EmDo: Coalition update

 Since my last post, I've played EmDo: Coalition 4 more times, and I've been iterating on a few things. My main goal lately has been to reduce game length, because while it feels pretty good now, it still takes longer than I think it's worth.

Reducing Duration

My friend Steve had a lot of salient suggestions for reducing the games' duration. My first stab at it was to simply reduce the amount of stuff you need to do in order to finish the project. I lopped off a planet slot from each section of the sphere, and I reduced the initial resource slots from 3 per section to 2 per section. In addition to this, I made them resource-specific, because otherwise I think it's too obvious to go for [+1 Action/turn] first every time.

That worked a little, but not enough. My next attempt was to increase the frequency that you get benefits from the sphere. I divorced the technology slots from the resource slots, and where you get your pick of two role icons when you commit a particular pair of planets to the sphere, now you get the other one for committing the level 2 technology in that section. The abilities no longer require the tech, just the 2 specific resources. It occurred to me that to get the resources, you have to first flip planets, then produce, then trade... it takes a while, and it' not even engine-build-y (normally), so this seems like enough work to earn [+1 Hand Size] or [+1 Action per turn].

That's all I've done so far, the only trick I have left up my sleeve might be to use scenarios or something to jump start the players a little bit. But I'm pretty lazy, and that might be tough to design, so I'm kinda hoping I won't be need to do that *fingers crossed*

Endgame Tension

Something that's been a problem all along is that as you fill up the sphere slots with planets (for example), then Survey and Colonize become largely worthless. Similarly, as you fill up the tech slots, Research isn't really needed anymore. Near the end game you get to a point where there are a couple specific things that need to happen, and for several players, there's nothing relevant left to do. This is always disappointing; the game action needs to stay relevant the entire game!

I have two ideas to address that issue, and I'm torn as to which I think might be better for this kind of game:

Option 1. If you win, total everyone's personal Empire scores and refer to a chart to see how you did

Option 2. In order to win, require a minimum number of total Empire points (add everyone's personal Empire score for this)

One thing I like about option 1 is that players who struggle to finish the sphere in time could feel good about just accomplishing the task, and they don't have to worry about how "well" they did, while players who can consistently finish the sphere could still have a higher score to shoot for. Another thing is that you don't need to see the points as you play, which means you don't have to track people's level 2 tech buys so you know they have 2 "invisible" points.

A couple things I like about option 2 are that requiring the condition may keep players involved who prefer a pass/fail sort of game end, but are competent enough to easily complete the sphere. This can also be used as a difficulty tuning knob: for an easier game, use a smaller total score requirement; for a harder game, use a larger score requirement. In addition, this format could allow (or possibly even encourage) plays such as "you are set up to ship a lot, why don't you do that and rake in some points, while we concentrate on completing the planets and techs for the sphere". I don't know why, but that feels cooperative-y to me. On the down side, I feel like I'd want the Empire scores to be state-complete (you could walk up mid-game and count them), and having a level 2 tech in your deck complicates that... so I'd either live it not being state complete, or I'd not count the techs, which seems weird to me.

I really don't know which way to go here. But either way, I think this score reckoning will help keep the game action relevant, even as the sphere fills up. I'm open to other suggestions as well, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

Tension from Aliens

I think the alien tension is kind of OK, I don't intend to change it further - at least for now. I'll probably revisit once I get the duration down and the endgame tension fixed (see above).

Coalition Actions

In an effort to clean up the Coalition tiles, I removed "Action: RFG an alien Spy card from hand" and simply made that an action on the Spy cards themselves. So as an action, you can play a Spy from hand to get rid of it. That's the same thing, but it makes space on the Coalition tile for something more interesting - though I'm not sure what that should be.

I had made some other tweaks as well... with Basic Coalition, you can spend an action to EITHER Bolster OR Repair a card in the sphere. It then goes on to explain what BOLSTER and REPAIR mean, which is reasonable, but maybe another ability would be better (the rules could go into the rulebook). I do like a good player reference...

I tried a version where the tile let you spend an action to commit a card to the sphere. At that time you could commit for free when you obtain the card, or as an action later, as a way to allow players to use their cards for a while and then push them into the sphere. But we didn't waste actions on that, we just did it for free upon obtaining... so the latest rule is that once per turn you may commit one card to the sphere for free (does not cost an action). I think this works better, so it can probably come off the tiles as an action.  

With Improved Coalition, you can both Repair and Bolster in one action, and you can send a ship to defend a stack. I'm pretty happy with the usefulness of Improved Coalition but I'm worried that the Basic side isn't enough -- any thoughts on that would be appreciated!

EmDo: Coalition progress

A while ago I posted about some early ideas I had for a cooperative mode for Eminent Domain. Well, after iterating through half a dozen playtests, I'm happy to report that Eminent Domain: Coalition has come together pretty well!

Since I haven't said much about it yet, here are some details of the early version of the game:

Players have formed a coalition (United Empires?) and are working on some common project - building a Dyson Sphere - that requires players to commit some planets, resources, and technologies in order to complete it. So each time you flip a planet, you choose to either keep it for yourself (to use is abilities), or commit it to the project (to further the victory condition)

Similarly, if you buy a tech card, you can either keep it, or commit it to the project. And if you trade resources, you put them into resource slots in the project board (I imagine a board with slots for all of these things)

Meanwhile, some semblance of "bad guys" (hostile aliens?) antagonize the players - they can put 'curses' into the players' decks, which makes them less efficient, and whenever a curse comes up, maybe that advances a "bad stuff" track, and every so often on that track a bad thing happens, like maybe some progress on the shared project is reversed

Maybe players could use ships/warfare to get rid of these curses, or spend their actions researching them away. If you don't keep the bad guys in check, then they'll keep coming up, and the bad stuff will get worse and worse!

Perhaps the Bad Guys get a turn after each round of player turns, in which they randomly (or algorithmically) remove a card from the stacks to hurry the game timer along, and also resolve some sort of effect

Players win if the project is completed before 1-2(?) of the stacks are depleted, and lose otherwise

Maybe players gain some kind of benefit for completing quadrants or certain portions of the project

How do the Bad Guys work? Maybe there could be a "Bad Guys" deck, and you'd flip a card from it after each round of player turns (or after each player turn perhaps, so it scales?), it could indicate which card to remove from the stacks, as well as what effect or action the bad guys take. Stuff like...

• If it's a warfare card, they power up their fleet (no attack, but increase their strength)
• If it's a colonize card, then they attack the planets in the project -- VP value is their "hit points," and players can defend by discarding VP tokens that they have collected
• If it's a research card, maybe the same thing but they attack a tech card in the project
• If it's a produce/trade card, then they knock out resources that have been placed in the project
• If it's a survey card, then some other bad thing happens

In any case, you'd reference their strength track to see how hard they attack, and maybe if they don't have anything in the project to target, then players take curses to make up the difference

When curses come up in your hand, maybe the bad guys strength track increases

Also, when bad guy cards come up maybe it's like "each player takes a curse for each [Advanced planet] in their empire, so some variable attack-type cards\

As I said, those were early thoughts. When I finally made a prototype. I stayed pretty true to the original ideas, but of course some things changed and evolved since then.

Of course it was far from perfect, but I was pretty surprised at just how well the initial prototype actually worked. The biggest problem I had was that it took far too long, and even more importantly, it took too long for players to interact with the Sphere. In retrospect, this made some sense -- EmDo is more-or-less an engine building game, and in any engine building game you first build your engine, then switch over to earning VPs. And in this case, filling up the sphere was the VPs of the game, so it makes sense that the first 1/2 or more of the game players would just build up their own empires, then start to deal with the Sphere. This was lame, and worse it rendered many of the "bad guy" (hostile alien) cards mostly ineffectual for half the game. Sure, they removed cards from the stacks, but many had no effect otherwise until you started actually working on the Sphere

Dysen Sphere

The solution here was simple, but took a few iterations to figure out: make the sphere also an engine building type of thing. I had initially thought it might be good to give a reward for finishing a section of the sphere, but that takes too long. I needed a strong, globally good effect, usable by all players, that would encourage them to engage with the sphere from the get-go (or at least very early in the game). I tried a few things, and in the end (well, currently) I settled on this: in each section, I connected 2 planets into a pair. If you complete that pair, then you get a benefit: all players gain access to a role icon. There are 3 sections of the sphere, and 6 role icons, so I dealt 2 role icons to each planet pair during setup, and now when you complete that pair, you decide however you want (as a group, individually, etc) which one comes into play, and the other is removed from the game

Then I connected the level 2 tech card slot in each section with the 3 starting resource slots, and said that when you complete those, you gain an ability. My first draft was "hand size +1" on each of them, but the current version has just one hand size +1, and the other two are the Streamlining ability (each turn you may remove 1 card in had from the game), and "+1 action per turn." I worry that +1 action might be the most obvious best thing, which would be lame, so it might need a nerf or something, but for now that's what I'm going with

In order to win, you need to contribute 2/3/4 planets per section (6/9/12 total) based on player count, one level 2 tech card per section (3 total), and one total level 3 tech card, as well as 9 resources, plus whatever resource slots are on planets committed. And you lose if the aliens attack an empty stack

Coalition Tiles

Like the Fleet, Mining, and Political Influence tiles from the expansions, I added a Coalition tile to the game -- a reference tile that allows you to do a couple of specific things as actions instead of playing a card. And just like the reference tiles from the expansions, you can upgrade to Improved Coalition via research to improve those actions. The actions on this tile give you a way to remove the 'curse' type alien cards from your deck (in an inefficient way), repair damage to the sphere or bolster it against attacks, and send ships to defend the stacks - if the aliens attack a defended stack, instead of taking a card, they remove the ship defending it. 

Hostile Aliens

The antagonistic force that challenges the players is a deck of Hostile Alien cards. Every so often (originally once after each round of player turns, but more recently I've tried effectively every 3 player turns, using the old Guards mechanism from All For One for 4 players), you draw a card from the Hostile Aliens deck and resolve it:

1. Note the stack that gets attacked. Remove a card in that stack from the game (unless that stack is defended, in which case remove the defending fighter instead). If that stack was empty (defended or not), game over -- the players lose.
2. Resolve effect printed on the card -- increase the Alien Strength track, attack a certain type of planet (in the sphere and in all Empires), attack all cards in a particular section of the sphere, attack the players (giving them all some 'curse' cards), attack permanent techs/techs in the sphere, or reshuffle the discards (and then maybe draw/resolve another card or two).

Whenever the aliens attack you, you take Alien Spy cards into your discard pile. When these come up in your hand, of course they don't help you -- they have no actions or role icons. Also, whenever they are discarded from your hand, you must increase the alien strength track. So they are pretty bad, especially if you ignore them and build up a handful in your deck. Your Coalition tile allows you to remove 1 of the Spies from the game as an action, and of course a Research action can remove up to 2 of them from the game

A newer rule I added in an attempt to disincentive to leaving the sphere empty too long was that they get stronger (advance the strength track) whenever they try to attack some type of card in the sphere, and there is none. I thought maybe that way if players don't build int he sphere, the aliens will get really strong really fast

Damage to the Sphere

My original thought was that when the aliens attacked the sphere, they would do so with strength based on the strength track, they would deal more damage the stronger they were. Then the VP value of the card being attacked would be the card's "hit points" - the damage it could take before being destroyed. But that led to some problems, and things like Bolster and Repair being equivalent

I figured out a better way, so the new rule is that the VP value of a card in the sphere is its defense, and the aliens damage the card only if their strength (per the track) is greater than or equal to the card's defense. Therefore it pays to Bolster -- you might be preventing multiple damage by keeping the card's defense out of reach of the alien strength for longer. And it still pays to repair, assuming that there's some down side to having a damaged card in the sphere

On that note, originally damage meant the card could be destroyed, reversing your progress. This felt pretty harsh, so I looked for something different. Since then, damage has just been something that you need to remove in order to win. So if a card got damaged, then you couldn't win unless you repaired it by the end of the game. But I wanted players to feel pressure to repair damage sooner rather than later, or risk some bad thing happening, so the new rule I am going to try in the next playtest is this: If a damaged card gets damaged again, then something bad happens. For starters I'll try "destroy it"

I'm pretty excited about this new damage format, with reasons to bolster cards before they get damaged, and reasons to repair them if they do (note that you could leave a card damaged for a while, and it's not bad unless that card gets successfully attacked again)

TTS Prototype

That's a long, rambling summary of where this cooperative mode currently stands. I think it's very promising, but it'll take a lot of testing and data to get all the details nailed down, and I have several big comments/ideas from my playtesters that I'm still considering. I'll post again in the future when I have more news about this. In the meantime, here's a screenshot of the TTS mod for the game :)

Playtesters welcome

I'd be happy to have fans of Eminent Domain give this cooperative mode a try! Let me know if you're interested, I could share the TTS mod, and maybe I could put together print-and-play files if anyone were so inclined

Currently Active designs - Taiko Kiri, EmDo: Coalition, The Great Goballoon Race, The Sixth Realm, Isle of Adventure

 I feel like I'm overdue a blog post discussing the games I've been working on lately. Ideally, I'll revisit each of these with a dedicated post in the near future, but here are the most recent projects I've been playtesting:

Taiko Kiri

In this co-design with my friend Steve, players are rebuilding Japan during reunification. It's a tile laying game where each round you place a tile into a common grid, and then either gain resources, or spend resources to start a project. Projects are scoring opportunities who's value depends on the configuration of the shared board. 

You can have two active projects, so whenever you get a third, you must score one of them for its current value. Most of the projects can increase in value over the course of the game, so there's some juicy decisions to be made with regard to which project to take on, when to score it, and when to keep working on it.

In addition, whenever you start a project, you add buildings to the board at the corners of the tiles, creating a network. There's a global network bonus based on the size and configuration of your network.

This game strikes me as having a similar scope to something like Cascadia, or Tiny Towns. I'm excited to think the game might be that approachable, and I hope other people find it as fun as I do. My only real concern at the moment is that it seems to take kind of a long time, but maybe it's not too bad. 

EmDo: Coalition

I thought I was done with expansion content for Eminent Domain, but a few months ago I figured out a way to add a cooperative mode to the game. That seems interesting and different enough that it's worth pursuing. The way it works is that you play Eminent Domain as normal, however instead of counting influence points, there is a group project that you're working on: building is a Dyson Sphere. Anytime you flip a planet or buy a technology card, you may choose to keep it for yourself as normal, or commit it to the Sphere. The players win together if they are able to complete the Sphere in time. Meanwhile hostile aliens are hassling the players, so you must build your engine, fend off the hostile aliens, and complete the project before time runs out.

I'm happy to say that this idea seemed to work right off the bat. Of course, I had to iterate a bit to make the details work, but the general format was pretty good. Probably the biggest hurdle, which Steve helped me get over with a great suggestion, was giving players incentive to add things to the Sphere early, rather than just build up their own engines until later, then putting work in on the communal project. The answer is to make contributing to the Sphere it's own sort of communal engine - once certain groups of cards have been added, *all* players gain access to extra icons or special abilities.

The most recent change I made had to do with player scaling... In a 4-player game, with the Aliens acting as another player, I felt like there needed to be more cards in each stack, like there would be in a 5--player game (according to the Escalation setup rules). Fortunately, Rio Grande intends to put Escalation in the same box as the base game, so anyone playing the new edition would necessarily have those 5p cards to add to the stacks. However, what happens if we want to play the co-op mode with 5? Then I had a new thought: borrowing a trick from an old version of All For One, I added an Alien marker to the game. In a 4-player game, it would start with the last player in turn order. Anytime it's your turn, and you hold the Alien marker... GUARDS! You'd resolve the aliens, then pass the marker to your right, so the aliens would get one turn for every three player turns, rather than every 4 player turns. I'm not sure whether to also use it in 2p, 3p, or 5p games, but so far it's worked alright the one time I tried it at 4p!

The Great Goballoon Race

Based on a race algorithm that I originally came up with when thinking of kid's games to play with Corbin, and inspired by the recent award-winning Challengers! (which has decisions punctuated by an algorithmic resolution phase), this game is about a hot air balloon race. But the players are not racing the balloons, rather the various high fantasy denizens (elves, dwarves, etc) are racing, and they have disallowed goblins. So when it's time for the annual balloon race, the goblin clans get together and have their own contest... As chieftain of a goblin clan, your goal is to toss goblins onto the balloons that you think will win the race. However, the more goblins hanging off a balloon, the slower it moves.

I had a little trouble making this mechanism into an actual game until I got that last idea, that backing a balloon actually reduces its chances of winning, from somebody's comment on Discord. Now I think the game actually works pretty well. It's kind of swingy with wild twists of fate, but I think that's good for a game like this.

There are five balloons, and to begin each round you deal an effect card to each. Then players simultaneously choose which one balloon to toss a goblin onto. Once these are revealed, from left to right you resolve each one. Every balloon with at least one incoming goblin has its effect occur once, then the incoming goblins board the balloon. Once all incoming goblins have been resolved, race cards are dealt per my race algorithm: Flip up four cards from a deck of 10 (2 cards for each balloon). For each card that comes up, that balloon moves forward. If that balloon is at high altitude, it moves six spaces. Middle altitude, it moves four spaces. Low altitude, it only moves two spaces. Altitude is determined by the number of goblins on the balloon - 3 or more drag the balloon down from high altitude to medium, 5 or more drag it down to low altitude. This way, adding your goblins to a balloon makes it more likely you'll control that balloon in case it finishes the race, but also less likely it will finish the race first.

At the end of any round if a balloon has crossed the finish line, check to see if anybody has won. The winner is the player with the single most goblins, in total, on all balloons that have crossed the finish line at the end of any given round. If a player has the single most, they win. If not, keep playing. So far it seems at least half the games go until 2 or 3 balloons have crossed the finish line.

The Sixth Realm

Back in November when I first played the heavily developed version of Deities & Demigods, The Six Realm, I was a little worried because not only was the game a lot heavier than what I had designed originally, but it was also kind of messy. I didn't feel like it was really finished enough to be going to crowdfunding that month. 

Fortunately, they had decided to delay this game's kickstarter launch until their previous project had fully shipped, which meant there was more time. I passed on my biggest concerns and ideas to the developer, and he took most of them to heart. I recently received an updated version, the version he says went to reviewers, and it was a lot cleaner. As yet I have not played a full game of The Sixth Realm, because it's taken about 45 minutes for the rules and about 45 minutes to play the first round (of three), and I just haven't had time in my sessions to play a full game.

My original design was kind of like a deck learning game with a common deck. This version eschews the deck of cards, and instead has almost like a rondel mechanism, but the result is similar. Each turn you'll activate one of the guilds (either the active guild, or one of the adjacent guilds if you pay a resource). Each guild has its own set of actions, more or less flavored towards a particular part of the game. For example, the merchant's guild has to do with resources; resetting them, gaining new ones, etc. There are six guilds, and you'll probably be trying to specialize in some combination of them each game.

Isle of Adventure 

I've met with Dan a couple of times about Isle of Adventure, and we've spoken at length about how it could work. There are a few ways that parts of it could go, and the last time we met I think we had a good idea for something to try, now it's just a matter of getting a prototype together and trying it. Dan is working on the prototype cards, and I will be putting it all into tabletop simulator when it's ready, then I'll be able to start testing it at my regular sessions.

Now Boarding - The Board Game: A cooperative, real time airport rush for 3-4 players

Now Boarding - The Board Game

A cooperative, real time airport rush for 3-4 players

In Now Boarding, 3-4 players will control airport hubs (and eventually cities as well) and manage randomly drawn passengers, sending them to each other's hubs en route to their specific destinations. Time is of the essence as passengers' patience run low and the days draw to a close. Work together to service as many passengers as possible, and try not too let too many run out of patience and storm off in a rental car!

Components:
88 Passenger tiles (22 each in 4 player colors)
4 International Hub ("A") boards (1 each in 4 player colors)
12 City boards (3 each in 4 player colors, labeled B, C, and D)
4 Jet tiles
XX Upgrade tiles (Concessions, Commuter planes, Gates, New Planes)
Countdown timer

Setup:
1. Give each player the International Hub, 3 Cities, and 22 Passengers in their chosen color. All Passengers should be sorted by Destination.
2. Each player places their International Hub "A" and City "B" boards in front of them, and shuffles their "A" and "B" Passenger tiles into a face down supply in the center of the table. City "C," City "D," and their associated Passenger tiles are set aside - they won't be used until later.
3. Give each player 1 Jet to place on the Gate on their International Hub board, and 1 Commuter Plane tile to place below their boards.
4. Set the countdown timer to 5 minutes. If you like, you may use more time per day as a handicap for new players, or less time for expert players.

Return any unused components to the box. You are now ready to begin.

Game Structure:
Now Boarding takes place over three days, and each day is comprised of a series of rounds. During each round players will play simultaneously, managing the Passengers in their airports and sending them to each other's hubs in order to take them to their destination cities. Each round follows this sequence:
Step 1: Departure
 - Draw new Passenger tiles
 - Load and depart planes
Step 2: Arrival
 - Receive planes
 - Score or age passengers
Step 3: Purchase
 - Spend scored passengers to purchase infrastructure

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Players must sync up their play at each step of the round. 

No player may move to the next step until all players are ready to do so.

This is very important! Things get very confusing if any player gets ahead of the other players.

Let's look at each step of the round in detail...

Step 1: Departure

The first thing that happens during the Departures step is that each player draws new Passenger tiles from the supply in the center of the table. One Passenger is drawn for each airport, and is placed into that airport in its starting orientation, with the text on the tile aligned vertically (as it would be read normally).

NOTE:

If a Passenger is drawn for an airport that exactly matches their destination, that passenger is returned to the supply face down and another is drawn in its place.

After drawing, players simultaneously manage their Passengers by loading them onto planes in their Gates, or by loading them onto their Commuter tiles.

Jets: The starting Jets have Capacity = 2, meaning that 2 Passengers may be placed inside that plane.
* Orientation of Passengers is very important and must be maintained at all times!
* Passengers in an airport may only be placed into Jets that are currently in Gates at that airport. Passengers may not be placed into Jets on a Tarmac or Runway.

Commuters: Commuters have Capacity = 1, meaning that only 1 Passenger may be placed onto a Commuter at a time. Each player starts with 1 (2?) Commuters, and unlike Jets, the Commuters can only shuttle Passengers between a player's cities and hub. Commuters can never be used to send Passengers to another player!
* Remember, orientation of the Passengers is very important!
* Commuters do not use Gates, they are virtual shuttles that are constantly moving back and forth between airports. 

* Passengers from any airport may be placed into Commuters.
Also during Departures, Jets in a player's Gates or Tarmac may be sent to other players' International Hubs (with or without passengers in them). Players each start with 1 Jet which has Range = 1, meaning that it can fly to a neighboring player's Hub. Later in the game, Jets may be upgraded to Range = 2, meaning that they can fly to the Hub of a player 2 seats away.

To send a Jet to another player, place it onto their Runway. Remember, orientation of the Passengers is very important, so it's useful to place the Jet so that it is oriented properly for the receiving player.

Once all players have completed the Departure step then it is time to move on to Arrivals. Remember, all players must move to the next step at the same time! Note: when moving to the Arrivals step, no player should have any Jets in any of their Gates*.

* During Departures it is legal to move a jet, with or without passengers, from your gate onto your own Tarmac. You would do this if you want to add a passenger to that jet next turn before sending it to another player.

Step 2: Arrival
The first thing that happens in the Arrivals is that all players receive Jets on their runways. Move all Jets from all runways to the Tarmac. from the Tarmac, jets can be moved into Gates. Each Gate can hold 1 Jet, so if a player has more Jets on the runway than Gates, some will have to wait on the Tarmac.

Next, all Passengers in Commuters and Jets in Gates (NOT Jets on Tarmacs) deboard and are placed in the airport.
* Passengers deboarding a Jet are placed on the same airport where the Jet is located.
* Passengers deboarding a Commuter may be placed into any airport.
* After deboarding, there should be NO Passengers on any Commuters or in any Jets in Gates. There may be Passengers in Jets on Tarmacs. There should also be no Jets in Runways.

Now each Passenger will either score or age.
* If the Passenger is currently in the location printed on the tile, congratulations! You have successfully delivered that Passenger to its destination! Score that Passenger by placing it aside, face up, in a personal score pile. Note: Passengers on the Tarmac do NOT count as being in the airport, they never score!
* If the Passenger is in ANY OTHER LOCATION (including the Tarmac), instead of scoring, age that passenger by rotating it 90 degrees clockwise. passengers have colored edges (Green, Yellow, and Red). This indicates how much patience they have left. When a Passenger's patience runs thin, they get sick of waiting and storm off in search of other transport (a rental car, or another nearby airport). The color along the TOP of the Passenger tile is important - Green means the passenger is just fine. Yellow is a warning that the passenger's patience is wearing thin. Red means that the passenger is just about fed up... any time a passenger is rotated off of it's red side, place that passenger aside in a Lost pile - that passenger is lost and will never be scored this game!

When all players have scored or aged each of their passengers then it's time to move on to the Purchase step of the turn.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Remember to age all passengers in Jets (on Tarmacs) in addition to passengers in airports!

Step 3: Purchase

During the Purchase step, players may spend money printed on face up passengers in their score pile on upgrades and infrastructure. Passengers used to pay for these things are turned face down, but kept in the score pile for now. No change can be given, so when using a $2 and a $3 passenger to purchase a $4 item, $1 will be wasted.

The items and upgrades available to purchase and their prices are...

$3 Concession (Place at an airport. Each round 1 passenger at that airport does not age.)

$4 Commuter

$5 Gate (be able to deboard additional Jets)

$6 Upgrade Jet (turn the Jet to the back side)

$7 New Jet (see below for possible non-standard Jet)

$8 Upgrade a City into a Hub (comes with a Gate and a Runway - other players may send Jets there now)

Additional ideas for items to add:

$? Helicopter (Range = 1, Capacity = 1, Does not require a Gate)

$7 Jumbo Jet (Front: Range = 1, Capacity = 3 Back: Range = 1, Capacity = 4, Passengers do not age)

$4($2?) Commuter Train (Place between 2 adjacent airports. Capacity 2)

When all players are ready to move on, the next round begins with another Departure step.

Rounds continue like this until the countdown timer (started at the beginning of the first round of the day!) runs out. The timer running out signals the end of the day. After the current round is complete, the game will progress to day 2.

During the Purchase step at the end of the day, players MUST purchase until they can no longer afford anything. Then, all face down passengers from all score piles are shuffled back into the face down supply in the center of the table. Note that players with an extra $1 passenger face up may keep that passenger!

As time goes by and players service passengers, their regions grow and new airports open up nearby! Before the next day begins, each player places their City "B" board in front of them alongside City "A," and adds all of their "B" Passenger tiles to the face down supply. Mix the supply well!'

Reset the timer and Day 2 is ready to begin. NOTE: Now that players have 3 airports, they will each draw 3 new passengers during the Departure step - 1 for each airport!

Day 2 plays just like Day 1, though with more passengers and more destinations it will be a bit harder. Hopefully the players will have built up some infrastructure to help deal with all of the customers.

At the end of Day 2, each player adds another new City ("C"), and all of the "C" Passenger tiles, and the processes is repeated 1 last time.

Scoring:
At the end of Day 3, each player adds the total value of all passengers in their score pile - both face up and face down (so it doesn't matter if you've 'spent' them on upgrades). Add each player's total together and divide by the number of players to get a final score. Go ahead and round up. Refer to the chart below to see how well you did:

00-10: Keep trying!

11-18: Notable

19-24: Great

25-29: Epic

30-32: Legendary

33-41: Mythic

   42+: PERFECT

Untouchables - Card Actions

Here are the 13 card effects I had in the first draft prototype of The Untouchables. Based on my last post, I will need to change some of them, and I think I will need to create some more, so if you can think of a card effect you'd like to see in this type of game, please leave a comment!

1. Advance Investigation Track (this was originally supposed to be a little better than simply playing the card face down to bump the track, because it gave everybody information about which Suspect was in play)
2. Discard an additional card face down, Advance the Investigation Track twice.
3. Send a Cop to ANY location (rather then the location indicated on the card)
4. Discard an additional card face down, Send 2 Cops to ANY 2 locations
5. Reveal a card from your hand (again, this was supposed to help communicate information to your partners about which Accomplice needs to be surrounded.)
6. Look at 5 of the face down discards (allowing you to learn which suspects are in play)
7. Move any 2 Cops on the board.
8. Draw 1 card, then put 2 cards from your hand on the bottom of the deck (allowing you to remove potential suspects from the game, so to speak)
9. Put 1 card from your hand on the bottom of the deck
10. Remove a Cop from the board to advance the Investigation Track (send a beat cop after the Boss)
11. Remove 2 Cops from the board to advance the Investigation Track twice
12. No effect (ran out of ideas)
13. Ne effect

I think I've decided that I still want some cards to be face down, but I don't like how much of a memory element was involved, so the only Face Down cards will be those played face down in order to advance the Investigation Track. Also, to fix hand size issues as well as to give players something to actually do, instead of discarding additional cards to get the stronger action effects, players will have to flip a card from the deck, accelerating the game end, and adding an unforeseen suspect to the board (that may have to be dealt with). I liked the speed of the game when players were drawing 2 cards a turn in the 2nd playtest the other night, so I think it'll work well if player draw just 1 card, and flip another for a stronger card effect.

Here's my list in progress for the next iteration...

1. Advance the Investigation Track twice, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
2. Send a Cop to ANY location
3. Send 2 Cops to any 2 locations, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
4. Move any 2 Cops on the board
5. Remove a Cop from the board to advance the Investigation Track
6. Remove 2 Cops from the board to advance the Investigation Track twice, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
7. Turn all cards from the face down discard pile face up (instead of making progress, you gain information. Should this be a set number rather than "all"? Should it require a card flip? Should I make 1 more limited that doesn't require a card flip, and 1 that reveals all of the face down cards and does require a card flip?)
8. Place any Played card (face up discard pile) on the bottom of the deck, removing a suspect from play.
9. {Place any 2 Played cards (face up discard pile) on the bottom of the deck, removing those suspects from play, then flip a card and add that suspect to the board.
10. Move the top card of the deck into the face down discard pile (without looking at it), advance the Investigation Track 3 times. (not sure about this one - I kinda like it because it really helps you win, but also introduces an unknown element - a suspect you don't know about)
11. Move the top card of the deck into the face down discard pile (without looking at it), Move up to 3 Cops on the board.
12. ?
13. ?

I still need more ideas!

In general the way I see the game flow going is like this (and I think it's pretty thematic):

Early game players will send cops to interrogate suspects (play cards face up to put Cops on the board). Once they start to have duplicates (cards for where there are already suspects on the board) they'll start to use the stronger actions, adding unforeseen suspects which will have to be dealt with. Over time the board will materialize and players will be able to figure out which suspects need to be surrounded and which will not matter, then they can start moving the Cops around or sending them after the Boss (to advance the Investigation Track). Also, once they can do so 'safely' I expect players will play face down cards to advance the Investigation Track, because at some point that has to happen or you'll lose.

I think the card in players' hands SHOULD count as suspects as well, and the hand limit should be pretty low (for that reason, and to keep the total number of options on your turn to a reasonable level) - say 3 cards.

Leave a comment with any thoughts you have!

The Untouchables

Last Monday I got a chance to test drive the first draft of my cooperative experiment. The game is called The Untouchables, and it's about... well, here's the flavor text I jotted down:

A Mafia Boss is on the loose, and a crack team of FBI agents has been assembled to catch him! You’ll chase down leads and catch the crook, it’s only a matter of time. But if you don’t catch all of his accomplices, they’ll just take over control of the operation. In order to shut down crime in this city once and for all you’ll need to find out how many accomplices this criminal has, where they’re hiding, and send cops to surround them by the time you catch the Boss!
Each marked space on the board represents a location with a suspect. Send cops to interrogate the suspects, surround the accomplices you think are at large in the city, and catch the Godfather before he slips through your fingers!

Here's what I had in the way of rules for the first draft:

GAME TURNS Your turn consists of first drawing 1 card, then playing a card. Cards can be played in any one of the following ways: 1. Follow Lead: Discard a card face down to advance the Investigation track 1 space. 2. Interrogate Suspect: Play a card to place a Cop token on the indicated location. 3. Take Action: Play a card and resolve the Action effect printed on it. GAME END The game ends when one of 2 things happens: 1. The deck of cards is exhausted - when a player draws the last card, they finish their turn and the game is over. 2. The Mob Boss is caught - when the Investigation track reaches the final space (marked with a star), the Mob Boss has been caught and the game is over. When one of these events occurs, players reveal all cards in their hands and the face down discard pile. All locations on those cards are considered to have Suspects (this can be marked with the transparent red discs). Not all of these Suspects must be captured in order to win! Any Accomplice space (unmarked) on the board which is COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Suspects represents an Accomplice at large. If all Accomplices at large have been COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Cops, AND the Mob Boss has been captured, then the players win!

After the first play it became clear that those rules have a few glaring problems. For one, several of the improved actions require you to discard an additional card, and if you only draw 1 card a turn, you soon get to the point where you're hand is empty and you are simply drawing a card and then playing it.

In the 2nd game we tried "draw 2, play 1" which somewhat helped this problem, because most of the time you want to use one of the 'discard a card" actions. The speed of the game seemed reasonable too. Another problem that I noticed was that the idea behind discarding face down and counting the cards in players' hands as suspects at the end of the game was to make it hard for players to know for sure which Accomplices must be surrounded. The problem with that is that you KNOW which cads you discard, so you KNOW whether or not you'll win, or where cops need to be sent. It turned out that communicating that info somehow wasn't a big deal, you would simply send cops to the space you know need them. One feature that was actually kind of cool in the first play was that at the end we didn't know whether we'd won or not until we checked. I like the idea of that, and if possible I'd like to maintain that feature. But if you know which cards you discard, that doesn't really occur. Also, since you get to choose your discards, you simply discard duplicates of spaces that you already know have Suspects, which is kind of anticlimactic.

Thinking about it afterward, I think a better 'cost' for the actions is to flip a card from the deck and add a suspect to that location. That way you always play just 1 card , and can draw just 1 card as well. And I hope that the injection of Suspects at surprise locations will give players something to actually do on their turn.

My goal is to emphasize the decision between helping the team win (catch the Mob Boss), and making sure you don't lose (fail to surround the Accomplices). Further, I'd like players to have to somehow figure out how many and which of the 4 Accomplices are in play in any given game. I like the idea that the longer the game goes on, the more Accomplices are likely to be "at large" - but I'm not sure I like the possibility of player rushing the Boss track and potentially winning because no Accomplice happens to be in play. I almost don't mind it as a strategy, but I think it would be a pretty disappointing way to play - win or lose.

So I think I'll update the actions and consider that all (or most) of them will require adding a Suspect to the board, and try the game again with the following updated rules"\:

GAME TURNS Your turn consists of first playing 1 card, then drawing 1 card. Cards can be played in any one of the following ways: 1. Follow Lead: Discard a card face down to advance the Investigation track 1 space. 2. Interrogate Suspect: Place a Cop token on the indicated location. 3. Take Action: Play a card and resolve the Action effect printed on it. Then Flip a card from the deck and place a Suspect at the location indicated on that card. GAME END The game ends when one of 2 things happens: 1. The deck of cards is exhausted - when a player draws the last card, they finish their turn and the game is over. 2. The Mob Boss is caught - when the Investigation track reaches the final space (marked with a star), the Mob Boss has been caught and the game is over. When one of these events occurs, the game is over. Reveal all face down discards and place Suspects at each of those locations. Not all of these Suspects must be captured in order to win! Any Accomplice space (unmarked) on the board which is COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Suspects represents an Accomplice at large. If all Accomplices a large have been COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by Cops, AND the Mob Boss has been captured, then the players win!

Exhibit, and Gamesmiths tonight

A note on Exhibit - I think it's pretty stable, I haven't changed anything significant in a while. A few things I may not have mentioned that I've been using are...

* Powers from tiles do not come into effect until you display an exhibit, and then only the power on top of the stack counts for anything. This makes you choose one power over another (tool vs weapon vs extra vp from art).

* You earn a new die from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th exhibits you display, for a maximum of 6 dice. For the first exhibit you get only the power from the tile. I like the rate at which dice enter the game, and I also like the difference between many small sets vs fewer larger sets this way.

* I'm zeroing in on a staging order and tile specifics for the Purple auction. I think I may try to go back to 2 4-tile stages (keeping the last tile the VP one) for easier setup and more variety game-to-game.

* Consolation prize = extra bid token seems to be working out nicely.

A few new things I might like to try:

* Reduce the value of the Art tile to 2vp (from 3vp) - 1 vp doesn't seem like enough, but it's possible that 3vp is too much. It feels disappointing to make a set of all Art vs splitting it up into several smaller sets. That becomes less of an issue if the bonus is smaller.

* If there are tiles in the discard pile, award a tile to 2nd highest bid (without going over) as well. If that turns out to be good, then I could even shorted the game a tad by starting with 2 tiles up in the first (or each!) auction. Should the Purple auction work like this too?

I will probably NOT get a game of this in a Gamesmiths tonight. It's David/Eskue's turn with their game Shadow Ops. After that I hope to get a test of my new cooperative experiment, The Untouchables. I'm skeptical that it's any good, but I'm very curious to see how it feels and if it even works at all.

Alter Ego Revamp

I think I've made the decision to move forward with Alter Ego as a cooperative game, despite the fact that Midnight Men is in the works. It's a bit disheartening to work on a superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game when that superhero themed, cooperative, deck building game is getting so much attention, but I sincerely doubt the games are very similar at all and I do like the main design ideas in Alter Ego.

The cooperative version is nothing I haven't already discussed in this blog, I just have some more specific ideas in mind of how the game will look and play out. The purpose of this post is to document those ideas, and lay out a components list and rules set so I can move on with updating the prototype and playing it!

Alter Ego v2.2
A cooperative deck building game of heroism

You won't see Crime City on any map, but that's how people have come to know your hometown. Sadists, Anarchists, the Mafia, each carving out portions of the city they call their own. Hundreds of innocent bystanders caught up every day in their turf wars, or held under their oppressive thumbs. Precious few have the time, the money, the guts, or the wherewithal to do anything about it. You're one of those few... of course it means you'll have to give up that happy home life, or that cushy job. The paper paints vigilantism in a negative light - you'd be viewed by the community as a monster. But your city bleeds... the city bleeds and it calls your name. Will you answer?

You're a vigilante hero, one of the few in Crime City who have come together to put an end to the reign of terror the city's been trapped under. Banding together, you'll fight through a swath of henchmen in order to find and defeat several Arch Villains. But as you get stronger as a hero, you'll have to neglect some parts of your Alter Ego life - your family, your job, and the community.

Components:
XX Hero cards (5 types)
XX Alter Ego Cards
- XX Family Cards
- XX Job Cards
- XX Community Cards
XX Henchmen Cards
XX Arch Villain Cards (3 types)
XX Equipment Cards
XX Civilian (CIV) Tokens (4-5 types)

Setup:
1. Sort the Henchmen cards by level, shuffle each level separately and then sack level 2 on top of level 3 and level 1 on top of level 2 to create the henchmen deck. Place this deck in the middle of the table.
2. Sort the Arch Villains into piles by type, and randomly choose 1 Arch Villain from each pile. Those will be the Arch Villains used this game, put the rest back into the box.
3. Sort the Hero and Equipment cards by type and place them in piles in the center of the table, accessible by all players.
4. Give each player 4 of each Alter Ego card (Family, Job, and Community). Return the rest of the Alter Ego cards to the box, they will not be used this game.
5. Each player shuffles his deck of 12 Alter Ego cards and deals 4 cards face up into his "display" area, then draws a had of 4 from the remaining cards in his deck.

Turns:
Patrol phase: On your turn you must first bring a henchman into play:
* Draw 1 card from the Henchmen deck.
* If you have any face up Community cards in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community card.
* If you have at least 1 Community card in your display, draw 1 additional Henchman card for each Community icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).
Choose 1 Henchman card to put into play, and return the rest to the top of the Henchmen deck in any order. Do not discuss upcoming henchmen with your fellow players!

When a henchman comes into play he takes some number of civilians hostage! Place CIV tokens on the Henchman card as indicated. If a CIV token must be taken but the supply is empty, then the game is over and the Villains win!

Support phase: After a henchman has come into play, you may gain support from your family, allowing you to draw cards from your deck:
* For each Family card in your display, draw 2 cards from your deck.
* If you have at least 1 Family card in your display, also draw 1 card from your deck for each Family icon on henchman you have defeated (in your play area).

Equip phase: You may spend money on fancy equipment to make you a stronger hero:
* For each Job card in your display, collect $1
* If you have at least 1 Job card in your display, collect $1 for each $ icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).
You may spend these $s to buy or activate Equipment this turn.

Crime-fighting phase: Now that you have geared up and garnered the support of your friends and family, it's time to go fight some crime!
* Hero cards in your display may be spent to rescue CIV tokens currently being held on a Henchman card. Hero cards spent must match the icons depicted on the Henchman card. The rescued CIV token is returned to the supply.
* Other players may discard Hero cards from their own display in order to help rescue hostages.
* If the last CIV token on a henchman is rescued, that henchman is DEFEATED, and the current player may keep that henchman in his play area and gain the printed benefit (usually an icon).
* Whenever a henchman is defeated, check to see if it has any Arch Villain icons. For each Arch Villain icon, place a token on the matching Arch Villain card.
When enough tokens are placed on an Arch Villain card, that Arch Villain will come into play and terrorize the city by KILLING civilians (removing CIV tokens from the game) until he is defeated!

Recoup phase: After you're all spent from fighting crime, you get a chance to recuperate and plan your next turn.
* Discard all cards in your display.
* Play 4 cards from your hand face up into your display.
* For each Display icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area), you may play an additional card face up into your display.
* Choose a Hero card from the supply stacks and place it face up in your display.
* Discard the rest of your hand, and draw 4 new cards from your deck (shuffle your discard pile as needed) plus 1 card for each Hand Size icon on henchmen you have defeated (in your play area).
Play continues with the next player in clockwise order.

When the last Arch Villain is defeated, then the game is over, and the Heroes have saved Crime City from the clutches of evil!

Alter Ego - should it be a cooperative game?

A few people have suggested, presumably based on the theme, that Alter Ego might ought to be a cooperative game. A team of superheroes defending the city from arch villains does sound like it would lend itself to the coop genre. I hesitated at first because as yet I have not seen a good way to make a cooperative game, at least one that wasn't Solitaire by Committee. Coop games ARE somewhat popular though, even if they are SbC, and the theme DOES suggest cooperation... Maybe deck building will force each player to be in charge of their own contribution at least a little, as their deck is their own and would differentiate them from other players.

So if I were to revisit Alter Ego as a coop game, what would have to change? Maybe not that much. How does this sound?

First off, there could be a supply of Civilian (CIV) tokens. Villains would take CIV tokens out of the supply, and when that supply runs out, the villains have taken over the city, the game is over, and the players lose. Each turn a player turns up a Villain card, and place a CIV token from the supply onto it. That villain could be said to have taken that CIV token hostage. Upon defeating that villain, the CIV token could go back into the supply.

After the new villain arrives, the player gets to resolve the cards they have in play (from last turn, see previous blog post). It could be the case that villains show fewer symbols, corresponding to the 'cost' to knock a CIV token off of them, and they could take multiple CIV tokens at a time - removing the last CIV token would be how you defeat the villain. Defeating the villain would still give benefits to the player who did it.

Arch Villains
It might still work to say a player must collect enough of an Arch Villain's icons (on villains they'd defeated) in order to go after that Arch Villain. But perhaps rather than 'qualifying' to attack an Arch Villain, there could be a tracking board as well, and when 'enough' henchmen of the proper type are defeated, the Arch Villain of that type arrives. The Arch Villains would be big, bad versions of the regular ones, and would take a larger number of hostages, or maybe permanently remove CIV tokens from the game, or something similarly dastardly and difficult to deal with.

Winning the game could be defeating all (3?) of the Arch Villains before they and their Henchmen overrun the city (by removing all of the CIV tokens from the supply).

Flavor
For additional flavor, the CIV tokens could be tiles or cards which have various TYPES, and it could matter if too many CIV of a particular type are hostage - making different reasons to go after particular henchmen at different points in the game. Like you've got the cards to defeat this guy, or you like the abilities you'd gain, but THAT guy has the MAYOR hostage, so you need to save him first.

This is still very rough draft-y, so please feel free to chime in with comments! Does this version sound better than a competitive version of the game?

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.

Time Rewind - first draft test

I tried a version of the Time Rewind game idea with Steve last night, each of us playing 2 characters to simulate a 4 player game. Honestly, while it had some potential, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

I approximated the cards and mechanisms in the game using a deck of cards. Here's how we played:

Setup:
Take the 5-10s and Ks of a standard deck, shuffle them, and lay them out face down in a 7 row pyramid/trellis pattern. Flip up the first card (tip of pyramid) and place the 4 player pawns on it. Take the 4 As, 3 Qs, and 1 other card from the deck and shuffle those, laying them out as the 8th and final row. Q represents a victory condition (get to a Q card and then 'pass the challenge' there). As and the other card are failed attempts to fix the Instability.

Shuffle another deck of cards - these are the cards players will draw. On these cards only the suit matters, not the rank.

Each turn went like this:

1. Collect resources: reveal the top 4 cards from the deck. Players distribute 1 card to each player any way they like. In addition, move the Instability marker 1 space along the track for each Heart revealed this way. This serves as a semi-random timer for when rewinds happen (when the end of the track is reached, a rewind happens).

2. Move - any player who wants to move their pawn can do so, to either of the 2 spaces in the next row adjacent to their current position.

The trellis represents a tree of binary decisions, so you can only navigate it forward. When a Rewind occurs, it sends players back in time (to the left on the trellis), giving them the opportunity to make different choices this time, however you can only make different choices for the decision points that got rewound, anything that's "still in the past" is set and cannot be changed (until a later Rewind takes you back beyond that).

3. Draw - anyone who didn't move can opt to draw 1 card from the deck. If it's a heart, advance the Instability marker.

4. Peek - anyone who didn't move and didn't draw can peek at upcoming cards... choose a row, and look at all face down cards in that row which you can still possibly get to. Shuffle those cards and return them face down. this gives you some information as to whether you're on the right track or not, and is probably most useful for looking at the last row from a few rows back to see if there's a Q there.

5. Challenge - reveal any face down cards people had moved to, and undergo the challenge there. In this version the challenge was simply this: Play a number of cards equal to the number on the card (so 5-10) plus 1/2/3/... for being in the 2nd/3rd/4th/... row, with cards matching suit counting double. A K card, if passed, is collected as an Item, and in this case the item simply gave a +3 to all challenges matching that suit (i.e. the K of Spades helps you win further Spade challenges). If you fail the challenge, the Instability marker is moved up once. Perhaps this should have been variable depending on how much you fail by, to encourage playing cards even if failing.

We also moved the instability marker one space if the card turned up was a Heart.

So a challenge could be hard or easy, and in general they get harder toward the "end" of the trellis.

6. Trigger Rewind - as a group you can decide to trigger a Rewind on purpose - rewind just 1 step (everyone moves left 1 space on the trellis) and the Instability marker is moved forward once. This may be necessary to get to a decision point otherwise unreachable.

That's it, then you go to the next round. Hand limit was 5 cards, and each time the Instability marker reached the end it caused a Rewind, the first rewinding just 1 space, the next 2 spaces, then 3... etc.

The game was kinda fun, and showed some potential, but as we discussed various mechanisms for the different aspects it just seemed more and more like Solitaire by Committee. Maybe that's OK, a lot of the cooperative ("Collaborative?") games out there right now (maybe all) are Solitaire by Committee, and people like them just fine. I am not out to make a SbC coop game, but I concede that this may turn into that.

More importantly, I noticed that moving your player pawn around on an abstract web of decision points was really lame. A better implementation (and pretty much the original idea for the game) would have the scientists (players) running around a board which depicts a town with the mad scientist's lair off to one side, and various locations where you could pick up items and take actions. The Trellis could be represented more like the original model, a stack of event cards which you would, at the beginning of your turn, flip and address... most would allow you to make a choice - perhaps as to what combination of cards you can play to the common pool... either (Red + Blue) or (Green + Yellow) for example. Some of those cards would be major events, and when those come up they have some requirements that must be met by cards in the pool. If the requirements are met, those cards are removed and the benefit of the event is earned. If not, then the benefit is not met (there may be a penalty). In the case of failure, the players may have another chance later, after a rewind.

In this version I think there would be some tools, and a number of Tool tiles (maybe 3 for he first level, 4 for the next, and 5 for the last?) would be placed face down in the Mad Scientist's Lab. In order to repair the Instability, the players would need to send someone to the Lab to 'throw the switch' or whatever, and when that happens either they have the right tools with them at the time (in which case Hurray! the Instability is partially fixed! things get a little better!), or they don't, in which case they make it worse! Maybe any tiles matching tools you have are removed (as are the tools), and any unmatched tiles make the Instability worse (increase the intensity of a rewind).

I think the benefit of passing challenges in the event deck would be revealing Tool tiles at the Lab, so that you know what you need to get. Players would probably have some number of actions points, and they would use them to move around the town and activate the buildings there in order to collect tools, draw cards, peek at the top of the Event deck, or whatever. Maybe even trigger little rewinds (making the instability worse) in order to re-do a challenge just failed.

That might be my next attempt at this game. Not sure how it will play out.

Time Travel and Board games

I've discussed before how time travel is hard, and though there have been several attempts at games based on it, the closest I've seen to one that works really well is Khronos. Khronos is a pretty interesting game, but it's really hard and somewhat tedious to see the implications of your actions.

I had never really planned on trying to design a game about time travel, at least not until I got some kind of good idea for it. A recent (February) Game Design Showdown was about going back in time, and that got me thinking about the subject a little bit. What I came up with was a cooperative game (another genre I haven't really worked on much) idea:

Like so many science experiments, this one went horribly wrong. In a bid for the Nobel Prize, a brilliant but eccentric physicist got a bit overzealous with a new discovery, and inadvertently created a tear in the space-time continuum. This tear is unstable, and in time would grow and eventually unravel space-time altogether - and that would be bad for everyone.

It's up to a team of scientists to find a way to fix space-time before the instability grows too much and the world turns inside out. The only problem is, the tear in space-time has begun to cause 'Rewinds' - instances in which time literally rewinds and the scientists are pushed back to a previous point in their endeavor.

Players work together to navigate a tree of decisions, each leading to 1 of 2 paths. At the end of each branch of the tree is a Result card, some with a favorable result - the scientists fix space-time and save the day... and some less favorable - game over! with each turn there's a chance that the instability of space-time triggers a Rewind, pushing players back some number of decision points. The worse the tear gets, the bigger the Rewind. If time rewinds past the beginning of the game, then that's all she wrote!

The main mechanism of this game was to be that players must make choices with little or no information at first, then as they move on more information becomes available. Then when a Rewind occurs, players can use the newer information in order to re-do a prior choice they made. On a players turn they first roll some dice, and then they can do one of several things - each option might be restricted in some way by the die roll. In addition, whenever the roll totals 7 (or perhaps is over some threshold), a Rewind occurs and players are pushed back along the decision tree some number of spaces. An Instability track indicates how far back the Rewind takes the team, and after the Rewind, the Instability increases (the next Rewind will be bigger).

Today I put a little thought into some details - I envision a deck of 'choice cards' which would be shuffled and dealt out in a triangular 'trellis' pattern. The last (8th) row of the trellis would be made up of Result cards - maybe 5 bad ("game over, you lose") and 3 good ("WIN!"). Maybe 1 of the good cards is extra good, so players can try to find that particular result as opposed to just any of the 3 good result cards for a harder game.

Each decision point has 2 possible outcomes, each leading to one of the decision points in the next row. The point of the game is to navigate through these decision points to one of the Result cards in the 8th row - but of course you want it to be one of the winning Result cards.

Possible actions on your turn would include:

- Peek at some of the Result cards - the closer you are to the 8th row the fewer you look at, narrowing it down. After peeking at them you shuffle them and replace them. Thus if you do it in the beginning, you see that indeed 3 of the 8 cards are 'winners' and 5 are not. If you do it from the third row you look at 6 adjacent result cards... and from the 6th row you look at just 3. They have to be the three you could still reach without rewinding - so if they all are losers then you'll want to rewind and try another path.

- Get resources - based on the die roll maybe you collect certain colored cards which will be needed to progress to the next row.

- Advance - pay the listed cost in cards in order to advance to the next Decision Point (next row). Depending on which of the 2 paths you wish to take you might need a different combination of cards to pay.

- Force Rewind - Players can trigger a rewind, backing up time and moving the group to an earlier decision point - but this of course makes the Instability grow - too much and space-time will unravel.

- Repair Instability - There should be some way (at some times) to repair the instability somewhat, moving the track back, effectively lengthening the game - giving players more time to successfully finish before the space-time continuum unravels.
This could be based in part on arriving at certain cards - the end card could repair the Instability a certain number of units, so maybe you actually have to hit more than one of them. And some cards along the way might do that too. This would also add weight to an action that allows players to look at the 2 upcoming Decision Points, to help decide which direction they want to go: "This one has a Repair icon on it, let's collect the stuff we need to go this way!" Maybe some Decision Points are worse and they cause an instability bump when they're revealed. The Peek action mentioned above could also be used in the midgame, not just to look at the Result cards but any upcoming Decision Points. Maybe look at 1 of the possible Decision Point cards and put it back, or all of the possible Decision Points in a column and then shuffle them.

further thoughts on this will be forthcoming... eventually.

Holiday season playtesting and gaming

I usually like this time of year because my friends are in from out of town. I end up playing a lot of games and having a lot of fun. Lately I've been playing a lot of games anyway, but I'm still really looking forward to seeing Luke and Mohan and any other friends who will be in town that I don't already know about. I'm hoping that especially with Mohan around I'll get a chance to playtest some prototypes - both Terra Prime, on which I'm told Loose Cannon should be making real progress starting next month (after the holidays), and on Winds of Fate, which I need to shape up to send to New York in January.

I'm sure there will be a lot of Battlestar Galactica as well. I'm liking that game a lot, and with the thoughts on Cooperative games being on the surface I'm returning to the ideas I've had now and again about making my own - trying to solve the problems I perceive with the genre.

I'll be sure to post about any playtesting that is done in the upcoming weeks...
Stay tuned!

A flurry of Cooperative games!

No fewer than 6 cooperative games came out recently, and I was anxious to try some of them to see what they're gimmick was, and to see how they tried to make a game where multiple players can (or better, have to) work in concert to win rather than the loudest, most experienced, or bossiest player playing while everyone else watches.

Space Alert has time pressure and hidden cards indicating what players have the possibility of doing, making it hard or impossible for one person to micromanage everyone's turn. That's a step in the right direction, though I'm not sure if Space Alert succeeds - I liked it at first (played it 6 times in a row, training through 1st mission), then later played it once and thought it was horribly boring.

Battlestar Galactica has the traitor mechanism from Shadows over Camelot, and it has it in spades. BSG isn't so much a cooperative game as a team game, maybe that should really be it's own category. In any event, it tries to keep 1 player from playing everyone's turn by stating up front that player could very well be working against you!

Ghost Stories felt like a step backwards in the development of the genre. It makes no attempt to fix what I believe is the biggest failing of most cooperative games (and perhaps, the entire genre) - it's solitaire.

It's not even multiplayer solitaire... one person can just play the game all by themselves. All weekend at BGG.con people were loving the game and talking about how hard it was, but I'm not sure that "hard" should correlate to "chances it's impossible to win, whether you know it or not." Pandemic suffers from that, some games you can't possibly win, but you don't know that until after you play.

So far the cooperative game that I think promotes teamwork the best is Pandemic. Space Alert with a crew that does a better job of communicating (as opposed to everyone shouting out what they can do, which I heard a lot this weekend) might do a better job, but so far I've not seen it. It's odd to say that Pandemic promotes teamwork when people can just turn their hands face up and one player can play the whole game... but in my experience if you don't turn your hand face up, you actually have to talk to your friends to formulate that good plan, and somehow that feels more like teamwork to me.

There are some more cooperative games that I didn't try, such as Red November, whose gimmick I heard was that any player can turn traitor at any time, but if you don't do it right then you lose. I didn't hear much good about Red November. I did play a prototype of a Pandemic expansion - that was pretty cool. There were new roles, some more similar to the old ones than others. Also they added Viral Epidemics - which make one color (at random) worse than the others. When an Epidemic is drawn, it indicates something bad that happens with the viral color. It serves to prioritize the colors differently because even if Yellow isn't as bad off as Black on the board, you have to count each Yellow outbreak twice (for example).

I'm convinced that a real cooperative game, a game in which players are doing they're own thing but are encouraged to cooperate, will require some hidden information that can't be known by all players. I think time pressure will help keep one player from playing for everyone else as well, but there has to be some ability to overlap my task with yours so I can help you if you need me to. Maybe with this flurry of cooperative games on the market I'll attempt to put my vision for that genre together. My chosen theme so far is the TV show 24, where players play CTU agents cooperating to thwart a terrorist plot. Players will be able to utilize Jack Bauer as an NPC, but they are all generic agents, and at a certain point in the game you can find out that you're actually a traitor. If that happens you'll need to bring the game to a close quickly, because if you wait too long, you may turn back into a non-traitor player! It seems to me that kind of thing happened all the time in the first season.

Interview with Pandemic designer on Google Talks

Jim Cote made a blog post about Pandemic, of which he's a big fan. I don't dislike the game either, it seems to me to be the best cooperative game yet because it really seems to encourage teamwork better than other games of that type (Shadows over Camelot and Lord of the Rings being some of the big ones).

Jim linked to this Google Talk interview with the designer of Pandemic, which is 50 minutes long, and is really interesting. He talks about the design process he went through, some of his experiences talking with publishers about the game, and then answers questions about it. It was a very cool interview, and on top of that, it's neat to see board gaming addressed in a sort of "mainstream" forum such as Google Talk. Admittedly, the target audience of Google Talk may not be mainstream America, but rather techy or tech savvy people who get their news from the internet rather than TV and the newspaper... but as far as board gaming goes, this seems like a big step outward!

Cooperative games - the very definition of multiplayer solitaire?

One of my least favorite things about the cooperative games I've seen so far - mostly Lord of the Rings and Shadows over Camelot, as well as various role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons - is that they can and often are more or less driven by the most dominant (or stubborn) person in the room. It's like that person is playing solitaire, and everyone else is just watching. For some people that might be OK, or even fun, but for me... well, I'd like to see a game in which each player must make their own choices, do their own thing, and yet still be encouraged to help the other players.

In Knizia's Lord of the Rings cooperative game, an attempt is made to make the game effectively multiplayer by giving each player different cards, and it's presumably up to each player how he spends those cards. It would be a much different game if the players played the game in seclusion, without being able to discuss each others' plays, and in theory, you're not supposed to tell people what cards you have, but really - where do you draw the line? What's the difference between "That next event looks dangerous, maybe we should fight our way through the board as fast as possible," and "If you have fight cards, you should advance the main track or we're going to lose," and "play your fight card and a friendship card, so player 2 can get the Heart they need, and I can finish off the board with the cards in my hand."

Shadows over Camelot adds a particularly effective deterrent for this kind of thing... namely the player coaching everyone else might in fact be a traitor! This is a novel idea, and it goes a long way toward solving the solitaire problem, but not all the way. In practice, it's still possible (easy, even) for a dominant personality to drive everyone's play, whether they're a traitor or not. Statements like "You should go to the Grail challenge and play a Grail card, unless of course you're the traitor!" can go a long way toward dominating a game. In that particular game, not working as a team is a good way to lose, so either you do what the dominant guy says, or you do your on thing and people think you're the traitor, or you do your own thing and the team loses because everyone's doing their own thing. In Shadows over Camelot you're also not supposed to discuss what you have in your hand, but to a lot of people it's just tedious to say "That's an awfully pathetic looking Black Knight" when placing a face down Fight-1 card there, or "I feel anxious to start the fight against the Saxons, but I fear I cannot finish!" Is the intent to promote role playing in order to communicate what you have in hand? Or is the intent that you're not supposed to know what people have in hand? I propose the latter would be more fun as a game, because the former leads to solitaire.

So how do you do it? How do you create a game in which players want to work together, but also have to think for themselves and make their own decisions? Here are some thoughts I've been having so far - no guarantee they'll work:

- I'd like to see team building and team dynamics, but I'd also like to see each member of the team have to do their own thing.

- I like the idea of team strategy - a discussion of who's going to have what responsibility, and that could theoretically by dominated by an Alpha player, but then in the resolution of each member's duties I'd like to see players have to act for themselves. Maybe little solo mini-games.

- The player interaction is in preparation for multiple (simultaneous?) mini-games, the result of which feeds back into the group's next strategy session.

- I also like the idea of a player not being "on the team" (i.e. a Traitor). Specifically, I like the idea that any player may become a traitor sometime mid game, and nobody knows ahead of time who or when.

The idea here is a cooperative game, where all players are on the same team (except for the potential traitor), and they're working together to accomplish a common goal. The theme I've had in mind for this is the TV show 24, where players are CTU agents working to avert a terrorist attack. Jack Bauer, being the show's hero, would make an appearance in the game, but as an NPC - a character or resource players could make use of, but not a personality any single player would play. The theme could be made generically anti-terrorist, even on a larger scale, where players control various branches or departments (CTU, Homeland security, FBI, CIA...) - but I personally think there's some value to tapping into a cool, established franchise for a theme. Most licensed games don't impress, but that's because the people doing them aren't trying to make a good game, they're trying to sell some crap based on the license. I'd like to make a good game with a licensed theme.