The List - April 2021

With all these new ideas I've been having, I feel like it's time to revisit The List, and I might add a section to encompass the various new designs that have been cropping up.

Published Games - this hasn't changed much lately, but I hope more games will bump up soon:
- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG)
- Isle of Trains (BGG)
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [printed and waiting]
- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)
- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Finished But Unpublished Games - in line to be published:
- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print]
- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [Ready to print]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [Ready to print]
- Olympus on the Serengeti  (FKA Deities and Demigods) [Art paused]
- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [In line for art]

"Finished" But Unpublished Games - abandoned or backburnered designs that are "done":
- Dice Works (BGG)
- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion)
- Suburban Sprawl
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]
- Rolling Realms: Jaffee Realms (for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms)

Current Active Designs - I'm actively pitching these games:
- Keeping Up with the Joneses

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe)

- Sails & Sorcery [with Michael Mindes]

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) 

- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

Backburnered Designs - I kid myself into thinking that I'm still working on these:

- Alter Ego (BGG)

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

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

- Joan of Arc

New ideas:
- Worker-ception [with David Short]

- False Prophet [Mancala/Worker Placement]

- I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement [ICYC/WP]

- Come And Play [Sesame Street memory/rondel game]

- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central [Abandoned]
- Hot & Fresh [Abandoned]

- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)

- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]

- Moctezuma's Revenge

- Kilauea [a designer showed interest in co-designing, but that didn't go anywhere]

- Automatown [with Michael Brown]

Old Ideas that Haven't Gone Anywhere (Yet):
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- The Untouchables
- Day labor game based on craps

- Rondel Role Selection

-Scourge of the High Seas [deckbuilding game with 2 center rows]

- Dynasty [I still think this one has potential]

Misc and Really Old Stuff - could probably combine with the previous category at this point:
- 9-Ball
- Blockade Runner
- Roman Emperors (my version of someone else's game)
- Admirals of the Spanish Main (my version of someone else's game)

Let's take a closer look at some of the updates:

First, I moved some stuff around. The categories could probably use an overhaul... Last time I had tried to organize some co-designs, but for the most part that didn't pan out, so I re-sorted those games into other categories, and I added a category for New Ideas. I feel like those are distinct from Current Active Designs, as I'm not necessarily working on them at the moment, but they're also distinct from Backburnered Designs, as that implies I've done some work on them already. So I think a dedicated category for new, promising ideas is worthwhile.

I also tagged some of my old standbys as "abandoned" because, if I'm honest with myself, it's unlikely I'll ever really come back to those. I suppose "Misc and Really Old Stuff" is basically an "Abandoned" category, maybe I should just codify that and put all my abandoned projects there (I like the idea of keeping them around, in case I ever revive them). Ditto Old Ideas that Haven't Gone Anywhere (Yet), those are so old at this point they're effectively abandoned -- except maybe Dynasty. That one still sounds like it has potential to me.

I might also want a category for games that I'd be happy to pitch to publishers, but that I'm not actively working on... so distinct from Current Active Designs, but not really Backburnered either. Perhaps that's what Finished But Unpublished could mean? Though maybe I'd prefer to use that for projects that have been signed or are otherwise for sure going to happen, which is distinct from games I feel are done enough to pitch. I'll try to clean up The List some more each time I post it.

Here's some info on the new or updated items:

New stuff

- Keeping Up with the Joneses:
A relatively new idea, and one that came together very quickly. You try to 1-up your neighbors in 6 different life aspects while trying to keep pace with The Joneses (who always seem to have everything together). Mechanically, it's a rondel game with entangled decisions. On your turn you choose a card from 3 face up in slots labeled 1-3, and get the effect on the card. Then you move a number of spaces on the rondel according to the slot your card was in, and you get the effect of that rondel space as well.

- Worker-ception [with David Short]

In this worker group placement game, you are a travel agent sending families on trips. Each family has a few members, and therefore a few tokens in a stack. There's an overall game board with various "Brochures" on it, representing worker placement spaces that can change from game to game. Each round, you'll place your families (worker stacks) onto these brochures. Then, when it's time to resolve them, you zoom in and play a little worker placement mini-game with the tokens you have in that area.

Dave thought this sounded good and offered to work on it with me, but it's not a primary project for either of us, so it's pretty slow-going. I came up with a host of Worker Placement mini-games based on some of the interesting WP games I could think of, so the next step would be mocking up a prototype --  and solving some thematic issues like "as travel agents, what do we really get out of our clients having a good vacation?" And "exactly what resources are in this game anyway?"

- False Prophet

An attempt at a Worker Placement / Mancala mashup based on an interview I saw with Isaias Vallejos where he mentioned that Margraves of Valeria was initially intended to be a Mancala Worker Placement game, but he couldn't make it work. This one is still in the "idea stage," but I have a pretty good idea how I think it might work, so it could potentially be in a good enough place to put together a prototype soon. Of course, I'll need some data before I bother with that - like what do the worker placement spaces do?! 

- I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement 

Another one in the "idea stage," this one inspired by Jamey Stegmaier's top 10 mechanisms video (his top 2 were I Cut You Choose and Worker placement). I have a solid instigating idea that I think could make for a strong main mechanism, but to go any farther I'll probably need to settle on a theme and get some data together.

- Come And Play [Sesame Street memory/rondel game]

An attempt at a kids-level game that I made out of some Sesame Street figures and a Sesame Street branded Memory game that Corbin has. It actually works pretty well, though Corbin's still a tad too young to properly follow rules.

Deal out the cards face down in a circle and place a figure on every other card. On your turn, choose a figure, move it 1 or 2 spaces (maybe specifically clockwise, but maybe either way is fine). Skip spaces that have no cards in them. Then reveal the card in that space - if it matches the figure you moved, you get to keep it! Otherwise, put if back face down, and try to remember who you saw and where you saw them!

- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]

My latest idea is a simple mashup of No Thanks and Candyland. I tried a proof-of-concept playtest on TTS, and it felt pretty good, now its time to settle on a theme and make some adjustments (such as re-design the board spaces).

Other changes

- Sails & Sorcery [with Michael Mindes]

I decided to add this to the list, since I put some work last year into developing the game into what I think is a pretty good finished product. I am happy to pitch this one to publishers, though it's technically a co-design with Michael.

- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

I decided to get this one back out and pitch it to publishers. We'll see if that leads to anything.

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe)

After unsuccessfully pitching Apotheosis to one publisher, I had a very promising pitch to another publisher... over the course of several meetings with them, during which we played full games, we made Apotheosis a lot more focused and better, but ultimately they were not interested. I'm continuing to pitch it, and I've got 2 more publishers showing initial interest -- I'll be meeting with them soon to see if they would like to look more closely at the game.

- Alter Ego (BGG)

This one has come a long way since its inception, and I think it's finally close, but progress has been in fits and starts, with a lot of time in between. At this point I even have art done for the cards, but it was sort of abandoned 1/2 way through graphic design... of all my backburnered designs, this one is probably the lowest hanging fruit, I should really just put some finishing touches on it and get the graphic design finished, then either print it, or maybe pitch it around.

 

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

Reviving this at the end of 2019 was awesome, and I think the latest version was in very good shape. Once again, the design stalled while waiting for a board redesign (which will probably prompt a card redesign), and the 2020 hellscape didn't help matters any.

I really ought to just get this one into Tabletop Simulator as-is, and worry about a board redesign later. 

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

For years I had held out hope that Isle of Trains: All Aboard, the expansion to Isle of Trains, would eventually come out from Dice Hate Me Games. I even saw some cover art for it! but alas, I think it's folly to continue to expect that at this point. Prompted by the publisher, a few years ago Dan and I decided to try and make a bigger game out of Isle of Trains (maybe including some of the expansion stuff), and I maintained this idea that the publisher would still be doing it, so I kept that scope in mind as we tried to make an Isle of Trains board game... Dan more reasonably noted that this publisher was unlikely to really move forward with the project, and wanted to make a deeper, more complicated game. At this point, I think he was on the right track, but the project kind of stalled out a long time ago, so I don't know if we'll ever get there :/

We were looking at it being a rondel game, where you drive your train around a loop of spaces, taking actions there, building stuff on those spaces (for multiple rewards), and push up the value of the various cargo you're delivering to maximize your score (cargo delivered x that cargo's value). My version attempted to be lighter and quicker, closer to the scope of the card game, while Dan was looking to have more stuff going on, unique train cars, etc. I think either way could work, especially if I can just drop the illusion of having to fit a particular publisher's ideas for the game.

- Joan of Arc

I was very interested in this idea a few years ago, but alas, it fell to the wayside and onto the back burner, and as yet has not returned. I got excited about a year ago when a prominent design duo expressed interest in co-designing, but they've been busy with their own stuff, so I don't think they've even looked at this game.

One day I would like to return to this one, but I fear it's time may have passed :/

- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]

After reviving this one recently, I think I've decided that the game just isn't really that great an idea after all. I still LOVE the idea of a word-themed cube pusher where the cubes are tiny alphabet blocks, and I think this one had some decent mechanisms in it, but playing it recently I just kind of feel like it's not quite right. I might have to ride this mashup (word game / connection game) out on a rail, so to speak.

Thoughts on Mashups (also, Candyland + No Thanks = ???)

I like mashups.

What's a mashup?

A mashup is when you take 2 distinct things and, maybe literally, smash them together to make a new thing that's sort of a mix of the original two.

I solicited Twitter real quick to get some other people's off-the-cuff definitions, and they generally agree with what I said above:

@twentysides contributed the following:

Two or more things that are faithful representations of their type combined in a way that still works. So something that is kind of this and vaguely that, I wouldn't call a mashup. Something that is clearly this and very much that, now that's a mashup.

An the ever eloquent @belltowergames describe it thusly:

Two things that are unlike but are of the same kind are brought together to create a work that shares essential qualities of both.

I like all of these definitions, and I think they more than get the idea across. 

I'm trying to think of an obvious genre mashup TV show or movie, but nothing's coming immediately to mind -- maybe that's because I'm writing this in fits and starts as I scan documents for my real job, or maybe it's because I'm feeling a little light headed from my 2nd COVID vaccine dose, or maybe there really aren't that many of them (that can't be!) 

I guess I could point to Daybreak, [warning, I cannot vouch for the safety of that website -- it was recommended to me by someone, but I've never actually used it!], a 1-season TV series I saw maybe 12 years ago that's like Groundhog Day mashed up with a cop show, about a detective who keeps re-living the same day until he solves his own frame-up.

I suppose I could also point to something like Thor: Ragnarok, which mashes up a comedy with a big budget superhero flick. But I don't know if that counts -- is "superhero" really a genre all its own? Also, it's not a great example because I didn't love that movie, but I'm saying in this post that I do enjoy mashups...

The IDEA of mashups

So I guess what I'm REALLY saying is that I like the IDEA of mashups. I find them a good source of inspiration, and I think they can have the potential to take existing stuff I like, and create a new experience that I'm predisposed to like, but that's different enough to be interesting.

As you must know if you're reading this, I like games. I like playing games, I like thinking about games, I like thinking about game design, and of course I like designing games. So how do mashups come into it? Well, even more than a passive story like books/TV/movies,  mashups can inspire new game experiences that are significantly different than any of the games being mashed together. 

A good example of this might be Friedemann Friese' Copycat, which he (somewhat famously) billed as a ripoff of Agricola, Through the Ages, and Dominion. The thing is, Copycat was NOT a ripoff at all! It was inspired by those other three games (deckbuilding inspired by Dominion, worker placement/action spaces inspired by Agricola, and the card row inspired by Through the ages), but the end result feels NOTHING like any of those inspirations. Friese didn't copy those other games, he mashed them up, and then he did the design and development work to make a solid game out of Copycat... whether you think the result is any good or not is up to your preference, but it's certainly distinct from its inspirations. 

Another example could be the decks in the card game Smash Up. That game's whole thing is that you take 2 piles of cards, each with its own feel and flavor, and mix them together to get a deck that plays differently than other combinations. That game used mashups as a main mechanism, and it works rather well!

A starting point that inspires design

You see, a mashup is just a starting point that can inspire a design. You can't just shuffle 2 rulebooks together and press print! 

Like with Copycat, there's a lot of work to be done once you have decided you want to mix together equal parts Agricola and Dominion, and splash in some Through the Ages for flavor. Just like any other source of inspiration, that may be the starting point, but it won't be the finish line by a long shot.

I've entertained some thoughts on a mashup before, a combination of King of Frontier and the award winning Isle of Skye. Whenever I think about Skye Frontier it makes me want to revive the design, because I felt it really did work, and I had made good progress on it already. Just writing this post makes me want to drop everything I'm doing and work on a Tabletop Simulator mod for it! Maybe soon, but for now I've got my attention set on another mashup idea, the recent one about Candyland!

Let's do the Mash! (let's do the Monster Mash)

As a sort of proof-of-concept, I found a Candyland TTS mod, added a handful of checkers, and got my playtesters to try out a few rounds with me of a Candyland/No Thanks mashup. We literally just played Candyland, but instead of drawing a card to advance, we played No Thanks with that card: flipped it up, then either took it and advanced, or put a chip on it. When taking a card and advancing, you also get all the chips on it, just like No Thanks. Oh, and in this mashup, of course, progress down the track is bad!

We didn't play out the whole game, and indeed, with this mechanism, I think a Candyland board is way too long. But as proof of concept, it definitely did work! In No Thanks, a card could come up that's adjacent to one you already have, making that card excellent for you (free chips!) while still bad for everyone else. Every card in the Candyland version has a bit of this potential, as a red card might mean just 1 space of movement for me, but 4 for her, and 8 for you! There was no real analog for that dynamic in No Thanks where you have the 23 and 25, and the 24 comes up (something that's extraordinarily good for you), but with the shortcuts (assuming you MUST take the shortcut if you land on it), there were cards that were extraordinarily bad for you, which added a little consideration to taking a card that advances you a lot, but at least gets you past a dangerous shortcut. I liked the feel of that, and with a redesigned board maybe that dynamic could be exaggerated so it comes up more often. For example, perhaps the shortcut spaces could span 2 or 3 spaces, so as you approach, more cards could potentially land you on one.

One goofy thing about Candyland is the specific treat spaces, which can catapult you all the way across the board, straight to the end (woo hoo!), or even all the way back near the beginning (oh no!). In this mashup, I think I'd just make those "advance to the next special treat" (rather than a specific one) so it's more of a game. Again, those could be not-that-bad (if you're just a few spaces from a special treat), or awful for you (if you just passed one), which is just the dynamic I think this game needs to thrive.

So there you have it, a light, accessible game, along the lines of No Thanks. Is it heavier or lighter than No Thanks if you replace the numbers with a Candyland track? I think it has legs, and I plan to give some of the design details a little more thought.

[last minute thought, just wanted to jot it down... in this mashup, you can clearly see which space you'd advance to, which is a good thing in general. There could however be some subset of cards that have a plus sign or something, meaning that if you claim the card, you also must draw another card and advance per that one as well -- something to make cards a little bit more scary] 

Theme informs design

I've been known to say that even mechanics-first designs are really theme-first, or they become theme-first pretty quickly, as once you have the main mechanism in mind, the theme informs the rest of the design.

As for a theme for this mashup, one idea (sticking with the Candyland aesthetic) is kids binging on Halloween candy, last one to get a tummy ache wins. I like the nod to the inspiring game there, and the theme makes some sense, though I'm not sure it really necessitates movement on a board, but maybe that's not the end of the world.

Another, slightly more grown-up idea is paintball/laser tag/snowball fight, where you spend "luck" tokens to not be the target of an attack, and when you take a card, maybe it has an evasive maneuver on the back (I like the production hook there, take an "incoming snowball" card, and flip it over to show that you dove behind an embankment -- even if it's not mechanically relevant)... eventually your luck runs out and you get hit, last player standing wins. 

Or even more grown up than that, maybe a Battle Royale theme, like Fortnite, where the track board is your health bar. As you take hits, your health goes down (advances toward 0), and when you run out of health, you're knocked out, or dead, depending on the specifics of the theme!

All of these themes seem like they'd work. I kind of dislike the health bar idea just because it makes the shared track board irrelevant - it would be neat if the game board were non-trivial (though I guess in all those ideas the board is kind of trivial). 

I'm open to other theme suggestions, leave 'em in the comments below. And let me know what games you'd like to see mashed together!

Candyland, but a game!

(apologies in advance for the weird white background formatting - that happens when I paste stuff, and it's a huge pain in the butt to fix, so I'm not going to bother) 

There seems to have been a rash of threads on social media a couple weeks ago about whether or not Candyland is even a game, let alone a shining example of design. Perhaps they were in response to noted developer John Brieger's tweetstorm about how "Candyland is a masterpiece of game design that designers should be studying and dissect as one of the best examples EVER of game design craft for specific audiences." In any case, John decries the notion, put forth by many "game snobs," that Candyland is not even a game.

Of course, whether you consider Candyland to be a game or not depends entirely on your definition of "game." As one reply from GeekNights host Rym Decoster pointed out:

It fits the definition of 'orthogame' in that it has mutually agreed rules and a method of ranking players. It also fits my favorite definition of game: "An interactive amusement". It's not an ideogame. Nor is it a "series of interesting/meaningful decisions"

As for my thoughts on whether Candyland is a game... I'd say it is and it isn't. It's not a "game" like I like to think of games, because it doesn't have any choices to make. But in a more general sense, I think it's considered a game by a lot of folks. Is that just marketing? It comes in a game box, it is sold in the games section at Target, and people have been calling it a game for decades So yeah, it's all down to definitions

I generally enjoy Keith Burgun's 4 interactive forms, but I'm not sure that's much help in categorizing Candyland:

• It's not a toy, because it does have a goal (be the first to cross the finish line) 
• Is it a puzzle, because it's goal is meant to be found (you're meant to get to the finish line)?
• Is it a contest, because crossing the finish line first is a measurement?
• But it's not a game, because there's no decision making to be had

Based on that, I guess Candyland is a "contest," though the thing that's being measured is questionable -- your ability to draw the right cards? To unknowingly sit in the pre-determined winning seat? Feels a little fishy to me. But with no decisions to be made, I don't think Candyland qualifies as a game.

BUT THAT'S OK.

Being a game or not being a game is not what lends value to Candyland. Breiger outlined the value of Candyland pretty thoroughly in his thread.

Perhaps what's really in view here is the difference between game design and product design. Designer/Developer TC Petty replied to Breiger thusly:

I’d say all your points are “it was a good product.” It has no other game design craft qualities to study as evidenced by no mechanics to discuss nor how they were implemented or evolved. Product design: yes. Game design: no.

And while I am on record disagreeing with everything TC says, in this case I think I agree. John's points are all valid, but they're more about the product design of Candyland, and not the game design.

I hadn't really thought about the design of Candyland before, so I found the following assrertion in Breiger's thread interesting: 

A few mechanical considerations that go into designing Candyland board length space distribution shortcut placement color distribution composition of the deck (1's vs 2's vs special)

And it prompted this follow up from me: 

For a game without choices, ARE those considerations important? What does tuning them change? * Duration (important) * Movement range per turn (important to a point) 

Anything else?

 and he said:

Since there aren't decisions, the mechanical choices sort of funnel into 3 outputs that create a lot of the experience: Duration Pacing / Movement Range Surprises and Volatility The 3rd is pretty important to the what makes Candyland exciting for kids (big swings)

 and I said:

Looking at the board images above, it appears the order of the colored spaces are simply a repeating pattern: ABCDA... with occasional special spaces inserted I won't say that's NOT intentional, but am I out on a limb to think it's a default starting point?

The special spaces are more or less evenly spaced as well I'm not familiar with the card mix, but how much does it differ from an even mix of all the possible 2-color combinations?

You suggest these things were carefully chosen and intentional, but I'm not convinced there was a lot of design thought put into them That doesn't make Candyland any less special or good at what it was! But are there really under-the-hood design lessons for modern designers?

I don't think I saw a response to that, but it was interesting to think about anyway. It was also amusing to see some of the other comments being tossed around, like TC's argumentative ones, and the typical tangent from Jeff Warrender (author of You Said This Would Be Fun) in which he proposes turning Candyland into a game by adding a handful of convoluted mechanisms:

Since Candyland is the game of the moment, how about this variant: Candyland bid-to-move. Give everyone 30(?) coins. Each turn, flip a card. Everyone bid (closed fist?), high bid moves to that color. Ties friendly. Out of coins, eliminated(?).

Probably, if everyone is past a special space, when its card comes up it’s discarded. A mean variant would be, bid to avoid it, everyone but low bidder pays, low bidder moves back. Like bad cards in High Society.

A bidding game wants everyone interested in every bid. In a track game like this, "I only bid for big moves" will be common. So small moves have to have value. You also want/need asymmetry.

I think maybe instead of special spaces there are "conveyance cards" which you can win in a bid, and if you later land on a space with that conveyance you get to skip some of the track.

Easiest way to get asymmetry is from different or diverging paths. Maybe there are side quests, maybe those are what give those conveyance cards or some other treasure thing.  

Maybe rank order matters or there are checkpoints (e.g. it's a rally of some sort)

My idea to make Candyland into more of a game

In my mind, an attempt to "make Candyland into a game" should really maintain the general scope of the game. If changing it too much, and changing its scope and category, then why even include the original game at all? However, I think Jeff was orbiting a solid idea in there, which I would like to reach in and extract here:

What if we simply combine Candyland's board with another very simple, straightforward game: No Thanks. In No Thanks (now on BGA!), you flip a card with a number, and then take turns either paying a chip into the pool to avoid the card, or taking the card (and all the chips in the pool). Chips are good because they allow you to say "no thanks" to bad cards, and they're worth a point at game end. Cards are bad, because their value subtracts from your score. There's a twist however: if you can get a run of multiple cards in a row, then only the lowest value counts. So if I hold the 33 already, then the 32 is -32 points for everyone else, but actually +1 for me!

Imagine this mechanism, but instead of just collecting numbered cards that are bad, you advance down the Candyland board when you take a card with a color on it, and the goal is to be the last player across the finish line. This way, any given card could be better or worse for any given player, and then also there's the number of tokens you have to consider, making it a million times more thinky than Candyland as, but still a super accessible, simple game.

What theme would lend itself to wanting to be 'last past the post'? One follower suggested a political race, where "advancing down the track" is like scandals coming to light, and "reaching the finish line" is like having to drop out of the race due to an abundance of, I don't know, shame?

Let me know what you think. I actually suspect this idea could have some legs, and if I work on it any further, I may well get into some of those design questions such as distribution of colors in the deck, order of colored spaces on the board, number and spacing of shortcuts, etc. Maybe there's intentionality that could go into that after all - though I still find it hard to believe there was much intentionality behind it in Candyland!

Another day, another prototype on Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator - tips and tricks

Tabletop Simulator is not the greatest way to play games, but I have to say that without it, I'd be doing ZERO playtesting, so I'm glad it exists!

As I've been using TTS more and more, I'm starting to become more proficient a it. Notable Game Designer of North Carolina, Matt Wolfe, has been posting a helpful series of TTS Tips on Twitter and their blog, and my friend and former TMG cohort, Andy Van Zandt, passed on to me a handful of helpful tools he'd come across and saved, such as a table resizer, a thing that places evenly spaced snap points between 2 items, and a bag of moveable text (which is awesome, as the text feature sucks so badly).

Deities & Demigods Virtual Prototype

I realized I have a game that's basically done, but not yet published, and I haven't played it in quite some time. So last weekend I decided to make a TTS mod for Deities & Demigods (AKA Olympus on the Serengeti):

Deities & Demigods virtual prototype on TTS

The files I had contained a Hades module, which is still untested, and not intended to be in the game (perhaps a future expansion), so I decided to include all that, but cover it up (see gray panels above). Those panels are locked in place over the bits, and could easily be removed if I ever decide to try the module out -- now that I have the prototype on TTS, maybe that's something I can realistically do now.

I'm looking forward to playing this game just to play it, even if not testing something new -- I like it, I think it plays well, and I haven't played in forever!

Sails & Sorcery Virtual Prototype Update

And because TTS screenshots are cool, here's one of the updated prototype for Sails & Sorcery that I did after playing a couple weeks ago and finding the mod lacking a bit. Table space is always a buggar on TTS, so that resizer tool Andy found seems like it could be super useful:

Sails & Sorcery playtest: plunder follow-up

After a nice 4-player 1/2 test (had to cut the game short half way through), I was able to compare the plunder card row (which I had tried previously) with the version I used last time (1 card per island, cost based on opponents present), and yeah -- the card row just played better.

Other than having to quit early, this test was pretty good all around: the players had fun, and most everything worked well. On the down side, after about 30 mins of rules and setup, we quit an hour and change into the game, and we were only 1/2 way through -- but most of that is down to Tabletop Simulator (and a learning  game), I think. I don't love dismissing problems by saying "it's just a learning game" though, because everyone's first play will be a learning game!

Here are a few notes I took down after the playtest and discussion:

* when coming out of hiding, deploy 1 from bag, not from ship

It's just lame to be unable to use the benefit if you don't happen to have pirates on your ship when the Kraken gets you

* maybe add immediate effects for all tokens (like drawing a card when you get the Hand Size one)...

It's a bit of a bummer to gain control of an icon, only to have it wrested from you before you even get a chance to use it. For the Monsters, you get their immediate effects when you summon them, so it's not so bad if you don't also keep control of the icons some of the provide. For the Hand Size icon, it bugged me whenever you would get the token, then lose it before the end of the round, meaning you had no chance to benefit from it. Because of that, I added the rule that when claiming the token, you immediately draw a card. With the rest of the icons, perhaps that would help as well.

Recruit and Deploy have obvious immediate effects (recruit a pirate, get 1 deploy icon to spend), but the rest don't have anything that makes obvious sense. Maybe collect a silver for Plunder? But what about Build and Summon? They could also be "get a silver," but that's kind of lame.

* OR, instead of permanent bonuses that pass around, maybe get a 1-shot icon each time you gain control of the area?

This idea has some merit along the lines of what I was saying above - nobody can take your bonus away from you. However, it changes the dynamic a bit, removing any reason to continue to hold control of an area, and I don't think I like that very much. Maybe a 1-shot icon could work for Summon and Build (and a silver for Plunder)

* Maybe extend the 2p variant to all player counts, ensuring the areas go up in value over the course of the game (instead of doubling the values half way through)

In the 2 player game, in order to maintain some tension, I add neutral pirates to the board each round, in the areas that will score. This way you can't just siphon points by dropping 1 pirate in each scoring area, and as some of the neutral pieces are buildings, it also serves to increase the value of certain areas. Perhaps this should be extended to all player counts, even if just to make 1st place worth more than 2nd by enough to matter via neutral buildings. 

Sails & Sorcery revisited -- now on TTS!

It's been about a year and a half since I posted about, or even played Sails & Sorcery, Michael's game that I had been working on. For some reason it drifted back into my consciousness recently. I thought about a tweak to the most recent aspect (treasure cards for the Plunder role), and realized it should be pretty easy to make a Tabletop Simulator mod for the game so I could potentially play it again. So here's a quick update:

First, the tweak to Plunder and treasure cards...

In my last post I re-imagined the Plunder role: Instead of just killing off masses of pirates, the new idea was to use Plunder to "buy" treasure cards, which each have an ability (on par with the Davy Jones effect - adding a couple of pirates to the board and/or capturing a couple opposing pirates), as well as one of five different gems, which confer some set collection scoring at game end. I liked this format a lot, but I wasn't sure what the best way to implement it was. I had gone with a simple card row, with the cost ranging from 2 to 6 (a good range, on par with the other roles) based on the position of he card in the row. But I had a number of other options in mind. 

The card row was simple, and it worked, but I kinda wanted it to matter which area (or at least which island) you were in when you Plundered. Another cost structure (even using a card row) that might have had an interesting geographic effect was "2 Plunder + 1 per opponent in the area." I thought that might have provided an interesting incentive to go where other people were not, which could stand in contrast to the dynamic incentivized by the way certain areas score each round (encouraging players to congregate in those areas). That's still something I think I'd like to try.

In addition though, it occurred to me that - especially with the alternate cost structure above - there's no reason the cards would need to be in a row at the side of the board. Perhaps better if they were in the areas (or on the islands) themselves? Might they then drive players to go to specific areas (or at least specific islands) if they're chasing VP from the gems? Or is that too many hoops to jump through? Maybe the option of any card in the row is appropriately flexible? I guess it's worth trying, if I can ever get some testing done!

And on that note, in an effort to eventually get some testing done on this game, I went ahead and made a Tabletop Simulator mod:

As you can see in the screenshot, I placed a treasure card in each area. Almost immediately I thought it might be better to just put one card per island instead of per area -- which could foster a little more interaction (in the case multiple players are after them). However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the better course is to just stick with a card row on the side of the board.

Even still, I would like to try the alternate cost structure (based on opponents in your ship's area) to see if that drives any geographical considerations or not. If so, and they're good enough, then that'll be great. If not, or if they're super weak, then the simpler cost structure might be a better choice.

Here's to hoping I get a chance to play it soon!

I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement -- thoughts on a theme

 I'm still looking for a theme for that I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement game...

I still think the way it would work makes sense: 

1. Seed some spaces with ~6 cubes, 
2. Place your worker where there are cubes, 
3. Do a thing based on the number/colors of cubes there,
4. Split the cubes between 2 of the adjacent spaces, 
5. Repeat

I solicited theme ideas on Twitter, and got a few responses, one of which seems promising to me. Jonathan Weaver said: 

Wow I love the mechanism and I think a theme of widespread exploration of a new land and the color cubes are different skilled explorers (i.e. huntsman, trappers, cartographers, sailors, scouts, etc.) Then the game is about who can use the conscripted explorers best each split.

I liked the sound of sending, for example, a cartographer and a scout this way and a scout and trapper that way, then you choosing the scout/trapper and as a result get some furs, then sending the scout here and the trapper there.

Each unit type would need an effect, and there could be some combinatorial effects. Like maybe a scout amplifies the effect of another worker (cartographer makes a better map, trapper finds more animals).

My initial thought was that you'd add tiles to the board spaces, changing them for everyone (and maybe like Caylus, you get benefit when someone uses your tile). "Buying" tiles based on which unit types are there could represent effects of certain combinations of units.

Thinking about this a little more, it definitely sounds workable:

Players are officers in an organization that has sent multiple colony ships full of cryogenically frozen specialists out into the black, seeking a new homeworld. Now that we've arrived, groups of specialists are "thawing out," and we're directing them to do their thing, and then splitting them into smaller groups and sending them to adjacent sectors.

Each ship generates ~6 random specialists (colored cubes) each round. You place a worker on a sector with specialists to build a tile there, of 15 different tiles, each with a 2-color cost (those 2 colors of specialist must be present). Each tile gives 2 effects, 1 for each specialist required (so there are ~6 specialist effects in the game). 

If you place in a sector with just 1 cube, you get that color's effect, then take the cube to use later... Maybe you spend it to build when that color isn't present, or maybe you spend it for that color's effect in addition to a normal turn.

And I think an effect tied to the sector would be good, so there's a geographical element as well. Like maybe when you activate a building, you get the effect of the sector (and maybe you can do this instead of building, so long as you have either of the specialists related to the building present, or maybe in hand). "In hand" could be neat, so in the early game you're placing workers in sectors with more cubes, for better choice of tile to build, and you're building new stuff onto the board, then later you're placing workers to grab up singleton cubes in order to activating that stuff.

Maybe the tiles you build are on your player board, and the goal is to get yours all into play? I'm not sure about that, or what "winning" would represent, but in general this kind of theme -- with the cubes being units with specific jobs, and players bossing groups of those units around -- sounds to me like it makes sense and fits the mechanism.

What I really need is a discrete ability for each specialist, a "building" or whatever that makes sense for each pair (6 types => 15 different "buildings"), and some sector-specific effects before I could put together a prototype and try this out. I'm open to suggestions in the comments below!

Come and play, everything's A-OK

Now that I've got a toddler, it might be about time to start thinking about games for a lower age range. I have to admit, I don't really know much about kid's games, how they work, or what little ones are looking for in a game.

My son has had a little Sesame Street themed Memory game, 2 cards with each of 8 characters. Other than really liking Elmo, he's showed almost no interest in it so far. Recently, he got some hand-me-down figures of 5 Sesame Street characters, and it just so happens, they are all represented on the cards in that Memory game. Looking at that, I thought "there MUST be a game I can make out of this!"

I solicited some thoughts on Twitter, and I got some interesting responses. One of them sounded really promising, so today I gave it a shot...

Basically, it's a Rondel Memory game:
Components:
10 Cards (2 per character)

5 Figures (1 per character)

Setup:

1. Shuffle the 10 cards and deal them, face down, into a circle

2. Place a figure on every other card

Game play:
Take turns moving the characters around the circle as they look for cards with their own picture on them.

On your turn:
1. Choose any figure and move it 1 or 2 cards clockwise

2. Reveal the card it lands on. If that card matches the moving figure, keep it! Otherwise, put it back face down

When the last card is kept, the game ends -- whoever has kept the most cards, wins!

This could be made easier by removing characters (and their corresponding cards), or by setting a character aside once both of its cards are found and kept, and it could be made harder by using additional cards (for characters that don't have figures).

We actually played thorough a whole game, and Corbin even seemed to sort of follow the rules for the most part! As playtests go, I'd say it was pretty successful :)

So that was pretty cool, I can't wait to try it again some time.

Afterwards, I was thinking about other possible mechanisms that could work with those cards and figures, and I came up with a racing mechanism. It's not so much a <i>game</i>, but I could actually imagine the mechanism in a euro-game or something:

1. Shuffle the 10 cards and discard 5 of them without looking

2. Line up the figures in a row

3. One-by-one, flip a card and move the matching figure forward 1 "space"

4. After flipping all 5 cards, reshuffle the 10 cards and repeat

The first figure to move 5 spaces (or any number, really) wins the race!

This could be made into a simple game by guessing which figure will win the race, or a more complicated game by betting on it each time you shuffle (like the bets in Downforce). Either way, the mechanism certainly seems to work well and give some tense and exciting races!

I'll keep thinking about these components and games we an play with them. Until then, at least we can try the Rondel Memory game again :)

YANGI x2, and an old game off the back burner?

In addition to Keeping Up With The Joneses, I have had a few other new ideas crop up. Unlike KUwtJ however, these other ideas haven't been fleshed out quite as much, so I haven't mentioned them. I should at least add these to The List, if not work on them to the point I could get them to the table...

False Prophet (Mancala-Worker-Placement)

Listening to an interview with Isaias Vallejo of Daily Magic Games about the new/upcoming Margraves of Valeria, I heard him say that Margraves started out as an attempt to use a Mancala mechanism in a Worker Placement game. He said he couldn't make it work, so the design shifted to what they have now... a Concordia-esque hand building game where you can move your Margrave around the board and use neutral Knight figures to help you fight monsters (one of the various aspects of the game).

I thought the idea of Mancala Worker Placement sounded really good, and I wondered how I would go about that. So far I just have initial thoughts for a structure, but I think they sound reasonable -- maybe I'm not far enough along to see how it wouldn't work :)

I'm imagining a board, maybe a grid of tiles (like Istanbul for example), with neutral "follower" pieces on it, as well as a "Prophet" figure for each player. The game would be about moving your Prophet around and doing deeds, while follower meeples tend to follow whichever prophet they most recently saw.

On your turn, you would pick up your prophet figure and all of the followers in their current space, and distribute them Mancala style (like Five Tribes), placing your prophet last. Wherever you place your Prophet, you take the action of that space, and it's more potent the more followers are there with you - perhaps there are 3 levels of the action, Level 1 for when there's only 1 follower with you, Level 2 for when there are 2 followers, and Level 3 for when there are 3 or more followers. If you land in an empty space, you'd add a follower to the board there, and if you resolve a Level 3 effect, you'd remove a follower from the board.

That's about all I have at the moment, so I don't know what these effects would be (other than manipulating the number or location of followers on the board, for example). It still sounds to me like it has potential.

Edit: Perhaps better, on your turn you pick up all the followers in the space with your prophet figure into your hand. Then you place followers from your hand onto spaces 1-by-1 from your prophet to wherever you want to go. Then move your prophet to the last space you placed a follower on and execute its action (again, the more followers there the better). This way you might keep a (presumably small) hand of followers from turn to turn, and there could be some income you collect at the end of each turn that's based on the number of followers remaining in your hand.

I-cut-you-choose Worker Placement

This is my latest idea, based on Jamey Stegmaier's "Top 12 favorite game mechanisms" video that he recently posted. His top 2 favorite mechanisms are (spoilers...) Worker Placement and I-Cut-you-Choose. Just for fun I wondered what a mashup of those two would look like.

My initial thoughts were mostly just "make piles and draft them," which removes the Worker Placement dynamic altogether, but then a structure hit me that I think could work really well:

Imagine a board with a network of big spaces (let's call them "cities") and little spaces (let's call them "towns"). At the top of each round, seed the cities with ~4 (~6?) random cubes. Then take turns placing workers.

You place a worker into a city or town that has cubes. Then you do something that relates to the number or types of cubes there. Finally, you distribute those cubes to 2 neighboring towns (divided any way you choose) that do not have workers there already. If you distribute cubes into a town that already had some, then it has more now, no big deal.

Maybe if you place a worker where there's only 1 cube, it goes away afterwards (you can't split 1 cube). After all workers are placed, I figure there could still be some cubes on the board - that's fine. Add 4 (6?) more to the cities and start again.

I think that sounds like a solid main mechanism. I have some thoughts about possible details for what you actually do when you resolve a worker spot, but it's not fully fleshed out yet.

At this point, I find it very helpful to come up with a good theme that would fit the main mechanism described above. That helps inform the rest of the design. 

Worker-ception (Worker Group Placement)

A few years ago on the inaugural BGG cruise, I came up with an idea for a game based on cruise lines. In the game, you would place groups of workers -- not individual worker pawns -- into a few areas on the board, and then when resolving an area, you sort of zoom in and play a mini-worker-placement game with the workers in the group you had sent there.

I had sidelined that idea, but recently local designer David Short showed some interest in it, and in theory we are going to try it as a co-design. David suggested a slight re-theme as competing travel agencies, where the groups of workers are families going on vacation, and the worker spaces are little brochures so you can change them out from game to game.

I came up with a list of mini-WP games that could be used, so it might be that this game is close to being ready for an early playtest!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current Active Designs:
- Alter Ego (BGG)

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

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe)

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

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

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

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

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG)

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

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

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

- Keeping Up With The Joneses

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

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

            - Automatown [Michael Brown on board]

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

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

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

            - Reading Railroad

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

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

            - Moctezuma's Revenge

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

            - Kilauea [a designer has showed interest]

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

            - Joan of Arc [a designer has showed interest]

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

            - Dynasty

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

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

Dice Works and Exhibit - out of the woodwork playtesting!

Today I had a chance to playtest with 2 of my regular testers, but I didn't think my latest projects (Apotheosis and Keeping Up With The Joneses) would really benefit from another 3p test with the same people because nothing's really changed on them. So I pulled a couple of older games out of the woodwork. I had made TTS mods of them a while ago, and even played one of them a few weeks ago.

Dice Works

First we played a partial game of Dice Works, a real-time dice drafting game. I had expected the real-time nature of it to be problematic on Tabletop Simulator due to how awkward it is to do anything on that format, but truth be told, it went a lot better than I had expected. But first I wanted to try the game in a turn-based fashion, just to see how it would feel. As expected, the game dragged and the draft wasn't very interesting without the time pressure (like with my iPad game, Brainfreeze, simple decisions require time pressure to become fun). After a round of turn-based drafting, we played a few rounds in real-time, and it seemed to work fine. Rick isn't a fan of the time pressure, so I didn't force him to play through an entire game that way.

I haven't played Dice Works in YEARS, and it was fun to revisit. One of the big challenges to publication is that it's a real time game, and those tend to have a more limited audience than turn-based games. Another challenge is probably a way to get around needing 80 or more dice! I have considered using tokens to block up spaces where dice had been placed so that the dice could go back into circulation. However, thinking about it, the real cost of custom dice is in the molds -- I don't think the materials are all that expensive. So it might not be out of the question to use 80-100 dice, so long as they're standard d6s.

One question that came up was whether just placing dice into scrap as fast as you can would be dominant. I don't recall it being a problem, and I recall being happy with the scrap rates as I currently have them (you start out at 4-for-1, and get better with even advancement up the tracks), so the bigger question to me is, even if it's OK as-is balance-wise, does it ruin the fun for other players if one person is just indiscriminately scrapping dice as fast as possible? If that turns out to be the case, a couple solutions could be as follows:

* Increase the scrap rate (but again, I think I'm happy with the current rates)
* Add dice to the supply so that other players still have something to choose from, at least for a few seconds, while the scrappers are scrapping
* Make the "specific" spaces where you place dice a little more flexible. For example, instead of requiring a "1", maybe require "<2" and instead of requiring "[ ]=[ ]=[ ]" maybe require "[ ]<[ ]<[ ]"

That last comment is interesting, and I should probably give it a try just to make the boards more interesting to begin with. Adding more dice might be worth doing, at least in the first round, even if not ALL the time -- just to get things sort of jump started.

Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages

Then we switched over to just play a game of Exhibit. With the exception of a tweak or two, that game is pretty much done as far as I'm concerned, so this was less of a playtest, and more of a chance to just play one of my games :)

It went well, Rick had played once, years ago, and adored it back then. Very little has changed since that game. Aaron played a couple of weeks ago, and also liked it. A tweak I tried was changing the value of the Art exhibit. Originally, an Art exhibit was worth 2 additional points, as opposed to a Weapon exhibit, which helps yo win a specific auction in the future, and a Tool exhibit, which lets you re-roll dice. When I shortened the game to 5 rounds, I reduced that to 1 extra point for an Art exhibit, worried that the power of the Tool and Weapon had gone down and I didn't want Art to be "too good" in comparison. But I wanted Art to be more of an option early game, so players didn't just ignore it early, and use it late, so I tried something that sounded more interesting... Treat an Art exhibit as if it had +1 tile in it. This amounted to anywhere from 2-5 points, depending on the size of the exhibit, which means I failed at my goal of incentivizing art early but not late!

I think I need to just go back to +2 points for an Art exhibit, and be OK with players not using it early and valuing it more in the late game.