Should I include Emperor Avatars in Oblivion? Or make them a separate mini-expansion/promo?

A while ago I made something for Eminent Domain that I referred to as Emperor Avatars. These were tiles that players would draft during setup that confer some bonuses or abilities. They were intended to be an another Scenario sort of thing. I enjoyed them, and I think they worked pretty well, but I haven't done anything with them in a long time.

Now that I'm more actively working on Oblivion (PnP files are on BGG at the Tasty Tester's Guild!) I'm wondering if I should include them in that expansion -- possibly instead of Scenarios.

I recently added a host of Prestige planets and Prestige tech (for a while I wasn't going to include tech in Oblivion), and of course I already have Agendas and Clout tokens... Does the expansion really need more content? With the new tech existing it's likely I should make some Scenarios that use it, so maybe Emperor Avatars aren't necessary here.

On the other hand, I could make them into a promo item or mini expansion (or split them into a series of promos) and maybe give them away at conventions, use them as KS bonuses for Oblivion, include them in other games (perhaps Eminent Domain Origins?), or sell them for cheap.

What do you think makes the most sense here?

EmDo Expansion update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

EmDo Expansion - new tech and planet card ideas

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

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

Level 1:
Double Time: Play 2 more Action Cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

Quick Gen Con recap, and EmDo Hullabaloo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TMG Game reviews are online!

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

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

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

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

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

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

EmDo Expansion - second thoughts

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

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

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

Resource types

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fighter tokens

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

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

Playtest Day!

I had a very successful playtest day yesterday!

Bios Megafauna

First off, Mandy, Jason, and Megan played a game of Bios Megafauna with Phil Eklund. I sat in on the rules and generated comments for Phil. His request for me to play and comment on that game was the catalyst which spurred my planning the playtest day.

Bios Megafauna was a much simpler game that I would have guessed, but in true Eklund fashion I believe it was presented as much more complicated than it needed to be. It also looked to be very well researched, and highly thematic. You have species of animals, and over the course of the game you obtain Adaptations to make them stronger and more versatile so they can spread to more places. At it's heart, the game is a majority scoring game, with Auctions as it's main mechanism - you bid for an Adaptation card each turn (which also triggers a random event when drawn, of course), which may allow you to spread to more spaces on the board. When a scoring card comes up (random event on card = scoring), whoever has the most units on the board scores 1/2 the available VP, and the rest of the players score the rest. After the auction phase, everyone gets a chance to grow or shrink 1 size level, flip from Herbivore to Carnivore or back, and reproduce and/or move on the board. After that, any space with more than 1 herbivore in it must be culled - only 1 herbivore and 1 carnivore per space is allowed. There are specific tiebreaker rules for this, and the adaptations help you win these fights. The idea is that the better adapted species eats the food, and the other one starves out. Carnivores have a similar hierarchy. Perhaps counter-intuitively, when you have a carnivore and an herbivore in the same location, the latter is not removed from the board, rather they co-exist in equilibrium (imagine a handful of lions and thousands of deer).

So the game is about getting the right adaptations and choosing to be a carnivore or herbivore based on whether you'll be able to survive and keep guys on the board. It seemed pretty solid in concept, but I did give Phil a handful of comments for some specific things that I thought would make the game better. Which he liked or whether he takes any of them I don't know, but I'd be interested to see.

Chrono Gallery: Museum of Lost History


After Bios Megafauna, Phil, Mandy, Nick, and I played my bluff auction game. I made up a variant to the scoring system I'd used on Thursday's playtest at Brian's house - pretty much on the spot. It worked out pretty well, and I got a lot of good information from the test. Later that night, David came by and I discussed the game with him, and we brainstormed several other scoring systems, and when Ted showed up we tried a 3 player game and tried the most promising sounding system... and it worked really well! And it eliminates the need for Trophy bits.

Chrono Gallery is "in the fire" at this month's Gamesmiths meeting on Monday.

Eminent Domain - Exotic Expansion

Doug, Mandy, Sam, and Nick played a game of Eminent Domain with the Exotic expansion. Sam had maybe played once a long time ago, Nick had never played, Mandy had played EmDo a couple of times before, never with the expansion, and Doug has played a couple of times even with the Exotic stuff. We decided to dive right in with the full game (not the learning game), including the expansion (which is what I wanted to test, really). It went over pretty well - they weren't making expert plays, but both Sam and Nick picked the game up with no problem.

I liked the expansion stuff well enough that I've decided to finally upload it to DropBox (as I've been threatening to do) for interested people to print and play if they like.

All in all I believe yesterday was a highly successful, and a very fun day. I hope to do that more often, at least 1x/month.

PDF problem fixed!

I had been experiencing some technical difficulties with my computer recently. In an effort to clean it up and make it work better, I moved and deleted some files, and my Pagemaker (1990 called, they want their software back!) decided it could no longer create a PDF. This wasn't the end of the world when it came to prototyping as I could still print from the Pagemaker program itself, but it meant I couldn't create PDF files of the EmDo expansion cards for fans and volunteers to print and play!

Well, I finally fixed the problem, and therefore will be able to release the Exotic Expansion cards (which are in no way final!) later this week for comments from the peanut gallery!

In addition, after my discussion at Spielbany with Richard James about Alter Ego, I should be able to move that design forward to a testable state, and if it goes well enough I could also offer those card files for print and play testing pretty soon.

So for those interested, watch for those announcements later this week!

- Seth

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion - take 2

I updated my EmDo prototype as discussed, and Michael played it 6 times with John tonight. I don't think John has grokked the game with the expansion yet, as Mike beat him every time. I was playing Carson City on the next table, but every time I looked up Mike seemed to have nothing but Exotic planets in play, and I guess he was using them to great benefit. One game he traded for 25 points - all from trading Fighters via Dr Mayhem's Weapon Emporium! This has given Mike something of a big head, as apparently he's 13-0 at EmDo with the Exotic expansion!

From those games, my current thought is that the Exotic icons do pretty much what they're supposed to, but I think they might snowball a little too quickly or easily. That might be less true with more players than it is with 2, or it might just be a perception thing, but I think I might need to nerf the planets a little bit. I might remove the Exotic icon from the planets which have the [Exotic]=>[X] abilities (and maybe add a couple of influence points to them) and put them back on the 3 planets which have no ability (but do have resource slots). I had wanted to add more icons so that people could get them and use them, I didn't want someone getting an Exotic planet and then not be able to do anything with the transform ability. But in fact, no matter which Exotic planet you get, you do have access to the Exotic technology cards - which each have an Exotic icon on them. So maybe just three planets with Exotic icons is enough. It may be disappointing to come across one of those without an ability to use the icon with, but those 3 planets will have 2 resource slots each, so they'll still be plenty useful. And maybe they'll encourage players to Survey up another Exotic planet!

Another idea I'd like to try is adding some more Tech cards. In particular, maybe a card that you play as an action which allows you to play 2 other cards, like the Village in Dominion. Amusingly, there's already a card like Smithy in this game (Improved Survey), and Moat (Survey) :)

I'm not sure if I want to add a lot of these types of things, but I'm currently thinking I could add 2 of these cards to each level 1 Tech deck. Each could have 1 of the icons in the game (so the Metallic deck would have 1 with a Survey icon and 1 with a Warfare icon). In the Exotic deck it would have 1 Exotic icon (and there might be 2 of them).

I might also like to add a Level 2 tech of each of the original types. not sure if it should be a permanent tech (and therefore double sided), or if it should relate to the Exotic stuff (like having an Exotic icon). Maybe 2 per stack, each with one Exotic icon and one native icon. I guess I get to think up another 3 or 6 Tech abilities :)

 Any suggestions for tech abilities are welcome - leave a comment with your ideas!

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion

Eminent Domain: Exotic Expansion

I mentioned recently that I was working on the first full expansion to Eminent Domain. For ease of communication I will refer to the Prestige and Utopian planets as a promo-pack or something, and I'll refer to the Exotic expansion as the "1st" EmDo expansion - that should be close enough for government work.

While I like the idea of keeping things a secret, I cannot ignore the benefit I get from using my blog to think things through, and the comments I get from people, though sparse, are also helpful. And let's not forget then my readership is pretty darn small compared to the gaming population in general, so when the expansion comes out, plenty of people will still be surprised by all the new stuff!

That said, here's what I'm looking at, 2nd draft now, for the Exotic expansion. I welcome comments, especially from those who have played the game before!

New Start Planets:
First off, as I'm adding a planet type, I clearly need to make a Start Planet of that type which is equivalent to the other Start planets. Therefore there's an Exotic start planet which costs 2/2 and has 1 resource slot. Currently the resource that Exotic planets make is called Unobtanium, though I suspect that will change by the time I'm done. Anybody have a good idea for what resource the Exotic planets might make?

In addition to the standard Exotic start planet, I've made an additional Start planet of each type (Adv, Met, Fert, and Exo) for a grand total of 5 NEW Start planets. Back in development I tried adding icons/abilities to the start planets, and I really didn't like it. I wanted players to EITHER flip their start planet and start doing Research, OR Survey up a better planet first to make use of it's ability. For alternate start planets I thought adding icons would be good, but to avoid the problem I had before I decided to make these 5 more expensive than their standard counterparts. Here's what they look like:

COSTS: Warfare: 6, Colonize: 5. Slightly higher than the average planets in the survey deck because these planets are a little better than the ones in the survey deck.. So far this seems ok.

ICONS: The Advanced. Metallic, and Fertile planets each have 2 icons on them - the appropriate ones for that planet type. So Fertile has both Colonize and Produce icons on it. The Exotic planet only has 1 icon (Exotic), and it also has +1 Hand Size.

RESOURCE SLOTS: None of the alternate Start planets have any resource slots.

INFLUENCE: Each of the alternate Start planets are worth 2 Influence.

Exotic Planets:
The main thrust of this expansion is the new planet type and the associated icon and technologies. I've created a 9-card cycle of Exotic planets similar to that of the other planet types.

COSTS: Each of the Exotic planets cost Warfare: 5 / Colonize: 4.

ICONS: Six of the Exotic planets have an Exotic icon (my prototype uses a cute little 1-eyed alien face) on it, as well as a new icon in the Game Effect box (where the Hand Size +1 icon appears in the original planet cards). This new icon looks like:

[Exotic Icon] => [Other Icon]
Meaning that all Exotic icons can be used in place of that specific other icon. So if I had a planet that said [Exotic]=>[Warfare], then (a) because it's got an Exotic icon, that counts as a Warfare icon already, and (b) if I get another Exotic icon in play, that icon would ALSO count as a Warfare icon! So [Exotic]=>[Warfare] means "all of your Exotic icons count as Warfare icons."

The implication here is that if you get multiple Exotic planets in play they sort of build off of each other, making all of your Exotic icons more flexible and more powerful.

RESOURCE SLOTS: The other 3 Exotic planets do not have any Icons. Instead they have TWO resource slots. Unobtanium is pretty rare, only produced by 4 planets (one of which is a Start planet), but when you find some, you find a lot of it!

INFLUENCE: The 6 Exotic planets with icons are worth 2 Influence. The 3 Exotic planets with Unobtanium are worth 3 Influence.

Exotic Technology:
To go along with the new planet type, I have a new Technology stack for the Exotic planets. In it there are 6 Level 1 technologies (3-cost, 0-Influence), 4 Level 2 Technologies (5-cost, 2-Influence, 2 of them are permanent and back-to-back), and 2 Level 3 technologies (7-cost, 5-Influence, permanent and back-to-back).

Level 1: Each of the standard "Improved" technologies occurs 1 time, with the appropriate icon as well as an Exotic icon. So the Improved Survey card has a Survey icon and an Exotic icon, and its action is "Draw 3 cards". Obviously it'll have the same illustration as other Improved Survey cards as well. The Exotic icons on these cards are not useful unless you have a card in play that allows you to use Exotic icons as some other icon.

Level 2: There are 2 Level 2 techs that go into your deck (with 2 Exotic icons on them), and 1 double-sided tech card that stays in play. The ones that go into your deck have 2 Exotic icons on them, which are useless unless you have a card that translates them into another type of icon, and then they are pretty good. If you have multiple translators then they become really good.
Deep Space Probes (Exo/Exo): Action: Search the Planet deck and discard pile and choose 1 planet card. Shuffle the rest to create a new planet deck and put the chosen card on top.
This is to be used before a Survey role in order to get exactly the planet you want.
Cryptology (Exo/Exo): Draw 3 cards, then place up to 2 cards in hand back in their respective Stacks.
Sort of the opposite of Artificial Intelligence. It allows you to thin your deck, as well as maybe lengthen the game a little bit.
Coalition Victory (Perm): If you have 2 of each (Adv, Met, Fert) planet face up in your empire, you win the game.
Alternate win condition, a bit harder than it sounds as you need 2 of EACH planet type - the three listed as well as 2 Exo planets in order to play this card!
Thorough Survey (Perm): Survey Role: You may draw 2 fewer planet cards. If you do, keep 1 additional planet.
Allows a player to obtain 2 planets at a time, at the cost of requiring larger Survey roles.

Level 3: There is 1 double-sided tech card that stays in play:
Cult of the New (Exo): Each Exotic icon in your Empire is worth 1 additional Influence.
Bonus points for Exotic icons on planets in play (tech cards in your deck do not count). This one is actually worth 4 Influence in stead of the usual 5, because it also gives you an Exotic icon, which will score a bonus point at the end by itself.
Premium Product: +1 Influence for each Unobtanium that you trade.
The name on this one is really just a placeholder (that's true of several of these, actually). This one rewards you for trading Unobtanium, which is something you might be able to do a decent amount of if you specialize in Exotic planets. For the 2nd version I'm considering adding an Unobtanium resource slot or two to it.

5 Player Support:
In addition to the new stuff, I'm planning on providing additional cards and potentially a game end or rules tweak to make a 5 player game work. I haven't gotten a chance to play with 5 players yet, but I think that adding enough cards for another 10 card starting deck, and 1 or 2 more cards per stack would be good - and probably keeping the game end trigger on 2 piles (I think 3 would be too many, though I suppose it's worth a try). The rules tweak I am considering is only allowing players to Follow/Dissent Roles led by their neighbors. The main thing here is that I think I don't like players being able to Dissent 4 times in a row and then start their turn with 9+ cards. I'm also not sure I like so many opportunities to Follow, although in reality you only have so many cards in your hand, so maybe that's a self limiter. I'm curious whether players would be upset or not if they were hoping to follow Survey (saved cards for it), and one of the 2 players that they're not adjacent to called Survey - would that be an interesting dynamic? Or just annoying? I'd like to try it and see.

I welcome any comments on this. At this time I have still not assigned any meaning to the different sized Fighter tokens, I believe that will be part of another expansion. My early thoughts on that are Hostile planets, which must be flipped with Warfare, and perhaps Peaceful planets as well, which must be Colonized and not attacked. I think the medium sized token will become a Destroyer and the largest one a Dreadnought. There will probably be some mechanism to upgrade some number of fighters into a Destroyer, and etc... and for certain things you'll need Destroyers or Dreadnoughts. I haven't got that fully worked out yet, one thing at a time :)

Dice Werx and Alter Ego updates

I have been working on three things in the last week or so:

Eminent Domain Expansion: Exotic planets

The FIRST EmDo expansion will be the 9 card set of Prestige and Utopian planets, but that's a mini expansion, the first FULL expansion is what I'm working on now. I've made a first draft prototype, and once I get it where I'm more comfortable I'll offer PnP files to TMG fans to test it out. The expansion adds the following:

* Additional Role Cards to accommodate a 5th player
* Additional Planet Type: Exotic
* Additional Technologies (to go with the Exotic planet type)
* Additional Start Planet tiles: 1 each Advanced, Fertile, and Metallic, and 2 Exotic

I have first draft versions of all this, and have played with the Exotic stuff, but not yet with 5 players. So far it looks promising, though of course there is room for improvement over the first draft!

Dice Werx

It may be favorable to use the word "Dice" in the title for marketing purposes, so I'm probably going to have to rename Eureka! to Dice Werx. Please leave a comment with which spelling you like best, or with a better name for the game (or argument to keep calling it Eureka)... possible spellings:

Dice Works
Dice Werks
Dice Worx
Dice Werx
Diceworx
Dicewerx

Anyway, after playing the game a number of times and considering packaging and cost concerns, I have come to some conclusions about what the game will look like:
80 dice in 4 colors (still not sure if they should be standard or custom with icons)
4 two-sided player boards with 3 columns on one side and 4 columns on the other
Additional dice required at the high end of the columns, with more cross pollination of colors.
Some reward for advancing to the 2nd/3rd/4th spaces in ALL columns.

My current thought, and what I'll try in the next incarnation, is to make the Scrap exchange a little worse to begin with, like 4-for-1 rather than 3-for-1, and then when a player advances every column to the 2nd level, their Scrap exchange for all colors will go up to 3-for-1. Advancing everything to the 3rd level will earn you a 2-for-1 Scrap exchange rate for all colors. Advancing everything to the 4th level will earn you a 1-for-1 scrap exchange, which should be pretty darn good, but by the time you get all 3/4 columns to level 4, someone should probably have won already!

Alter Ego deck building game
I made some first draft cards for Alter Ego, and ran through a couple 2 player tests with Mike. The rules are very skeletal, but I think I was able to see a few things that for sure needed to change, and how to change them. Since then I tweaked all of the Equipment cards and re-printed them. I have a pretty good idea what I need to do with the Villain cards as well. A few notes for my own benefit that probably won't make sense to anyone else:
* The Arch Villains need to require more of their specific icons (which appear on the regular villains) - or else those icons need to be more sparse on the villain cards.
* The Villain cards need to give fewer benefits (like additional hero symbols), and/or the hero symbols they give should only apply toward the Arch Villain, not additional interim villains.
* In order for the game not to crash, there needs to be a way to add Alter Ego (AE) cards back to your deck. I'm thinking that instead of fighting crime (and trading in an AE card for a hero card) a player could NOT fight crime and instead add an AE card BACK to their deck. It was suggested (thanks Andy) that in that case a Villain should come out - the top one from the deck perhaps, or maybe there should be a supply of the most basic bad guy, who gives you no benefit whatsoever, but who must be defeated before you can attack an Arch Villain. Thematically, as you spend more time with your family (and not patrolling the streets), the crime rate goes up.
* I am still concerned with the low level of interaction in the game, but for the scope of the game maybe it's acceptable to not have any player interaction.
* I'm a little concerned about the turn structure as well, I want the game to have a nice, simple flow to it.

Deckbuilding Discourse

What with Eminent Domain coming out soon, and a rash of other deck building games popping up left and right, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Deck Building mechanism. What is so interesting about it?

I think the single most interesting thing about deck building is that the iterative small scale decisions you make throughout the game have a direct relationship with your late game position. Every card you add to or remove from your deck has a lasting impact on the game for you. Which means that you need to consider long term ramifications of short term decisions, making even somewhat trivial choices more interesting.

What does this mean in terms of designing a deck building game? It means that for one thing, the end game goal should be clearly stated from the outset, so you have some way to reasonably know what cards you'll want in your deck later on. How do some of the existing, well known deck building games do this, and are they successful?

Dominion does this by allowing you to determine what you want your endgame plan to be. How will you attempt to win? Do you want to draw 8+ Gold and buy a province each turn? Do you want to be drawing your entire deck every turn to buy multiple Victory cards? You can look at the set of Kingdom cards and make that determination, and every card you choose to put into your deck can either work directly to that end, or might be a step toward a deck that will create that endgame situation for you.

Thunderstone does NOT really do this, which is why I do not like Thunderstone as much as I like Dominion. In a game of Thunderstone there are 3 different Monster types, and each one might have it's weakness, but due to the nature of the "hallway," it's not feasible to really specialize in any given monster type. You pretty much want to make a deck that produces more and more power, and it doesn't matter much what kind or how much more, just more = better.

Ascension also does not do this at all. The center row, similar to the hallway in Thunderstone, makes it impossible to really plan ahead on what you might need. The best you can do is specialize in one of the 2 currency types and hope that there will be good options for you when it's your turn. Ascension does offer you the ability to sort of build combos in your deck, by going after, say, Machina Constructs, or Lifebound cards... but considering you can't tell when those cards will come up, you don't really get to build those synergies on purpose. Every card in Ascension is worth points, and mostly at about the same efficiency. I've had a lot of success at that game simply buying pretty much whatever I could afford - I almost don't care what it is. Given a choice, a card that says "draw a card" on it is better than one that doesn't. I don't have any long term plan which I want my cards to fit into.

So how does my game stack up? I'm not going to preach from my soapbox that my own creation is perfect, but I will say that I am pleased with how it turned out. One of the design goals of Eminent Domain was to provide a late game goal which players need to take into account when choosing their role each turn in order to have a strong endgame. In EmDo cards enter your deck as a side effect of taking actions, which is in itself very different than other deck building games. But with reference to the topic at hand, your strategy in EmDo will influence your role choices so that late in the game you will be able to have big, useful turns. For example, if your plan is to research out some level 3 technology in the late game, you can't neglect research and then all of a sudden score a 5 point Tech card. you'll have to take the Research role or otherwise collect research symbols in your Empire in order to score well off of research.

The next deck building game I'm working on, Alter Ego, will also provide a clear end game goal. The Arch Villains you must defeat in order to win will be face up from the beginning, so that you know what you need to go for and which intermediate villains you need to pursue in order to get there.

I really think this is a key element in deck building games, and I think despite their popularity and sales levels, many of the Dominion clones and other new deck building games out there are failing at this aspect.

What do you mean "failing?" You just said they were popular and are selling well!"

Yeah, that's true - it's hard to argue with success. And more power to them! I'm not saying they're not enjoyable, but it's kind of a shame because I think most of the deck building games out there could probably be better than they are. It's like they're missing the point, but since deck building is hot right now, it doesn't even matter. A good theme and the deck building mechanism will only carry you so far, I predict that before long people will get bored and the hype will die down, and the only deck building games that will remain will be the ones that do more than merely put cards into your deck. I don't know how long it'll be before that really comes to pass, but I hope that Eminent Domain will be one of those games when it does!

What's new?

It's been about a month since I've posted anything. So what's new?

Eminent Domain
The art for Eminent Domain is about done. Gavan got a rulebook draft together and this morning I posted it for comments. Pretty soon it'll be done and the game will be off to the printers!

Travel
I just got back from OrcCon in L.A. where I had a great time. I played a bunch of games, including All For One for the first time in a LONG time!

I also saw a sort of show, a group called Dungeon Master. It's kinda like interactive dinner theater. they call up 6 audience members to be an adventuring party, and the actors play the roles of all NPC's - and it's basically like a live action game of D&D. It was a pretty cool idea. I liked how anyone could 'cast spells' by saying a rhyming couplet that described the spell they wanted to cast. The party was limited to 10 spells total, and if your spell didn't rhyme or was otherwise deemed no good by the DM, then it wouldn't work. I didn't get there in time to put my name in, but it was fun to watch.

I picked up a couple new games at the con:
London by Martin Wallace - I had some Dealer Dollars from getting 2nd at an Ascension tournament, and I chose to spend it on London. I don't really know anything about the game so it's kind of a gamble, but since I've gotten it I've heard three different people speak highly of it, so that's promising.

Wok Star - I arranged a trade over the internet which resulted in my getting a copy of this hard to get (at the moment) new cooperative game about running a Chinese restaurant. I've played it just twice so far, but it seems like it might be one of the best coop games I've played to date.

Perpetual Motion Machine by Ted Alspach - I read about this one and thought it sounded like my type of thing, It's basically a tech tree, you collect sets (poker hands) and turn them in for advances in the various branches, and as you ascend each branch you get better at one aspect of the game. I've played it twice so far, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. First off, it would be cooler if the card deck weren't basically a standard deck of cards. I would like to see cards with machine parts - gears, levers, pulleys, etc. It's a set collection game, I don't see why the pieces of the set have to be playing cards. The answer of course is that Ted had a bunch of decks left from a prior game: Rapscallion, and he decided to make another game using them. Whether I think anyone should make a game with custom cards that are exactly equivalent to a standard deck of cards (4 suits, 13 ranks per) is another question...

Ultimate Werewolf: Compact Edition - This seemed like a decent deal. I prefer Ultimate Werewolf to the version(s) of Werewolf that I have, though honestly I don't play WW as much anymore, and almost never at my house.

All For One
I get a chance to play A41 with OrcCon's special guest Bruno Faidutti, which was fun. He didn't enjoy it so much though. Some basic concerns at the table were that the game has no story arc - the early turns are the same as the later turns. This has come up before, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with it, but if it comes up repeatedly, there's got to be something to it. I'll tell you one thing, I'm pretty sure I'm sick of the patrolling guards in that game. I used to love the idea of them, but lately I've just found them annoying. I don't know if I want to remove Guards from the game altogether, but they definitely need to change.

Another thing Bruno didn't like about All For One is that you cannot really tell what your opponents are up to. He'd have liked to be able to see what people were doing, and then be able to mess with their plans.

To do with the story arc comment, maybe it's possible to incorporate some kind of mega-missions, or some way to relate missions done to each other. I'm not really sure how, but maybe some story arc would help the game out.

Other Prototypes:
TMG Submissions: I've got 2 promising submissions right now: one economic game, and one that's like a cross between Railroad Tycoon and Roborally. I'm enjoying both, just have to see if people like them and if they'd be sale-able before I can decide if they'd make good 2012 TMG releases.

Michael has decided he's interesting in a light, quick playing dice game, potentially with a pirate theme. I decided to use that idea as the basis for the BGDF Game Design Showdown this month, to encourage people to think about games like that - maybe one of them will catch Mike's fancy enough for him to publish it. I'm tossing around a few dice game ideas myself.

New horizons... beautiful new, frozen-brain, iHorizons!

So last night I ran out and bought myself a new toy - I got an iPad! I thought they were cool when they came out, but mostly they seem like the next evolution of the Laptop. I didn't think I'd get one since I'd just gotten a laptop, I didn't really see the point. However, something's changed recently which has given me a reason to own an iPad... if I'm going to design games for them, then it stands to reason that I have one!

I've been hemming and hawing for 3 years (almost 4!) about the possibility of publishing my "two player Toppo with strategy" game - BrainFreeze. I've seen in a retail store a plastic timer with a digital readout and a start/stop button retailing for $10. I figure if that exists, then it should be possible to get a similar timer made, with 2 digital readouts, start/stop and a toggle button, cheap enough to sell with a deck of cards for $20. I haven't looked into that though , as I don't know who to go to for such a device.

I was having this exact conversation at BGG.con a couple weeks ago, but this time the conversation took a more modern turn - I realized that BrainFreeze would fit the iPad format perfectly! It happens that I don't really know who to go to for iPad development either, but I was introduced to a couple different people at the con that do exactly that kind of thing for a living. Mike and I are working with one of them now to implement BrainFreeze on the iPad (and potentially iPhone/iPod touch perhaps)!

So there's my excuse, I ran out last night and picked up a top of the line iPad, got home and installed the first draft of the app. It was awesome to play my game on the iPad, even if just solo practice mode with parts missing!

I'm looking forward to this project being finished (which looks like it will be VERY soon, relative to the April release date of Eminent Domain)! If this works out I'm sure I'll be looking into doing more games on the iPad.

Kickstarter campaign a resounding success!

I guess this news is almost a week old by now, but I thought I ought to post about it. Tasty Minstrel (Mike and I) put on a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to publish my latest game, Eminent Domain. It went much better than I ever imagined it would! Within 2 weeks we'd reached our funding goal, and when all was said and done we'd raised $48,378!

I wanted to thank all of my friends, family and fans for supporting Eminent Domain, we obviously wouldn't be enjoying this success without you! I hope to impress everyone come April when the game should be available. :)

Holy crap! 100%+ funded, and 2 weeks to go!

Last night we officially funded Eminent Domain! Our kickstarter campaign hit $20,000 on day 14, just under 1/2 way through our 30 day window! I was skeptical at first that we'd raise that much, then optimistic that we would make it by the end of the 30 days... I never thought we would hit our goal so early! Now Mike and I are debating whether in the end we'll have raised only $30,000, or as much as $50,000! I still say Mike is overly optimistic about his $50,000 prediction, but so far I've really underestimate things!

What have I been wrong about so far?

* Number of $200 Platinum Supporter pledges - I underestimated by a factor of 10... so far.

* Amount of money total that would be pledged - I clearly underestimated that as well.

What's left for me to be wrong about?

* I thought (and still think) that nobody will go for the $2500 "TMG UberFan" pledge.

GO AHEAD, PROVE ME WRONG ON THAT COUNT, I DARE YOU! :)

I'm seriously amazed at how well this fund raising has gone for us, and I can't thank our supporters enough! The reaction to our invitation to print and play the game has been overwhelming as well. Literally - I'm overwhelmed with email requests! At least I've gotten 8 more gigs of free space on DropBox from people joining up to see the files :) Evidently that's the maximum I can get from referrals.

I'll tell you what touches me the most though. It's the positive reviews and comments all over BoardGameGeek, from people I've never met or heard of, who not only pledged money for a copy of the game (or several copies), but have also gone ahead and printed out a copy to play it, and have decided that they love the game!

This is truly better than I ever hoped, especially after the manufacturing issues with Terra Prime and Homesteaders were such a joy-kill. I've actually had several people writing me about Eminent Domain and mentioning how much they love Terra Prime, so either they're just stroking my ego, or TP was better received than I thought!

Thanks guys, for supporting me, my game, and Tasty Minstrel Games. You've got 2 more weeks to get your pre-orders in, and to get ahold of a Limited Edition version of the game, and a copy of the Prestige planets (which I maintain WILL be available in a future expansion, but you can get them NOW if you pledge via Kickstarter).

So, what are you waiting for? Go pledge! :)

Living on a Prayer

This morning the Eminent Domain kickstarter campaign hit 50% funding!  Oooooooh... we're half way there...

 

But there's a long way to go, so keep spreading the word! Here are a few notes about pledging, by the way:

1. You can change your pledge at any time, so  if you get someone to go in with you, you can upgrade your $35 pledge to a $60 pledge. Better yet, if you get 1 more taker, then you can make it $90 and get Limited Edition copies!

2. If you are overseas (or in Canada), you should include the $40 (or $20) shipping premium in your pledge (i.e. if you are in the UK and you want 6 copies of Eminent Domain, you should pledge $190, not $150)

There have been a couple questions or concerns, understandably, about the production quality of Eminent Domain based on some bum copies of Terra Prime and Homesteaders. I assure you, the quality of Eminent Domain will be top notch - we plan to use Panda Game Manufacturing, a high quality and well respected manufacturer which we've also used for Train of Thought, Jab, and Belfort. We expect high quality production from here on out!

So pledge with confidence!

Additional Eminent Domain possible expansion thoughts - Fighting with other players!

I'd considered once that maybe Warfare, since it was allegedly 'easier' than the Colonize, could be a sort of Scorched Earth thing - when spending armies to attack a planet, you leave one of them on the resource slot, blocking it up so it cannot produce. Rules-wise this means when you flip a planet via Warfare, it gets -1 resource slot. I decided against this because there aren't a whole lot of resource slots, and I wanted Warfare + Trade/Harvest to be viable.

However, today it occurred to me that there could be a Technology ("Scorched Earth Policy" perhaps) that says "Warfare costs are reduced by 1. When attacking a planet, leave an Army token on it."

The standing rule could be that armies on planets reduce the storage capacity by 1. I tossed around the idea that an army token could reduce capacity, but be worth 1 VP... I didn't like that at first because thematically it should be bad to have scorched earth policy, not good (for scoring).

But then I had another thought. Suppose you were allowed to attack other people's planets. people always want to do this at first, and some complain in games like this and Race for the Galaxy that you cannot attack an opponent. So I thought, what if you could - what if an ATTACK action allowed you to attack YOUR face down planets, or ANY face up planet in play. The "cost" to attack a face up planet would be the VP value of the planet (maybe), and the effect would be to leave an army on it, which as has been discussed, would keep it from producing as many resources. That could be enough right there - your opponent is trading like crazy, maybe you want to go blow up his Silicon silo and reduce the amount of VP he's getting.

With that in mind, it might be neat if the Armies on planets WERE worth 1vp, because then you could attack your own face up planets for a benefit (if you're not planning on harvesting anyway), and it would be a deterrent to attacking other people's planets - you could take away their production capacity, but it would give them a VP. I'm not really sure this is necessary though, just spending your turn hurting someone else and not helping yourself might be a good enough cost (those Armies could have flipped a planet for you). Also, it doesn't hurt your opponent's score if you attack their face up planet, it just hinders their trading ability. Perhaps if you get another army on there the Icon could be disabled or something.

Anyway, I like the way the game works without attacking each other, but I think I might add this in, maybe as an optional rule, for the expansion - that is to say if I test it out and like how it works.

Summary:
Rule: An army token on a planet card reduces the storage of that planet by 1
Attack: You can attack a face-down planet in YOUR empire, or ANY face-up planet in play. Attacking a face-up planet costs 1 Army per VP that the planet is worth. When you Attack a face-up planet, put an Army token on it.
Tech card: Scorched Earth Policy - Warfare costs are reduced by 1. After Attacking a planet, place an Army token on it from the supply. (Planets have -1 Storage per Army token)

Eminent Domain: Expansion thoughts (and Prestige Planets)

I had already been thinking along the lines of something I'd like to try for Eminent Domain. I think the game works nicely and is solid as-is, so I considered these additional thoughts to be a potential expansion item down the road.

I'm a firm believer that an expansion to a game should be more than just more of the same kinds of cards. I think an expansion should offer a new play experience, such that the game with the expansion should feel like a new game, similar to the original, but not just more of the same. Basically, if the Eminent Domain expansion ever happens, it will looks something like this:

The main thrust of the expansion would be Agendas and the Politics role. There would be a Role stack of Politics cards, just like the one you start with in your starting deck, and there would also be a deck of Agendas. The Role for Politics would be to choose one of the (probably 3) available Agendas and bring it into play. Through Boosting and Following, players would be able to somehow vote on whether the Agenda passes and takes effect, or perhaps which of the Agenda's effects take effect. My current inclination is that each Agenda would have multiple possibilities, and based on which icons you Boost/Follow with, you attempt to get the one you want in play. This would be clearer with an example or two:

Example #1
Agenda: Each player gets +1 VP for each planet of one Type - vote on which type:
Colonize/Harvest icons count as votes for Fertile planets,
Trade/Research icons count as votes for Advanced planets,
Survey/Warfare icons count as votes for Metallic planets,

Example #2
Agenda: All Settle costs are increased/decreased by 1
Warfare/Research icons count as votes for increasing the Settle cost
Colonize/Survey icons count as votes for reducing the Settle cost

So based on your strategy (and that of your opponents) you might try to make things better for you or harder on them.

I would round out the expansion with some other stuff too (all of this, of course, is subject to change):
- Extra Action/Role cards to accommodate a 5th player
- New Planet Types:
  - 3 Prestige Planets (available with Kickstarter pre-orders)
  - 6 Utopian Planets (1 with each action icon, 2vp each, ability to harvest ANY resource, and counts as any planet type you already have in your Empire)
- Potentially another (double sided?) Level 2 and/or Level 3 technology card of each type.
- Maybe even cross-color technologies (level 2 tech cards requiring a specific pair of planets in play)
  - Fertile + Metallic
  - Fertile + Advanced
  - Advanced + Metallic
  - Fertile + Advanced + Metallic

I am finding it very interesting thinking about an expansion before the original game is published. I like it, because it allows me to set the framework for the expansion with the base game - it allows me to plan ahead. For example, if adding a 5th player down the road, I'm pretty sure I'll want to add VPs to the supply. As such, I can provide 30 VP tokens in the base game, useful anyway in case the supply runs out and people still collect VPs, and later if I add a 5th player we don't have to manufacture more Victory point tokens - I can just say "use all 30 that came with your game."

Yesterday I finally went through and created one version of these Agenda cards, and John came over to give them a try. First we played a game without the agendas, but with the Prestige Planets (I had not played with them yet) and the Utopian Planets I'd just invented. That went pretty well. I am really happy with the Prestige Planets. I'm fairly happy with the Utopian Planets as well, but I'd like to play with them a little more to make sure they're not TOO good.

Then we played a couple games with the Agendas. The Agendas were weird. John didn't like them, but I think that might have been mostly due to unfamiliarity. I was definitely trying to think of ways to use them, and I did benefit from them. In one game John started with one of the standard openings: Politics for Warfare, Warfare Role. I had gone first, and had chosen not to commit to either Warfare or Colonize in my first turn, and now that John had started Warfare, in my 2nd turn I proposed an Agenda that increased or decreased warfare costs, and I boosted with 2 icons toward Increase. I realized that I hadn't stated what happens in a tie, but I think it's pretty obvious the person who's turn it is should win ties. In order to out-vote me, John would have had to play 3 icons, either Warfare or  Survey, and I knew he'd just spent his Warfare and couldn't have 3 Survey icons, so he wasn't going to be able to outvote me. Thus, attacking planets became more expensive by 1 Army for the rest of the game.

John didn't like this, but again, I think it's mostly because he didn't see it coming and felt lie he couldn't do anything about it. Later I think another Agenda came into play, but I don't recall which or how big an impact it had. I think it was +1vp per Trade Role if you trade at least 1 resource of a specific type, and I won the vote for it to be Food. I had started with a Food producing planet in play.

In our second game with Agendas, I finished an early turn with 3 Survey cards in hand, and was prepared to follow a Survey Role. However, John elected to go for an Agenda which gave +1vp for each planet of a certain type, and he boosted with 2 Harvest icons voting for Fertile - the type of his starting planet. I had started with a Metallic planet, so I followed with my 3 Survey cards, decimating my hand, but ensuring the Agenda would reward Metallic planets. I began doing Warfare, and later John proposed another Agenda, attempting to make Warfare more expensive on me. Again he boosted with 2 icons, and again I outvoted him by following with 3 icons, thereby making Warfare actually less expensive instead of more expensive! I went on to Survey and Attack a number of planets, even Colonizing a couple as well. Probably 3 of my planets were Metallic so I got an additional 3 points from the Agenda and won that game handily.

I kinda liked the Agendas. They need some work, and right now I just have 9 of them - and 1 was just because I had space on the page to print it, I invented one on the spot that removes all Agendas from play, and just needs a minimum total number of icons to be played (any type) - different minimum for each player count. I do think they would be more interesting in a game with more than 2 players.

Finally, John and I went to Hat's Games, where they were having a sort of Halloween party. Pulp Gamer representative Derek Rex was there, and we played a 3 player game of Eminent Domain with him. We didn't use the Agendas, but we left in the Prestige and Utopian planets. This was the most evenly distributed game I've ever seen, as the piles were ALL down to just a few cards left if any when the VP pile was exhausted. While finishing out the round, the Research pile was also used up, and everything else had just a couple of cards left. For a 3 player game it was a very long game (turn wise), but only took an hour. An interesting and fun game!

Eminent Domain Kickstarter Progress

I found out about Kickstarter on July 20th, and have been suggesting that we utilize it to fund Eminent Domain (or some other game) ever since that date. As you know, we have finally started that process, and in the first few days of the Kickstarter campaign I must say that I am VERY surprised and VERY impressed by the progress so far! As I write this, we are about 3.5 days into our 30 day campaign, we've got 85 backers, and we've raised $5,745 toward our $20,000 goal! That's about 28% of the way there already!

Despite the fact that we've not done such a campaign before, and therefore didn't really know what to do or what to expect, I feel like we're doing very well. I also feel like we were a little under-prepared and could have done even better! It may be premature to call the campaign a success already, but we're doing better than I thought we would. I attribute this to a couple of factors:

* We studied previously successful Kickstarter projects and tried to learn from them.
* I crafted rewards specifically for various archetypal consumers that I expected to see.
* Michael has built a network for direct marketing, and has set up several avenues to disseminate information throughout that network.
* We are offering a product that doesn't suck!

It remains to be seen whether we reach all the way to our somewhat lofty funding goal, but I think we cobbled together a fairly strong Kickstart. I have been particularly surprised by the fact that in the first 3 days we're almost sold out of the $200 reward - the ability to name one of the technology cards in the game. I figured we would sell 2, maybe 3 of those over the course of the campaign. But it turns out we've sold 12 of the 15 available already. That means 12 people laid down $200 apiece to support our cause and the opportunity to name a card. They also get a Limited Edition copy of the game (with a special LE cover) and 3 regular copies, each with a set of exclusive Prestige Planet cards which won't be in the regular game (but might be in a future expansion). I'd be very interested to know if the people pledging that $200 amount are doing so primarily because of...

* the fact that they get to name a card,
* the fact that they get a Limited Edition copy of the game
* the fact that they get a total of 4 copies of the game

I would like to know this for the next time (if there is a next time) so I can optimize rewards better for people. I'd also like to know how many of those people would still have pledged if it were $250 instead of $200, or if they only got the LE copy and not 3 other copies of the game, etc.

I'm a little surprised that so many single copies of the game have sold rather than people finding a buddy and going in together for the $60 2-copy bundle - but not really. Many people just shop for themselves.

And finally, I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen groups of people overseas getting together for a 6-game bundle (because otherwise the stupid shipping premiums make it cost too much). but it's early yet - I wouldn't be surprised if we see some of that later in the month.

I doubt anybody will go for the $2500 reward where Mike and I fly out and host their game night, but I wanted to include that because I think it's fun to think about, for me as well as for people who read it and think "that would be cool, but I am not in a position to pay for it." I think it represents our attitude toward our customers, which is that we like them and want them to have fun, and would like to come hang out with them.

Anyway, I'm excited at the progress we've made, and I have reason to believe more orders will be forthcoming. I just hop it's enough to hit our funding goal!