The List - July 2024

    I feel like it's about time for an update to The List ... I should really make an effort to check in with this more regularly, like every 3 months or so.

Published Games:

- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG) [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Isle of Trains (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) (BGG)
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) [New edition from Dranda Games with included expansion]
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG) [now available from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [now available from Renegade!]

- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)

- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [Final Frontier Games]
- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Development projects - Games I've done freelance development on

- Amun-Re expansion [Alley Cat Games 20th Anniversary edition] - Heavy Development

- Harvest (BGG) [by Trey Chambers from Keymaster Games] - Heavy Development

- Holiday In Rome (add BGG link) [by Cory Andalora from Pandasaurus Games - coming soon!] - Heavy Development

- Expeditions (BGG) [by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games] - Consultation

- Fled (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2024 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

- Forelords (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2025 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

Finished But Unpublished Games - in line to be published:
- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [coming soon (?) from Renegade!]

- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print] [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [Ready for art] [theoretically signed by a publisher!]

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe) [signed by a publisher!]

Currently Pitching Games - "actively" looking for a publisher (though I haven't actively been doing much of anything lately!):

- Sails & Sorcery (Co-Design with Michael Mindes) [pitching to publishers]

- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Keeping Up with the Joneses [pitching to publishers]

- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain) [pitching to publishers]

- Alter Ego (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Dice Works (BGG) [pitching to publishers]

- Suburban Sprawl [pitching to publishers]

- Let's Go Balloon Racing [pitching to publishers]

- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson) [pitching to publishers]

- Press-Your-Luck Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam entry, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]

- Worker Placement Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam idea, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]

 

"Finished" But Unpublished Games - abandoned or backburnered designs that are "done":
- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]
- Rolling Realms: Jaffee Realms (for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms)

Current Active Designs - these are the games I'm actively testing or working on:

- Eminent Domain: Coalition [solo mode]

- Division of Labor (FKA I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement)

- 18-card Point Salad (KBGames 18-card game jam entry, July 2024)

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

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

- Joan of Arc

- Kingdom Realms (KBGames 3-lane game jam entry, Nov 2022)

- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

- "Revampsterdam" [revamp of an old game, commissioned by a publisher]

Promising Recent ideas:
- Worker-ception [with David Short]

- False Prophet [Mancala/Worker Placement]

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

- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]

- Press Your Luck Candyland [Candyland variant]

- Hanabi Wonders [Hanabi/7 Wonders mashup]

- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]

- Eminent Domain: Legacy [campaign mode]

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) [Abandoned]

- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]

- Moctezuma's Revenge [Abandoned]

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

- Automatown [with Michael Brown] [Abandoned]

- Dynasty [I still think this one has potential] [Abandoned]

Misc and Really Old Stuff - most of this I'll probably never get back to, but I like keeping it around just in case:
- 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)

- 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]

Recent updates to the above

Published Games

- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [Final Frontier Games]

The Kickstarter for The Sixth Realm is over, so I've moved this entry to the Published Games section! It'll still be a while before people get their copies, but I look forward to seeing reports of games played when that happens.

Finished But Unpublished Games

- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe) [signed by a publisher!]

No change to The List, but Usurpers (FKA Apotheosis) has been progressing at the publisher -- I've seen snippets of art and graphic design coming through. I believe that one will be on Kickstarter eventually, and once that finishes (assuming it's successful), I'll move this entry to the Published Games section

 

Currently Pitching Games

- Let's Go Balloon Racing [pitching to publishers]

- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson) [pitching to publishers]

- Press-Your-Luck Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam entry, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]

- Worker Placement Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam idea, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]

I've been trying a bit harder to get my games in front of publishers, with varying levels of success. These four titles are on my Pitch List now, though to be honest, I'll be surprised if I can place the 2p microgames with anyone (even if I think the PYL one is pretty solid). Goballoon Racing and Taiko Kiri on the other hand seem like strong candidates to me.

Current Active Designs

- Division of Labor (FKA I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement)

I'm still working on this one, so it's "currently active," though technically I've also added it to my Pitch List - I think it's about ready to start pitching

Backburnered Designs 

- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

- "Revampsterdam" [revamp of an old game, commissioned by a publisher]

I have moved a couple of games to the back burner on The List, seeing as how I haven't worked on them in quite some time

Promising Recent ideas:

- Press Your Luck Candyland [Candyland variant]

After playing some Candyland with my 6 year old, I got him to try my No Thanks/Candyland mashup which, incidentally, worked alright but had a problem at the end. As that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, we tried another Candyland variant: Press Your Luck Candyland, which worked very well!

Asking AI for help with a theme

I'm sure some specifics could be better, but I'm pretty happy with Division of Labor currently. I think its *weakest* point might be thematic consonance, rather than some mechanical or balance failing.

As I sit on this airplane, waiting for them to fix a broken overhead bin, I decided to try asking ChatGPT to help me with the theme of this game. I briefly described the idea I'm currently using (voyagers finding new islands everywhere they roam), and I uploaded the rulebook. This is what it came up with (and it's not bad!):

Backstory:

In a time long forgotten, five great tribes set sail across uncharted seas in search of new lands to call home. These tribes, bound by ancient pacts and a shared desire for prosperity, discovered a vast archipelago filled with lush islands, each brimming with potential. As the chieftains of these tribes, players must explore these new islands, extract resources, build settlements, and develop the land to honor their ancestors and ensure their tribe's legacy.

Setting:

Players are the heads of powerful tribal families, each with their unique skills and abilities. They journey together but compete to prove who can best lead their tribe by strategically splitting and choosing resources, placing workers, and developing the newly found islands.

Key Elements:

1. Voyaging and Discovery:

   • Each round, new islands are revealed, representing the ever-expanding frontier the tribes are exploring. This keeps the game dynamic and emphasizes the ongoing adventure and discovery.

2. Tribal Leadership and Worker Placement:

   • As chieftains, players send their workers to various islands to gather resources, build structures, and train their people. The worker placement mechanism reflects the strategic allocation of the tribe's members to maximize efficiency and development.

3. Resource Management and Development:

   • The I-Cut-You-Choose mechanism ties into the theme of tribal fairness and strategic decision-making. When players split resources, they must carefully consider the needs of their tribe and the potential benefits for their rivals.

4. Cultural Heritage and Storytelling:

   • Integrate a storytelling element where each action taken on an island represents a story or legend being told within the tribe, enhancing the theme of cultural heritage and the passing down of knowledge.

Thematic Blurb:

"In 'Division of Labor: Voyagers of the New World,' you are the chieftain of a proud tribe, navigating the vast ocean to discover and develop uncharted islands. Lead your people wisely, gather resources, build thriving settlements, and train your warriors and scholars. Every decision echoes through the generations, shaping the future of your tribe. Will your name be remembered as the greatest chieftain of all?"

Game Actions and Theme Integration:

1. Recruit (Red):

   • Call upon the strength of your tribe, drawing new warriors and workers from the action bag to bolster your ranks.

2. Build (Green):

   • Erect structures that will stand the test of time, from simple huts to grand monuments, each contributing to your tribe’s growth and prosperity.

3. Extract (Blue):

   • Harvest the abundant resources of the islands, ensuring your tribe has the materials needed for survival and advancement.

4. Train (Yellow):

   • Educate and train your tribe members, advancing their skills and knowledge to better prepare them for the challenges ahead.

5. Explore (Any Color):

   • Venture into the unknown, uncovering new lands and opportunities for your tribe to exploit and develop.

Visual and Component Suggestions:

• Game Board: A beautifully illustrated map of an archipelago with lush, vibrant islands.
• Island Tiles: Each tile representing different types of islands with unique resources and opportunities.
• Action Cubes and Worker Pawns: Designed to look like tribal artifacts and members.
• Player Boards: Depicting the progress and achievements of each tribe, with spaces for buildings and tracks for training and resources.

Another game design jam (or two!), another couple of 18-card games!

 A couple of years ago, a Discord server I am in had an 18-card game design jam, and I made a couple of games for it. One of those turned out to be pretty good, I think - though I don't know how marketable a 2-player only Press-Your-Luck microgame with no theme really is.

Right now, that Discord server (KBGAMES), and another server I'm in (Decision Space) are both having an 18-card game design jam (details here, and here)! I had no intention of working on any 18-card games for either one, but wouldn't you know... ideas crept into my head, and now I've got a game for each jam!

Last time my games were all a little bit of a cheat with respect to the 18 card limit. This time, both are legit, only 18 cards, and on one case, a couple of dice.

Just like 2 years ago, I appear to have one game that seems good, and the rest are nothing to write home about. here's a quick description of my current 18-card games:

Tic-Tac-DOH!

 The bad one this time is a game where you place and move your three pieces (a square, a circle, and a triangle) on a 3x3 grid of cards in an effort to get (and hold) 3-in-a-row, and you do so by using 6 Action cards, of which only ~2 are available to you each turn (based on a 2d6 roll). So you roll, choose one of the two results (if doubles, you may choose to roll again if you wish), and resolve the action card in that slot. Then you flip the action card to the other side, changing the actions that are available a little bit. The idea here was that you would be able to see what actions are possible, but you won't necessarily have access to the ones you want most, and your opponent could potentially even have a game winning action out there, leaving you anxious to see if they roll it or not.

When you move your piece onto a space, you also get to use the effect of that space, which should give you more agency. And finally, there is a special ability for each of your pieces that's different each game. 

I played a first draft of this game a couple of times, and I think it kind of works. For next time I intend to revamp the board effects (make them more straightforward, and mostly about moving pieces around), tweak the Action cards, and try an idea my friend had about how to add +/-1 effects (like the workers in Castles of Burgundy) - print +/-1 on each of your pieces, and let you 'spend' them (by flipping the piece), with very few ways (if any) to get them back.

18-card Point Salad

There's a recent (2019) game called Point Salad that I've never actually played, but I've heard nothing but good things about. In it, each card can either be a scoring condition, or something that would help you score off of those scoring conditions. This was an inspiration to my other 18-card jam game - the one that I think has potential to be pretty good.

In my game, you and your opponent will use the old Merchants of Amsterdam/Biblios mechanism to draw 3 cards, one at a time, and assign one to KEEP, one to SCORE, and one to DISCARD. You do this simultaneously, card by card, until all three cards are assigned, then you draw 3 more and do it again. IN the first "Age," you'll do this 3 times before the deck runs out, then you'll score some points. After scoring, you'll shuffle the SCORE and DISCARD cards back together (the cards you kept stay in your tableau), and start a new Age. The 2nd age will only have 2 rounds of card distribution, then scoring, and finally the 3rd Age will only have 1 round.

When it's time to score, each player examines the cards in their own tableau and scores points based on the scoring conditions on each card in the SCORE row:

My latest thought is to reward best-of-three rounds, rather than total score, so that a player who gets a lucky draw and dominates one round will win that round, but not necessarily the whole game.

Design Contest on BGG

Soon after I had this 18-card Point Salad game, a post went up on BoardGameGeek about someone running a design/development contest for an 18-card game they'd like to use as a companion game with their urbanist book about the city design of Tokyo. That contest is kind of weird in that they have some parts of a game, so it' smore of a development contest -- though they seem open to alternate ideas as well.

It occurred to me that I could consider the card colors in my design to be the districts, and the shapes to be features (such as zoos, hotels, restaurants, etc), and then the players could be building up their proposed rail line (with a station in this Modern Tokyo neighborhood near a touristy resort, and another station near a mom & pop restaurant in a Traditional neighborhood), while the scoring row could represent the demands/desires of the public. With that mindset, I could pitch this game to that contest, and it could fit pretty well, with the possible exceptions that (a) it eschews their tile laying aspect (which they claim is OK, but might count against my game in the judging), and (b) my game is for  players, while they want a solo game. I think 1-2 players would be OK, maybe even 1-4 (I have some thoughts on doubling the deck and playing with up to 4 players, but the setup/format at each player count might have to be different) could work if they don't mind doubling the card count... but will it work solo?

Well, I have been doing some solo testing by simply dealing out cards at random for the opponent, and that works alright -- maybe that could be adapted into a proper solo mode.

So that's what I've been up to lately. Those two games, Division of Labor, and prototyping a simplified version of Keeping Up With The Joneses to see how that works.

Division of Labor 5p playtest

 I finally got a 5p test in of Division of Labor last night! It went alright. There was one brand new player, and the rules took us almost 30 mins for some reason - I sometimes think teaching a game is harder to do on TTS than IRL, but that did seem excessive. Then the play took a full 2 hours, which is on the high end of the range I expected. I'd prefer a little shorter duration, but I don't think 2h is out of the question for 5p. Also, I think that game took longer than average due to the new player, but of course, every person who plays after publication will be a new player at some point! 

I got a lot of feedback about certain aspects of the game, all of which is useful, but my goal for this test was specifically to see how 5p worked, and what changes would need to be made to accommodate the 5th player. Here are some observations I made specific to 5p:

1. Turn order compensation 

For 5p, I reduced the number of rounds from 5 to 4. This is mostly to keep the duration down, and I think it was fine, but it also means the player that goes last in round 1 (arguably the worst position) also never gets a chance to go first, which seems like a clue that turn order compensation would be in order. This came up in our last 4p game as well, and I just haven't gotten around to trying it yet. My thought is to give late turn order players (maybe just the last player) a random cube from the bag... or if that's not enough, maybe 2 cubes.

2. Penalty tracks 

Because there is 1 fewer round (and relative to 2-3p games, you get your 3rd worker 1 round later as well), you end up doing approximately 4 fewer turns, which means about 8 fewer penalty track bumps on average... Which means players won't be pushing up against game end penalties-though the early game in-game penalties are probably fine). I might want to reduce the track lengths for 5p, probably taking a space out of the middle section (between the 1st and 2nd penalties).

I seem to recall having a similar thought for 4p, so maybe the penalty track board could be two sided, with 4-5p penalty tracks on one side, and 2-3p tracks on the other that are 1 space longer. 

3. Worker spaces 

I was afraid this would be a problem... In lower player count games, there has always been enough worker spaces to go around, we've never had a player be unable to place a worker (though if enough players earn their extra worker off the training track, I think it's not impossible). In 5p, the way I had it set up, in the turn you get your 3rd worker automatically, there will be 14 worker spaces, and 15 workers (or more!). So immediately this is a problem. For the playtest we said that if you are unable to place a worker, you get a consolation prize of 1 cube of your choice. 

That allowed us to play, but it's not an ideal solution. I think I need to make sure that there are always enough spaces for all the workers in play. However, in a rare case where multiple players train their extra worker, there will be situations where this problem arises, unless I add a LOT of extra spaces (which might not be so terrible, perhaps). So, I'll think about how many spaces I'd need at an absolute maximum and consider making that available (a fortuitous side effect is that means almost always there will be some islands where the cubes accumulate and then you split like 6 cubes instead of 3). Failing that, another consolation prize option could be a free Explore action in any island you want... That's not nothing. Maybe also a random (or chosen) cube. If the consolation could be useful enough, then that might be preferable to the setup getting out of control! 

4. Letter token limit 

I had been scaling the number of each letter token because I thought "naturally there ought to be enough to go around." My last epiphany was that maybe scaling those isn't actually necessary, mostly because not every player will be going for them anyway. So lately I have been using 5 of each token no matter the player count. That's more than the 3 I had previously used for 2p games, which means there can be more of a back-and-forth fight for majority perhaps, and also that blue cubes don't become meaningless so quickly... 

My concern for 5p was that despite that revelation, 5 players might just be too many for that number of tokens. In our game last night, 2 players went heavily into the set collection (1 got a complete set, the other got shut out of one of the letters, costing them 4vp), 1 more ended up with 3 of the letters, and the last two players only got 2 letters. That result wasn't too bad really, and if it's common, then maybe 5 tokens per letter is enough after all. I'm tempted to up that a little bit though, maybe just 1 more of each token... Though I'd hate to change setup for only one player count :/ So maybe I'll leave it as 5 for now. 

Also, we upped the majority bonus a tiny bit... Instead of 1 point per majority, we got 2 points for a clear majority, and 1 point for a tie. I'm not sure if this was any better, but at least it was a little more complicated :) I do kind of like the idea of majority feeling worth going for.

Another suggestion that has come up, probably instead of a majority bonus, is to allow players to *spend* the letters for some effect. I'm not sure what effect would make sense - boosting actions, I guess. Maybe I could color code the letter tiles, so you spend the red one to boost the red action, for example, making them similar to the cubes "in hand," only they don't cancel penalties, and they are potentially worth more points. Does that mean they're better, or worse?

5. Letters "over-centralized"? 

Not related to 5p, but a concern keeps coming up (from the same people, so it may or may not be a universal concern) that the letter set collection is basically worth too much, they felt like the winner did that, and if you want to compete, you cannot ignore the set collection. I am not sure if I 100% agree that it's a problem, but I DO 100% agree that it would be bad if that were true!

Potential solutions, if it IS a problem, include:

* Nerfing the points, especially at the high end (doesn't have to be exactly triangular)

* Boosting the value of other aspects (e.g. buildings score face value rather than 1vp)

Side note on the set scoring...

Currently I'm using triangular scoring for different letters plus majority bonus for each. I also liked the multiplicative scoring (number different x number same) with a majority bonus for each as well, which was out of control when the letters scaled per player count, but is ok with a max of 5, though it *can* get up to pretty high scoring. Someone recently suggested RA monument type scoring, where you get triangular type score for variety, and then for each letter you get a flat bonus if you have at least 3 of them (so nothing for 1 or 2, except the set scoring) - that's pretty similar to the majority bonus, but I like that you don't have to count everyone else's stuff to get your score, so maybe I should try that - maybe 0/0/1/2/3vp for 1/2/3/4/5 of each type (AKA 1vp for each letter beyond your 2nd of each type).

6. Also unrelated to 5p, a suggestion came up that I don't want to forget about, so I'll include it here. It happens to be something I'd considered initially. but haven't given any further thought to yet. The suggestion was to make the Island tiles more distinct, more different from each other, perhaps by adding some kind of effect to them. For example:

• When you Split here, take a letter tile from the Choose player
• When you Split here, take a cube from the Choose player
• When you Place here, take a [red] cube from the bag into hand
• When you Choose here, you may add a cube of your choice from the bag to the island

I think this kind of thing could give the islands a bit more character

Division of Labor: My favorite mechanisms

 Jamey Stegmaier has a video series on his YouTube channel called My Favorite Mechanisms in which he makes short videos for various games he has played, highlighting mechanisms he finds interesting, clever, or fun. As I approach the finish line on my latest design, Division of Labor, I thought I might try to do a post highlighting some mechanisms in the game that I'm particularly proud of or happy with. So here we go!

I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement

The core mechanism of the game is worker placement mixed with I-Cut-You-Choose. While WP is a very common mechanism, ICYC seems a little underused, and I actually get the impression that it's a well-liked mechanism, with its popularity on the rise. But most games I can think of that use ICYC are small games where that's the whole game: from older titles like Colloretto, Zooscape, and Tussie Mussie, to new ones like The Great Split. There's a classic game called San Marco that utilized ICYC pretty well, though people say it's really only good at exactly 3 players. I did think Zooloretto did a pretty good job of building a bigger game out of the mechanism that is Coloretto - that's probably my favorite entry in the genre so far.

Division of Labor uses ICYC to drive a game that has a lot more going on, which I think came together pretty well.

"Penalty" tracks

As a key part of the ICYC mechanism, I think a "poison pill" is necessary - like the penalty you get in Zooloretto for taking an animal into your barn because you haven't got room for it in an enclosure. In Division of Labor, you are able to do 2 different colored actions per turn, but your split might have 3 or even all 4 colors of action cubes in it. Doing the same colored action too often, or taking splits with extra cubes you won't be using are ways to introduce this idea of "poison" into the game, which helps make the splitting and choosing really work well.

Note that you can mitigate the in-game penalties with a couple of the actions by gaining cubes to store on your board, covering up the penalty spaces on the tracks. However, if you do a particular action too many times, you could still end up with some negative points at the end of the game.

Overbuilding

A happy accident in Division of Labor is the dynamic born of the ability to cover up smaller buildings with larger ones of the same shape. I initially allowed this as a way to sort of increase the amount of space to build, so it wouldn't be too frustrating. But it led to a dynamic where building early for the uncovered benefit on your player board made you susceptible to being covered up, while waiting and building later in the game could potentially be better for scoring (cover up opponents' buildings, and ensure yours are in play to score at game end). That was an unintended dynamic that emerged, and one I'm pretty happy about. 

Overbuilding also makes the game feel a little more interactive than some euro-style WP games. 

Explore as a backup option

In Division of Labor, there are 4 actions color-coded to the action cubes, but anytime you're resolving an action with some cubes, instead of the action associated with those cubes' color, you may opt to Explore - drawing 1 tile per cube and choosing one to add to the island, augmenting the whole island for everyone. Doing this gives you a small benefit of your choice from what's available on the tile you added (a free level 1 building - if you haven't already built it, a free icon token - if any remain, or a free cube of a particular color). of course, the more tiles you draw to choose from, then more options you have.

Being able to Explore, which is never amazing but is also never bad - it's always a little bit good - means that you're never stuck with cubes you cannot use, and it also means you can explore with your first action in an attempt to improve your second action, making room for clever plays.

One of the building types allows you to draw additional tiles when you explore, which means you'll have a lot better odds of getting something useful, facilitating these clever plays even more.

Division of Labor v2.4 -- By Jove, I think I've got it!

 I've given this game a few tests, and made some tweaks each time, and finally have decided to add it to my pitch list. Which means I think it's "done" enough to pitch, even if I think small improvements could still be made - in this case mostly to do with thematic consonance.

Rather than paste the entire rulebook (v2.4 5-24-24) here, I'll link it, and provide a layman's summary below.

In Division of Labor, players are officers in some entity that is exploring and developing a new area - currently we're talking about a new, uninhabited planet, but perhaps it could be a newly discovered island, or some other (uninhabited) area. I'm not trying to model colonialism here!

EDIT TO ADD: maybe a better theme is this...

You and your siblings are heirs to a newspaper magnate. It may have made your father rich, but in this day and age, print media is out, and the newspaper is failing! If you are to salvage your father's legacy, you'll need to revamp the whole operation and bring it into the modern era. Which one of you will build your father's old newspaper business into a media empire?

EDIT AGAIN ON 6/14 TO ADD: I liked the novelty of the media empire theme briefly, but quickly grew tired of it. I'm working with this for the time being...

Lead a tribe of voyagers, sailing the seas with other tribes and discovering new islands everywhere you roam to explore, develop, and inhabit!

In any case, each round you reveal a new "Island," which is a worker placement space with 2 slots: one labeled "Choose" and the other labeled "Split." At the beginning of each round, you draw a random assortment of action cubes for each Island, and then players take turns placing workers. The first player to place in a space takes the "Choose" slot, while the 2nd takes the "Split" slot - immediately splitting the action cubes into 2 piles. 

Once all workers have been placed, you'll resolve the Islands from left to right - at each one, the player in the Choose slot will choose one of the available piles and use it for their turn, and the player in the Split slot will use the remaining pile for their turn. On your turn you'll do up to 2 actions based on the colors of cubes available to you, the more cubes of that color, the better.

After resolving your turn, you must advance "penalty" tracks in each color -- one advance on each track that had any cubes present in your pile, whether you used them or not. If you get too far along a penalty track, you'll suffer a penalty: that action becomes 1 cube more expensive for you. You can overcome this penalty by gaining an action cube via a certain action and placing it on your player board, covering that penalty. Those cubes can be kept for endgame points, or spent to boost future actions if you're short the cubes you need.

You keep doing that for about 5 rounds, then you count up your score. Things that are worth points are:

1. Cubes on your board (covering penalties) are worth 1 point each
2. Buildings in play are worth 1 point each (note that a higher level building can be built over the top of a lower level building of the same type -- yours or an opponent's! So if your building gets built over, it doesn't score a point anymore). Each level 3 building also has a bonus scoring condition that can be worth a chunk of points
3. Things you collect score - there are 5 icons, and you score the [number of different icons you have] x [the number of any single icon you have] (so it's good to get lots of one icon, and 1 each of the others). [EDIT: either this multiplicative scoring, or just a triangular score for different icons] There's also a 1-point majority bonus for ech icon (friendly ties)
4. There's a Training/Research track, and you advance a training marker and an Research marker on it. The training marker is not worth points (it can unlock a new worker though), but it makes way for the Research marker, which is only worth points (the Research marker cannot move past the Training marker)
5. Finally, there is a point penalty for being too high on each of the penalty tracks

And that's it, most points wins!

Division of Labor (I Cut YouChoose Worker Placement) v2.0

The Story So Far

Some time ago I posted about some ideas about, and even a first playtest of, an I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement game that I so cleverly (haha) called Division of Labor. I thought the theme was sound: in search of a new home world, we were bringing specialists of various types on colony ships, and as officers, we players would boss the specialists around, then divvy them up and send them to their next assignment. 

Mechanically, you'd place a worker where there were Specialist cubes, do some actions based on the color (type) and number of specialists present, then split the cubes into 2 piles, sending each to a different adjacent location. In this way, players would take turns sort of *choosing* a pile, then *splitting* a pile for future players. This worked, technically, as a sort of procedurally generated worker placement game, but it really didn't feel like I-Cut-You-Choose at all, which was the feel I was going for. 

At that point, I had to decide whether I wanted to pivot to a procedurally generated worker placement game, or find a way to make it feel more like I-Cut-You-Choose, or abandon the project altogether. I decided to give ICYC one more chance, and tried to identify what makes that mechanism really work in the first place. 

What makes ICYC tick?

As I mentioned before, I-Cut-You-Choose has roots in something called Fair Division. I came across a video one time about fair division of a cake between more than 2 people, which was interesting, but which is kind of irrelevant when it comes to using ICYC as a game mechanism.

You see, in Fair Division the goal is to make splits that are *as even as possible*, while in a game, you kind of want the opposite - you want as big a difference as you can get away with! In order to accomplish this, the things you're splitting need to have a few aspects to them:

* They can't be worth the same to everyone.

If you were to split some pocket change into 2 piles, it would be trivial which pile is better - you'd just take the one with more money in it! But if you're splitting something that could have a different value to you than it does to me, then it's a lot more interesting 

* I think it helps if there's a "poison pill" in the mix. 

I don't actually like things that are strictly negative, but many ICYC games have a dynamic where a certain type of thing is good *unless you get too many of them*, then it's a problem. Or an item could be bad, unless paired with another type of item. In Zooloretto, any type of animal is kind of poison if you don't have a pen to put it in, but you can spend money to discard the extra animals, thereby getting rid of the poison

Things like that seem to help give players a sense of agency over their splits, a way to try and engineer a situation wherein they can get what they want, even though they pick last.

For this to work, I think it's important to know for whom you are making the split, and you need to be able to tell what that player may want or not want. If you have no idea who you're splitting for or what they might want, then you can't really "make them an offer they can't refuse," if you know what I mean. 

For these reasons, I also think that splitting for 2 players at a time works better than trying to split for 3 or more players. Not that the latter is impossible, just that it's hard to do well, I think. 

In my original game, when you split cubes, it wasn't clear who would be choosing them, so it failed to feel like you were even doing ICYC at all. Some of my thoughts to change the game were along the lines of trying to make players split more explicitly for a particular other player. However, I never got around to trying a 2nd draft. Disheartened, I shelved the game until I had some epiphany or something.

New Blood 

Despite having shelved Division of Labor, I kept it on my mental list of things to work on next, and when I'd done what I could with Taiko Kiri, Eminent Domain: Coalition, The Great Goballoon Race, and The Sixth Realm (and stalling out on Isle of Adventure), I needed something to work on next, so my thoughts returned to Division of Labor.

I mentioned the premise in a few different online design forums, and somebody said they had a friend who was working on a similar idea for an ICYCWP game, but the main mechanism sounded a lot more straightforward than what I had originally tried to do. Rather than each worker placement trying to be both a "choose" and a "split," it would only be one or the other -- worker spaces would take 2 workers each, one would split and the other would choose.

I felt inspired by this much more explicit ICYC format. Each worker space could be seeded with cubes related to available actions, as I had originally planned, and could take 2 workers. I could see four ways it could go:

1. First worker to a space splits the cubes, second worker to the space chooses
   One problem here is that you'd never know what player you're making a split for - so that's not ideal, given my above conclusions
2. Second worker to a space splits the cubes, first worker to the space chooses
   In this scheme, the splitter would know who they're splitting for, which seems better
3. First worker to a space chooses whether to split the cubes, or choose
   I strongly suspect it'll be vanishingly rare that a player is so interested in making a particular split that they would pick "split," without even knowing who would be doing the choosing
4. Neither worker splits the cubes immediately - after all placements, first worker decides who splits and who chooses
   Unlike the last option, players splitting the cubes would at least know who they're splitting for. This sounds like the most agency for the first player into a space, but as above, I suspect that the vast majority of the time, the first worker will decide to choose rather than to split

Of all those, the second option (2nd splits, 1st chooses) makes the most sense to me. Option 4 sounds like a better deal for the 1st worker, but in practice I strongly suspect it'll be the same thing, so might as well use the simpler, more straightforward rule!

Division of Labor 2.0

So there we go... I modified my old Division of Labor prototype on Tabletop Simulator to sort of shoehorn this new format in, and gave it an initial test with Rick, and was very promising! Rejiggered a few things and had a 3 player test a week later, and it felt a lot like a real game!

At that point I still didn't really have all the values of things, I was telling players things like "this is supposed to reward you for having done a lot of building -- so if you build a lot, just assume you get an appropriate bonus." These last couple of tests went so well though, I filled in the values and we played a 3rd game a few days later and I think the structure of the game is in really good shape. I have made some more detailed changes for the next playtest, and I'm excited to get it to the table again. I'll post about the current state of Division of Labor 2.0 in a separate post, including the current rules. 

I had been inspired to combine Worker Placement and I-Cut-You-Choose in the first place because of Jamey Stegmaier's top 10 favorite game mechanisms video, wherein his top two mechanisms are, you guessed it, I-Cut-You-Choose, and Worker Placement. Now that I have a working prototype, if I can clean it up and make it good, maybe I should try and submit it to Stonemaier games. Stonemaier has some pretty clear submission guidelines for games they publish - relevant points from their website:

We’re looking for tabletop games (not RPGs) that capture our imaginations.

This is a tricky one, as I tend to be attracted more to clever mechanisms, but the story of the game is probably what captures most players' imagination. The story of Division of Labor made more sense with my original conception of it but less sense with the new version, so I could stand to revisit the story of the game and find something better 

The player count must accommodate a minimum of 2 players without a bot (we’ll add a solo variant to take it down to 1) and an upper range of at least 5, 6, or greater (without adding significantly to playing time or downtime). We’ll ignore submissions for 2-4 player games.

 My current prototype only supports 4 players, but it could easily expand to 5 or 6 -- the biggest question form e in that case being downtime - will there be too much? Will the game take too long? Is it OK if the game takes too long at high player counts?

We’re looking for event games–the featured main course at game night, not the appetizer or side salad–that play in 1-2 hours.

This is my wheelhouse, and Division of Labor seems to be in that range 

We’re looking for unique games–your game must feature something that has not been done before.

I haven't seen a combination of ICYC and WP mechanisms before, so I think Division of Labor offers a new twist on Worker Placement, and uses the underused ICYC mechanism which appears to be becoming popular 

We’re looking for games that flow well, which typically means each player’s turn is short and there are no rounds to break the flow. If your game has a number of phases (either within each player’s turn or within each round), please don’t submit it to us.

Division of Labor does have rounds, like most Worker Placement games do. To an extent I think that's part of the genre, and there's not a lot of bureaucracy between rounds, so it seems reasonable to me. Hopefully that won't disqualify it!

Hmm... I wonder if there's a way to do it without rounds, like you just place your worker, and if you place 2nd in a space, you split, the other player chooses, and then you both get your workers back -- and if you have both of your workers out and your turn comes around, you're just skipped or something. For flow-of-game purposes, I wonder if that might be worth considering

We’re looking for designers who are open to constructive feedback and who are willing to work on their game well after we accept it for publication, as our version of the development process is a collaboration.

I am definitely such a designer!

I don't see it on their list, but there's one other criteria I thought Stonemaier looked for -- maybe I heard it on a podcast or video somewhere, or maybe it's old news -- that they like to have a notable component that stands out and grabs people's attention, such as the Mech minis in Scythe, or the sculpted buildings in Tapestry. In Division of Labor, you are able to build higher level buildings on top of lower level ones of the same type. I was thinking a way to make that very clear, and maybe provide an interesting component, that perhaps the building pieces could be like those in the abstract game Gobblet. In that game you have little upside-down cups of various sizes, and you can place a bigger one over the top of a smaller one, thereby "gobbling it up." So what if the Level 1 buildings were a little sculpted mini, and the Level 2 and Level 3 buildings were similarly sculpted, but bigger, and hollow, such that they fit over the top of the smaller ones, enveloping them. That seems like it would be pretty cool!