonus points and stones. Admittedly this is where an incorrect rule might have made the game even worse for us - we were playing such that only the first person to get to a tile was able to use it, and then it came off the board. Incidentally, we also played witht he tiles face down, which Wystan and Liz enjoyed because it added a sort of Press Your Luck aspect to it... but in any case, there was urgency to get down the tracks first, exacerbating the "better to play cards than discard" issue. We did play one game with face up tiles (at my request), and I enjoyed that part of it better (though Wystan and Liz preferred face down). But there's still the main issue that you're simply either dealt cards in the same suit, or you're not.

So in the end, the game seems to be pretty much all luck. If you draw cards that are in the same suit, then congrats, you win. If you don't, then there's nothing you can do about it. the best thing I can say about the game is that it only takes about 15 minutes, so no matter what happens, it'll be over fast. I was unaware going in that Keltis, winner of the Spiel des Jars (Family Game of the Year), was intended to be a 'quick filler' game. Perhaps I expected more from an SdJ winner, or perhaps I expected something at least as interesting as Lost Cities. But I was let down by Keltis in these respects.

As a side note, I find it a little worrisome that the Spiel des Jars winning games are leaning more and more toward light, quick, filler type games. If the Family Game of the Year is like watching television (Sit at the table, draw some cards, and see what happens next), what does that say about families and gamers?

As an exercise, here's what I'd do to try and improve the Keltis game experience:
- Bigger penalty for beginning a track and not getting very far.
- Single discard pile, not 1 pile for each suit.
- I actually liked our incorrect rule that the tiles (for scoring and extra movement) are only for the first player to get there.
- Maybe a face up draw pool to draw cards from. Alternatively, maybe when playing a card you draw from the deck, and when discarding you draw from a face up draw pool or something like that.
- Maybe certain spaces let you draw and discard.
- Maybe force players to play a card AND discard a card (or discard 2) and then draw 2 (one must be from the deck).

Just some thoughts off the top of my head to give players some sort of say in what happens in the game.

Homesteaders status: "Recommended"

I'd mentioned that Homesteaders was under review by Rio Grande Games. I recently received word that Jay's freelance developers (Dale Yu and Valerie Putman) had finished testing the game and returned it to him. An email from them said...

"Jay asked us to look at several titles this summer that he was considering for publication and we did get to play (and recommend) Homesteaders. We enjoyed the game and would be happy to share our feedback with you."

I'm trying really hard not to get too excited about this, because it's still up to Jay to decide if Homesteaders is worth producing... it may prove too expensive, or he might decide it's too similar to other games he's published already, or who knows what. However this recommendation from his developers is certainly a step in the right direction, and I'm having trouble not feeling at least a little giddy!

Stay tuned, I hope to have good feedback from Dale and Val to digest, and I'm sure I'll post about it here.

Prolix - by Gil Hova

I received a package this morning from Gil Hova. It can only be a copy of his word game Prolix! I really enjoyed this game when I played it, and I'm anxious to play again and see what changes he's made... and then probably try to talk him out of them ;)

So who wants to play a quick word game this week?

Noblemen - 2nd (and 3rd) playtest

After chatting with the designer about the comments I made, I gave Noblemen another try with some rules changes. Here's what I did differently, and how I think it went...

Aquire Land action: One thing Dwight had said he didn't like, and something I too didn't like, was that once 1 player played an Acquire Land action, each other player had to do so as well, or get no land. Therefore there was no "opportunity cost" associated with that action, you would have all the same options as before taking it - the other players would not have taken any actions. Furthermore, it's obviously better to be first than later in the turn order to Acquire Land, so the obvious first play every game is to take that action. It's not necessarily bad to have an obvious first play - a "Settler-Quarry" as I like to call it - but in this case it didn't feel right. Most of the game was all about different races and the opportunity cost of taking an action (meaning you will miss out on other good actions).

To fix this, one thought was to make it one of the "all play" actions - when anyone chooses the action, everyone gets to take land in turn. This means that the player to take the action gets the benefit of choosing first, but all the other players get to take land as well without having to spend their action on it. Dwight had mentioned that spending an action was supposed to be a big cost, so a player might be less inclined to take this action automatically. However, another thing we had talked about was getting rid of all of the "all play" actions. Dwight didn't like the similarity to Puerto Rico, and I agreed with him that it would probably be better to structure the game so that it's not like a Role Selection game where everyone participates in each action, further emphasizing the opportunity costs.

I had made a couple of suggestions as to alternate ways to handle the distribution of land. The main thing I thought would be cool is if when you get land, you only get land of 1 type. This would start you down a strategic path, and differentiate you from other players (because they'd take a different type of land). One method was to set up exactly 2 of each land type on the board, and when taking the Acquire Land action, you take all tiles of 1 type, then "juice" all the stacks by adding a tile to each. So I might take a stack of 2 Woods, then the next player might take a stack of 3 Farms, leaving stacks of 4 Clearings, 4 Ponds, 2 Woods, or 1 Farm for the next player that takes the action. Another option was to draw say 15 random tiles from the bag, and sort them by type, and when taking the action you get all tiles of one type OR 3 at random from the bag. I had assumed there would basically be between 1 and 4 tiles in any given stack. We used this rule to try it out, and unfortunately the distribution was way off - stacks came out with distributions like 6-5-2-1, which isn't so good. I didn't like that method.

In a later playtest I tried the "juicing" method, and that worked really, really well.

I liked the way the original Place Land action let you only place 3 tiles, and it takes 4 to make a 2x2 "feature". In our first game I thought money was unnecessarily tight, and I had the idea that maybe when playing land you should get a reward right away. So we tried awarding $1 for each Farm played, and 1 tile draw for each Woods played. This worked well, and in later games worked very well with the "juicing" Acquire action rule. Of course you still get $2, draw 2 tiles, or take the Crown when completing a Plantation, Forest, or Garden.

The Donate Land action was originally an "all play" action, and I didn't like the way it worked at all. A player not at all concentrating on Land could keep pace with a player who was heavily invested in a Land strategy, and that seemed really bad. In line with removing the All Play actions, I tried this action being simply "donate land and get 1vp per land donated" - but I thought it needed to be limited, so I specified "donate land of one type and get 1vp for each." I also removed the limit of 2x/round. This was ok, but it really meant you wouldn't want to Donate until the end of the game, you'd just build up all the land you could, and at the end use a Donate action (or 2) to turn them all into points. I think there needs to be some kind of pressure to do the action, and maybe a reason you might do it in the first scoring rounds. In later tests I added back in the 2x/round rule, and put a limit on the number of land you could donate - we removed the "of one type" restriction, but limited the number you could donate to the level of your prestige. That sounded interesting to me because if you spend time and effort increasing your Prestige, then you'll probably not have as much land to donate, and if you build up a lot of land, you probably will have lower Prestige - limiting your donation potential...

The Bribe action was similarly modified - we played that you could take a Bribe action whenever you wanted and exchange $1 for 1vp. That rate seemed fine to me, but I made the mistake of forgetting to put a limit on how much you could donate. Therefore it was a very good deal to tax a lot whenever possible and at the very end donate for 30 points or something. In later games we tried it with the same limit as Donating land - no more than your current Prestige, and that was much better. Also, I think it was better with the limited number of total Bribe actions available (2 per round, like Donate) which we reverted to in our last playtest.

As for buildings, the Church remained unchanged... cost escalated with each one built, and building the last one ended the round. I had forgotten that when drawing a Scandal card you're supposed to be able to look at the top few and choose one, but in retrospect that seemed unnecessary, and we liked it fine with simply drawing 1 card. Castles cost the same as well, but we attached a Men-At-Arms action to them. Instead of being able to choose a M@A action on your turn, you simply get one whenever you build a Castle. I liked that change very much. I didn't try any changes with the Follies at all. The comment that Follies are a really bad deal was exacerbated by the change I tried with the Bribe action (see above). I did notice that in the end game, when Castles are only worth 3-5 because there's only 1 scoring phase left, the Follies are a better deal - but not by much. You don't have to surround them, and they're worth 8/7/6/5 for $10 in 1 action, Castles are worth 3-5 per action, and must be surrounded. In the latest game we tried Follies being worth 12 points, and that seemed like a much better idea. The decreasing value was cute, but in the end I don't think it's all that necessary. I like the prerequisites for buying them as they are.

The Tax action has remained unchanged throughout the games we've played, however I did try it without the 2x/round (total) limit. I realized that removing all those limits was bad and in the last game I put them back in. It is worth noting thought that we tried a variant to the original rules: as you play land you get money. This is like an additional Tax action, and I liked how it worked. It got a little more money into the game.

For the first couple of games we played the Masquerade Ball as it was originally written in the rules. In the last test however we tried something different which I like a whole lot better. Instead of the Ball being an action, why not have it be triggered... once in the middle of the round, and again at the end of the round. I had discussed this with Dwight in the chatroom, and he seemed to like the idea. To me it makes a lot more sense thematically, as well as mechanically.

In the second to last game we used a set number of rounds, 7, with a Ball after round 4 and after round 7. It felt really cool having a hard limit to the number of actions you get! It means you can't just play land all day long, or else you'll run out of time to do real stuff. It's this aspect that makes me question the free stuff for playing land idea - but that feels so nice. I'm not sure which would be better.

In the last game I took that a step farther. I thought it would be neat to have a somewhat indeterminate round end - so you know you'll get about 8-10 turns for example, but you never know for sure. I also liked how the players had a little bit of say in when the round ends. What I did was to say that there are a certain number of rounds (I guessed 10, with a Ball in the middle and at the end), and at the end of your turn, if you have the Crown marker, then you get your 1vp and then you advance the round marker. I put that at the end of the turn instead of the beginning because that way when the Crown changes hands it effectively pushes the round marker forward. If at the beginning, then taking the Crown would prolong the round, and I thought it would be cooler the other way. *I* liked it, but my friend felt cheated when he thought he had another round and then the Crown changed hands and he missed out on his last turn. He preferred a definite number of turns which you could plan for. I'm still leaning for the indeterminate rounds.

The only other thing I tried out in the last game after Tyler's suggestion was that the Noble Titles which you win at the Masquerade Ball could have been more interesting. I added an ability to each, a simple one - a $1 discount on all buildings for the Viscount, $2 discount for the Earl, $3 discount for the Marques, and a $3 discount plus 1VP when building for the Duke. The purpose is to make the Titles more interesting, and especially to give you more incentive to go for them in the mid-round Ball, since they won't be scoring right then. I liked this a lot. The abilities could stand to be more interesting, but this seemed fine - possibly too good. Maybe better discounts would be $0/$1/$2/$2+1vp for Viscount/Earl/Marques/Duke. Either that or maybe buildings should cost more, which might be good with the freebie cash when playing Farms anyway.

Oh, a final note - since I like the Crown used as a Turn Marker (when to advance the turn), I suggest you not be able to discard it for Prestige at the Ball. Someone has to have the Crown at all times. Instead I think it should be worth 1 Prestige.

So that's it - I will be sending the prototype back to Xaq tomorrow, so I don't know if I'll ever play the game again - but I hope to hear if he plays it with any of these suggestions and how it goes. I had fun playing the game!

Noblemen - comments after 1st playtest

These are the comments I sent Xaq after playing Noblemen for the first time:

To me the game felt like multiple games of chicken, which I think may be the point. I liked that. It's definitely a game where you have to play once just to see what's good to do. At the beginning we had no idea if we wanted to, say, remove a scoring counter or not, so we didn't. As a result, the first round was kinda long, and then people bought all the churches. By the end we had a better idea of what we were doing, so we started taking scoring chips off.

Eric had a very big problem with the initial jacking of goods when you place a Man-At-Arms on an empty 2x2 thing. He said he liked the mechanic (stealing per action) just fine, but he hated that you could get jacked as soon as you complete your 2x2 arrangement. He said he "had no incentive whatsoever to place a 4th tile to complete a 2x2", because the bonus he gets will immediately get jacked. Let me say that I completely disagree with him that that's any kind of indication of brokenness. As I told him during the game... "then don't complete a 2x2." That said, I might agree with his assertion that the game might be able to do without the Men-At-Arms altogether. I think they're fine, personally - but one thing I'd watch for is this: Eric might have a point - if finishing a 2x2 and then having an opponent put a M@A on it means I just get 1 more thing (money/land tile/prestige) than not doing it, then what's the point? I'm just giving away the bonus. In fact, I could put that 4th tile somewhere else, and get the same benefit without giving up a bonus to another player. Compare this to something like the M@A player and the owner of the 2x2 sharing the bonus or both getting it... I don't know. Then again, maybe you just need to M@A your own things so that you get your bonuses... or finish more than 1 2x2 at a time so they can't ALL be M@A'd or something.

I was concerned about how quickly a round could end. Especially in a 3p game, if all three players buy a church, the round is over. Not that it would necessarily help much to end the round, but buying a church will score points, and there are a limited number of them, and that yields a Scandal card... so it might happen anyway - even if everyone scores 0 for that round (if, say, it's the first round). In our game, Eric was ahead after the 2nd scoring, so he tried to rush the game end in the 3rd round - removing a counter each turn. We of course did not follow suite, so it took a while to end the game - which I guess is good, but then he did get the 3vp bonus for using the End Round action. He won by a lot anyway.

There were some plays that seemed automatic - the Acquire Land action - it even says in the rules that you should totally do this as soon as anyone else does so that you get your share of the land. By extension, if you care which tiles you get you should do it first. But either way, as soon as 1 player does it, that is the other players' next move, so it felt like one of the actions where everyone participates, like Donate Land. Maybe it should be like that? Or maybe that action could be stricken from the action list, and at the beginning of each round each player could get an "Income" phase which includes an Acquire Land action. Also, it's awkward that the Acquire Land action can be taken more than 3 times, and just gets super weak, while other actions simply cannot be taken.

Speaking of Income, it sure would have been nice to get just a little income every round... but I guess that's what Taxation is for!

I think the Bribe action is too expensive - I don't know if the $3->1vp conversion was based on a mathematical relationship, but we all thought it was so weak that we didn't even consider it. Just a quick comparison... for $4 or $5 (or worst case: $6) you can get a Church, which is easily worth 2 or 3 VP per round - or like 5 vp total. For 5vp in a Bribe action, you'd need to spend $15, which is a fortune. A castle by itself is 3vp for $5 (not $9)... Seems like maybe the Bribe action should be $1->1vp, max 5 times like with the land donation.

Land Donation was interesting, and I tried to concentrate on that - I made a Forest (2 in the end, but didn't get around to a folly) and expected to draw a bunch of land tiles and then donate to the church... but here's the thing. By the time I had completed my Forest, there were only 2 more Acquire actions for me to take (one in round 2 and one in round 3). Further, when donating land, I get 5vp, another player gets 5vp, and the third player gets 2vp... In round 2 this worked well for me, as Eric had played a lot of land, and therefore didn't donate any in the first action, and then I chose Donate again, gaining further on him... but in the 3rd round, when I finally had lots of tiles (2 forests), Eric actually chose Donate, having more land than he needed, and I got screwed. I chose it the 2nd time, but he had another 5, and I couldn't gain on him at all. So while I actively pursued this land strategy, Eric (who didn't even take an Acquire Land action in round 3) stayed even with me on land tile donations. Something seemed wrong with that.

In round 2 Eric had managed to get an 8vp title, while I had a 5vp one, and Michael only had a 2vp title. In round 3 I managed to get up to the 12 point title, sticking Eric with a 5 in the end. That's a 10 point swing on him, which was cool, but he was still able to outscore me by something like 16 points.

It must have been because of his Castles and Churches. He and I both upgraded to Palaces in the first round, he bought a Castle in round 2 but didn't surround it. He did get multiple Churches into play, and in round 3 was able to surround his castle and score a lot off the castle, Palace, and Churches. I believe he mainly used his scandal cards to beef up his prestige in the Ball and maintain a decent title. He also bought a Folly and I didn't so that was a big deal.

So to sum up... I liked the games of chicken, but it might end too abruptly (at least sometimes), the values appear to be off on certain things, and some stuff (like the Men at Arms) might be unnecessary. I'll watch for more of that stuff once we play again.

Noblemen

I got a copy of a prototype from my friend Dwight Sullivan (Xaqery on BGDF). The game is called Noblemen, and is about building up your family name in midevil England. From his rulebook, here's a description of the game:

You are the head of an old and noble family. In this game you will grow your family’s estate, earn the Queen’s favor, bear witness to scandalous behavior, gain influence with the church, and push around your political weight, all in an effort to ensure your family’s rightful place in history. You will play the head of one of five families: Tudor, Howard, Seymour, Dudley, and Grey. The winner is the player with best family name at the end of the game. During the game players will build their estates one piece at a time. You will play four types of land tiles and then place buildings or follies on them in an effort to out-maneuver the other players using the only two real powers of the day politics and wealth. In this game there are three areas to concentrate on;lands, wealth, and prestige. Each component will help on your path to victory. Playing woods will help gain more land. Playing farms will help gain more money. Playing ponds will gain you more prestige.

The player board is laid out with various tokens and markers on it - some number of buildings (Churches, Castles, Palaces, and Follies); 2 tokens each for Bribe, Masquerade Ball, and Donate Land actions; 3 Round markers; some land tiles and 4 Scoring counters. Near the board should be a supply of money, buildings, a Crown marker, and a bag of land tiles.

Each player gets $10, 2 Men at Arms (M@A) tokens, 2 M@A markers, 2 Tax tokens, 2 of each land type plus 4 lands at random from the bag, 1 Scandal card, 1 Castle (to be placed on a Clearing in play), a player shield, a Baron title, and markers for score and prestige.

The game is played in 3 rounds, and each round consists of players taking turns doing 1 action at a time around the table until either the last Church is built, or until someone takes the "Scoring Round" action. That action cannot be taken until all 4 Scoring markers have been removed from the board, and at the end of each of your turns you have the option to remove one if you wish. The actions you can take are...

ACTIONS
Place Land: Place up to 3 land tiles into play. All land must be orthogonally adjacent to other land tiles. Completing a 2x2 square of like land tiles creates a Feature (Wood->Forest, Farm->Plantation, Pond->Garden), and you immediately get a reward for that (Forest-> Draw 2 land tiles, Plantation->$2, Garden-> Take Crown marker)

Acquire Land: Take any 2 land tiles from the board, plus bonus tiles at random from the bag equal to 1 per Wood tile you have in play, and 2 per Forest you have in play. A Forest is a 2x2 arrangement of Wood tiles. Instead of all that, if there aren't tiles left on the board, you just get exactly 1 tile at random, no bonus tiles.

Donate Land: There are 2 Donate Land tokens on the board, so this action can be taken at most twice per round. Donate up to 5 lands for 1vp apiece by placing them in the indicated place on the board. Only 3 of any given type can be donated per action (there are 4 types of land). Then the next player in turn order can do the same, and so on. Once there are 3 of each land type, or everyone's had 1 turn to donate, the action is over and all the donated land is returned to the bag.

Tax: You have 2 Tax tokens, so this action can be taken at most twice per round. Collect $1 per Farm and a bonus $2 per Plantation.

Men at Arms: You have 2 M@A tokens, so this action can be taken at most twice per round. Place a men at Arms token on an open Feature on any player's board, or you can displace an opponent's M@A token on any board except their own. When placing on an open feature, take the bonus (2 land tiles/$2/Crown) from that player, if they have it. In the future, when that player takes a tax action, your M@A token on their Plantation will steal their $2 bonus(you'll get it instead of them). Same for Tiles during the Acquire land action (if your M@A is on their forest), and Prestige during the Masquerade Ball (if your M@A is on their Garden).

Bribe: There are 2 Bribe tokens on the board, so this action can be taken at most twice per round.Spend money to buy VPs at $3 apiece. There are 12 VPs available, and starting with the player who chose this action, they can be purchased for $3 apiece. Players get 1 chance each (in turn order) to buy VPs in this way until all 12 are gone.

Masquerade Ball: There are 2 Masquerade Ball tokens on the board, so this action can be taken at most twice per round. Each player in turn order determines their Prestige and marks it on the Prestige track (on the board). You get 1 Prestige per Pond tile, 2 bonus prestige per Garden (may be stolen by a M@A), and 2 Prestige per Palace. On your turn you can discard Scandal cards for 1 Prestige each (1 gives 3 Prestige as its ability), and the player with the Crown token my discard it for an additional 2 Prestige. If 2 players have the same amount of Prestige, the later player to go must bump down to the next available slot on the track. In order from most Prestige to least, players may upgrade their Title. Players start out with the title Baron, but can upgrade to Viscount (2vp), Earl (5vp), Marquess (8vp), and Duke (12vp). There are a limited number of each title, and you can take the title away from the player who has it (downgrading them to your title) if you go before them in choosing. You can only upgrade 1 level at a time, and you have to have at least as much Prestige as the vp value of the title you're taking or you don't get it.

Buy Building: You can buy a Castle, Palace, Folly, or Church for $5, $7, $10, and $X respectively. The Churches get more and more expensive as they are bought up. A Church comes with a Scandal card. When you build Palace, you take the Crown marker. Follies have prerequisites to buy them (you must have 2 like Features, or 1 of each). These buildings will be worth points during Scoring rounds, except for the Follies, which are worth 8/7/6/5 points when you build them - there's only 1 of each type available, and so being the first to build one means you get more vps than the next guy.

If the last Church is purchased, the round ends and there is a Scoring Round. Note: Palaces are actually upgrades of Castles already on your board, and Castles cannot be placed adjacent to other Castles. Also Churches cannot be placed adjacent to other Churches.

End Round: If all 4 Scoring tokens have been removed then you can take this action to end the round, triggering a Scoring Round. You also get a bonus 1/2/3 vp for ending round 1/2/3. After round 3, the game is over.

Scoring
During a Scoring round each Castle scores 3 points plus 1 point per adjacent Church, each Palace scores 5 points plus 2 points per adjacent Church, and your Title scores the number of points printed on it (2/5/8/12). Note: Castles and Palaces must be completely surrounded by land to score at all.

On your turn you first get 1vp if you hold the Crown marker. Then you take one of the above actions, and if you want you can play 1 Scandal card. The Scandal cards do something like let you take another action, or a specific action, or are worth 2 points at the end of the game, or various other things. Then you can remove a scoring token from the board if you wish.

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The game plays like multiple games of chicken. While it doesn't present itself like a worker placement game, I think it really behaves like one - most of the actions are limited, and doing one thing has the opportunity cost of potentially being shut out of another.

There are 3 major strategic paths - Land, Cash, and Prestige. The land tiles support each of these with Woods/Forests, Farms/Plantations, and Ponds/Gardens. You also have Clearings which you need to build buildings on. There are actions in the game that allow players to translate each of those paths into VPs - Donate Land turns excess land into VPs, Bribe and Building actions turn money into VPs, and the Masquerade ball turns Prestige into VPs via a sort of majority mechanic. as a player you concentrate on 2 or all 3 of these aspect to some extent in order to score well.

In theory, as you play lands onto your board, you will develop either a lot of strength in one of those aspects, or else a little strength in each. This pushes people into various strategies as they go. In theory you could keep playing land so that you're strong in all strategies, but that should cost a lot of Acquire Land and Play Land actions which could have been used for something else (this would matter more if turns were limited I think).

The game is pretty solid in theory, but many things I noticed were not balanced well. Obvious examples are the $10 Follies which are worth at most 8 points, while a $5 Castle by itself can be worth as many as 9 points. Also the bribe action converts $3 to 1 VP, while a Castle converts $5 into at LEAST 3vp. Of course you do have to play land and surround the Castle to score it, but note that it could score as many as 9 points plus more for Churches. I'll make a new post about my first play of the game, comments from that, and changes I'd consider... then a 3rd post about the next playtest session I had where we tried various things, and what I learned.

Unsolicited

I just got an email on BGG from a guy in Antwerp, Belgium, asking after the status of Terra Prime. It gives me a warm feeling to know that there are people interested in p playing my creations - people I've never met or even heard of, who are following information on the game and actually awaiting the chance to play!

That's why I do this.

Here's what he had to say:

Seth,

I have been following your progressions on Terra Prime
on close foot on BGG since it seems exactly my type of game.
Your last message was about a submission to a publisher.
Did anything come from that?

Take care,

David

Thanks for the interest, David! The status hasn't changed since my last post. Terra Prime is intended to be published by Loose Cannon Studios, a video game company who wants to do other stuff as side projects, such as this board game and a graphic novel by some of their employees.

I haven't heard anything lately, so I assume they're busy getting their first video game finished up. I'm not sure what kind of timeline they have for their side projects, but I'm hopeful that things will start to happen "soon." It's possible they've already started the process, I'm not sure.

I'll be sure to post as soon as I have any information about the game or when it will be published. Until then, thanks for the interest!

The Dating Game?

In the shower tonight I had an idea for a game based on dating... I won't get into where this came from, but I was thinking that the search for a significant other could potentially make for an interesting strategy game.

I was thinking there could be people in the "dating pool" - and those people would have Requirements, Likes, Dislikes, and 1 Dealbreaker. Some of this information would be hidden, and as you go on 'dates' more and more of it would be revealed to you. You will have some attributes in several categories, and the more of their likes you have (and the fewer of their dislikes) the better. If you reveal a Requirement that is not met, then you can't go on another date with that person until or unless you somehow change your attributes. If you don't match the Dealbreaker, then you get "dumped" immediately. You won't know the Dealbreaker going in, but the category will be given at the outset, and each date revealing information will also yield clues to deduce the Dealbreaker condition. You could either set up your attributes to meet that Dealbreaker, or you could stop dating that person knowing it wouldn't end well anyway.

The idea would be to find "The One." I think you would probably add up a score for each person you're dating, maybe +2 per Like and -1 per Dislike. Of course you have to meet the Requirements or you can't date that person anymore. If you get to a certain threshold then you are considered "Going Out" with that person ("Going Steady," "Boyfriend/Girlfriend," or whatever). However, as more info is revealed you might lose points, or you might not meet the Dealbreaker requirement (thereby getting dumped immediately), so you might want to continue to date other people. Of course if you are "Steady" with someone and still dating other people, that would come with the risk of your Boy/Girlfriend finding out and that should be bad.

I thought there could also be some other aspects, like Scheduling, where you have to juggle timing with the different dates (people are only free on certain days, and you can't be in 2 places at the same time), and a random Event deck which mucks about with your schedule or attributes somehow, like you get a different job. This event deck could throw you curve balls like making you change up your schedule, or making your Bf/Gf surprise you on a certain day of the week (when you better not be on a date with someone else!)

I'm not sure, but I guess the win condition would be finding "The One" (which maybe means falling in love, or getting married, or whatever). Getting to the bottom of a card (a certain number of dates with that person) and satisfying the Dealbreaker.

I wanted to jot this down before I forgot, because it sounds like the idea has potential. It is a sort of deduction/set collection game with a theme that everyone should be familiar with. I'm not sure how the interaction would go, except that there's a limited number of people in the dating pool, and everyone's trying to date the same people - thus you want to schedule well, and you want to find a stronger match than that person has with anyone else.

Agricola

My friend Xaqery sent me his prototype Noblemen (a topic for a post of its own) to try out, and I was anxious to do so before my copy of Agricola arrived - because I figured once it got here that's all we'd play for a while. I did manage to get 1 play of Noblemen in, but then the fateful day arrived, and I've spent all weekend playing Agricola.

When I first read about Agricola I thought it sounded like a good, quality eurogame that I would like. Even before I'd seen the hype I identified it to a friend that was going to Essen. She ended up buying a German copy at the show, more or less on my say-so, and once she made paste-ups and played it, she was hooked. She spent all BGG.con teaching the game and she played it a ton with her friends in L.A. - but since I'm not in L.A. I didn't get in on that - I just played once at BGG.con and that was it.

In my BGG.con game, I did really well - I ended up well ahead of everyone else's score except for one guy who won by a landslide over me (maybe 10 points) - who seemed to have extraordinarily good cards with extraordinary synergy. This was my main concern about a game such as this where you get some cards for the game... it seems like it's possible that one players cards could be "better" (quality, synergy, efficiency, however "better" manifests) than another players, giving that player an unfair advantage. I suspect it's rare that ALL of one player's cards will be amazing/sucky, and maybe on the average players will have hands of relatively equal power/usefulness. Of course, on the average you'll roll 7 on 2d6.

In any case, I preordered the game back in November, since my Grandma was buying it for Hanukkah I figured it didn't matter that it cost $75 or that I wouldn't get it until April.

Time passed and I didn't get any chances to play again. Then at a convention here or there I did have opportunity to play Agricola, but for one reason or another I passed it up. My interest in playing Agricola waned, and when I realized what a silly thought it was that pre-ordering was really necessary I was a little disappointed in myself for making that choice. After all, I could have had *2* games for that price, and I could have had them in time for Sedjcon. 4 months of delays from the projected April date didn't build my interest in the game, if anything I have gotten even less interested in playing. I have recently acquired several other games (Brass, Stone Age) that I am really enjoying, and I don't know if I really want to set them aside indefinitely to play Agricola all the time. Fortunately I did play a lot of each of those when I first got them, so they did get some use.

So fast forward to Monday of this week... I got an email informing me that my copy of Agricola had left Illinois and was on it's way for a Thursday delivery. Eric and Snowden also received their copies on Thursday, just in time for game night at Hat's - when I walked in they each had their copy set up, and a total of 9 players were preparing to play. I went to Frisbee practice, but played a game afterward with Eric and Ben. Friday I played 2 more games, and Saturday again 2 more. I'll be playing again tomorrow (Sunday) as well.

The first thing I thought while playing the other night was that yeah, it is certainly possible for my cards to be worse than an opponent's. Ben had a fistful of cards that were just bomb after bomb dropping on the table. My cards paled in comparison. Zev says he's won without even worrying about cards just by playing well off the board, but that's got to be bullshit... the cards augment your board actions, so not having them means your actions are weaker than someone who does, and having weak cards isn't as good as having strong cards. The question is whether it's really the case that all of his cards were really stronger than mine, or if I just didn't see how to use mine well.

In later games the draws seemed more fair. In both games today I had a really good draw, but misplayed very badly in the early game - losing each game by 6 points to the winner. My bonehead mistakes may well have been enough to make up 6 points in one of the games, not sure about the other.

That said, I did get that feeling like I could really enjoy the game - once I get over the hump of figuring out how to do what I want. That happened with Brass, and I could tell right away that it would. 6 games in I'm finally figuring out how to do stuff "on purpose" - which for me is embarrassing... I'm used to figuring out games much quicker than that, especially games of this type.

The "economic engine" in Agricola is food. You have to have enough food to feed your family, because unlike Stone Age - Starvation is a penalty in this game, not a strategy. You need to bolster your food production before you can increase your family and thereby ramp up your actions per turn. Therefore cards that create some kind of sustained food income are really good. Of course, card that save or give resources are also good as well, but depending on what resources you need their power may be wasted, or a waste of time. Also good are cards which help you increase the size of your family. Once you figure out how you'll feed them, you want family members as fast as you can get them. So any card that will directly give you family or which will help you build rooms cheaper are very good. It's possible to win without all 5 family members, but you won't win with just the initial 2 yielding only 2 actions each round.

In addition to figuring out what path you'll take to feed your family, there are all kinds of ways to get points. To make matters worse, for any of 8 or so areas that you ignore, you actually LOSE points. So you can specialize in a couple of areas and take penalties n others, or you can try and cancel out all the penalties without really specializing in anything. Each possible VP option is like a different strategy or path to victory.

The various abilities on the cards, and the various combinations of cards you can get, give the feel of customization to the game. Almost a metagame of figuring out which cards you'll use and which you won't, and when to put them down. This variety, as well as the large number of strategic paths, will keep the game fresh for quite some time - which is both good news and bad news. It's good because this expensive game that I waited so long for will see a lot of play as I'm sure it's all people will want to play around here for a while. On the down side, nobody will want to play Brass, or any prototypes, or anything old for a while. Why play those when we could play Agricola?

8/7 Central - Proposed changes

Proposed rules changes for 8/7 Central

Issue: Auctions take a long time and though the auction mechanic is cool, the auction system is problematic (causes problems with moving/placing programs as well).

Proposal: No auctions. Instead, there will be a display with 4 slots for programs which will be turned up from the deck. Actually, I'm thinking 2 decks (1/2-hr shows and 1-hr shows), 2 displays (4 and 2 cards) costing $3/4/6/9 for the 1/2-hr shows and $5/8 for the 1-hr shows. As an action you can buy a Program from the display for it's current cost. Then all programs behind it slide forward (become cheaper) and the last slot is filled from the deck. Programs purchased might go directly into play, but maybe instead they will go to a Holding Bin (see below).

Alternatively: 1 deck not 2, 1 display not 2... 1-hr programs cost X+$3 (where X is the cost based on the slot it occupies).

Issue: Moving/Placing programs rules have always been clunky, takes a lot of time, and will be affected by the removal of auctions from the game.

Proposal: Move a Program as an action. For no money cost, you can move a program to another time slot. If there is already a Program in the new time slot, it is "bumped" into a Holding Bin. A Move action could be used to move a Program from the Holding Bin into the Lineup (of course, potentially bumping another Program to the Bin). Programs in the Holding Bin do not count for scoring and are not checked for hits. Ads and modifiers cannot be played on Programs in the Holding Bin. Ads on Programs being bumped are discarded. Modifiers stay with the Program in the Holding Bin (or maybe they are discarded as well). Whenever a Program is moved for any reason, it loses 1 (all? 1/2?) Ratings Counter.

Issue: Starting Lineup - how to handle if not auctions?

Proposal: Deal out some programs to each player. Probably 8 of which they will choose 6 to be in their starting lineup. Because some programs may be "better" than others, the starting configuration will dictate how much money each player starts with. Basically players will start with some amount of money (probably 30 or so), and then will have to pay for their 6 programs at some rate. Maybe $3 per 1/2-hr show and $5 per 1-hr show... or $4 and $6 or something like that. or maybe each Program will have a printed value which is it's cost.

Alternatively: If programs have printed costs, then the Display could be redone to be COST+1/2/3/4 - which might automatically take into account 1-hr shows.

8/7 Central, the current state

The current state of the rules for 8/7 Central is "in flux." the most recent printed rules I have are from December 2006, and they follow. The current ideas floating around to amend those rules are:

- Strike auctions. Initial Programs dealt to players in some manner. New Programs are available for purchase as an action, from a sliding display where each Program in line costs more than the previous one, and as one is purchased, the rest slide down and become cheaper (like the Civ cards in Stone Age, or the Civilizations in Vinci).

- Remove Ad cards from the game. Instead, any card can be played as an Ad, placed face down behind the program. Ad categories also removed from the game. When playing an Ad, you'd collect $1 per ratings counter immediately, then $2 each time the program 'hits'. Compare this to the Fundraising action, wherein you get $2 immediately and no money later at all, and consider that Ad space is limited.

- Reconsider Move/Bump Programs mechanics. It's important to be able to move a program, but it's important that 2 players not be able to go back and forth forever moving programs. Currently a moved program loses 1 ratings counter. Maybe losing all of them would be easier.

- Game length seems short to me. i'm hoping with the removal of the Starting Lineup and Supplemental Auctions there will be time for more game turns, which I hope will let the game develop more. I'd like to see shows get better and then see players move their good shows to combat opponents' programs and fight for the demographics.

8/7 Central

A card game for 2 to 4 players in which players control television networks and vie for the attention of the viewing public.

The game is made up of cards. Program cards represent various television programs which you run in your two 1/2 hour time slots each day, Event cards effect the state of the game and Programs in your lineup, Modifiers alter Programs in play, and Advertisements establish Revenue to pay the costs for other cards.

Game play is interactive as you bid against rival networks for Programs and place them in time slots to compete with opposing Programs.

General viewership for Programs is determined by a roll of the dice and tracked throughout the game. As your Programs gain a following, they become more valuable. But watch out! If a Program gets too popular it runs the risk of Jumping the Shark! Attach advertisements to your Programs to generate Revenue when the Program is viewed (when it's number comes up). Program Modifiers temporarily increase the likelyhood of your Programs being viewed, or otherwise make your Programs a little better or opponent's Programs a little worse. Event cards have a lasting effect on the game: altering the state of the game or cards in play.

New Programs become available to bid on each week. With careful choice of Programs and management of Revenue you can come out on top and run your competitors into the ground, blowing their Programs out of the water and stealing their viewers for your own.

Properties of Program cards:

Programs are television shows that players can run on their network.

* Title of Program

* Minimum Bid [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

* Hit#s (numbers which when rolled produce a 'hit' indicating that the Program has been viewed)

* Genre (what the Program "counts as" - COMEDY, NEWS, DRAMA, or NICHE)

* Genre Level (a number reflecting how deep the show is in that particular genre)

* Ad Symbols (What type of ads can be attached to the Program) [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Properties of Advertisement cards: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Advertisements are the your source of income. Selling ad space on your Programs creates Revenue each time the Program is viewed by the general public (represented by rolls of the dice).

* Name of product or service being Advertised

* Revenue ($ provided by the ad PER MATCHING AD SYMBOL per hit)

* Ad Symbols (What type of product or service it is. Determines which Programs it can attach to)

* Special Rules

Properties of Modifier cards:

Modifiers give bonuses to your Programs, or hinder an opponent's Program.

* Title of Modifier

* Cost (monetary cost to play the card)

* Additional Hit#'s (if any) supplied by the Modifier

* Effect (special rules)

* Duration (how long it lasts - End of Day, End of Week, or End of Game)

Properties of Event cards:

Events can have an effect and then go to the discard pile, or stay in play and have a long term effect on the game.

* Title of Event

* Cost (monetary cost to play the card)

* Effect (special rules)

* Duration (how long it lasts - End of Day, End of Week, or End of Game)

Game Rules:

Setup:

Begin by shuffling the two respective decks (Programs and Play). Deal out 5 cards from the Play deck face down to each player (you may look at your cards at this time). Determine via some random method who will begin the game as Player 1. This title will change hands each week throughout the course of the game. Decide how many weeks the game will last (we recommend 1 week per player). Finally, distribute $30 worth of $ chips to each player.

The Starting Lineup: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

To begin the game players bid on Programs to fill their lineup. This bidding is done in 6 rounds, and in each round a number of Program cards equal to the number of players in the game are revealed from the Program deck for auction. Players bid on Programs in turn order, starting with Player 1. Bidding continues as described below under "Bidding." Players take turns bidding first each round (i.e. in round 1, Player 1 bids first. In round 2, Player 2 bids first, etc.)

EXAMPLE: There are 3 players: Bob, Jim, and Sally. Bob is randomly selected to be Player 1. For the first round of the Starting Lineup 3 Program cards are revealed from the Program deck. Bidding ensues as described below, starting with Bob. For round 2 of the Starting Lineup, 3 more Programs are revealed and Jim (who is sitting left of Bob) begins the bidding. This continues until there have been 6 rounds of bidding.

Bidding: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Each time it is your turn to bid on a Program, first take back any of your bids which have been outbid by another player. Then you may either pass or increase the current bid (or place an opening bid) on ANY available Program. Players may not bid more $ chips than they currently hold. When all players pass in succession, the auction is over and the Programs are awarded to the last player to bid on each. Those players surrender their bids to the bank. Programs with no opening bid are placed in the discard pile. For the Starting Lineup this process is repeated 5 more times with players taking turns bidding first. Notice, it is possible to win more than one bid in a round, and to pass then bid again.

In our example, Bob decides to place a $3 bid on Program #2. He places 3 of his $ chips on the Program #2 card, on the edge closest to him. Jim then decides to bid $2 on Program #3, so he places 2 $ chips on the edge of the Program #3 card closest to him. Sally wants to outbid Jim and therefore places 4 of her $ chips on the edge of the Program #3 card closest to her (Jim leaves his bid alone for now). Bob is happy with the way things are going and passes. Jim now takes back his losing bid and can either pass or place another bid. Let's say he decides to bid $2 on Program #1. Sally passes. Bob, still happy, also passes. Jim can now end the bidding with a pass, or he an outbid either Bob or Sally. Technically he could up his own bid, but that probably won't happen very often.

Once bidding on the Starting Lineup is over players place their Programs one at a time in their 10 alotted time slots, following the rules for Movement and Placement of Programs (below). Once all Programs have been placed, fill vacant days with the Placeholder cards so everyone can tell which Programs run on which days. Remember, the time slots correspond to days of the week: two consecutive 1/2 hour time slots per day, Monday through Friday. Note that some Programs are indicated as 1-hr. These are printed sideways and take up both time slots on a given day.

Begin Play:

Play begins with Player 1 at the beginning of Monday and continues through a series of rounds called Weeks.

A Week consists of five Days (Monday through Friday).

A Day consists of the following:

* The player with the most Victory Points becomes Player 1 for the day. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most money becomes Player 1. In case of a further tie, the tied player closest to the right of the current Player 1 becomes the new Player 1 for the day.

* Each Player in turn (beginning with Player 1 and continuing clockwise) may take up to two actions as defined below under Actions.

* Player 1 rolls the 2 sets of dice. Each pair of dice produces a number which is used to check for hits.

* Programs on the current day are checked for Hits.

* Actions that occur on Hits are resolved (Programs receive Ratings Counters and players collect Ad Revenue).

* Players score points based on the Genres and Genre Levels of their Programs- See Scoring below.

* Check Durations of all cards in play and discard any that have reached their Duration. Modifiers and Advertisements on Programs are checked at the end of the day their Program is on, Events are checked at the end of EACH day.

After turns have progressed through Friday the week is over. Before the next week begins there is some Week End business to attend to.

* Discard any cards in play with Duration: End of Week

* Roll to see which Programs (if any) Jump the Shark (see Jumping the Shark)

* Supplemental Auction- 1 Round of bidding for new Programs. [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

Jumping the Shark:

As Programs become popular it becomes more and more likely that they will Jump the Shark. This is a term named after an episode of Happy Days when the Fonze jumped his motorcycle over a shark, which is generally considered to be the point at which the show started to go downhill (see www.jumptheshark.com). At each week's end, players roll a die for each of their Programs. If the roll is LESS THAN the number of Ratings Counters on the chosen Program, then that Program has Jumped the Shark. Remove all Ratings Counters from that program.

Supplemental Auctions: [THIS MAY BE STRICKEN]

New Programs become available for auction, ONE PER PLAYER (so in a three player game, 3 new Programs are revealed). Bidding on this Supplemental Auction is identical to the process used in The Starting Lineup. There is only one round in the Supplemental Auction. Players place and move Programs in the same order as bidding, and according to the rules for Moving and Placing Programs (below). Play then continues on Monday. The next section is a description of each step of the day listed above.

Moving and Placing Programs:

Managing your Programs and Time Slots is key to victory, but moving Programs means losing viewers. Any time a Program changes Time Slots for any reason, remove a Ratings Counter from it. If there are no Ratings Counters on the Program then ignore this rule (noone appears to be watching it anyway).

Whenever one or more players have Programs to place (we'll call that "in their hand"), players take turns PLACING a Program in an open time slot; BUMPING a Program at the cost of $1 (any Ads on such a Program are discarded and a Ratings Counter is removed) - a bumped program goes into the player's hand; or Passing. Players may not pass if they hold any Programs in their hand. Moving and Placing ends when all players have passed in succession.

Steps of the Day:

Pass Player 1:

The player with the most Victory Points becomes Player 1 for the day. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most money becomes Player 1. In case of a further tie, the tied player closest to the right of the current Player 1 becomes the new Player 1 for the day.

Player Actions:

Players are allowed to take up to two actions during their turn. Each action can be any of the following:

* Play a card from hand.

* Refill hand from the Play deck.

* Fundraising.

Play a card from hand:

Play an Ad, Event, or Modifier card from your hand. Pay any associated costs (printed on card) and put the card into play or follow it's instructions as appropriate. Since Programs have limited Ad Slots (1 Slot for a 1/2-Hr Program, 2 Slots for a 1-Hr Program), an Ad may be replaced when a new Ad is played. Discard the old Ad.

Refill hand from the Play deck:

Hand size in 8/7 Central is 5 cards. When taking this action a player may discard any number of cards before refilling their hand (to 5 cards) from the Play deck. The first card can be discarded for free, but the player must pay $1 per card discarded this way after the first.

Fundraising:

Discard a card from your hand and collect $2 from the bank.

Roll dice:

Viewership is determined by a roll of the dice each day. The probability of rolling a particular number on two 6-sided dice represents the expected viewership of a Program. The more viewable or popular a Program is, the better (or more) Hit#'s it will have. A total pip number [or pie chart] below the Hit#'s serves as a graphical representation of the Expected Popularity (or hit probability) for the Program. This number represents the chance (out of 36) that the Program will be Viewed.

After each player has taken their Actions, Player 1 rolls the 2 pairs of dice. Each pair results in a number which is used to check for hits.

Programs on the current day are checked for Hits:

Programs each have Hit#'s printed on them. These numbers represent how likely the Program is to be viewed. When the dice are rolled check each Program on the current day. If either or both of the resulting numbers matches one of a Program's Hit#'s then the Program is considered to have been viewed. Represent this by placing a Ratings Counter on the Program. While the Hit#'s represent the EXPECTED relative viewership of a Program, the number of Ratings Counters represents the ACTUAL viewership. Remember, only Programs in the current Day's time slots are checked for Hits, and it is not possible for a Program to hit twice in one day.

Actions that occur on Hits are resolved:

Some cards will have actions that occur when a Program is Viewed such as Revenue from advertising. Follow directions on cards to resolve each action. Resolve Player 1's actions first, then other players' in turn order.

Ad Revenue:

Revenue from Advertising is calculated as follows. If there is no Ad attached to the Program, collect no Revenue. If there is an Ad attached to the Program, collect the Ad's Revenue value for each matching ad symbol. EXAMPLE: Station Identification has a Revenue of "1 card". This means that on a hit you draw 1 card per matching Ad Symbol. Station Identification matches categories NECESSITY, CONVENIENCE, and LUXURY. On a Program with both NECESSITY and LUXURY a hit would provide a total of 2 cards, 1 for each matching ad symbol.

Scoring:

Players score victory points for the quality of their Programs. For EACH GENRE, the player with the highest Genre Total (total of Genre Level plus Ratings Counters for all Programs on the current day) scores a Victory Point. Note that two 1/2 hour Programs on the same day that share a Genre BOTH contribute to the Genre Total. The winner of the game is the player that collects the most Victory points before the game ends.

SCORING EXAMPLE: I have a News-4, Comedy-3 Program with 2 Ratings Counters on it, and I have a Niche-5 Program with 1 Ratings Counter on it. You have a 1-Hr Drama-3, Comedy-4, Niche-4 Program with 2 Ratings Counters on it. At the end of that day I would score 1 VP for my News Program (you aren't competing) and you would score 1 for Drama (no competition) and 1 for Comedy (you have Comedy-6 total, I have Comedy-5). We each score for Niche because we both have Niche-6....

Winning the Game:

The game ends at the end of the final week. The player who has collected the most Victory Points by that time is declared the winner.

Living in the past?

I actually haven't been living in the past for once - but in some respects I wish I were. In particular, I'd really like to revive and "finish" an old game design... well, I'd love to revive and finish several old game designs, but right this minute I'm thinking of one game in particular...

I've always been interested in game design, I just didn't always know it. The first game I really worked on with any kind of success was an idea by a friend of mine about competing television networks. The idea was sort of like Magic, where your TV shows are the creatures, facing off against each other each day (for a very loose description). Mohan had this idea for some time, and he told me about it one random Thursday when he was in town for the summer. At the time he didn't really have any plans on how the game would work, just an idea of the general scheme of the game. All weekend I could think of nothing else, and on Monday he was at my house again, I described in great detail how I thought the game could work. I'd dreamed up an entire game's worth of mechanics based largely on what he'd described to me the other day, and my experience with Magic.

The game was called 8/7 central, and Mohan and I worked on it all summer. It changed tremendously from one iteration to the next, and by the end of the summer we had a prototype of a game that certainly worked - though I think we both thought it could be better. Mohan went back to school, but I kept working on the game and corresponding with him about it. I posted about it on the Board Game Designers Forum - it was one of the first games in the Game Design Workshop over there.

After some time though, things sort of stopped. That was all several years ago now, and once or twice I stumbled across old cards and brought the design back to life, but those times were short lived, and he game has been relegated to the back burner ever since.

When I visited Mohan in Seattle last month, we mentioned the possibility of reviving 8/7 Central and thinking about "finishing" it and maybe trying to get it published. Since Jackson Pope at Reiver is looking for a card game or something cheap to produce, I got to thinking about 8/7 Central again... I suppose now is as good a time as any to revive the game. So I sent Jack a short description of the game, and if he thinks it's interesting then I'll be hitting up Mohan to think about the game again.

I just re-read the rules and remembered a significant change I thought of the last time I'd looked at it*. I remember being unhappy with certain rules**, but I'm sure with a little thought and some testing those can be ironed out in no time.

So watch for some posts about this, my first ever "real" game design prospect that I seem to have avoided posting about thus far...

* There is a deck of cards in the game that is 50% Ads and 50% Events/Modifiers. This can lead to getting a draw of too few or too many ads. The brilliant idea to fix that is to allow ANY card to be an Ad - just play it upside down. Then the deck doesn't have to have any regular ads in it - maybe just a few special or better ones.

** In particular the rules for moving programs, as well as perhaps the auction for programs, though I kind of like that, as it's a somewhat unusual auction mechanism.

Reiver Games - prototypes

As I mentioned in my last post, All For One is being sent to Reiver Games for review. Jackson Pope over there read the rules and thought it sounded interesting enough to try out at least.

On his blog, Jackson said "I now need something to slot in early next year (potentially a UK Games Expo release), something cheap to make (like a card game) is the order of the day." So I emailed him with a description of Ariel's card game: Love Means Nothing. I sent him a paragraph I wrote for my KublaCon report describing the game, which Ariel liked so much it's now the intro paragraph in the rulebook:

In Love Means Nothing you have a hand of cards, each one depicting 2 parts of a tennis court. One half can be used for defense, returning a ball that comes your way. The other half can be used for offense, sending a shot across the net. You never use both halves of the card at once, it's either one or the other. A turn consists of first playing a card to cover the shot your opponent played, then playing another card to dictate which of the 6 zones you'll hit the ball to. Finally you play a preparation card, indicating which zones you're prepared to cover. The preparation card can be used to cover a shot if the appropriate zone is highlighted. Otherwise you must cover the shot with a card from your hand, in which case the preparation card becomes the attack. So by playing cards that your opponent cannot cover with their preparation card you maintain control of the match because you'll see where the next attack will come and will be able to prepare for that. Of course if a player cannot cover a shot at all, then the point is lost. There are also combinations of cards which create a special shot. Special shots, if not covered with the proper type of card, leave a player off balance... they will only draw 1 card at the end of the turn instead of the usual 2. this will leave them with fewer options and less likely to cover shots.

Jackson said the game sounded interesting, so I sent him the latest copy of the rules which I got from Ariel today. I just received an email from Jackson requesting a prototype of LMN too!

While I hope he likes and decides to publish All For One, I think the chances are better that he'll want to publish Love Means Nothing, as it fits his plan of a cheap-to-produce game. Hopefully he'll go with both - but I'd be pretty happy and excited if he goes with either one. I'm a big cheerleader for Love Means Nothing, even if I didn't have as much to do with it as I did All For One.

"Too Euro for a theme that screams Ameritrash."

Last November I handed off my All For One prototype to Zev Schlasinger of Zman Games. Since then he got really busy undertaking many publishing projects, and he hadn't gotten a chance to play All For One - until last Sunday. I just emailed him to see how that went, and his reply was a little disheartening, though not really a surprise:

"...it just didn't work for us. I think perhaps it is too Euro for a theme that screams Ameritrash (to put it all in common terms)."

I got the impression after his comments last time that perhaps his idea of what a the Three Musketeers game would be like might differ from ours, and with the way he put it this time it makes perfect sense. I wouldn't personally think of Three Musketeers as "Ameritrashy" - but then if I made a Pirate game, it wouldn't be like Pirate's Cove either. I can totally see where he's coming from - All For One is definitely designed to be a Euro-style game.

The good news is that another publisher, Reiver Games, is interested in the prototype and I'll be sending it there next. I hope they're idea of the Three Musketeers is more about the intrigue and less about sword fighting...

Soliciting Suspense!

Scott has been mulling over a way to make a board game give the feeling of suspense you'd find in a good thriller movie, or perhaps a video game (though it seems many attempts at a video game aren't too impressive in that department). Off the top of my head I couldn't think of a good way to impart that edge-of-your-seat feeling to a player, so I thought I'd solicit ideas from my readers (both of them)...

What do you think? Got any ideas how to make a board game offer the feeling of creeping through a haunted house, not knowing if a ghost is about to pop out of nowhere? Or maybe looking through a campsite for a lost companion, suspicious that a psychopath is on the loose but unaware where he is or what he'll do if he catches you? Giving it a little thought I came up with a potential start to something, but it's not amazing:

Let's say there's a deck of cards, some of which are blank, and some of which are scary monsters or events of some sort that you don't want to encounter - let's say Werewolves. Players have a limited number of counters which will cancel out these bad cards, let's call them Silver Bullets. At certain times a player must draw a card, and if it's a Werewolf then they get hurt (or something else bad happens), but they can, before looking at the card, spend a Silver Bullet to escape the effects of the card (whether it's a werewolf or not). Maybe this is like shooting the person walking up to you - maybe it's a werewolf, maybe a regular joe - either way you're down 1 bullet and you don't get attacked.

Furthermore, if the player somehow is prepared, or has a particular item, or maybe knows something about the person coming up to him (that he's more or less likely to be a werewolf), then instead of just drawing 1 card, he'd draw a couple - maybe 3. He'd look at them, then decide to use a bullet or not, then shuffle them up and choose one at random to encounter. This means that you can see how likely the card is to be dangerous, which would give you a better idea whether you should use the bullet or not. Maybe some cards are actually good (like additional bullets, or health), so if you see one of those you might not want to use your bullet so maybe you'd get the good thing. But the main point is, you don't know exactly what you'll get, and you only have so many bullets!

The way to create suspense however would be not just in the existence of these cards, but in how and when you have to draw them. One quote from Scott's post stood out to me: "In other words, it doesn't just instantly jump monsters out at you, but alerts you to the fact that something MAY be jumping out at you in the very near future. Which makes a lot of difference." Suspense in the movies come from the anticipation of something happening, not the thing actually happening. The more you wait for it (knowing it's gotta happen any second), the closer to the edge of the seat you get. To capture that essence in a board game, I think you'd need to figure out a way to make the player know that at any moment they might experience some event (maybe drawing from that deck of werewolves), which could be really, really bad - or just completely unknown.

Not knowing what is going to happen, but knowing that whatever it is will happen any minute, is probably a great way to build suspense!

New prototypes to try out!

Ever since KublaCon I've been trying to get together a copy of JC Lawrence's 'Ohana Proa together to play with people around here. I've finally gotten "almost done" with that, and in addition I've got 2 friends in Chicago who say they're going to send me prototypes of their games to play.

Scott Slomiany has finished a prototype of Dark Water Salvage, his deduction game about searching for shipwrecks:

Each player is a salvage team, racing to discover and salvage the most valuable shipwrecks. Shipwrecks are initially hidden "on the board" and through logical deduction methods and triangulation of revealed information, players can determine the location of the wrecks. Additionally, players must carefully balance the need of overspending on the loans they take out from the local Naval Historical Society; it doesn't matter if you've found the most prestigious Shipwrecks if you can't pay back your loans.

And Dwight Sullivan has resurfaced at BGDF, now with a prototype of Noblemen which has been in the works for about 3 years. he asked if I'd read through the rules, and offered to send me his copy to play.

Scott's always got some clever gimmick or gizmo, and I like the sound of the way information is hidden in Dark Water Salvage. I read the rules to Noblemen, and it sounds like a totally solid eurogame, the kind I generally like. I look forward to trying them both out - and to finally finishing my copy of 'Ohana Proa!

And of course I'm looking to play the latest version of Terra Prime as well, and Homesteaders with the latest building changes. So much to do, and at the same time there's Stone Age, Brass, and Merchants of Amsterdam to play! Never mind that I'd like to try Wealth of Nations or any of the new stuff coming out... and eventually my copy of Agricola will arrive.

I'm swamped!

Game Design Central

There's a neat online publication I hadn't seen before called Game Design Central, and every month they ask 10 questions of established inventors or game companies and post the answers. I was reading this months answers, and I really liked a couple of things Mike Selinker said:

Q - If you were to give beginning inventors one bit of advice, what would it be?
A - Stop working alone. Find people who are as smart as you, or preferably even smarter, and harness their creative energy along with your own.

I feel the same way, and as I'm sure I've mentioned before, I think I'm a better developer than a designer, or that any design I do that will be successful will likely be a collaboration with another designer. There are many advantages to working with another designer, and few disadvantages.

Q - What is your process for getting toys & games seen?
A - Lone Shark Games, Inc. is a design studio where I and my colleagues have existing accounts with many game companies, and they're happy when we have something new to show them.

This response made me feel a little jealous. A design studio where a couple guys - as their job - sit around and design and develop game ideas, with enough clout to call up a publisher and say "Hey, we have something new" and have the publisher say "well send it over!" That's the way I sort of see my friends in the Board Game Designers Forum chat room - only sans clout.

Art imitates life

I got a call at work today about a project that was done in my office about 9 months ago. There was a piece missing, and they need it fixed right away. The engineer that did the project is on vacation this week, so I had to track down all the necessary information, figure out what to do, and get it done - on top of whatever I'm supposed to be working on. While thinking about I thought it might make for a good game design:

Players are given cards with Tasks on them. Once complete, the task cards are placed at the bottom of the communal pool of "completed" Tasks. Every so often players are dealt or must draw a task off the top of the "completed" stack, and if it's no longer complete, they must "fix" it (make it satisfy all conditions again). there would be some variable global rules which would change over the course of the game which would make previously "complete" tasks no longer complete.

It would be possible to prepare for these additional rules ahead of time, but it would take more time and effort of course. When a task comes up a second time, if it already satisfies all of the current conditions, then it does not need fixing, and the player who originally did the task would score extra or something.

As for keeping track of things, I envision using card sleeves with the tasks in them, and you would slide in additional cards in order to complete the task. You might also include a player card so it can be known who did the task originally.

There might be a way to put the task into the deck without it being complete in the first place, but in that case there would be some penalty.

I also imagine these tasks would be time sensitive - having some form of deadline.. There could be a 'calendar' track, and the tasks could have hard deadlines (specific dates), or maybe soft deadlines (date drawn +X days). Maybe when the deadline is reached you have to put the task into the deck, finished or not - or you could take a penalty and finish it (the penalty is for being late).

Here's an example of how the card sleeve thing might work:
Perhaps the tasks require some set of cards to be collected and added to the sleeve. The global rules add specifics to the requirements. You spend your turn actions collecting the appropriate cards to complete the task and placing them in the sleeve with the task and a player card identifying you. When the task is complete, it is placed at the bottom of the stack of tasks, and I guess another task would be drawn from the top of the stack.

At some interval players would get additional tasks dealt to them, in a To Do queue. Maybe when 1 task is completed every player draws a new one for example, or maybe every couple of turns. I entertained the notion that this could be a real-time game without turns, just free form - maybe the cards are in a big pile in the center and you sift through them to get the ones you want, or maybe you draw them off a deck and can trade them with other players. Players could have a sand timer indicating the deadline for a task, maybe 2 timers - a 1 minute timer for their original tasks, and a 30 second timer for any tasks that are 'completed' and need to be 'fixed'.

This is just brainstorming, if you have any ideas for this then please post a comment and let me know.

Back to the Stone Age

I've come to like Stone Age.

As yet I've described Stone Age as a sort of watered down version of Pillars of the Earth. All the resources convert to victory points at the same efficiency for everyone, and at the same efficiency as each other - it costs 3 "pips" to get a wood, and you earn 3 VP when converting wood via a Hut. Similarly, it costs 4 "pips" to get Clay, and you get 4vp for the Clay when building a hut. The only other thing to do with resources other than build huts is buy Civ cards - which cost 1/2/3/4 resources of any type. Obviously it is best to spend Wood on these as it is the 'lowest value' resource.

Since everything's at the same efficiency when converting to VPs, it seems best to get Wood because there's less waste due to rounding. It's true that some huts require specific combinations of resources, but many are very flexible in what resources they accept.

In reality though, the different resources are not at the same efficiency, because you obtain them at different efficiency levels. Wood is the most efficient, while Gold is the least efficient. It's still true that these efficiencies are the same for everyone, but at least the resources are differentiated from each othre more than I was originally thinking.

In fact, with Tools it's not even true that the efficiencies are the same for everybody - tools can help you get the more valuable resources more efficiently - or at least allow you to get more of the more efficient Wood resource.

After having played the game a couple of times, I've come to think that I like Stone Age more than I originally did. I'm not prepared to say that it's deeper than Pillars of the Earth, but in a recent poll on BGG I voted that neither is any better game than the other. I think both have a lot to offer, and I'm still looking forward to playing Pillars of the Earth with the new expansion.

Terra Prime with the publishers

The last 2 nights I played Terra Prime - tonight with Mohan and one of the head honchos at Loose Cannon, and last night with some people who meet at a Microsoft building after hours. We played according to the latest changes... no Red cubes, and more valuable Yellow and Red planets. One of the players from last night posted a review on BoardGameGeek about it.

Last night's 4 player game was the closest I'd ever seen... I won by 2 points with a colonization strategy over a player who did some delivering and then hunted some aliens. I actually began with a Government Contract upgrade, which is only good for a delivery strategy, and then switched a few turns in. Jose only killed a few double aliens, so never cashed in the bog points. It was a really good and really successful game, I thought.

Tonight's game was interesting in that Mohan had a chance to colonize an early Yellow planet, but chose to make it blue. There were no yellow colonies made for quite some time, so noone bought an additional engine, and the Yellow delivery tiles didn't come into play. Also, many of the yellow tiles were devoid of Aliens. For this reason we weren't really slowed down as far as exploration was concerned, and I was able to drop 3 colonies, kill 2 sets of Aliens, and complete 2 delivery tiles. I had upgraded Battlestations (extra gun and shield) and bought 2 guns and 1 shield and went Alien Hunting in the late game after monopolizing the green planets in the early game.

I accidentally used the wrong number of Markers per player - should be 10 for a 3-player game, and as such the game felt like it ended a little prematurely. I don't think it would have changed the outcome though... I beat Mohan by 4 points, but with 2 more markers I would have scored a 9 point colony on my last turn and likely ended the game the following turn. But given enough time, Mohan could have dropped off a decent sized colony. Also, he forgot about the diplomacy rule - and could have scored a juicy colony if he'd remembered and picked up a couple resources to offer to the aliens.

We discussed some changes after the game, and will implement the following in tomorrow's games:

Shields will work differently - no more die rolling for them! Instead, each Shield tile will come with 3 counters - the ability to absorb 3 hits. Each time you are hit by an alien or an asteroid, instead of checking to see if your shields save you, you simply discard 1 of the shield counters off of your ship. If you have no shield counters then you have to start losing other modules as normal.

To go along with this, I am going to add automatic damage from the bigger aliens... 1/2/3 Aliens will get +0/+1/+2 damage modifiers - that's in addition to the number of hits rolled on the dice. This makes aliens a lot more scary, but at the same time you know going in that you are likely to just lose your shields... the purpose is to ensure that when you tussle with a triple alien, you can't come out unscathed, and therefore cannot mindlessly chain-kill triple aliens no matter how well prepared you are.

And finally, as a side note, I'll try adding partial scoring - 1vp per cube on your ship, and 3vp for each colony marker on your ship at the end of the game. For the record, I think this won't affect the outcome of the game in most situations, but it might make the players happier to get rewarded for their partial accomplishments.