BGG.con 2011 coming up!

Michael has made the decision that we should spend more time playing games at BGG.con this year and less time selling them - so TMG products will be for sale in the Funagain store while Mike and I get to play more board games! I have posted a Geeklist about some of the games I'd like to play while at BGG.con this year.

I'll be happy to teach any of the TMG titles while I'm there, including the newly announced Kings of Air and Steam (now on Kickstarter!) and upcoming Ground Floor and I will have some TMG prototypes with me to test as well. I would like to spend a lot of time in Proto Alley of course. The geeklist covers some games I want to play, but I'll list them here as well:

Prototypes:
Admirals of the Spanish Main by Juan Carballal
My Little Vineyard by Scott Slomiany
Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages by Seth Jaffee
Dice Works by Seth Jaffee
Wizard's Tower by John Heder and Seth Jaffee
Eminent Domain Expansion by Seth Jaffee
I should really get a playable copy of Alter Ego together as well, shouldn't I?

Essen Releases:
Trajan by Stefan Feld
Singapore by Peer Sylvester
Kingdom of Solomon by Phillip DuBarry
The Manhattan Project by Brandon Tibbits
Venture Forth by Dan Manfredini
Nefarious by Donald X. Vaccarino
Kingdom Builder by Donald X. Vaccarino

And I was thinking about Urban Sprawl, but I'm quickly losing interest in it.

If you'll be at the con, leave a comment. We could meet up for a game or two! What are you looking forward to playing?

PRACTICE makes perfect? - Schedule update

They seem to have updated the schedule for PRACTICE with some more detail...

Lecture (Reiner Knizia): A detailed case study of a best-selling board game design

Not sure which game they're referring to, but it's Knizia, so it's probably one of his (Lord of the Rings? Ra? Tigris & Euphrates? Samurai?). Hopefully it's not something I've heard before (I've heard Knizia speak at a few conventions over the years, and after a while it seemed like he was saying a lot of the same stuff).

Panel: State of the Art Techniques: Best-practice methods for creating great games

Still not sure if this won't be geared toward video game design or programming, but there might be some tips in there, some best-practice methods I could incorporate into my process.

Lecture (Steve Gaynor): Helping Your Players Find Their Own Way - Lessons from Bioshock and other titles in progression gating and player tools.

Another one potentially geared toward video games, but the interaction with the player is common across both video games and board games.

Panel: Designers, Players - Fight! Tournament players and developers on designing for expert play in fighting games.

I am seeing a trend here...
I suspect that this panel provides some interesting insight into what competitive players are looking for during a game. I think I generally use that sort of approach when I design (what will the players be thinking as they play), so maybe this will help.

Open Problems: A structured "open mic" session in which conference attendees present works in progress and share design problems for discussion and feedback.

This sounds pretty great! If I get a chance, the first thing that comes to mind which I'd like to get people's opinion on is this: How do designers feel about the inevitable request by players to add direct interaction into a euro-style game? Would they dare try? How can it be done without "ruining" the game?

Specifically I'm of course talking about Eminent Domain here. The game has barely hit the shelves, and already there are multiple threads on adding player vs player combat or attacking other players' planets. I have some thoughts on how I might like to add this in an expansion, but I'd love to see what I can glean from other designers in this regard.

In addition, it might be neat to hear how other designers feel about Expansions, and what makes a good expansion.

Lecture (Rogers Redding): The Game Design of Football: Evolving the rules of a nation's favorite sport.

I think this will be interesting, though perhaps not terribly useful. I play Ultimate which, like Football or any sport, is loaded with all kinds of rules to govern specific situations. It will be interesting to hear how they deal with that for a big-money sport like Football with lots at stake.

Panel: Game Design and Programming: A debate on the intersection and relevance of coding and design.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I suspect this will be more heavily geared toward programming, and therefore may be of little use to me. Hopefully I can learn something that will help with digital implementation of board games or something like that.

Lecture (Matt Boch): Break it down: How Harmonix and Kinext taught the world to dance.

Not sure what fruit this may bear - perhaps some understanding in how people as a whole behave and react to things like games?

I'm still excited to go to PRACTICE next week, but I remain skeptical that it will, in the end, be worth the cost of admission. Hopefully I can glean enough info off of the Video Game focused discussion to make it worth my while. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Tasty Minstel Games - A Retrospective So Far

In a Gen Con recap post I said:

"...We had a booth, and brought 6 different games to sell, including Eminent Domain, Belfort, Martian Dice, Train of Thought, Jab: Realtime Boxing, and Homesteaders 2nd Edition. Our booth was rather busy all 4 days of the con, and we did many, many demos. Looking up and down our booth at all 6 of our offerings I noted that, while no game is for everybody... within their target demographic, each of our games is really very good. They are the highest quality game, and the art and production (now that we've moved to Panda) are also the highest quality. I felt proud to stand behind each and every one of them! Even Martian Dice, which is the type of game that generally doesn't interest me at all, is really very good for what it is - I heard people saying it was better than Zombie Dice (a similar quick filler)."

I stand by that comment, I really am proud of the games that Tasty Minstrel has published. Even the out of print Terra Prime, my first published title, stands out to me as a quality game. Yes, I'm a bit biased there, but lately I've been seeing more and more people on BGG making positive comments, and looking forward to a potential reprint (with expansion included). Let me take a moment to look at each Tasty Minstrel title and mention how I currently feel about it:

• Terra Prime: I have a soft spot for this game, seeing as how it was my first published title. As I said above, I'm happy to see that people are finding this game and enjoying it, and I'm starting to feel a real demand for a 2nd edition. Hopefully Tasty Minstrel will decide to reprint (with Panda's excellent production quality) and include the expansion I've designed. That might happen in 2012, you never know!
  
• Homesteaders 2nd Edition: Homesteaders is an excellent strategy game. I dragged it around with me to every convention I went to for 3 years, and even submitted it to game publishers for Alex in an effort to see it published. When TMG decided to publish it I was ecstatic - and when the manufacturer did such a bad job, I was heartbroken. Now that the 2nd edition is out, and the manufacturing is truly top notch, I want very badly to get a 2nd edition copy (I don't have one yet) and play Homesteaders again!
  
• Train of Thought: Train of Thought is my absolute favorite party game. I love Times Up!, I like Taboo, and I've had fun with Catch Phrase and other similar games... but Train of Thought immediately supplanted them all the first time I played it. I played this a couple of weeks ago, and it holds true - it's still a lot of fun for me to try and figure out how to get from word A to word B!
  
• Jab: Realtime Boxing: Jab is a truly unique game. I like the idea of real time games. Indeed, I made one myself! The first time I heard about Jab, I knew the potential was there - I immediately suggested that TMG publish the game. Jab does an excellent job of keeping the players on their toes. Many gamers are not fond of real time, or don't like games that force them to react physically - preferring to ponder their move for a while. Well, this game won't be for those players. But for anyone who grew up playing Spit, Speed, Egyptian Ratscrew (like me)... Jab is just the game for them.
  
• Belfort: Belfort has turned out so beautiful that it's a wonder to behold. I have always liked the game, ever since I played it for the first time (twice) at GAMA 2009. After many plays (BGG says 15, but it must be more than that!) I still think it's a very solid worker placement / resource management / area control game in the euro style... i.e. just my type of game!
  
• Eminent Domain: What can I say - no bias here! I am thrilled at how EmDo came out, and I'm thrilled to read the positive comments coming in from people who have played the game. I have played over 120 games of EmDo, and I still like it and would play again right now. I can't say enough good things about this game - so don't get me started!
  
• Martian Dice: I'm not the kind of player that really enjoys light filler dice games such as Martian Dice. But I continue to find that as a light filler dice game, Martian Dice really seems better to me than any other similar game out there. The additional layer of choosing not just whether to roll again, but also which type of die to set aside really pushes this game into more interesting territory without feeling any more complex or complicated than simpler press your luck games.
  
• Ground Floor: Art is underway for this one, by Ariel Seoane (the guy who did Homesteaders) and it looks fantastic! A much different style than Josh Cappel's work, but no less awesome in any way. I haven't played this one in a while - too many other things to work on - but I've loved it for years. I first played it in October 2009, and I had a blast working on it with the designer David Short. This game scales incredibly well from 2 players to 6, and does a great job representing the balance between time and money. I'm really happy with it, though with it's theme and weight I fear the audience will be smaller than the game deserves. I guess that's where marketing comes in!
  
• Kings of Air and Steam: We're getting close to crunch time for KoA&S - art is underway, and pretty soon TMG is going to kick off a Kickstarter campaign for it. There are a few rules details that the designer and I are still trying to decide on the best version of, but in any case the game play is still awesome! I may like pickup-deliver/routeplanning games more than the average Joe, but to me this game is a lot of fun.
  
• For The Win!: Unless you religiously follow my blog, you probably don't even know what For The Win! is... and frankly, even if you do follow it you may be confused as it used to be called Mosh Pit. It's a game by a local guy here in Tucson (Michael Eskue, who happens to be David Short's brother in law). It's an abstract game, like Hive, but it's got some neat stuff in it budgeting actions being probably the biggest thing which sets it apart from other similar types of games. I haven't played this one in a while, but it's pretty darn good - I think if you like Hive, you'll love For The Win!
  

PRACTICE makes perfect?

In a couple of weeks I'm heading to Manhattan for PRACTICE: Game Design In Detail. I had never heard of this before, but it sounds like it could be really interesting, and seeing as how I'm trying to hone, improve, and leverage my design skills, it certainly sounds like an opportunity I ought to check out!

I don't really know what to expect. Several of the time blocks on the schedule are merely labeled "Lecture" - I don't know who will be lecturing, or on what topic, but I'm curious to see what they have to say anyway. All of the speakers are well known designers in various gaming realms. Two of the units are labeled:

• Panel: State of the Art Techniques
  
• Panel: Game Design vs. Programming

I'm not sure how useful "Game Design vs Programming" will be for me personally, it sounds (just by the title) as if it's geared toward people who are trying to get into video game design, and might not understand the difference between designing a game system, and programming a computer to govern that system. I don't do any programming (nor do I care to), but perhaps that panel will give me some insight on what it takes to get a digital version of a board game going.

"State of the Art Techniques" however could be interesting. Like the other panel though, I'm not sure if they're referring to techniques in Game Design, or techniques in programming a video game... State of the Art can easily refer to technology.

I do hope this trip doesn't turn out to be a waste of time. There's a lot of crossover between video game design and board game design, so I think even if some of the lectures and panels are geared toward video games, the information and insight could still be useful for me. I'm tentative, but curious, and I look forward to the trip.

If you've ever been to PRACTICE, or know anything about it, please leave a comment!

How to acheive a feeling of progression in a game... initial thoughts

A friend of mine was working on a game of his the other day, and said he's having problems with one aspect in particular - the game has no feeling of progression. So how do you provide a feeling of progression in a game?

I'm not sure I have a concrete answer for that yet, but here are some initial thoughts on the subject:

Increasing Scope
While I can't seem to find it in my blog at the moment, I've talked before about the "scope" of a game, and how I think that relates to an "epic" feel. I highly suspect that a feeling of "progression" in a game is closely related to this, if not exactly the same thing.

Consider Railroad Tycoon (and Age of Steam): In the early game your rail network and your engine size are both small, so your actions are limited to making specific short deliveries and building track. As the game progresses you will have increased your network by necessity (your short deliveries will dry up), and you will be forced to (and encouraged to via scoring incentives) upgrade your engine. At that point the number of delivery options available to you will have increased, as will the reward for delivering. And as you deliver more and more, your income ramps up giving you more money to build bigger, more expensive track with (crossing mountains for example). This ramping up of options increases the scope of the game, giving a tangible feeling of progression. I often find that at the beginning of the game I almost can't imagine making even a 3-link delivery, as I start with nothing, while at the end of the game I wonder how I was able to survive on those paltry 1-2 link deliveries as I scan the board looking for 5+ point delivery options.

I firmly believe that Railroad Tycoon does an excellent job of providing an "epic" feel and a real, tangible feeling of progression from the beginning of the game through the end, and I submit that it does so by expanding your ability over time.

Collecting Permanent Abilities
This may actually be more of the same thing, but many games offer a feeling of progression through a collection of permanent abilities.

Consider Puerto Rico: In the early game all players are at about the same position - 1 plantation and a couple of bucks. Over the course of the game players will purchase buildings which give them specific abilities, thereby weighting the value of some choices compared to others. When you have a Large and Small market, choosing Trader seems much more lucrative to you than it does to the guy with neither market and only Indigo and Sugar to sell. By collecting various permanent bonuses, you don't necessarily gain access to more abilities, but you do shift the value of options relative to each other, you do differentiate your position from that of your opponents, and you do thereby get a feeling of progression from the beginning of the game to the end.

Separation of Economy and Victory
In addition, Puerto Rico has another feature which offers a feeling of progression... a separation of economy and scoring. Money in the game is important because you use it to buy things that will score Victory Points for you. However, it's the Victory Points which make you win, not the money. In the early game it's important to set up an economic engine so that you can afford to do things that will generate Victory Points, but in the late game money becomes much less important, and VPs are really the focus of your game. It's this transition that gives the game a palpable sense of progression. This is a common dynamic in Economic Engine games, and I submit that it's created by the separation of economy and victory conditions.

These three things (and frankly, Collecting Permanent Abilities might just be an example of Increasing Scope) are all aspects which can provide a feeling of progression in a game. Are there others? Leave a comment if you can think of any!

I'll also note that my game Eminent Domain seems to provide a sense of progression, and I believe it stems from a combination of an increase in scope and a collection of permanent abilities. In the early game you are not well equipped to do big, powerful Roles because you only have 2 of any given card in your deck, and your deck is not focused toward any particular role. Later in the game, your deck composition will favor certain roles, and you will have collected some combination of symbols on planets in your Empire, making mid-late game plays feel a lot more impressive than in the early game. The tech requirements of multiple planets of the same type lend to this feeling as well - requiring you to have Surveyed for the appropriate planet types in order to get a particular ability out of the Tech stacks.

It's about damned time!

I have good news!

After 10 months of waiting for artwork, manufacturing, and shipping... experiencing delay after delay for one thing or another and disgruntled fans and customers (both reasonable and unreasonable)... I am ECSTATIC to report that people are FINALLY starting to receive their copies of Eminent Domain!

Woo Hoo! I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I'm looking forward to a wave of reviews, session reports, and strategy posts on BGG, hopefully positive.

Happy gaming!

The long wait is finally over... for some people anyway

Last week I got news that the boat had landed, and all of Tasty Minstrel's games had arrived in the warehouse (ahead of schedule for once)! I was sworn to secrecy, but today it was announced that the Kickstarter copies started shipping out last Friday! That means people in the eastern US will probably be getting their copies any second now, while people like me on the west coast will be receiving their copies in the next couple of days.

I know the international orders will still take a while to arrive - I wish there were a better system for that. Hopefully there will come a time when TMG has a distribution partner, or a warehouse, in Europe and some of each print run can be sent directly there rather than sending it back and forth across the globe.

I have heard that our exclusive surprise for Kickstarters DID make it into the shipments, so Kickstarter supporters should be receiving those along with their copy of the game.

I look forward to seeing reviews, session reports, and strategy posts at BGG and Boardgaming.com starting to pop up this week!


In other news... My friend David (designer of Ground Floor, coming soon from TMG) helped me put together this official rules sheet for the Bonus planets:

This will be available in the files section of BGG as well as on PlayTMG.com in the near future. I think it looks great, and I love that it matches the rulebook.

Quarriors play at Strategicon: recap

I played a game of Quarriors at Strategicon about a week ago. Here's how it went:

3 player game, me going first.
Turn 1: I rolled enough Quiddity to bu some 3vp blue die which had the special ability of drawing additional dice after it scored.

Turn 2: I rolled 3 Pawns, and activated them all.

Turn 3: Score 3 points, cull 3 dice. Rolled the Blue die, which came up creature and killed the Pawn one opponent had played. I think I bought another Pawn as well.

One opponent bought a Red creature die. That die came up 2 or 3 times, but never rolled the creature side the whole game.

Turn 4: Score 3 points, cull 1 die, drew 1 extra die (from Blue die ability). Rolled something unimpressive, I think I bought a Portal or another Pawn or something.

Turn 5: Rolled the Blue die again, came up Creature again, killed 1 of opponent's 2 pawns, killed the other opponent's pawn. I think I also activated a Pawn.

One opponent finally scored 1 point (not the one who bought the red creature die).

Turn 6: Score 4 points, cull 2 dice, draw additional 2 dice (from Blue die ability). I think I activated a Pawn or 2.

Turn 7: Rolled the blue creature die a 3rd time, came up creature side for a 3rd time. Also rolled 2 Pawns.

This game was over at 15-1-0, I made 1 choice (buy the blue die) and was completely hopeless for both opponents. I'm not sure if it mattered WHICH die I chose, the fact that it came up Creature every time and my opponents dice didn't meant I was going to win no matter what.

I'm not terribly impressed with Quarriors. I'm just sayin'...

EmDo Expansion update - part 2

I just posted some thoughts about the EmDo expansion. The purpose of this post is to start revising the tech cards and stuff that I would like to include in the expansion, and some of the specifics.

Cross-type Techs
Level 1 (2 different required planets)
Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Colonize/Water (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Produce/Food(can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Research/Silicon (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Fertile/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Trade/Silicon (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Fertile/Metallic

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Warfare/Iron (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile

Double Time
Action: Play 2 more cards during your Action phase this turn.
Symbols: Survey/Iron (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile

Level 2 (3 different required planets)
Synthesize
Action: Search your deck and discard pile for any card, put it in your hand, and shuffle the rest to create a new deck. Play another Action.
Symbol: Any Resource (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 5 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile/Metallic

Deep Space Probes
Action: Search the Planet deck and discard pile for any card, shuffle the rest to create a new Planet deck, and put the chosen card on top.
Symbol: Any Resource (can discard this card as if it were a resource in your Empire)
Cost: 5 Research
Pre Req: Advanced/Fertile/Metallic

Warfare Techs
Level 1 (cost 3 Fighters - Maybe OR 3 Research?)
Improved Colonize
Action: Same as Improved Colonize
Symbols: Colonize/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Fertile

Improved Production
Action: Same as Improved Production
Symbols: Produce/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Fertile

Improved Trade
Action: Same as Improved Trade
Symbols: Trade/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Advanced

Improved Research
Action: Same as Improved Research
Symbols: Research/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Advanced

Improved Survey
Action: Same as Improved Survey
Symbols: Survey/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Metallic

Improved Warfare
Action: Same as Improved Warfare
Symbols: Warfare/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were a fighter in your Empire)
Cost: 3 Fighters
Pre Req: Metallic

Level 2 (cost 2 Destroyers?)
Cryptography
Action: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from hand to the Stacks.
Symbols: Fighter/Fighter (can discard this card as if it were 2 fighters in your Empire)
Cost: 2 Destroyers
Pre Req: ??

Other New Techs
Wealth of Knowledge (?)
Permanent: Your standard Survey cards can be used to Boost or Follow any Role.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

OR

Wealth of Knowledge (?)
Action: Your standard Survey cards can be used to Boost any Role this turn.
Symbols: Survey/Iron? Survey/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

Thorough Scanning
Permanent: You may look at 2 fewer planets per Survey Role. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic

Biosphere
Permanent: [Silicon Resource Slot] [Iron Resource Slot].
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Fertile

Scientific Method (Discovery?)
Permanent: You may purchase 1 additional Tech card each Research Role. Pay for each card separately (both cost and pre-reqs).
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Advanced

OR

Scientific Method (Discovery?)
Action: -1 Research cost for each Tech Card you purchase this turn. You may purchase 1 additional Tech card this turn. Pay for each card separately (both cost and pre-reqs).
Symbols: Research/Silicon? Silicon/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Advanced

Specialized Production
Action: Choose a resource type. Collect 1 Influence for each resource of that type you produce this turn.
Symbols: Produce/Food? Produce/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: 2 Fertile

Military Tactics
Permanent: -1 to your Warfare costs.
Symbols: None - Permanent
Cost: 2 Destroyers?
Pre Req: 2 Metallic?
[This is similar to - probably worse than - Scorched Earth Policy I thought it would be good if it costs Destroyers rather than Research)

Fighter Upgrade
Action: Discard X Fighters, collect 1 Destroyer [maybe X = 0]. Discard X Destroyers, collect 1 Dreadnaught.
Symbols: Fighter/Fighter?
Cost: 2 Destroyers? 5 Research?
Pre Req: ??

EmDo Expansion update

Last time I posted about the EmDo expansion I mentioned that I was worried about the Exotic stuff, and preferred the idea of differentiating the resources more by making things cost resources. I thought maybe some tech cards could cost resources, and some planets could cost resources - and the specific resource costs would require players to get particular planets into play in order to afford them.

I whipped up a few such tech cards, as well as some techs that cost Fighters instead of Research symbols, some that require 2 different planet types, and some that contain a resource in lieu of a symbol (you can discard that card from our hand just like discarding a resource token from a resource slot in your Empire). Tonight I played a couple games with John, and got a chance to feel out how these cards felt.

The Good
I did get a feeling of exploration again while I tried to figure out ways to use these new technologies. Many of them were just Improved [X] techs, just like the level 1 techs, but the different costs meant you could get them without focusing on Research. For example, in the first game I spent my first 2 turns collecting 3 Fighters so that I could follow John's turn 2 Research even though I had nit flipped over my planet yet. While I'm not sure I actually want people to be able to do research without a planet in play, I do like the idea of a player not having to add research cards to their deck in order to get some tech cards.

The Bad
I constantly found it annoying and irritating to have a pile (even just a small pile) of tech cards with specific individual costs. It's a pain in the ass to remember which is which, and what costs what. I specifically chose to make all the level 1/2/3 tech cards cost the same thing (3/5/7 Research) to avoid this type of thing. As a result, I did not like the tech cards that cost specific resources.

The Ugly
Furthermore, in exploring the different ways to make the different resources do different things or acting different ways, I think I've decided that it's not worth doing. It represents a change to the fundamental design of the game, and no amount of monkey wrenching will make it feel right to me. It was worth a shot, but I think trying to add inherent meaning to the resource types is a mistake, considering that the game was built on th premise that the types themselves are not inherently different.

The correct way to make it matter that there are different types of resources is to provide more things like Specialization, Diverse Markets, and Genetic Engineering. To that end, I have come up with a new technology:

Specialized Production
Action: Choose a resource type. +1 Influence for each resource of that type you produce this turn.

Another type of thing I've had in mind to emphasize the importance of having one resource over another is like the Agendas I've discussed before. One thing I tried tonight (though in the 2 games we played neither John nor I made use of it) was a global effect (like an Agenda) in play from the beginning of the game. This one was called Trade Leader, and said "When leading a Trade role you may put the first resource traded onto this card (replacing any already there) instead of trading it. Resources of that type trade for +1vp." This affects the value of the resource type for ALL players, and anybody can change it if they want. I realized during play that I think you should be allowed to use a Trade Action to activate that agenda as well. I think it might be good to add one (some?) of these sorts of global effects to the 1st expansion as standard, then later in an expansion focusing on Agendas, add more and the Politics role to deal with getting them into play.


Techs that cost fighters
On the other hand, as I said, I did enjoy the techs that cost fighters. The fact that they can cost the same amount - 3 fighters for an Improved tech for example - but not require a big investment in Research. So I think those (or some form of them) will stay. They fit better into my vision of the expansion anyway.

The first draft techs of this type were simply the Improved Techs, with a cost of 3 Fighters and no planet requirement. I think I will add back on the planet requirement, and I'm toying with the idea of adding a Fighter icon to the native icon... meaning you could discard the card during an Attack action like it were a Fighter in your Empire. Thus, doing warfare based research gets you a tech card that can be used as a Fighter.

While I have not done it yet, I still plan on introducing Destroyers and Dreadnaughts (medium and large ships), and I think it follows that Level 2 warfare based tech would cost 1 Destroyer, or 2, or 1 plus some fighters... something like that. Level 3 warfare tech would cost a Dreadnaught. I'm considering various ways to go about obtaining Destroyers and Dreadnaughts, so the exact cost for the level 2/level 3 techs will depend on that.

Double Time
Play 2 additional cards during this Action phase
Of the few people who had playtested the Exotic expansion (and told me about it), the Double Time cards seemed universally popular. Everybody likes to play more cards, take more actions, do more things! I modified those for this playtest to remove the Exotic icon (replacing it with a resource icon), and put 2 different planet types on them. Requiring 2 different planet types is not much different than requiring just 1 planet, it's just more available to a player who begins setting up for a varied planet 'strategy' as opposed to the normal thing to do which is to double up on your start planet if you intend to go the research route (because the level 2 tech requires 2 of the same planet type). Also, it's not available from turn 2 because you do need a 2nd planet in play.

On that note, I think any Level 2 techs I add of this type should require 1 planet of each of the three main types (Fertile, Metallic, and Advanced).

KoA&S, Alter Ego, Nottingham, and a TMG submission

Here's a little update on a couple of things:

Kings of Air and Steam
I got a good playtest session of Kings of Air and Steam in at Gateway last weekend. A 5 player game (I watched) where each player seemed to like the game. It dragged a little longer than I'd like, but not too bad - 5 players, learning rules, and a convention atmosphere took about 2:45. I was able to try some of the new rules Scott and I have been discussing, and I think they are working out very well. Tuning them a little further, here is what I think I will try next time:

* Cube values will range from $5-$9
* Depots will cost $5 for the first person to buy one, and $10 otherwise (this may prove to be too much) rather than $4/$6/$8.
* Passive income a straight $5 (used $3 last time, rather than an increasing amount). I thought maybe multiples of $5 would make it easier physically to play the game.
* No upkeep - with the 2nd+ Depot on each link costing $10, I don't know if it's really necessary to pay upkeep on your cubes.
* $15 starting cash (to help pay for the more expensive Depots)
* 1vp/$1, 10vp/Depot (same as 1vp/$10, 1vp/Depot, but maybe easier to count)

Alter Ego
I finally got a chance to play a couple rounds of Alter Ego, the latest version I posted about. My friend Jason and I played through a couple of turns each so I could see how the game flow felt. I thought it went really well. Now to re-do the villain deck again, and the equipment cards. Jason suggested that he liked the idea of a staged villain deck, maybe with some mini-bosses in it (which could be like the more expensive villains I currently have.

One clarification I thought about was that while players need to be able to attack more than 1 bad guy at a time, I think a bad guy with 2 hostages should only be able to be attacked once per turn. Their whole point is that they take more turns to defeat.

Another thing I noticed was that the Arch Villains being known from the outset - while good in theory - may not apply here. Since Alter Ego has become a cooperative game where you can help your buddies attack the bad guys, it's not so important to build your deck toward a specific endgame goal. So it may be necessary to address that somehow. Ideas for that:

* Maybe each player has a Nemesis which only they must face alone
* The Arch Villains could have interesting abilities, such as "Can only be faced by 2 Heroes at a time" or "Must be faced by a lone hero"
* ... other?

Nottingham
At Spielbany last April I played a cooperative game by Richard James called Nottingham. It was originally made for a Robin Hood themed Game Design Showdown at BGDF.com, and featured a neat theme where the players are on the side of Prince John, while a potential traitor would be on Robin Hood's side.

Tonight I played a new, revised version of the game, and I must say I think it's improved. It has a deck building mechanism which was interesting in that a good penalty for certain things was putting a junk card in your deck - though I'm not sure the deck building was utilized to the fullest. A relatively large part of the cooperation involved passing cards to other players decks, which was interesting. The game was a bit fiddly to play, but mostly that's because the prototype was not fully constructed - the fronts and backs of tiles were not connected, etc. I think with proper production it would be acceptable though. I liked a lot of stuff about the game, the 2 main 'problems' as far as I was concerned were...
1. Balance. The Merry Men's plots were weak (on purpose I think), and we were able to keep everything in check with no problems. The difficulty didn't seem to match our ability to do stuff and we were able to breeze through the game. However, I think this could just be a matter of tweaking things like the number of cards players get to hold, and how many plots (and what their exact effects) are. I did like how the plots usually had an effect who's intensity depended on the number of active plots in play.

Richard, if you're reading this: One thing that I think might be neat is if the plots did not get cleared at the end of each round - only when they're addressed by the players. Then the players would have to deal with them, and if they don't, the effects will snowball out of control. tonight it seemed like we could largely ignore the plots and just keep down the Merry Men and Corruption tracks (and we only ever got a couple Merry men in play). I also think it would be neat if one of the Outlaw cards was Robin Hood himself, always in play, and uncatchable - who's effect is to add like 2 Merry Men to the track.

2. The bigger problem I had was the turn structure. Jason said the point was to have players sort of pre-plan all the turn's actions, then after the plan is made, players take their turns. Jason and I were playing 2 characters each, and that might have made it more complicated - but we spent a lot of time planning out a turn, then still made mistakes by playing it out differently than we'd planned. It seemed like adding AP to the game on purpose. And with 11 cards per player (we quickly advanced the track that says how many cards you draw), there were a lot of combinations of options to consider.

One idea I had was to break that up - don't give players all of their cards right away, so they cannot plan out their whole round in advance. That might help, but I'm not sure.

the turn structure as it is does not seem like it would lend itself very well to a traitor (which is supposed to be an option for when there's more than 1 player).

TMG submission
Finally, I played a short dice drafting game submitted to TMG. It's not professional to talk about submissions, so I won't do that anymore - the game was neat though. It was a little easy to accidentally make an illegal play (both Jason and I did that), but maybe that's fine, players just need to be a little careful they don't do that.

Sidetracked!

I SHOULD be working on EmDo expansions, Alter Ego, Kings of Air and Steam, Exhibit, Dice Works, etc...

Meanwhile though, I have been distracting myself with yet another deck building game idea. I thought of another game using deck building - this one was going to be a more typical style deck builder at first, but when it came down to the details, I could not bring myself to copy Dominion. So instead it's more like the Research mechanism from Eminent Domain broken out on its own.

Skyline
The game is called Skyline, and in it you use deck building to add cards to your deck, collect sets of cards in your hand, and use them to put those cards into play as buildings. The idea mostly came from the visual concept of the cards with silhouettes of a building on them, so when stacks of these cards are splayed side by side, it would look like a downtown skyline.

Here's a rundown of the game in its current form (obviously subject to change, as I have not tried it yet!):

Game turn:
Architect Phase: Play a card for it's effect, or draw 1 card.
Bid Phase: Play cards to purchase a card from the display, or draw 1 card.
Construction Phase: Play a card onto your tableau (pay by discarding cards), or draw 1 card.
Design Phase: Draw 1 card

In each phase you can EITHER play cards, OR draw a card (obviously in the Design Phase you just draw a card). This is instead of refilling your hand at the end of the turn. I don't know if that will work, but it sounded like a neat change to me.

Cards in the display will be from 5 face down stacks - one each for 0-cost, 2-cost, 3-cost, 4-cost, and 5-cost. Each stack has cards in some number of colors (5 or 6 probably). The more expensive the card, the more VP it's worth and the better the effect on it. The cost is the number of cards of that color which must be discarded to purchase the card, or to play the card to the table. Currently I'm thinking that except for the 0-cost pile (building bases, what you need to start a building), the stacks will each be shuffled and the top card revealed and available for purchase. there might need to be more cards available, I'm not sure yet.

That's the idea anyway. I hope to create some cards and give it a try soon. I'm sure you'll hear more about it at some point.

Aaaaaand another one...

Skyline has not been my only distraction. Just today I was inspired while reading the review of Funkenschlag: The First Spark on Opinionated Gamers. I thought of a resource gathering mechanism (which is completely unrelated to Funkenschlag). Tonight I created some hex tiles and sorted some meeples and wooden discs to give it a try.

The basic idea in this one is that you lay out an array of hexes, each with radial lines dividing the hex into 6 'spaces,' and a circle of color in the center. When joined, these lines create spaces for meeple placement, each touching 2 of the circles. After a few rounds of worker placement, players use the resources (colored circles) their meeples are touching to build some "technology" or "building". Also, each circle could have a token on it, maybe a 1-shot resource of a particular type (like the resource cubes in Olympos), or maybe 1-shot abilities (like the tiles in Hansa Teutonica).

That's about as far as I've got on this idea. Who knows if it will get anywhere.

Kickstarter Chronicles - Part V: Our influence on other projects

If I had been on the ball, I would have started a series of blog posts about my Kickstarter experience with Eminent Domain. I would have called it The Kickstarter Chronicles, and it would be in several parts. I did not do that, so instead I'm going to pick up in the middle. I'll include a complete outline, and maybe one day I'll go back and fill in the missing chapters:

Part 0: What is Kickstarter?
Wherein I learn about an interesting new crowd-funding website, and implore Tasty Minstrel Games to use it.


Part I: Designing our first KS campaign.
Wherein I try to optimize pledge levels to offer desirable rewards in a cost effective way.


Part II: Running the campaign.
Wherein I observe several different ways of promoting a Kickstarter campaign, what worked, and what didn't.


Part III: Production post campaign.
Wherein I discuss the learning process of producing a game on a larger scale than expected, and the growing pains involved.


Part IV: Complaint department.
Wherein I enumerate lessons learned in customer service, and observe what Kickstarter means to the people pledging.


Part V: Our influence on other projects.
Wherein I note specifics of recent Kickstarter projects which appear to be a direct result of the events involving ours.


Part VI: The final word.
Wherein I form an opinion on the Kickstarter campaign after it's finally over - will I consider it a success? Would I do it again? What would I do differently?


Part VII: The future of Kickstarter
Wherein I examine earlier thoughts on the evolution of Kickstarter as a tool to fund board game publication, and form an opinion about whether I think it will be worthwhile, or even possible, for us to use it again.

Part V:  Our influence on other projects

In the previous chapters I discussed (or would have discussed) a few different things about EmDo's KS campaign. We were not the first to successfully fund a game on Kickstarter, there were several games before us... most notably Alien Frontiers by Clever Mojo Games. Their campaign was a rousing success, bringing in almost $15k - 3 times their target amount. Of course, their target amount was low - probably a lot less than it actually cost to print the first run, which I believe was only 1000 copies of the game. The first run was such a success that the first run sold out immediately, and some people even had trouble obtaining pre-ordered copies.

I definitely wanted to learn from that experience, take what I thought worked well for Clever Mojo and avoid what caused problems. So my project was clearly influenced by others before me. As it turned out, through some confluence of quality, strength of character, coincidence, good marketing, or just dumb luck, Eminent Domain not only me but surpassed our lofty goal of $20k - bringing in an unprecedented $48k for a board game! After that performance, it only makes sense that other projects would look to ours, try to choose what we did right and avoid what we did wrong in order to enjoy their own success.

Well, that was then, and this is now. There has been an explosion of KS game projects, some well run and some not - some successful and some not. Until recently I could only see influences from our campaign itself in other, newer campaigns. Only now, 9 months later, have I started to see more lasting effects of things that have transpired (see Chapter IV), and the influence that has had on other projects. Here are a few things I've noticed about some of the new Kickstarter projects, where I see they may have been influenced by our experience, and in some cases my opinion on them.

Looking at some of the more successful recent projects: Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Glory to Rome Black Box Edition,  and Carnival, each of which has surpassed their goal by a lot. One thing I see that may have been influenced by Eminent Domain is this: Tiers for multiple copies of the game. We included:
* A tier for a single copy of the game, for those who simply wanted to pre-order themselves a copy,
* A tier for 2 copies, for people who wanted to go in with a friend (this would save us money on shipping)
* A tier for 3 copies that was a better deal all around (cheaper per copy, Limited Edition) than the 2 copies, to encourage people to go in with *2* friends
* A tier for 6 copies - specifically intended to facilitate overseas orders

While the specifics vary, all of the current heavy hitters seem to have adopted a similar structure. Also, in-game real estate for a high dollar amount, like the planets and tech cards in Eminent Domain, went well for us, and I see it popping up in some of the current campaigns as well (such as Clever Mojo's new Sunrise City project).

Something that's decidedly different however is the number of different trinkets, exclusive items, and bonuses. I think giving everybody a little something more (i.e. adding something additional to the game) at certain thresholds after meeting your goal is a great way to encourage people to get their friends to pledge! However, for logistical reasons I think offering handfuls of different options will prove to be very difficult and potentially problematic. As for exclusive items, well - I've written about this elsewhere - I don't think they're a good idea at all... there's a setup cost involved, and once you've paid that, if it's not game content, then I think it usually makes more sense to add the item to the game altogether rather than making it exclusive. Give the value-add to all of your customers, not just a select few. And if it IS game content? Well, the thought of an ever growing group of people who will be forever unable to access all of the game content is just terrible!

I've noticed the following disclaimer at the bottom of a couple KS projects lately:

From DiceHateMe's Carnival project:

Without our Kickstarter Backers, DHMG would not be able to bring quality games to market. To show our respect and appreciation, DHMG promises that backer copies of Carnival will be shipped out before copies are available for purchase at retailers or conventions. DHMG also pledges that any reward marked as promotional in our Kickstarter campaigns will never be offered for sale in stores by DHMG, either alone or as part of any product. 

And from Clever Mojo's new Sunrise City project:

We recognize and appreciate the important role that our Kickstarter Backers and Springboard Retailers are playing in the launch of Sunrise City and the success of Clever Mojo Games. Therefore, we make the following promises to you:

• The promo cards and tiles noted as EXCLUSIVE will remain exclusive. We promise not to sell them individually or as a set, and not to include them as a part of any game expansion or re-printing. Once the Kickstarter Backers and Springboard Retailers have received their exclusive items they will NEVER be re-printed.
• Sunrise City will be shipped to Kickstarter Backers at least two weeks before the items are available for purchase at ANY convention or store. Actual delivery dates will vary depending on your local postal service.
• Stores who participate in Game Salute Preview Nights for Sunrise City will receive a preview copy for their Game Library in advance of the scheduled release date.

Both of these games look like fine products. I have read the rules to Carnival, and it sounds like a solid, lightweight filler. I don't know much about Sunrise City, but based on the video it looks like a fun city building game (I have fond memories of Sim City)... I have nothing against either of these projects. I bring this up merely to point out that, although potentially a coincidence, these "Our Pledge" sections appear to me to be in direct response to what has happened recently surrounding Eminent Domain (again, see Chapter IV).

So it seems that we've had an influence on the current crop of KS projects, but not necessarily in a positive way - more in a sort of "cover your ass" or a "what not to do" way. The two biggest complaints that cropped up about EmDo were that the "exclusive content" ended up in all of the first run boxes, and that the games were available for purchase at Gen Con when the KS supporters had not received theirs yet. I absolutely cannot fault either Dice Hate Me or Clever Mojo for taking that route - for including exclusive items and for promising that the supporters will get their copies first - that's clearly what people expect and/or want for their pledge (see Chapter IV again). They're not pre-ordering a game, and they're not helping a small company get off the ground... they're shopping for trinkets and exclusive items.

On the down side, this propagates a dynamic that I think is bad for the industry - exclusive game content - and it also degrades the efficiency of Kickstarter in the first place - trinkets. Things like pins and ball caps cost money to make and money to ship. Enticing someone to add $10 to their bid in order to also get a hat that costs you $9 a unit to make, well that's not getting you very far. when I was researching rewards for my KS campaign, I also found that a lot of people did not seem interested in a hat, or a t-shirt, or even a poster print of game art - and here I thought those were all great ideas!

So it remains to be seen whether a small company or self publisher will be able to succeed on Kickstarter the way *I* think they should be able to - offering people the opportunity to pre-order a game and help it get off the ground, or if it will be a novelty emporium for gamers to shop around for trinkets and exclusives. Is there room for both of those types of projects on Kickstarter?

EmDo Expansion - new tech and planet card ideas

I wanted to do some brainstorming about new tech and planet card ideas, and if I do that brainstorming here, then it'll be here for me to reference later!

I had some neat tech card ideas that I was testing with the Exotic expansion:

Level 1:
Double Time: Play 2 more Action Cards

Level 2:
Improved [X]: Like level 1, but with "Play an additional Action" added.

Thorough Survey: Search the Planet draw and discard piles for any 1 Planet card. Shuffle those piles to create a new Planet deck and place the chosen card on top.
Synthesize: Search your draw and discard piles for any 1 card and put it in your hand. Shuffle those piles to create a new draw deck.
Cryptography: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from your hand to the stacks.
Coalition Victory: If you have 2 each Advanced, Fertile, and metallic planets in play (face up), you win the game.
Premium Product: Collect 1 additional Influence for each Unobtanium you trade. (Comes with an Unobtanium slot)
Cult of the New: Exotic icons in your Empire are worth 1 Influence. (Comes with an Exotic icon)
Deep Space Probes: When doing a Survey role, you may look at 2 fewer Planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.

Some of those, Coalition Victory, Premium Product, and Cult of the New, will absolutely have to wait for the exotic expansion, because they rely heavily on having an additional planet type in the game. The rest however are not unique to the Exotic expansion, and could be used in the 1st expansion instead. I especially think Synthesize and Thorough Survey should be in the same set, because they feel complementary to me.

So it stands to reason that Thorough Survey, Synthesize, and Cryptography should occur in the first expansion, as well as the permanent tech Deep Space Probes.

The Level 2 Improved techs kind of go along with Double Time in that they add a theme of playing additional cards to the game. Thus far only Productivity (a level 3 tech) has done that. So unless I want to come up with a handful of more unique techs, it seems wise to include that set of cards as well. Currently Double Time and the L2 Improved techs all have an Exotic icon on them, to tie them together with the Exotic expansion. If I'm moving them to the 1st (non-Exotic), perhaps I should remove those - but I was thinking it might be neat to include them, so that when the Exotic expansion comes along it will integrate better. Until then the Exotic icons of course just won't do anything.

That's all old stuff though - let's get to the brainstorming already! This will obviously be less detailed and less well thought out, by merit of it being... well, a brainstorm:

Different types of technologies I could use
* Techs with effects that trigger when the card is used to follow (or boost?) a role, such as:
- - Collect 1 Fighter when using this card to Follow a role
- - Collect 1 Resource when using this card to Follow a role
- - +1 Colony when using this card to Follow a role
- - Draw 1 card (2 cards?) when using this card to Follow a role
- - Remove 1 card (2 cards?) in hand from the game when using this card to Follow a role
- - Trade 1 Resource when using this card to Follow a role

* Techs that have Resources as symbols
- - These could be discarded in lieu of a Resource in your Empire

* A tech with all 6 role symbols on it.
- - What, if any, Action should this card have? Maybe no Action, but the text "After using this card to boost or follow a role, you may put it back into your hand." (so like a +1 of each icon, but -1 Hand size situation). maybe call it "Versatility"

* Techs that cost Resources (resource icons in the 'required planet" or the 'research cost' locations)

* Permanent tech that says "1x/turn you may place a FIGHTER on [this card]. Remove 3 FIGHTERS from [this]: Collect 1 DESTROYER. Remove 5 FIGHTERS from [this]: Collect 1 DREADNAUGHT."
- - Or perhaps better, each time you Lead/Follow a Warfare role - thus making Destroyers and Dreadnaughts obtainable through heavy use of Warfare.

I'll note that costing a resource is basically another way to indicate a planet requirement, since the resource types are based on planet types. It's actually a bit more 'expensive' because it requires not only that you flip the planet, but that the planet has a resource slot, and that you use an action to fill it. I did have an idea for a Permanent tech called Biosphere which gives you resource slots. I think it would be interesting if the cost for that was A Food and a Water, and the slots it provides are Iron and Silicon.

So here's what I'm looking at at the moment for expansion tech cards:

Advanced/Fertile/Metallic Level 1:
Double Time with 1 Native icon (and 1 Exo icon?)
Influence: 0
Double Time with the other Native icon (and 1 Exo icon?)
Influence: 0

Advanced/Fertile/Metallic Level 2:
Improved [x] with 1 Native icon and 1 Exo icon
Influence: 2
Improved [x] with 1 Native icon and 1 Exo icon
Influence: 2

Unaffiliated tech:
Improved Colonize
Cost: Food + Iron
Icons: Colonize + Food
Effect: Same as Improved Colonize, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Produce
Cost: Water + Food
Icons: Produce + Water
Effect: Same as Improved Produce, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Warfare
Cost: Iron + Water
Icons: Warfare + Iron
Effect: Same as Improved Warfare, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Survey
Cost: Iron + Silicon
Icons: Survey + Iron
Effect: Same as Improved Survey, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Research
Cost: Silicon + Food
Icons: Research + Silicon
Effect: Same as Improved Research, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Improved Trade
Cost: Silicon + Water
Icons: Trade + Silicon
Effect: Same as Improved Trade, with "Play an additional Action"
Influence: 0

Synthesize
Cost: Iron + Silicon + Water
Icons: ?
Effect: Search your draw and discard piles for any 1 card and put it in your hand. Shuffle those piles to create a new draw deck.
Influence: 2

Thorough Survey
Cost: Iron + Silicon + Food
Icons: ?
Effect: Search the Planet draw and discard piles for any 1 Planet card. Shuffle those piles to create a new Planet deck and place the chosen card on top.
Influence: 2

Cryptography
Cost: 1 Destroyer?
Icons: ?
Effect: Draw 3 cards, then return up to 2 cards from your hand to the stacks.
Influence: 2

Biosphere [Permanent]
Cost: Water + Food
Icons: NONE
Effect: [Iron] and {Silicon] resource slots
Influence: 2

Deep Space Probes [Permanent]
Cost: 3 Research? 5 research?
Icons: NONE
Effect: When doing a Survey role, you may look at 2 fewer Planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional Planet.
Influence: 2

...

Next time I'll brainstorm ways to get and use Destroyers and Dreadnaughts. So far I've got a couple ideas, but nothing concrete.

Alter Ego - back to that again...

The other day I re-read my last post about revamping Alter Ego and making it into a Cooperative Deck Building game. That was back in April, right after my visit to Spielbany. Sadly, I have not done anything with the idea since then!

Today I finally got around to working on updating my prototype. I added 2 more types of Hero cards/icons, like I discussed with Richard at Spielbany. In updating the Henchmen cards I think I've run into a potential problem. I've noticed that with my current rules, players will be bringing 1 henchmen into play each turn. However, in the very beginning of the game they will not be able to defeat 1 Henchman per turn (not the way I'm thinking of having the henchmen) - and if they could, the game would be pretty dull anyway. That means later in the game, players have to be able to defeat more than 1 Henchman at a time in order to catch up a bit.

It's possible that players won't need to defeat every single henchman - and in fact maybe it would be best if they could not. That might actually help encourage them to beat the ones with the Arch Villain symbols in order to 'awaken' the Arch Villains and defeat them.

In any case, I think I need to think about the design of the henchmen cards. Should they start out very easy to kill, then progress on, so that by the time players can defeat more than 1 of them at a time, they must choose between that and defeating just 1 bigger henchman, which would confer some benefit? Or should I re-define the way that henchmen come into the game?

For now I have created a set of 5 really wimpy henchmen ("Pest"), and a set of 10 almost as wimpy henchmen ("Nuisance"). These will come into play, take just 1 Civ token hostage, and offer no benefit for defeating them (except that they will release the hostage, of course).

I think this could make for a reasonable early game - on your first turn you'll turn up a Pest, and you'll choose a hero card (probably the one needed to defeat that Pest). On your second and third turns, you'll add a Nuisance, and you'll choose a Hero card based on that. Then you'll start drawing harder-to-beat henchmen, and there should be some number of them built up in play...

This is the part I'm a little concerned about - if the Henchmen come out faster than the players can defeat them, then how can the players win? Perhaps that is the tension required to actually make this game any good - maybe it's just something I'll have to try out empirically.

The last thing I have to do before I can try it is to assign how many and what types of Hostages will be taken by the Henchmen. The "hostages" aren't necessarily supposed to represent actual hostages - like kidnapped people - though in some cases that's applicable. It's supposed to represent a group being hassled by the criminals. How many groups/types of Civ tokens should there be? I want to say "3," because I always seem to want to say "3." also, I'm currently planning on there being 3 Arch Villains, so having 3 types of Civ tokens might fit with that - each Arch Villain, once in play, could attack a different Civ type.

Hopefully I'll finish the henchmen cards and print out the new prototype before I get sidetracked or lose interest again...

Game mechanic for a hunt

Sitting at lunch today I had a random thought, about Seal Team 5 and their capture/killing of a terrorist. I heard someone say that Disney had bought the rights to "Seal Team 5" - as if to make a movie about it (maybe they're waiting for that not to be in extremely poor taste?)

Anyway, that thought led to game mechanics for searching for a hidden target. Imagine that each player represents a different intelligence agency, and they're all out to find (capture?) a hidden target, maybe a terrorist or maybe just a particular item or piece of information (the Holy Grail, like the Da Vinci Code?)

Suppose that there are first of all several Macro-locatins where the target could be located. Maybe these are countries for example. Players would go about getting information, trying to figure out which macro-location they should dispatch their Ops team to. When they think they have this information, they may dispatch their team, but so as not to tip off other players they would not reveal which location the team has been sent to. They would however have to lock that choice in.

While everybody else is still trying to figure out which location to send their team to, you can go about your business trying to learn more specific information - like where within that macro-location the target is hiding, or how to go about getting it. Meanwhile, since you have dispatched your team, you can (must?) spend some of your limited actions 'advancing' them... say you have an "Ops Team Progress track" for example, and you advance a marker on that track to indicate that your team is making physical progress.

Eventually there would be some trigger which would cause the correct Macro-location to be known to all players. Maybe at this time a specific board for that location is brought into play. Any player who has dispatched their team must reveal where they dispatched them to. If they were incorrect, then all the "progress" they made is wasted - they won't find the target. However, assuming they were right, then they have already effectively taken X moves on the new map (where X is the number of advances on the Ops Team progress track have been made). Thus, they have ahead start in the race to find the target.

I don't know how interesting this would turn out to be, or how fun, or exactly how the game would work - but it sounded like a neat way to implement a race for hidden information. I think this could jive well with the type of thing that Indiana Jones' Lost Adventures was doing with the game system knowing information that the players do not.

The state of things... games in development and TMG submissions

I haven't been posting as often as I'd like in this blog. For one thing I would like to keep my readers interested with what's going on in my gaming life, and for another I like to chronicle my thoughts for my own use later!

So here's what's going on with some of the games I've been working on lately for TMG...

I posted about a week ago about my latest thoughts on the 1st expansion for Eminent Domain, and about 3 weeks before that about The Untouchables (a simple coop game I was experimenting with). I haven't done any more with either of those since their respective posts.

Kings of Air and Steam
I have been worried about some aspects of Kings of Air and Steam that have not come together quite like I'd like, and I'd had some unfortunate playtests at Protospiel and Gen Con. I've been discussing some things with the designer, and we've finally addressed the boards (something I'd been leaving for later) as well as some other items that weren't working out too well. I think we've made some huge steps in the right direction, and I'm feeling much better now about the state of this particular game.

Josh Cappel will be doing the art for this one, and I'm looking forward to it looking every bit as good as Belfort.

Scott designed some new boards, hexes rather than rectangles, which I liked very much. They are more modular, and more attractive, and they don't have as many dead corners. I think the hex boards are definitely an improvement, but it's possible the playing area was too large in general - this is based on some of the negative feedback we'd gotten. You see, the interaction in this game comes mostly from the threat or worry that another player might be going for the same thing as you. If the board is so big that much of the time the other players are not near enough to you to matter, then the interaction seems to go away. Scott just made new boards (updating things like the number of cities and factories) and has made each with fewer hexes. We'll see if this makes the overall game feel more crowded and hopefully more fun.

The new boards also have a nice, more confined number of factories and cities of each color, which I think will create a good number of cubes over the course of the game, and a good amount of demand for those cubes.

One thing I was not happy with at all was the Depot buying mechanism. I've tried several iterations, each of which had their good points and their bad points. Something that I came up with in an effort to justify depot pricing and also fix another problem in the game (some players have more than enough actions and end up passing) was this - make depots worth money at the end of the game! Therefore, while buying a depot eats up your working capital, it represents a profit in points in addition to something you need in order to deliver goods. Also, when confronted with an action when you have nothing better to do, now you could purchase a depot thereby scoring points. The escalating cost of depots ($4/$6/$8 for the 1st/2nd/3rd depot on a line). Another way to look at this, which is technically the same thing, but I think is somehow a little nicer, is to say that instead of your score being the total money that you have, score 1 point per depot, plus 1 point per $10 at the end of the game. I played with this rule yesterday and it seemed to go well. Thematically your score is based on the 'strength' or size of your network, as measured by your depots in place. Of course, money counts too.
Thinking about is a little more right now I'm wondering if it shouldn't be 2vp/depot + 1vp/$10...

At Gen Con I was listing my concerns to Andy Van Zandt, and he suggested that perhaps passing could entail collecting a couple of dollars - maybe $1/depot you've already built. In addition to this being something a player could do when they have no reasonable action to take, this turned out to be good because it allowed players who are a little bit short of cash to get enough money to make an upgrade or buy a depot without them having to make a delivery. I decided it might be simpler to decouple that from the number of depots made (especially if depots are worth points, you already have incentive to build them) and instead make it that you get $1/round... so in round 1 you collect only $1 when you pass, while in Round 5 you collect $5. I like the way that scales, and it's easily communicated on the Market board.

The new production rule didn't seem to go over well in the 1/2 game played at Gen Con, but has seemed great when played lately. The current rule is that each factory produces 1 cube, and in addition, each market tile generates 1 cube per factory of that color. I think the number of factories changed between Gen Con and recent playtests, so that explain the difference in how it has worked out.

Bank Job - a TMG submission from Phillip Dubarry
I love the sound of Kingdom of Soloman (coming soon from Minion Games), so I was interested in checking out this submission by Phillip Dubarry. I like the theme - it's like a Heist movie, where you assemble a crew and go rob a bank and stuff. Michael was excited about it and enjoyed it. I like the idea of the game, but I am finding I'm not fond of Simultaneous Action Selection, especially when resolved in some arbitrary turn order. I had wrestled with that for Kings of Air and Steam (where it's less of a big deal) and solved it by sorting the character powers and allowing those with weaker powers to have better priority when in a timing conflict.

In Ruins
I played Andy's post-apocalyptic card drafting game In ruins at Spielbany, at Protospiel, at my friend's game night, and again at Gen Con. I enjoy it, and I like the theme of the game, as well as the innovative drafting mechanism. It may be a title that TMG eventually picks up. One thing I worry about is how well it'd go over (sell) - novel card drafting isn't as hot a mechanism right now like Dice Drafting is (was? Is it still big?) or like Deck Building or "dice building" (Quarriors) is. Or is it? Is the popularity of 7 Wonders (and potentially 51st State) enough to imply that players are interested in games driven by a card draft? One other potential turn off is that the core mechanism, the reason the whole thing works, MIGHT just piss off players (any new, awesome card that comes up may be blocked by a player, therefore more often than not it may seem like you're drafting the dregs of what's out there). The last thing I think might be a problem (commercially) is that it's not a 'quick, simple game' like 7 Wonders. Which is not a knock on the game - the rules aren't actually very complicated at all, but the cards are, and the game has depth and is subtle. I worry that people may prefer a simpler game like 7W which is easier to grasp - which is a concern really on the general state of gamers (one I'm sure I've discussed before) more than it's a concern about any specific game. I mentioned to Andy that I might like to see another, different, simpler game using this draft mechanism which may be more likely to become a "hit" in the way something like 7 Wonders or Dominion has. I mean, one could probably take a copy of 7 Wonders and replace the booster draft mechanism with Andy's draft mechanism and see how that goes!

My Little Vineyard
I haven't thought much about or done much with this since Protospiel. The designer hasn't either - Scott told me he'd been dealing with personal stuff rather than game design. I still generally like the wine theme and the dice drafting mechanism, but I'm beginning to wonder if the general game buying public is over both of them. If not, then I think it would make a nice addition to the TMG line, so long as all the kinks get worked out!

Quarriors
I apologize for the negativity that is about to flow here...
I finally played Quarriors. Frankly, I cannot think of a bigger waste of time or effort. The game is simpler/less interesting than Dominion, and yet it's more fiddly/complicated to explain/play. It's like playing Dominion with a severely diluted deck - like whenever you buy a Village, you gain 3 Villages, 2 Copper, and a Silver. The fact that the only choice you really make - which die to add to your deck - only MAYBE means you get the effect of that die I find entirely regrettable, I feel like that defeats the entire purpose of the game.

The worst part about all this is that despite Quarriors being so little of an actual game, it will sell thousands of copies because it's the first game of it's kind - the next twist on deck building - and because it's got lots of dice and comes in a nice tin with nice art.

I do however like the idea of a deck building game where the cards in your deck have variability to them (like dice). But how do you make such a game that isn't disappointing like Quarriors? I think some of the same reasoning I put into Eminent Domain to set it apart from typical deck building games may apply here as well. However, I also think that any die added to your 'deck' really has to do it's job no matter what face is rolled on it. Maybe the effectiveness or intensity of that effect could be variable depending on the face rolled, or maybe a secondary/alternate effect could be based on the face rolled but the general/standard effect should be based on the die itself, and the fact that you have chosen to add it to your deck.

A BGDF member has been working on a 'dice building' game for quite some time, and I think it's closer to what I'd expected to see out of Quarriors. I haven't seen the latest version, but I think it would be cool to check it out. If it's everything I want it to be, then I think it could make a good addition to the TMG line.

Quick Gen Con recap, and EmDo Hullabaloo

I recently went to Gen Con for the first time, and in addition (perhaps related) there has been a lot of Hullabaloo about Eminent Domain on BGG. By way of disclaimer I'll restate up front that this is my personal blog, and opinions stated here are my own, and should not be attributed to Tasty Minstrel Games (with whom I'm often associated).

Gen Con
Michael, Erin and I went to Gen Con a few weeks ago. I have never been, I've always thought of it as more of a commercial event. I don't like he idea of going to (and paying for) a gaming convention and then having to pay extra to play in events, or simply to get into the Open Gaming room! However, this year I didn't attend the con in the capacity I normally attend game cons - We attended as Tasty Minstrel Games. We had a booth, and brought 6 different games to sell, including Eminent Domain, Belfort, Martian Dice, Train of Thought, Jab: Realtime Boxing, and Homesteaders 2nd Edition. Our booth was rather busy all 4 days of the con, and we did many, many demos. Looking up and down our booth at all 6 of our offerings I noted that, while no game is for everybody... within their target demographic, each of our games is really very good. They are the highest quality game, and the art and production (now that we've moved to Panda) are also the highest quality. I felt proud to stand behind each and every one of them! Even Martian Dice, which is the type of game that generally doesn't interest me at all, is really very good for what it is - I heard people saying it was better than Zombie Dice (a similar quick filler).

One of the best feelings was when someone who had bought EmDo or Belfort the day before would stop by and tell us how much fun it was or how much they liked it when they played it that evening! Another high point for me was when 2 different people stopped by our booth with a copy of Terra Prime asking me to sign it, and telling me how much they like the game! We also had a number of EmDo Kickstarter supporters stop by and reassure us, ask us to hang in there, and while they were anxious to get their copy of the game they were not upset about "all the hullabaloo."

Eminent Domain, and all the hullabaloo
Having copies of EmDo at Gen Con was good - we were able to show it, and sell a few copies in order to get the game out there some more. But it had a down side as well. There have been threads and posts all over BGG and on Kickstarter, but in case anyone is unclear on what happened, here's the story. This (the game designer's blog) is not the correct forum for further complaints on the subject, so I won't even approve any comments of that type. Please see the threads on BGG or contact Michael at TMG directly if you need to.

There were 3 mistakes made, and they combined to make for a very rough experience and a customer service nightmare:
Mistake number 1 - Traded limited exclusivity for Utopian planets
Originally Michael made a very big deal about the exclusivity of Prestige planets in the Kickstarter rewards. He wanted them to be entirely exclusive, but I veto'ed that because I did not want a good, useful portion of the game to end up being unavailable to everyone except the few people using Kickstarter. So he ended up saying "exclusive until the 1st expansion comes out" - and then played up the exclusivity part of that sentence quite a bit.

Somewhere along the line, Michael also decided to make the Utopian planets available - he planned to sell them as a mini-expansion through the BGG store. He hadn't actually asked me about it, and when I protested he said it was already done. Except then something fell through, and they weren't going to be a BGG exclusive after all.

I realized that it would be silly to have the Prestige planets given to kickstarters then also include them in an expansion (as was the original plan), because then people would have 2 copies of those planets... At about that time I also realized that it made more sense to combine the 3 Prestige Planets and the 6 Utopian planets into a 9-card mini-expansion and then NOT include them in the actual expansion (which by that time I had begun to work on).

Michael wanted to include these in copies pre-ordered from the Preview night promotion he had put together, and he thought that people would not mind that they were no longer exclusive (1) because this new pack was technically a mini-expansion, and (2) they would be getting more stuff than advertised. He was trading out the limited exclusivity (limited until the mini-expansion, which ended up being coincident with the first print run) for more cards. His thought process was "why would anybody complain about that? They're getting more cards!"

That's the second time Mike has underestimated people's propensity to complain. He said the same thing last year before BGG.con when he decided to give away copies of Terra Prime and Homesteaders - he thought that people would not complain about miscut or misaligned pieces since they got the game for free. Needless to say he turned out to be wrong.

Mistake number 2 - Bonus planets added to all boxes
Now that preview night pre-orders were going to get these Bonus planets, there was some number of Kickstarter boxes getting them (labeled as kickstarter copies), some pre-orders getting them (unlabeled), and some copies not getting the planets (also not labeled). In order to avoid mistakes and make it easier to deal with, at some point along the line Michael told the guys at Panda to just put the bonus packs into all the 5,000 first run boxes.

This was a mistake for 2 reasons. First and foremost, it directly contradicted the big deal he made about the (limited) exclusivity on the kickstarter page. As I mentioned, in his mind he'd already resolved this by giving the kickstarters the 6 additional cards. The other reason this was a mistake was more of a common sense one - unless every single first-run box has been pre-sold, there will eventually be a point where a store will have 2 copies on the shelf, one with bonus planets and one without!

I would have preferred (and I bet Mike would too, in retrospect) if he's instead told them "don't put the bonus planets into ANY of the boxes" - and then when shipping a particular box to a particular person, a bonus pack could have been sent along with it.

Something I have only just thought of right now - since we have a 2nd printing following the first one, we could have potentially decided to hold back the non-KS, non-preordered boxes from the first run (with the bonus planets in them), fulfilled normal orders with the 2nd run, and then sold the rest of the first run with bonus planets included as a separate item (EmDo WITH Bonus Planets expansion) for an additional $10. In fact, I don't think it's too late to do that. I will have to discuss it with Mike.

You see, this is the problem with "exclusive" or "limited" items - once you print them it makes so much more sense just to always include them!

Mistake number 3 - Copies sold at Gen Con
Originally the print run was supposed to arrive in April. When that didn't happen due to delays, it was still supposed to arrive in June or July. When further delays occurred such that the shipment would not arrive in time for Gen Con, Mike decided to air ship a small number of games to the con. I do not actually think this was a mistake at all. As a small publisher, TMG cannot afford to go to a big show like Gen Con and NOT have their new product. However, even though it wasn't promised in any way, some Kickstarter supporters were upset that they were not the first to receive their copies of the game. Like any pre-order, I can see the thinking there - they paid for the game 9 months ago, and especially those that would be at the con could watch another person walk in off the street and purchase a copy. However, I don't think that makes it a mistake to have done this. The delays were regrettable, but there's nothing TMG could do about them. Some of the more vocal complainers in this respect seem to imply that the game was made available to the general public - to everyone except the kickstarters. They don't seem to know (or care) about the facts of the situation and the numbers involved - just the principle that someone else got the game before they did. For the record, the number of people that got their game before kickstarters was about 10% of the number of kickstarters. We sold less than 200 copies at the con. That's not the general public, that's a handful. So, I understand the complaint, but for those who suggested that TMG (or especially ME personally, like it was my choice to make) is smarmy or disingenuous for selling copies at Gen Con before the kickstarters got their copies... I disagree with you. That's not smarmy, that doesn't lack class.

Solution
The combination of those three mistakes caused quite a stir in the forums on BGG, and it was rather disheartening to read wave after wave of criticism. The long and short of it is that some of the kickstarter supporters felt like TMG had changed what they were getting (they had - 6 Utopian planets were added) and some even canceled their order because they felt like they'd been lied to. Well, despite what you might read on BGG, Michael and I DO NOT want the kickstarter supporters to feel like we don't care about them or that we do not appreciate their support! As a result Michael decided to provide a new item, completely exclusive to kickstarter supporters, which will be added to their package when it's sent out.

I cannot wait for the people who asked for a refund to complain that they now cannot get this item, as it's exclusive to kickstarters.

TMG Game reviews are online!

TMG's summer releases are still on their way from China, but we did have some copies with us at Gen Con, and they all seemed really well received! Lately I've seen a few reviews popping up online:

Belfort:
Drakkenstrike's Belfort Components Breakdown Video Review in HD
BGG Review: A Cranky Old Man Review: Belfort (9 out of 10)
BGG Review: Did you know that Gnomes are inherently pentagonal? - a mini-review of Belfort

Eminent Domain:
I Slay The Dragon
BGG Review: Is it really RftG + GtR + Dominion?
BGG Review: First Impressions (this one's neat because the OP chimes in after further play)
BGG Review: More First Impressions

Martian Dice:
Board Game Reviews By Josh
BGG Review: Know when to hold em', know when to fold em', know when to walk away, know when to take your cows and run!
BGG review: Martian Dice: Buy, Try, or Sigh

Homesteaders:
BGG Review: Homesteaders: Not only a great game, but it has Cowples!!!
Go Forth And Game: Under The Microscope - Homesteaders

Thanks to those who have posted these reviews! Everybody should check them out :)

EmDo Expansion - second thoughts

I've posted about my thoughts for the Exotic Expansion I'm working on for Eminent Domain. I really like parts of what I have so far, but I'm not 100% happy with it yet. In addition, the expansion does not address the 2 biggest things that players seem to really want to see addressed...

1. People want the different resource types to mean more.
2. People want the different fighter tokens to mean more.

So lately I've been thinking about holding off on the new "Exotic" planet type, and instead adding some of the things I've had in mind to address those 2 main questions people have been asking. The expansion will still feature additional Role cards to support 5 players, and additional technology cards as well.

Resource types

Currently, the resource type is based on the planet type, so there is no difference between Iron and Silicon except that Iron comes from Metallic planets and Silicon comes from Advanced planets. There's a little bit of subtlety to that - it means that inherently Iron is a little harder to come by, since fewer Metallic planets have resource slots than Advanced planets do. That distinction does not really matter in game terms though.

There exist 3 tech cards in the base game that refer to resource types:

Genetic Engineering: +1vp for each TYPE of resource you produce this turn
Diverse Markets: +1vp for each TYPE of resource you trade this turn
Specialization: Choose a resource type. +1vp for each resource of that type you trade this turn.

I have some plans for another future expansion to use Agendas, some of which would refer to particular resource types - such as an Agenda making Water worth 2vp apiece instead of 1.

Lately I've been thinking about more things I could do with resources. The obvious thing is to make cards that cost resources...

* Planets which require expenditure of resources to flip over
* Tech cards which require expenditure of resources to purchase (or to play)
* Cards/Actions that allow you to trade resources in for something other than Influence (VP)

Fighter tokens

Many people see the 3 sizes of fighter tokens and immediately want to assign denominations to them - which is fine. However when they see that the rulebook does not do that, they immediately ask why not. Well, there IS a reason for that. Ever since it was known that we would have 3 different fighter token shapes I thought it would be cool to one day make the medium ships "Destroyers" and the large ships "Dreadnaughts," each with their own meaning.

I'm currently thinking of adding some of these types of cards to the first expansion, in lieu of the Exotic planets with the new icons I was playing around with.