Lessons learned

Now that I have a game published, hundreds of people have played it, and I've had to demo and teach it a whole lot of times, I've started to see some things I wish I'd done differently. I've learned a lot about rules writing from this, and hopefully my experience will lead to better designs and rulebooks in the future. Maybe you can learn from my experience as well...

Things I wish I'd done differently in Terra Prime
I am not above admitting that Terra Prime's rules could have been better written, and in some cases better designed. I'm making this list of things I wish I'd done differently so that I can reference it in the future - so that when given the opportunity (should a 2nd edition or expansion become viable) I can "correct" some of these "mistakes." I put that in quotes because strictly speaking they're not mistakes. Everything in the game works, and works the way I intended it to. According to BGG I have played Terra Prime 86 times (since I started counting) and I still enjoy it. I think it's a strong design, and frankly I'm surprised it didn't go over better with the BGG community in general. However, if I knew then what I know now I would have done the following differently (in no particular order):

* Offloading a Colony Marker: I should have allowed offloading a Colony at any time, for free, just like you can jettison resource cubes. Thematically, they're cryogenically frozen people, and jettisoning them into space would not be very polite, but that could be explained away by simply saying "they are shuttled back to the space station." Mechanically, I wanted picking up a colony marker to be a Big Deal. You do it when you want to colonize, not when you want to go pick up resources. However, I found during play that one could get 'stuck' with a colony marker and be unable to do anything until they went back to base to offload it - so I allowed offloading the marker while in space, but so as not to kill all the people, you had to do it at a colony. That seemed fine, make it a Use Colony action... but I didn't like that you had to spend a turn action to correct a mistake you might have made picking up the marker in the first place. You already wasted an action picking it up after all. So I decided to make it a free action, but still count it as Using a Colony. That's nonsense, I've added an action, and an exception (since it doesn't count against your actions for the turn) for this little, tiny thematic thing. I should have allowed colony markers to be returned to your supply at any time. It doesn't help that the player aid doesn't mention that it's a free action, just lists offloading as a Use Colony action. Even the term "Free action" must now be defined, and that's the only one in the game. Shame on me for that!

In the 2nd edition or the expansion, should they ever see print, that rule will be corrected.

* Cost of Weapons and Shields: Originally, the cost of each Module was "10 credits plus 10 more credits per module of that type already on your ship." I decide that was too complicated, so I simplified most of the costs to those in the final game. However, in Terra Prime your 2nd weapon helps a lot more than your first one does, and your 3rd weapon helps a lot more than that. Therefore I thought it appropriate to scale the cost of those weapons - as you can see they cost 10/30/50 for your 1st/2nd/3rd module. It's a minor point, but there's not a good reason I didn't use the simpler 10/20/30 credits there. Not only would that be less goofy, but as it stands the third weapon never really gets purchased. As there are only 3 Weapon/Shield slots, it's rare that anyone really wants a 3rd weapon module anyway, so making them exorbitantly expensive doesn't really matter. However in the expansion you will be able to expand your ship, so it's conceivable a player might want 3 weapon modules. To make that more interesting, the 3rd module might ought to be less expensive. In any case I'll have to address the cost of a 4th module - not because anyone will ever want one, but because if they do there's no cost defined.

The Shield cost is goofy because I was attempting to keep the number of actions down. I didn't want to add a "recharge shields" action when I thought I could do it all with the Buy Shields action. So I made the Buy Shield action have 2 parts, first you can bu a shield if you want, then you can charge all your shields if you want. This was harder for some people to understand than I thought it would be, and in the end I wish I'd made shields simply cost 20 and come full of energy, and then have a Recharge Shields action which allowed you to fill up your energy for 10 credits.

* Tile Placement Restriction: Boy did I underestimate how confusing this would be! There is one rule: "no two adjacent sectors can contain planets." And yet there has been plenty of confusion as to how tiles can be placed. I wanted the placement of tiles to be somewhat interesting, and I wanted planets to clump so that when colonizing players would have to choose 1 color over another. I had considered (and even tried) cutting that restriction and allowing any tile placement, but that generally led to way too many colonizing opportunities. I suppose I could have reduced the number of colonizable things on the tiles, but I liked the tile mix as it was. I could have put an "up" arrow on each tile and said you had to orient the tile with the arrow pointing up, but that remove the fun and benefit of being the one exploring the tile! A playetester made a suggestion that all the tiles be face up from the outset, so you know where all the planets are. That's a good idea, but the game is about exploring space, so I was hesitant to use it. I have used that setup for the expansion, which will 'solve' any 'problem' with the tile placement rules by making them a non-issue. All tiles will be face up from the outset of the game. The center of the tiles will be covered with an Exploration Tile which will replace whatever is printed on the tile - so you still have to explore each tile. Also, there is a new item you might find on these Exploration tiles called a Sunstar - which makes planets on that tile uninhabitable. The effect is that while you know where all of the planets are, there's a possibility you will head out to colonize one and it turns out you can't because it's too close to a Sunstar. Of course, scanning would give you this information ahead of time.

* Colonize Sequence Error: this one is a mistake... the artist, in an effort to explain the process of the Colonize action, made a step-by-step list of what to do when colonizing a planet. I thought it sounded good and accurate when I proofed it, but when the game hit the shelves a player pointed out that when following those steps, you get the reward from the reward tile BEFORE you vacate your cargo hold by placing your colony marker. Therefore, unless you buy a cargo hold, many times when you colonize you must discard the resource you get from the reward tile. This was unintended, I had always played that you vacate your cargo hold and then you get the reward (or, it's all simultaneous, so it doesn't matter). When asked the question and reading the rulebook for an answer I had to say "well, the rules say you don't get the reward." In retrospect I could have ruled that it's all simultaneous, but I didn't think of that at the time.

In any case, any future version of the rules will address this. I will probably just add a note that you replace the Colony marker with any resources in the reward tile or something like that.

* Delivery Optimizer: I might have preferred if the Delivery Optimizer didn't have to be bought up front, BEFORE doing deliveries. I wrote it that way so it would be an interesting strategic decisions - AM I planning on doing deliveries and completing tiles? Do I want to commit to that? As a result, when I play I seldom find Delivery optimizer attractive, though I've seen it garner decent points over the course of a game. I might have liked it better though if you could bu it later in the game, and instead of rewarding you when you complete a delivery tile, it rewarded you at game end for each delivery tile you completed. That way if you DID complete a number of demand tiles you could purchase the Optimizer for some points, rather than spending early game resources which could have been traded in for money to upgrade your ship with.

In truth I'm not sure that would be better, I think the Delivery Optimizer is good as it is, but I always wonder when I play why I didn't make it the other way.

* Pacifying Aliens: This isn't a big deal, but every time I explain it I wonder if it really had to be "1 resource per alien symbol PLUS 1" of if it could simply have been "1 resource per symbol." there was a reason for it, but I don't know if the reason was good enough for the added annoyance of that rule not being as simple as it could be. Maybe I could have said that Pacifying cost just 1 resource per symbol, and you DON'T get the reward off the reward tile, if it turned out to be too easy otherwise.

I feel like I'm ranting at this point, but this is my blog, and if I want to rant about my own game then I feel like this is the appropriate place to do so. I hope anyone reading this has played Terra Prime and liked it as is. If you'd like to use any of these variations I've mentioned as a house rule, then feel free to do so. Leave a comment to let me know what you think.

More Eminent Domian playtests - good news and bad news

I played 4 more games of Eminent Domain again last night with Brian, Marty, and one with Paul as well.

Good News
* Everybody enjoyed the game.
* The 4p game was won by someone who eschewed Research - meaning it's not imperative that you invest heavily in Research to win (albeit, the only experienced player, me, played terribly and didn't do much, so that might have something to do with it). I do feel like Research is a viable path, but not absolutely necessary. I do also think that most players will at least do some level 1 Research to improve their deck a little bit.
* I tried my damnedest to get the "potentially broken" Arms Dealer strategy going, and struggled heavily. I'll note however that I was not playing well at all, and it's possible I just wasn't doing it right.

Bad News
* In a 3-player game, probably 4 of the 6 Politics cards took Colonize cards, leaving a total of 10 in the stack. 10 Colonize Roles later, the game was over, and all three of us were choosing Colonize as a Role. That game felt disappointingly short. However, I'm not sure how realistically that will happen very often, but I do fear this... in a 3-player game with 3 newbies, it's easy to imaging that scenario playing out very similarly. It creates a game that is too short (not enough turns), doesn't very fun, and can end with a disappointingly low winning score of 10 or so while players have unflipped planets and haven't developed their game hardly at all.

I might have to reconsider game end conditions for 3 player :/

Eminent Domain - interesting idea?

I was just reading through my Eminent Domain FAQ, and one of the questions got me thinking...

Suppose after you play the action, you leave the card played in play - and it's symbols would contribute to the Role you choose.

For example, if you use Survey as an action, you'd draw 2 cards, then if you also choose the Survey Role, you'd count the icon from the Action card played in the Action phase to determine how many planet cards to draw.

This will really matter a lot more when it comes to Level 2 tech cards. I will have to think about that a little bit and maybe try it for a game to see how it feels. My initial reaction is that it's an interesting idea, but that I won't like it.

Winds of Fate Betting Board thoughts

Chatting with Andrew Schoonmaker just now, we discussed some thoughts for Winds of Fate - to do with the betting board. I wanted to jot them down so I can access them later...

One thing we discussed is an idea I had to change the Timeline bet (which I'm going to start calling the bet on which round the game will end) From "I bet the game will end IN (or near) THIS round" to "I bet the game will last until AT LEAST THIS round." The difference being that if there's no penalty for underguessing, maybe people will be more willing to bet low. However, there's still a bigger payoff if you bet on a later round at the end of the game. There have been some comments (in a "complaint" tone) that it's best to bet long and if necessary, nudge the bet downward with "move bet" rewards than it is to bet lower in the first place. I don't see how that's a bad thing - it makes you want to play for a longer game and value the Move Bet reward higher.

Playing for a longer game promotes the "Dead" and "Stranded" game end conditions more than the "safe return" condition. Is that OK? Is it OK if I change the Destiny Bet thing? It probably is - one could argue that "Safe "Return" is kinda easy to achieve since there re so few space on the board it might be easy to push through. I think if I change the Destiny Bet system (which I think I need to do no matter what), then this might not be too bad a dynamic at all. I could also make Safe Return pay out a little better.

Another idea (that I have NOT discussed with anyone and rather just thought of) is to limit the bets to 1 bet per round, so player 1 gets first pick as to where to place his bet (maybe he chooses round 10), then players 2 and 3 choose rounds 11 and 9, and players 4 and 5 has to choose between 12 (and play for a very long game) and 8 (and play for a shorter game). That could be interesting, but likely unfair (or will be perceived as such).

Another idea (which goes along with the first one, above) is to actually AWARD the Timeline payout as the Round Counter reaches a bet. This would mean you'd get bet chips to work with, sou you could bet long for a better return, or bet short to get a few bet chips to work with. On the face I like the sound of that, but I just don't think it'll pan out the way I want the game to pan out. Note: this could be that you get VPs on the scoreboard and just your initial Bet Chip back - so you get fewer points total (or the same points over several Place Bet actions) but they're more secure. That could work I guess, and would encourage short bets. My concern there is that you may sort of HAVE to bet short to get Bet Chips... BUT maybe if you prioritize Bet Chips from Reward Tiles, then you won't need to get them from the Timeline, freeing you to bet on a more lucrative long range bet.

I think the Betting Board will be interesting - I'll certainly give it a shot. I still like a Timeline bet, and the Destiny Bets can be wrapped into the Betting Board. I think perhaps the initial Bet (Troy Encounter) could be a Timeline Bet, and the rest of the bets could be on the betting board only. Because the Timeline bet will be more (maybe much more) lucrative than the other bets, I kinda like only letting (and in fact forcing) players to just place 1 such bet and that's it. That will help drive your long term strategy. Maybe the payout should be the same no matter what round you choose, to encourage choosing the "right" round rather than the "furthest out" round.

One of the most interesting things we discussed was Bet Exclusivity. I was concerned that everyone would simply bet on the next (or likely next) encounter, and that wouldn't telegraph intentions very much. Suppose for a moment though that each spot on the betting board where you can bet on an encounter (there are 32 of them) could only hold one bet total - then people would be in something of a hurry to grab up the "good" betting spots (some will be better than others each game based on the geography of the randomly distributed Encounter tiles). Also, it will force people into betting on different things than each other, which will start to differentiate their incentives. I really like the sound of this, and I'm not sure but maybe by extension the Timeline bet should work the same way. If player 1 bets the game will end on round 10, maybe player 2 can't pick 10, and has to instead pick 9 or 11... etc. Move bet will still allow you to nudge your bet (maybe anyone's bet?), and as a result of Move Bet, 2 bets could be on the same space (as is the current rule).

I really like that idea, but for it to work I'll probably need to increase the frequency of placing bets. I could add Place Bet to more reward tiles, but I don't want them all to be the same... I could make the bonus for the largest total contribution to the adventure be a Place Bet action, rather than a straight 2vp bonus. That's pretty interesting, at least 1 player will place a bet each turn - maybe that wouldn't even cost one of your own bet chips. Or I could say "Place a bet OR get a Bet Chip" - that would work too. So every 2 bonuses is 1 bet which, if it pays off is 3-6vp - not terribly different than the 2vp bonus from before (and if nothing else, the bet chip is 1vp by itself).

Bet chip value - I had them worth 2vp before, not sure why. I'd like them to be worth 1vp for these payoffs. However, the payoffs could be in points, not Bet Chips, and unused Bet Chips could still be worth 2vp. So placing a bet 'costs' 2vp but could net anywhere from 0 to 6vp. Destiny actions I'm still thinking would give you the chip to make a bet with, so that's just a free 0 or 3 points (just place a chip from supply on one of the destiny bets). Oh, the Destiny bets wouldn't be exclusive I don't think. 2vp per unused bet chip makes Bet "D" on the board pretty unappealing, and Bet "E" only barely appealing. I think those payouts really have 1vp bets in mind, not 2vp bets. I think I've talked myself into 1vp bet chips.

One thing that came up that I think I don't like is the idea of EVERYBODY betting, automatically, in turn order, each round. Never mind Bet Chips, you just get to auto-place a bet. I think that might be too much betting. A maybe better idea is everyone, in turn order, gets to either take a Bet Chip OR place a bet (using one of their bet chips). That could be interesting, as it means any reward that gives you a bet chip let's you place an extra bet rather than just collect a bet chip in a following round. Let's say a game lasts 8 rounds, that's 4 turns taking bet chips and 4 turns betting. For each other bet chip acquired, one of those 4 rounds spent taking bet chips could instead be spent placing another bet. And in theory, the earlier the better so you snatch up the good spaces. In that case maybe the bonus for largest contribution is simply a bet chip.

There's some question in my mind whether you should be allowed to place 2 bets on the same Encounter (assuming bets are limited). Would that be OK? People could put all their eggs in 1 basket (bet 3 or 4 times on the same encounter) and then get a bunch of points at once (save up cards for that adventure). however, if noone else is also betting on that, maybe everyone will team up and make sure that player loses and gets nothing. Maybe that's fine.

More abot WoF and ED

I am discussing the finer points of Eminent Domain over geekmail with one of the people who volunteered to print it out and play it... he says:
"After about a half-dozen plays, I still want to keep playing."

Do you have any idea how reassuring that sounds? That's exactly why I, and I think many people who partake in creative endeavors, like designing games.

I'd really like to find someone who could (like, knows how, and wants to) code up some kind of online version of Eminent Domain to facilitate playtesting - or just playing the game at all really. If you're into that kind of thing, I'm certain I can hook you up with a copy of the game when it comes out (early-mid 2011), and/or copies of Tasty Minstrel Games' other releases (Terra Prime and Homesteaders are in stores now; Train of Thought, JAB: Realtime Boxing, and Belfort are coming out later this year). Any takers?

As for Winds of Fate, I spent a little time last night mocking up a betting board like the one I discussed last post. That sketch isn't the mock-up, I made a prototype board with the actual Encounter Tile prototype art, and the Game End tiles (Dead, Stranded, and Safe) to put in the center. Also, I noticed that Bet "F" in that sketch shouldn't exist, it doesn't make any sense at all (Bet "D" dominates it).

I adjusted the reward tiles as well, thinking it might be interesting to specify on the "draw 3 cards" reward that you have to draw 3 of the same color - then took it one step further and made 2 different ones: "Draw 3 HELP cards" and "Draw 3 HINDER"" cards." I also reduced the VP values because I think the bet chips will be worth 1 VP apiece instead of 2vp (not sure why I wanted them to be 2 to begin with).

I'm now ready to try the game with the new betting system. There will still be a bet on the Game Timer, which will work the same way as it did before - the further off you bet, the more lucrative the payoff. I might change it to a bet that the game will last AT LEAST that many turns, such that if you undershoot, you don't lose, you just don't win as much as you could have. There's been a sentiment that you generally want to bet as far away as possible (so you get a bigger payout), maybe this rule would encourage bets closer to the beginning of the Round track.

In fact, if those bets pay out when the round counter reaches them, that could give players a Bet chip influx with which to place bets. I'm not sure if I like that or not.

Playtesting night - Eminent Domain, Winds of Fate

Michael and John came over for 4 games of Eminent Domain and 1 game of Winds of Fate.

I'm still really happy with the idea and the structure of Odysseus: Winds of Fate, but something just isn't right. I especially think that the 4-player game works a lot better than 3-player. 3p really seems off to me, something has to be done about that. There's something that doesn't seem right about how adventures are always 2-against-1. I had hoped that the benefits of 'staying in' even if it's 2-vs-1 would be big enough to matter, but I think the psychological effect of 'fighting 2 people' turns people off... even though all it means is which direction Odysseus will move (there are still lots of rewards you can get). Perhaps more info about who wants to go where (see below) will help that feeling because you could maybe predict where people want the ship to go next.

It continues to be disappointing to players to start with a random Destiny bet, so I will have to do away with that, or change it in some way. It occurred to me tonight that part of the problem with the Destiny bet is that I might have added too many Destiny actions, and therefore the Destiny bet might pay off too much to be the 'small bonus' I intended.

I decided Monday (with the help of the Gamesmiths members) that the idea I had to associate bet chips with specific locations wouldn't work as I wanted it to. Michael had an interesting idea that might accomplish the same thing. Imagine a Roulette style board off to the side with each of the encounters pictured in an array. When given the opportunity to place a bet, you put a bet chip on one of the encounters, or perhaps between 2 encounters, or at the corner of 4 encounters (like you can place bets in Roulette). You would be betting that if/when Odysseus reaches that particular encounter, he will win or lose it (the bet chips could be double sided - put the "win" side up if you bet he'll win that adventure, put the "lose" side up if you bet he'll lose it). I will definitely think about this further and probably make a prototype to try it out.

These bets, being out in the open, might help players predict where other players want the ship to go, and therefore which color cards they are likely to play in any given Adventure.

Eminent Domain continues to impress. I'd recently added 8 Warfare cards, making 20 Role cards in each stack, because I felt like the game was too short if more than 1 player started taking Warfare. I'm not 100% sold on this, but I'm getting close.

We played 3 games of ED, then went to dinner, then played Winds of Fate and finished with 1 last game of ED. Each of our 4 games last night were close and very interesting. A variety of strategies were used, a wide range of Tech cards were used, and scores ended up being very tight. I also saw a lot more Following than I have seen before, which is also nice.

Our games were so close in fact, that 3 of them ended up in ties. Mike beat John in the first game on tiebreaks because his military strategy left him with 3 Armies to John's 1 resource - I was a mere 2 or 3 points behind. In the second game John and Mike ended in a dead tie (neither one had resources or Armies remaining). In game 3, I beat Mike on tiebreaks with my 1 resource. And in our 4th game I believe Mike win by a few points. 3 ties and a win - a good night for mike!

Games were moving fast, as all three of us are very familiar with the game. Also, I don't think we were paying as much attention as we could have to things like how many turns are likely left, and what exactly some of the other players are doing (I tried to research a tech that it turns out John had already gotten and been using!) I know that I could have played better had I paid a little closer attention - which is something I like about the game. It means the game is not simply solitaire!

After our games, I took a look at all the level 2 technology cards with Mike. A couple of them seem obviously better than the rest, most of them seem appropriately powerful, and a couple of them seem really terrible. After Mike left I thought about how I could improve the terrible ones so they are more interesting, and I decided to make them permanent effects that apply every turn. I rearranged a thing or two to accomplish that and keep everything balanced between planet types, and I think it'll turn out to be an improvement. I'm looking forward to trying it!

Overall a good playtest night!

Tasty Minstrel goings on

Tasty Minstrel is working hard to get this year's games finished this year. Due to some scheduling mishaps, Belfort will not be ready in time for BGG.con, but there are some nice art samples up of the board and card art! Josh Cappel is once again doing a fabulous job making the game come alive.

Even if Belfort isn't ready in time, we are hopeful that we'll have at least demo copies if not copies to sell of both Train of Thought and JAB: Realtime Boxing! Both of these are different sorts of games - different from each other, and different from Terra Prime and Homesteaders.

JAB: Realtime Boxing is a real time card game for 2 players which simulates a boxing match. Since it's real time, there are no turns - you are free to play your Punch cards at your own pace - and you may be surprised at how much strategy is involved! It's really the closest thing you'll get to actual boxing without getting punched in the face ;)

The Rulebook for JAB is online, please check it out and then fill out the survey so that anything unclear can be fixed before it goes to press!

Pretty soon (within a week, I hope) the rules for Train of Thought will be online as well, and along with them another survey regarding clarity. To tide you over, here's the current version of the back of box blub:

All aboard! This party game challenges you to stay on track. Score points by giving clues and guesses against the clock as you and your friends ride the Train of Thought!

Don't be alarmed, while these games are a different style than Homesteaders and Terra Prime, we're still bringing you more strategy board games (such as Belfort) as well! We're looking forward to bringing these games to our fans, and here's a sneak peak at stuff to come in the near future:

Eminent Domain, by Seth Jaffee: A civilization building game in which your civilization's abilities are based on a deck of Role cards. At the beginning of the game each player has the same deck of cards, with just 2 cards for each Role in it. Every turn you must choose a Role to execute (and like Glory to Rome or Puerto Rico, your opponents will get a chance to follow suit), and in doing so you will add one of those Role cards to your deck. When executing a Role, you can boost it's effect by playing cards out of your hand matching the Role you have chosen. So for example, the more you Research, the better you get at Researching (because you'll have more Research cards in your deck).

For The Win!, by Michael Eskue: A strategic game for 2-4 players that’s easy to learn but a challenge to master. Budget your 5 actions each round; Placing, Moving, Shoving, Using or Refreshing your tiles. Group your Ninja, Pirate, Monkey, Zombie and Alien together for the WIN!

No Honor Among Thieves, by Richard James: A game of greed and double-think.

King's Kilt, by Gordon Hamilton: A card game of backstabbing and climbing the social ladder in a power struggle for the Scottish crown.

Winds of Fate: Want to revive!

I would like to get back to Odysseus: Winds of Fate- as I always want to, and as I've mentioned many times before. I updated my prototype after getting some good feedback from a blind test at Spielbany a year and a half ago(!) but I haven't tried it since then.

The mechanism I've always used to resolve adventures in that game has been a variation on the card play from Reiner Knizia's Beowulf: the Legend or Taj Mahal. I am pretty much stuck on this mechanism, because I think it works alright - though I'm pretty sure there is another mechanism that would also work, maybe even be better. But I am completely blind to any other mechanism! Help!

Maybe the current mechanism is fine, but I have a nagging feeling that it's not good enough, or not fun enough, or that something is wrong with it. Here's an attempt to modify the mechanism off the top of my head...

Maybe instead of rounds and rounds of card play, each player could simultaneously play just 1 card during an adventure. Having drawn more cards means your choices would be better in general, so it could still be worth getting more cards. Also, if cards are worth something at the end of the game, that could make it worthwhile to get them as a reward - maybe they are worth something, but not as valuable as some other rewards (because they give you flexibility during the game). This would have at least the benefit of moving more quickly, though it may not easily order the players for purposes of selecting rewards.

Perhaps players could have a set group of cards, like the bidding tiles in Ra, such that there can never be a tie. Then players 'bid' each round, with one of their unique numbers (and maybe another card indicating whether they're bidding for Success or Failure) and whoever played the highest valued card gets the bonus for the round, and the total of Successes/Failures determines Odysseus' fate.

I'm really beginning to like that last thought - Ra style bidding tiles. I'll think about that some more and see what comes to mind.

Does anyone else have a recommendation or other idea for how to resolve adventures in Winds of Fate?

Time Management

No, I'm not talking about a new game design here (for once). I'm talking about actual time management - which in itself is something of a game.

Over the past decade I've done some Project Management as an Engineer, in particular at my old job with Schneider and Associates. Lately I've been trying to apply my Project Managing experience to Tasty Minstrel Games and impart some of my time management wisdom unto Mikey, who (no offense) appears not to have had to do any of that before.

Mike is an eternal optimist, which is probably a good thing. Maybe we're a good team because I am more of a pessimist. In any case, when an optimist doesn't have scheduling experience it's easy to see how they expect phrases like "as quickly as possible" to carry a lot of weight. In my experience this becomes more and more true as the optimist in question is more and more ego-centric, it's easy to think that people you are subcontracting are only working on your project and ignore whatever other realities may exist. Note: I'm not specifically talking about Mike here, I know a number of people like that!

In the professional world however, phrases like "as quickly as possible" mean absolutely nothing. In order to really manage a project, scheduling must be much more specific than that. The reality is that subcontractors are NOT only concerned with your projects, they have other priorities as well (professional and personal). If you ask someone to finish something "as quickly as possible," and another client asks for something "to be done by Friday," and Thursday rolls around... which project do you think they will work on? The one someone is expecting the next day? Or the one with the nebulous time frame? "As quickly as possible" in that case literally becomes "after this other project which actually has a deadline!"

When Mike started Tasty Minstrel Games, I was excited to be a small part of it. I didn't really think I knew much about running a business, I was really in it for the creative aspect of game development. As time goes on, I'm finding that my Project Management knowledge could really help more efficiently bring games to market, and so I've been putting a lot of thought into scheduling and the processes involved in that. As an engineer, my job (and my general preference) is to find better or more efficient ways to do things, and so I'm naturally inclined to try and find a better way to go about publishing board games. Without being in charge of actually talking to the manufacturers, I think I can still help by getting down scheduling, so we can have time lines and deadlines which will help us reach target street dates for upcoming games.'

Hopefully these thoughts will be realized in the near future and Tasty Minstrel will operate more professionally and efficiently, making it easier to bring fun games to the hands of our fans!

General update

It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd give a general update as to what's going on in the Gaming life of Seth Jaffee - to give my fans (both of them) something to read on a Thursday afternoon...

Vacation:
I just got back from an 11 day trip to Seattle in which I played a lot of frisbee, did some gaming, and hung out with a lot of friends. By way of summary...
Friends visited on my Seattle trip: Jeremy, Amelia, Emily, Aaron, Renee, Matthew, Jonah (my 13 month old nephew!), Mohan, Rif, Runjith, Chris Rao, Sean, Alex.

Games played on my Seattle trip: Magic: the Gathering, Eminent Domain, JAB: Realtime Boxing, Race for the Galaxy, Dominion, Ground Floor, Alea Iacta Est, Wizard's Tower, Fermat, Forbidden Island, Innovation, Tsuro, Train of Thought, Cyclades, Galaxy Tucker, and Alex's semi-coop prototype Witch's Coven.

People seemed to like Eminent Domain and Ground Floor, which is reassuring. I finally tried some of the new expansion stuff for Race for the Galaxy (prestige) which was not all that spectacular. The Warfare stuff never came up in our games, and I think it feels like more trouble than it's worth. I remember kinda liking Alea Iacta Est when I watched and played it at KublaCon 2009, but it seemed pretty bad this time. Fermat has been picked up by a publisher (not Tasty Minstrel, darn it!) and will come out this year under the name "Got It!" Forbidden Island is another cooperative game by the guy who made Pandemic - I'd heard good things, but nobody mentioned that it's EXACTLY LIKE Pandemic only easier! I don't think Pandemic needed to be easier, so I didn't like Forbidden Island at all. Innovation is "wild and crazy" - way moreso than Glory to Rome by the same designer. I LOVE Glory to Rome, but I don't think I love Innovation. Maybe just 2 player, after both players are super-familiar with all the cards it will become more strategic, but in the meantime it's very chaotic and somewhat silly as far as I'm concerned. Cyclades was a neat game and I love some the mechanisms at work, but the board play isn't really my type of game. I generally don't like war games much, though the war game part of this game is sort of minor. The fact that only 1 player per turn can attack (for the most part) is interesting, you could leave yourself undefended if you can expect to win the Ares auction next round... the game was cool, but the Pegasus card certainly seemed to be a game changer. I'm not sure how I feel about games in which you are forced to play around a particular card coming up, because what if it doesn't? Or what if it comes up at a bad time for you, even if you were prepared for it every other turn of the game?

Alex's prototype was interesting - I liked it a lot better than I thought I would. It's actually a worker placement game (I had thought it would be more like Battlestar Galactica for some reason) where you have 2 different types of workers - your Witch and your Familiar. The Witch actions are generally more powerful than the Familiar actions, and there are only 4 rounds in the game, meaning you get only 4 of each type of action! The goal is to collect the ingredients needed to create the Potion of Power, but the trick is that to win you must exclude at least 1 of the players from the Coven. The idea is to (a) make yourself indispensable, and then (b) try and make another player unnecessary. There's something odd about the endgame and forming that coalition of players who win, but it seems pretty solid. Alex said he'd send me files so I can print it out and try it around here.

Mohan also told me about an idea he's working on for a Solitaire game - a dungeon crawl based on the mechanics in typical solitaire games such as Spider Solitaire or Klondike. It was a pretty neat idea, and as he mentioned it would probably work even better as a digital game. We chatted about that for a while, and I also told him Jeremy's idea from last year about a World of Warcraft game - not about actually playing World of Warcraft, but rather about running a WoW guild, and dealing with all the drama involved.

Add some frisbee to that (including winning our pool at Potlatch) and it makes for a pretty sweet vacation!

Game designs:
I've been playing Eminent Domain a lot, and I'm pretty happy with it as-is. There are a few things I'd like to see though, one of which is more reports from the 30+ people who volunteered to print-and-play the game. Of all the people I gave access to the cards, I think I've only heard back from about 3 of them with any real playtest reports. In the future I think I'll try to set up a more organized process for getting access to a game for print-and-play, which will involve follow-up communication.

I have been thinking that I would like to add some Warfare cards to the supply to bring the number up to 18 or 20. I think that especially with 3 players, it's too easy for that stack to get burned through too quickly. There's something attractive about just having 20 of each card, but I don't know if that's the most economical thing. The only other thing I would like to work on is the tech abilities - especially the level 2 techs. There are some I really like and that I think are appropriately powerful, and there are others that never seem to be chosen. I want to make sure they are all potentially useful, even if not in every single circumstance. Ideally they'd all be situational. On the other hand, they're all worth 2vp, so once you get the tech or 2 that you really want, maybe you still want to research for the VPs, but I would like to make sure all the level 2 techs are useful and attractive. It's possible one or two of them are TOO powerful, but currently I haven't had a problem with that. Michael suggests that the "take 2 Role cards into hand" is too powerful, but I haven't seen it used in any way I don't like yet. I'd also like to have names for all the tech cards, but I don't know how easy that will be. In a separate post I might solicit names for the techs (Didn't I do that already?)

I haven't been working on any of my other designs, the most recent of which was Alter Ego. I would like to get back to that, and of course Winds of Fate, Dynasty, and Hot & Fresh... isn't that always the case?

Game development:
Belfort and Ground Floor are pretty much good to go. I am supposed to (and would like to) write up a Development Diary sort of thing for them, talking about the development process, maybe the specific things I did to change each of those games and why. This info will be published around the time of each game's release. Mike and I are working on developing a better process for internal stuff at Tasty Minstrel so that hopefully things will go more smoothly and we can be more efficient and put more programs into place!

Blast from the past - Starry Night

Poking through the archives of the old Board Game Designers Forum, I came across some old gems, some of which I had no recollection of! For example, here's my entry to the March 2008 Game Design Showdown, which seems like it could be pretty easy to make:

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Entry #14 - Starry Night
by sedjtroll

2-8 players
30 minutes
Ages 6 and up

Starry Night is a game of finding constellations in the night sky. It is played with a deck of Constellation cards, and 36 custom 6-sided Skyscape dice.

The dice, when rolled and then grouped into a 6x6 grid, show a starry skyscape in which constellations can be found. When all players are ready, the first Constellation card is flipped and all players try to find the constellation in the skyscape grid. Upon finding the correct pattern of stars, a player calls "Eureka!" and then points out the constellation to the other players. If correct, that player wins the Constellation card and the next one is revealed. When all Constellation cards have been exhausted, the player who has found the most constellations is the winner!

There may be a constellation which does not appear in the skyscape grid. If all players agree that the constellation cannot be found, set it aside and move to the next card - nobody scores for set aside constellations. Not even if the skipped constellations are found later.

For more fun, re-roll the Skyscape dice, shuffle the Constellation cards, and begin again!

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I think custom dice would be the way to go here. Imagine the die faces divided into quarters, where each quarter could either have a dot (a star) in it or not. A die would probably have 2 faces with 1 star, 2 faces with 2 stars, and 1 face each with 3 and 4 stars... something similar to that for distribution. Rolling these dice and grouping them into a 4x4 or 6x6 square will create an 8x8 or 12x12 grid of space where each square either does or does not have a star.

Goal cards with 'constellations' pictured would be turned up, and that pattern of stars is what you're looking for. I don't think the blank spaces in the constellation would have to be blank in the "sky" as well or it may be too hard to find them. As long as there are dots (stars) in the right places, that's good enough to count.

Homesteaders - 8th place Meeple's Choice Awards!

It looks like the votes are in, and the Spielfrieks user group has chosen the recipients of their Meeple's Choice Awards. Congratulations to Smallworld, Hansa Teutonica, and Endeavor for topping the list!

Also of note, Homesteaders finished 8th of 25, which is a pretty good showing for a first time designer and a first time publisher! I knew that game would be a hit when I carried it around from convention to convention, and it's nice to see good reviews and accolades to remind me that we made the right choice making Homesteaders one of Tasty Minstrel's launch titles. :)

Alter Ego - contd. (brainstorming)

A couple specifics...

* I liked the idea of "draw 1 card per Job bond token" - only if we're talking about Henchmen cards it would have to be "1 additional card - or else losing your job means you can't play anymore.

* Another aspect of Heroic Deeds that I liked was that there were 5 sections of the city, and when successfully fighting crime in one of them you area allowed to leave a card there - the cards in that game amount to event cards, and when attempting a crime you draw 1 at random as well as any that are face down at that location. To borrow and refine that mechanism, there could be crime cards associated with each section of the city (pre-dealt, face up probably) indicating what crimes are currently underway. This would allow a player to choose which crime to fight (a) based on their skills and (b) based on which color crime card they want to collect (which will apply toward their nemesis). Sadly, this tanks the idea in the previous bullet point.

* There could be an element of card play, which would allow for one of the Alter Ego abilities to be "you can hold 1 card per bond token" - meaning you'll have an easier time with the cardplay portion of the game if you don't neglect that aspect of your Alter Ego. The Job AE aspect listed above could also apply to the drawing of those cards, but it might be cooler if the AE effects aren't so tightly related.

* I liked how the Event cards were supposed to work in Heroic Deeds, but the cards themselves prompted many timing questions and were in some cases difficult to apply. If the events were more straightforward, or broken up between 'Events That Occur' and 'Cards That You Play' then it might work better. I love multi-use cards, so maybe each card could have an EVENT effect (if drawn as an Event when attempting to fight crime) and an ACTION effect (when used in resolution of a fight).

A neat aspect from Heroic Deeds was the ability to leave event cards at different locations which would apply the next time someone visited that location. Some of the cards had positive effects and some had negative effects, so if you visited a location with a face down card you might be walking into a trap! Alternatively, you could leave a positive card there for yourself when you return. I'm not sure exactly how well I like that mechanism (bluffing as to what you left), but if the events were all generally negative but situational, then you could leave a 'trap' which you know you can handle but other players may not. I'm not sure this is necessary in the game, but it's a neat idea and I didn't want to forget about the possibility.

* Player interaction is always a sticking point in design. You don't want games to be solitaire exercises, so there has to be some kind of competition between players. In this case, so far, the only competition would be for a particular Arch Villain / Nemesis card (while there may be multiple copies of each Henchman card, there would of course be only one copy of each Arch Villain), and if the Henchman/crimes are face up then there could be competition for those as well. In order to foster this interaction, perhaps a 'wounded' Henchman (one who has had some successes against it but is not yet defeated) is somehow weaker - -1 to the target number for success, or 1 fewer success needed to defeat them. So if you fight a Henchman in Hell's Kitchen bot don't defeat him, I can either go after one in Metropolis, or I can go after the same one you went after, which would be a little easier for me to defeat. Expanding on that, perhaps a simple board would be in order such that if you are all the way across town from me then I cannot reach your henchman card in 1 turn (unless of course my superpower is that I can fly!)

In Heroic Deeds you are racing to successfully solve a certain number of crimes in each of 5 areas. Although it's not so much a race in each area as it is a race to be the first to solve enough crimes in 4 different areas. Perhaps a sub-goal could be added which really does make it a race to defeat a certain number of henchmen in each location...

Say there are 4 cities with 3 locations in each. Like in Winds of Plunder, you note a success in an area of a city by placing your player token (with your insignia, of course) there. The first player to place a token in each area of a city is awarded the Key to the City, which could confer some game benefit.

Thinking more along those lines, lets continue to consider 3 areas per city (A, B, and C) and let's also say that there is a different crime deck for each type of area - Thugs and Goons beat up or murder people in the Slums (area type A), Cat burglars rob rich people in the Suburbs (Type B), and Masterminds plan major heists Downtown (Type C) for example. Defeating crimes in areas A, B, and C of 1 city (before anyone else) earns you the key tot hat city, which would be desirable. But maybe defeating 3 crimes of type A earns you the right to take on the Arch Villain of type A (the guy bossing all the goons and thugs around), which ultimately is how you win the game.

Just wanted to get some of these brainstorms down before I forgot about them. I'll have to go through and cut out the chaff because I don't want to over complicate the game!

Alter Ego

As I mentioned (briefly), I came home from KublaCon 2010 with a prototype of a Superhero card game called Heroic Deeds. It had been entered in the game design contest, and the judges seemed to think that the story of the game was good, but the game play lacked in that it forced players to role play. Having now played the game I can say that it plays about like I expected it to - a "Take That!" card game which is really random and not very deep. The designers seemed to acknowledge this by adding rules to the game requiring players to "tell a story" about how they used their powers to fight each individual crimes - crimes which amount to a simple opposed die roll, with a potential +1 modifier here or there. The game can be played without that rule, and my friends and I agree with the contest judges that it's a silly rule... but either way the actual game play is simplistic and shallow, the fun is in the card art, theme, and "storytelling."

If you've read my blog at all, you know that this is not my type of game at all. I much prefer a game with more game to it. Like Munchkin, you apparently are supposed to play Heroic Deeds for the amusement of the cards, which wears off quickly. The game itself isn't as interesting as Munchkin. But I have to say that the theme and the idea behind Heroic Deeds is truly inspired! The concept is that as you spend time fighting crime, your friends and family start to wonder where you keep running off to, so every so often you have to take a break from crime fighting and manage your alter ego's personal life. It's such a great idea, I've been thinking of how I'd go about making a game where players are Batman-like super heroes who must worry about their alter ego's home life while fighting crime. Here's what I've come up with so far:

First of all, while comedy is great, I would probably go with a darker, more serious graphic novel style of theme rather than a parody, "comic" book theme. The game would concentrate on managing your Alter Ego, but of course to win a player will have to fight some crime and in the end defeat their Nemesis.

Let's say that each player has a player mat depicting 4 slots: a Hero slot and 3 Alter Ego slots (Family, Friends, and Job). To start the game, players have 3 tokens in each Alter Ego slot and maybe 1 token in their Hero slot. The tokens represent the strength of that player's bonds with each part of their life. At the outset, the player has strong ties (3 tokens) to his Friends, Family, and Job, but a weak tie to their inner Hero. Over the course of the game, players will need to strengthen their Hero bond by moving tokens from their Alter Ego slots to their Hero slot.

Alter Ego
Alter Ego slots could confer bonuses - ideally a specific type of bonus for each type of slot. As bonds to Alter Ego slots become weaker, the bonus conferred by that slot gets weaker as well. If a player neglects their Job, they no longer have full access to whatever benefits it confers, and if they neglect it too much (no tokens left) then they will be fired (or quit) and have no access to that benefit whatsoever. Thereby player differentiation and strategic paths can be built by which tokens a player chooses to move to his hero slot. Will you be the hero who neglects his friends and family, spending all your time buried in work or fighting crime? Or will you instead be fired for shirking work to hang out with your girlfriend when you're not keeping the city safe?

I am not sure what abilities or benefits the Alter Ego slots could confer. One idea for the "Friend" slot is that if you get down to 1 token left, the effect is that your best friend figures out your secret, and becomes your sidekick - giving you some bonus in fighting crime (re-rolls, modifier, whatever) but becoming a pretty big liability in that you must protect him. It be a viable strategy to purposely 'neglect' your Friends in order to 'recruit' this Sidekick (but in that case the liability should be significant).

Henchmen
Players will constantly be faced with crime cards depicting havoc being wrought on the city by Henchmen. In the beginning these Henchmen are weak, but as the game progresses they get stronger and stronger, requiring that players get tougher and tougher (more devoted) as Heroes. I haven't thought too much about the mechanism for this, but one idea is that you'd roll 1 die for each token in your hero slot, and the Henchman card would indicate some target number of successes required (and possibly define "success" for that encounter). This would make it easy to scale up and maybe balance the power level of the Henchmen as well as keep the outcome of an encounter somewhat uncertain. I think that uncertainty will be an important factor that will encourage players to strengthen their Hero bond to try and ensure victory (if you roll enough dice, then failure is a mathematical improbability). I could even use the combat system from Terra Prime, where the more dice you roll, the more likely any given die will produce a Success.

Successes could be recorded by placing tokens on the Henchmen card, such that it could take more than 1 turn to defeat them... for example, if a Henchmen requires 4 successes, and whatever the mechanism you achieve only 2 successes in a turn, you would have to achieve 2 more successes in a later turn to defeat the Henchmen. It's possible the Henchmen could shed a token between turns as well, to give the feel that they are really tough to beat. Failure to defeat a Henchman (either at all, or each turn) could result in some misfortune such as the removal of a hero bond token, or perhaps a specific bond token as noted on the Henchman card (the Green Goblin goes after Aunt May).

Arch-Villain / Nemesis
I'm currently thinking that there would be a Big Boss at the end of the game. I envision a deck of Arch Villain cards, which would probably be bigger, tougher versions of Henchmen. Defeating an Arch-villain (or a certain number of Arch-villains) could be the goal of the game - or perhaps a certain number of Arch-villains leads to a Nemesis, which is the final Boss and ultimate goal of the game. It could be that the Arch-Villains simply come out after some number of Henchmen, or after players have "strong" enough hero bonds, but I have an idea I think is pretty neat to govern this...

Let's say that each Henchman card is a particular color, and that the Arch-Villain cards have a variety of "costs" on them, represented by some combination of maybe 5 colors. When defeating a Henchman, you collect the Henchman card, and as soon as you have the 'cost' of an Arch-villain represented in your collected Henchmen cards then you take that Arch-villain card and that becomes your Nemesis. If each Arch-villain is unique and has interesting/different weaknesses, then you could target one by choosing which Henchmen to go after (assuming there's some method by which to go after particular Henchmen). Perhaps one of your Alter Ego benefits would relate to that - "your Job as a reporter keeps you apprised to what's going on in the city - when fighting crime draw 1 Henchman per Job bond token and choose 1 to encounter."

That's all I've got so far.

KublaCon 2009 con report - better late than never!

I never did get around to posting last year's KublaCon report, and I think that's because I never got around to finishing it up! Here's what I have, which is not complete, but is quite a bit. I'm posting this for my own convenience as much as for your benefit, but maybe you'll find it entertaining.

Friday 5/22
Got up super early to catch a 7am flight - arrived 9am at the Hyatt Regency Burlingame. It always amused me that the game convention was in a place called BurlinGAME (I'm easily amused). I met up with Andrew Schoonmaker with whom I was sharing a room, and we went downstairs to get some breakfast. The prices for everything in that hotel are horrendous. I chose to get the "breakfast special:" ham, egg, and Cheese on an English muffin for $4. First food-related mistake of the day! The thing was so small that it made me MORE hungry - that's the opposite of food! Also, they nuked the hell out of it in the microwave, so it was very, very hot. The cheese, if was ever in solid form, had been reduced to a sort of grease.

Fermat
They hadn't opened registration yet, and Andrew and I wanted to do something, so we started the convention with a game of Fermat. Glancing at Andrew's tallish stack of tiles and then to my haphazard pile I thought the game was really close. In reality I had quite a few more tiles than he did, but the disarray made the pile look shorter I guess. The game was weird, with all the large numbers next to EXP and multiplication symbols - it was kinda hard to make a lot of numbers (I think we skipped a few)

Wizard's Tower
After that we played a game of Wizard's Tower - something I don't think I've played in the last 6 months (BGG.con) or maybe 12 (Kubla last year)! I was in good shape with respect to endgame bonuses, and I had a Yellow tower in the central region. When I destroyed one of Andrew's towers I thought I'd clinched victory - but I could not complete any further towers in the next few turns to end the game. Andrew ended up with a massive clump of towers in the center region including 3 of his own and 3 neutrals. All told that's 33 points (one of the towers was on Red)! Andrew pulled out the win, but it was pretty close. At least I avoided a blowout!

Alex Eaton-Salners arrived, and we were all hungry for lunch but didn't want to spend a fortune at the hotel. So we decided to take a walk down the street to see what other options were available. There's a Sizzler across the street, and a Benihana a ways down, but those didn't sound too good to us. The office buildings in the area all appeared to have a little hole in the wall restaurant in them, mostly for the people who work there I presume. One was called Mr Teriyaki, and I suggested we try that. It seemed a good enough idea, but when my beef bowl came it looked NOTHING like the picture in the menu. For one thing it was completely buried in onions! I hate onions, so I picked them all off and they completely filled my soup bowl. The remaining dish was less beefy than I'd expected. It wasn't terribly good either, nor was it terribly cheap. Second food-related mistake of the day!

Rapscallion
After returning from lunch, the three of us played Rapscallion. Last year Andrew and I had been watching a game of Rapscallion being run by Ted Alspach, and 2 players had to leave midway through the game (coincidentally, I believe they were both in or near last place at the time). Andrew and I subbed in for them and played the rest of the game. It so happens that we finished 1st and 2nd if I remember correctly. Neither of us had played the game since then until Andrew played it Thursday night with someone. After he taught we played a game... I did TERRIBLY! Andrew won by a landslide. We all agreed that the game was kinda cool, but that it was a little too irritating that you HAVE to get rid of one of the playing cards you've collected in order to get another bidding card. I suggested that it would be cool if players started with 1 more playing card so that they'll have another option to discard in case the 2 they pick up are in the same set. In fact, it might be cool if the playing card you started with was a joker that works the same way as the Rapscallion does.

Sorry Sliders w/ Alex/Rick/Helen
Rick and Helen Holzgrafe arrived, and we decided to play Princes of Machu Picchu - but they had to go get it from their car. In the meantime we played Sorry Sliders - on 3 of the boards. It's kinda fun, though not for very long.

Princes of Machu Picchu w/ Alex/Rick/Helen/Candy
I have played Antike, Imperial, and Hamburgum. I LOVED Antike when I first played it, but haven't really played since. I HATED Imperial when I first played it, maybe not as much without the investor card, but it's not really my type of game. I like the Rondel mechanic though, and I liked Hamburgum - apparently more than anyone I play games with did. I had been interested in trying PoMP to see how the next Rondel game played. I liked that it wasn't a war game, but I didn't really know what to expect. I hadn't heard any rave reviews...

In the end the game was "OK" - just "OK." With the size of the board I think they could have done a better job of delineating the areas, but that's neither here nor there. In the game you collect various resources in order to put workers on the board or collect Priest/Priestess tiles, which help you run up the mountain more quickly. You want to run up the mountain because it means you get to draw a card, and the card has scoring conditions on it. At the end you will get some points for having stuff matching what it says on the card. The workers help you get more resources, or allow you to get resources when someone else takes the resource action. This was a nice interaction in the game. The game ended after a certain number of rounds, when the Spanish arrive. If at that time all the priest/priestesses tiles are gone, or all the cards have been drawn, then the Spanish don't take over and you score normally. Otherwise, you score normally, but the player with the most gold icons (on the cards) gets to triple his score, second most gets to double it. This seemed to add a little trick to the endgame, when you are selecting your cards, you have to choose between something that scores well for you, or something with a lot of icons in case the Spanish take over. I liked Princes of Machu Picchu enough to play it again, but I think I liked Hamburgum better.

After that game it was getting close to 7:00, so Andrew and I went to Knuckles to get dinner with Rick and Helen before the BGG meetup. I was going to get a burger, but at the last minute decided on a chicken ranch sandwich thing. It had bacon on it and sounded good... in reality though it wasn't terribly big or filling, and it came with a side salad which I didn't like and therefore didn't eat rather than french fries. Third food-related mistake of the day!

Small World with Derk/Aldie/Doug/Shelly
After the BGG meeup I hung out with Derk and Aldie and we ended up playing Small World with Doug and Shelly Garret. I've played (and liked) Vinci, and I wondered how different Small World would be. It's the same game (by the same designer) but re-themed and maybe cleaned up a bit. Instead of a map of Europe, it's a generic map, and the civilization tiles have been divided into races and special abilities. They still combine in the same way and confer various powers. I think they increased the number of powers... I know they took at least 1 rule (+1 to attack when controlling an adjacent mountain) and made it into a special ability of a race. I didn't mind the rules changes which in some cases seemed to streamline things, and in some cases didn't really make much difference. However I was pretty disappointed in the graphics. The art was nice to look at piece by piece, but all together it looked like a jumbled mess. In particular, the small race tiles all had detailed pictures on them, which were difficult to distinguish on the board, especially when in decline. The brightly colored player discs in Vinci were much better if you ask me.

Fits w/ Sid/Miguel/Lawrence
Aldie had a copy (I think it was Doug's) of Fits, which it turns out made the short list of SdJ nominees. It's a Reiner Knizia game based on Tetris. Each player has a collection of Tetris pieces, and you begin by placing one of them at random on your board. The board is a set of columns with dots showing, sometimes other symbols or numbers as well. Each 'level' has it's own rules but in general you get -1 point for each dot showing on your board. Sometimes you get positive points for covering up symbols or leaving certain symbols showing. The idea is to place your Tetris pieces like you would in Tetris - such that you don't have any open spaces on your board.

... That's about as far as I got in my detailed descriptions, some of the rest is just a quick note about what I played and maybe with whom.

Curse of the Mummy w/Aldie vs me/Miguel/some guy/some lady who's name started with a G (she won, I almost)

Saturday 5/23
Kachina w/ JT Mudge, Scott Caputio's fiance, and that G lady (she won, I almost). It's fun playing prototypes with designers which end up being published!

Knizia seminar
Reiner Knizia was the special guest last year, and I went to one of his seminars. I've been to several of his seminars over the years, and while there is often something new and interesting that comes up, you hear a lot of the same things over and over. Such is the nature of hearing the same person speak multiple times! This time I asked a question about his group of insiders, the players that are more than playtesters, but who really help develop the games more. I don't know how many of those he has, and to what extent they are responsible for some of the games with his name on them, and I was curious. He didn't really answer my question, but he did speak very highly of my friend Sebastian Bleasedale, one of his inner circle, and also published in his own right with On the Underground.

Knizia playtests
Reiner had some games with him for testing, and I was too late to get in on the playtests, but I watched. One of the games turned out to be exactly like Qwirkle. 5 colors/shapes instead of 6, and you can't hook the end of a chain and go the other way (like in scrabble), but otherwise identical mechanics. The scoring was different - you were trying to get rid of your stock of tiles. If you play the 4th tile in a particular set, you get to discard 1 tile from your hand or stack. If you add the 5th (and final possible tile), then you get to discard 2 additional tiles.

The other game had a proposed theme Mayan temple or something. I suggested Ziggaraut as a name, but no one seemed to like it. Reiner didn't want anything TOO thematic (regarding changes to game to match theme) - he wanted it to remain very abstract. He didn't want so much theme that players expect more. I think that's a ridiculous thing to think, personally, but I did see what he was saying.

Qwirkle w/ 2 women who had been playtesters of that Knizia game and also with Michael. After I'd pointed out the similarities to Qwirkle, I ran and got a copy from the library to show Reiner. After that, since I had it out, some of us decided to play. I don't think I've ever done so well at Qwirkle before!

Corner Lot w/ JC, Miguel, and Aliza
Despite my assumption that spending all my cash in the first round was probably a bad plan, I noticed 3 blue cards in the current market and nothing much in blue (maybe a low card) in the future market... so I blew all my money on the 3 (big) blue cards. I kinda forgot that the income is 2 less than the printed value (until the Empty Lot is built), so I was more screwed than I had expected in the following rounds. I did however end up with a pretty big Blue suit, with a couple runs in it, as well as a set of 7's and a rainbow run. I had to buy the blue Empty Lot (wild) and set it to $9 (not $12) because I wasn't able to get the $9 card (being broke all the time). I think I finished dead last.

I liked Corner Lot more than I thought I would, and I don't really have any thoughts on improvements - the game seems to be "done." It bothers me a little bit that the top card is a $12 instead of a $10 (it goes from $9 straight to $12) - especially when counting straights. That's not as bad though as the other thing that bothers me - that 90% of the time when you buy a wild you make it a $12. Maybe 10% of the time you make it a $7, $8, or $9 to fill in the hole in a straight flush. You never want the wild to be anything less than $7. I suppose that's OK, and the wilds could actually be printed as "$7-$12" - JC talked about some chits to indicate the value of a wild after you've bought it and that way there could be 5 each of two double sided chits, one saying 7/8 on the front/back and the other saying 9/12. I did have a suggestion for the rules: reword the priority marker rules such that it reads like this: On your turn you either pass, or you take the Bid/Buy marker and either bid or buy (the marker could say "Bid" on one side and "Buy" on the other). If ever it's your turn and you already HAVE the marker, then if you Pass you trigger the reduction of the cost for the smallest property and you pass the priority marker to the left. If you like, you could add a little something which occurs if you take an action and everyone else passes - it would trigger if you take an action and already have the priority marker. This is of course unnecessary, and I don't know what it would be (except gain a buck or 2). That's not even worth thinking about unless it's deemed bad somehow for everyone to pass except 1 guy.

Glory to Rome w/ Marcus (who I played Ys and TP with 2 years ago), Bey, and Dion
Dion was sort of learning (or maybe re-learning) the game, so when I was watching, I was trying to help him play. Then in the next game I joined in. I smoked the competition... I nearly used the Prison to steal Marc's purple building which allowed the play of multiple matching role cards, but it just didn't seem better than keeping the VPs! Marcus had multiple Merchant clients, but had some trouble getting cards in his Stockpile to sell. I sold a couple things as well, and ended up building out all the sites thinking I barely beat Marcus. I had forgotten that Dion sold something which negated one of Marc's bonuses, so I won by plenty.

Cities w/ Marcus, Bey, and Dion
The same group then played Cities, which is like a cross between Take it Easy and Carcassonne. Marc and I tied, and I believe we tied on the tiebreaker as well!

Municipium w/ Marcus, Bey, and Dion
I signed up for a game called Bartender, a new card game that the designer was pimping - his gimmick was that the winner of the game gets to keep it... they stole our idea! Tasty Minstrel is doing [edit: DID] something similar for BGG.con, called the Tasty Minstrel Winner Cleans Up event. I didn't necessarily want to play (Ceej got in the game), but I was curious about the rules. After listening to them, I went back to the Glory to Rome group, who had been explaining Municipium. I learned that recently, and got there just before they started so I was able to join them. It was a close game between Marc, Bey, and I but if I remember right, Bey pulled out the win - set up (inadvertently) by Marc.

At this point it was dinnertime and Ceej and I were going to drive to Chipotle. We were a little bit worried that Municipium would last too long and we wouldn't get there in time, but we were fine. I offered to pick up food for Marc, Bey, and Dion, and Ceej was picking up food for a friend of his - so we ordered 6 burritos all told. When we got there we found that they were almost out of a lot of stuff... they actually ran out of black beans and carnitas so we had to adjust our orders. On the way back I stopped at the Walgreens right there and stocked up on what turned out to be twice as much cookies and Pringles as I needed. I also bought a box of Cheerios. The plan was to avoid spending a fortune eating at the hotel the rest of the weekend!

I had been wanting to play Werewolf or Time's Up all weekend. No one really was playing WW on Friday night, but fortunately I was signed up for the Time's Up event which Ceej and I got back just in time for. Alex was there waiting, and though Derk was going to play, he wandered off and did something else instead. I paired up with Alex and we DOMINATED the opposition- despite a turn in the 2nd round where I forgot I could say a word and only got 2 cards! Ceej paired with a young girl who was slow to start, but then did really well once she got going. We all decided to play a 2nd game except for one guy who had to leave, so a new pair sat in. They didn't do well at all in the first round, so Alex and I weren't worried... but then they REALLY ramped it up and gave us a run for our money! We pulled out a narrow victory in the end though! Whew...

... That's all I have. The game design contest is covered, briefly, in a KublaCon Recap post I made last year, but I guess anything that happened on Sunday is lost forever, relegated to the recesses of my memory.

KublaCon 2010

I just got back from KublaCon 2010, another great weekend of fun and games in San Francisco! I applied some lessons I learned from last year... After arriving late Thursday night and not finding anyone I knew, I spent way too much on a Burger and Fries at Knuckles. Friday for lunch however, I went with Ceej again to Chipotle (Sean and Andrew - not Schoonmaker, another Andrew from L.A.) and ran into Lucky's for some turkey, french rolls, and cheese. I also picked up some Mountain Dew, cookies, and doughnuts. I ate far too much of the snacks, but the sandwich stuff was a great idea! I ate turkey sandwiches for the rest of the weekend for a pittance compared to the hotel's price gouging!

David Cunkelman pointed out a deal the hotel has which might be worth looking into in the future - for something like $30 per night added onto your room you can get access to a fancy lounge on the 9th floor where they have free internet as well as free food at mealtimes and desserts and drinks... sounds like a pretty good deal if you have enough people in the room!

After my ridiculously overpriced burger (which was at least tasty and filling) I watched some people playing The Adventurers - a game I've not played. I got to learn it by watching, and it looks like a light, fun little game. I probably wouldn't enjoy playing it more than once though. Then I headed up to bed.

Friday
Mosh Pit
Friday morning I started out with a game of Mosh Pit with Andrew Schoonmaker, with whom I again split a room. Mosh Pit is a game by a guy here in town, it's an abstract game kinda like Hive. I tend to dislike games like Hive (2 player abstracts), and I'm not sure why. I like this one quite a bit better, and I think it might be because in Mosh Pit you get 1 or 2 actions on your turn, and each player gets a maximum of 5 actions each round. Thus if you budget your actions, only taking one at a time while your opponent takes 2, you can end up finishing the round with 2 actions in a row, then starting the next round with up to 2 more actions in a row! getting 2, 3, up to 4 actions at a time really opens up the potential for a clever or tactical play, which makes it a lot more fun for me. I think the action budgeting in Mosh Pit is brilliant!

Terra Prime
Next I ran into Miguel, Aldie, and some friends of theirs, and chatted for a bit. Everyone was anxious to play a game, and Miguel suggested that I teach them my game, Terra Prime. I generally don't bring published games to conventions, but I did bring Terra Prime because I have the expansion for it. I sat out and taught Terra Prime as a 4 player game because I think it's a better experience 4 player than 5 for new players. It went pretty well, with most of the players figuring out what to do, until Tricia - who was doing very well at the time, decided to run recklessly into a red tile. I suggested she not do that, because if it were 3 Aliens they would hit her at least twice and as many as 5 times - and her shields were down to 2 energy... but she did it anyway (balls to the wall!) and sure enough, a triple alien managed to roll 3 hits for a total of 5 damage - knocking every module off her ship, INCLUDING the shiny new Thruster she'd just bought the turn before! It was an unfortunate turn of events, but hey, at least it turned out EXACTLY the way I predicted. *sigh* maybe some day players will treat Hostile Aliens with the fear and respect they deserve.

Eminent Domain
Those guys had some place to be, so next I found another group of players and introduced them to Eminent Domain. That game seems to be holding up, I think it's "about done."

Africa
I saw some of Steph's friends: Jeremiah and a woman who's name I always forget (who I met at BGG.con) and Ted Alspach, and another local woman. They were playing Africa, an old game by Reiner Knizia which I'd never seen. I watched and learned how to play, and when they decided to play again they offered me a seat. The game was pretty simple, there are a bunch of face down tiles all over the (hex grid) board (1 per space), and on your turn you may either teleport across the board (and that's it), or you can Move and do an action, then move again and do another action. The actions are essentially all just "flip up a tile adjacent to you and do the appropriate thing with it." Some tiles you keep for endgame bonus scoring and some you move adjacent to other like tiles elsewhere on the board and score points based on how many it's touching. There's 1 or 2 more small things you can do, but that's essentially it. Of course all your decisions are based on what will score you points. I thought it was an OK, though dry and somewhat boring game. I did manage to win by a fair amount though, so that was nice :)

Eminent Domain
After Africa, I ran another 4 player game of Eminent Domain for that same group of players. I played that (or ran it) a number of times over the weekend and it seemed to be pretty well accepted. In a couple cases it was VERY well received, in others it was only generally well received, but in no case was it disliked that I noticed. This time they mentioned that it was a little overwhelming at first, but about 2/3 of the way through the game they really started to 'get it.' I suspect there might be an expectation issue - if people go into Eminent Domain expecting it to be light and simple like Dominion, then they may be disappointed to find that there's a lot more going on than that. If they go in expecting something along the lines of Glory to Rome, then their expectations should be reasonable. Thus, I think I ought to stop billing it as a "deck building game" and instead call it "Like Glory to Rome, with Deck Building in it" or something. because that's what it is, a role selection game with deck building, not a deck building game.

Wizard
Next they pulled out Wizard, a game a loath, but since they were nice enough to try Eminent Domain, I couldn't complain too much. Andrew had arrived to see the end of Eminent Domain, and he joined up for Wizard. I REALLY SUCK at Wizard!

Flea Market
I seldom buy board games, and I seldom find good deals at the Flea Market. Last year I bought Railroad Tycoon for $50, which could be a good deal depending on how you look at it. In retrospect (considering I haven't played it since I got it) I probably should have instead waited and gotten Railways of the World and some of the expansions for it. Then I wouldn't have had to carry that heavy freaking box home from San Francisco! This time I did find a bargain though... Gardens of Alhambra for $2. I was taken aback when I asked the price, maybe she'd said $22 and I'd misheard? Nope, she just wanted to get rid of it, so she sold it for $2. I didn't like Alhambra, but I suspect this offshoot might be more enjoyable, and at $2, how good does it really have to be? If nothing else, I have some friends that do like Alhambra, and this could be a gift for them if I hate it. I also saw someone selling the first couple seasons of BSG on DVD for $20 apiece. I thought about getting them, but it wasn't the whole series (just the first 3 seasons), and only the first 2 were really that amazing anyway. However I have recently been thinking of trying to watch that show again, the first season anyway, so in the end I picked that one up.

Innovation
Sean McCarthy, a friend from Seattle, arrived. It was a surprise that he was coming at all, and it was even cooler that he brought Innovation with him because I've heard him talk about it and I've wanted to give it a try! After the flea market Sean, Aliza and I played a 3-player game of Innovation. When I'd first heard of the game I was really excited by the sound of it. The meld/splay mechanism sounded brilliant (and it is), and the tactical combos sounded fun. I love Glory to Rome by the same designer. The more I heard about the game though, the more I started to suspect that perhaps Innovation is TOO chaotic, and I was bummed to find out upon playing that it's not the amazing, awesome new thing that I hoped it would be. The effects are so sweeping that the entire board can easily change before you get another turn, and every card on the table is likely to effect your board position and the things you'll be able to do on your turn. It's almost as if every card in the game is really in play at all times, and to an extent you have to consider that - because for all you know, by the time you get a turn, any given thing might have happened. Therefore planning ahead is difficult to the point of absurdity, and at some point the game becomes less of a strategic contest and more of a crazy luck-fest not dissimilar to simply rolling dice to see who gets a higher result. It's true that with more familiarity with the cards, you have an easier time deciding what you can do and maybe even what you should do, but even if you know every card in the deck, while it may reduce the AP and down time, it doesn't change the fact that the game is totally chaotic.

I think I'm disappointed in Innovation, which is too bad, because I had high hopes for liking it.

Saturday
After Innovation it was time for bed. Saturday morning I woke up in time for a playtesting event put on the schedule by Candy Weber. I started out by playing Rick Holzgrafe's Railways of the Western U.S. expansion for Railways of the World (which is a remake of Railroad Tycoon). Rick had made a train game inspired by Railroad Tycoon called Hammer and Spike, which I rather liked. The publisher of Railways of the World ended up trying it and liking it, but though it too similar to Railways to publish separately - instead he commissioned Rick to take certain ideas out of Hammer and Spike and use them to create an expansion to Railways of the World. The result is Railways of the Western U.S., and potentially another expansion combining the eastern U.S. map and the new one for a Coast-to-Coast expansion. The Coast-to-Coast expansion takes something like 6 hours to play, which was deemed too long so we just played the Western U.S. expansion.

I'm happy to report that not only is Tucson, Arizona on the map, but it's even a colored city while Phoenix is gray :) Ont he other hand I'm sorry to report that I performed TERRIBLY at the game! My initial chosen strategy hod hijacked by another player (the player to my right no less), and I never bothered to figure something else out. I finished dead last by a lot.

Terra Prime w/ Expansion
After the train game, Rick and the guy that hijacked my plans played my Terra Prime expansion with me. Rick has played TP a couple of times, in prototype form as well as the published version, and I wanted to know how he thought the expansion compared. I managed a healthy 1st place finish, but that's to be expected since I've got a lot more experience with both the base game and the expansion, but my 2 opponents finished within 8 points of each other. I think they both said that the Expansion improves the game, so that's good. They seemed to like it.

Spacial Delivery
It only seemed fitting to follow Terra Prime with Spacial Delivery, Rick's space themed delivery game that won the KublaCon Game Design Contest 2 years ago. It was under review for publication by a European publisher for 18 months, but was recently turned down. I played the game once, before it was in it's current form, and had given some relatively extensive feedback to Rick afterward. I don't recall in depth what the game was like last time, so I was interested to see how it went this time.

I think some of the same things that bothered me the last time still bothered me this time, and added to that there were a lot of fiddly costs I don't remember being there before. I got the impression that I might have liked the game better last time, and even then there was a list of things I thought needed work. Rick mentioned that while he had thought the game might be done before, more recently he was getting a nagging suspicion that it's really not, and later in the weekend he said he'd been thinking about Spacial Delivery pretty much non-stop since our game of it. I hope Rick gets that game to a point he's happy with, because I think it's got a solid foundation.

Eminent Domain w/ Gareth
Gareth McSorley had contacted me on BGG about trying Eminent Domain, and he found me at the con so I played a 2 player game with him. He took to the rules right away, not really even using the player aid. It was only a couple of turns before he had the mechanics down, and I think by the end of the 1st game he was already thinking about some strategies. He said he liked it very much, so I asked if he wanted to play again now that he knew how to play. We played a second time and there was clearly marked improvement in his play.

Bananagrams
I happened upon a group of people playing Bananagrams and I played a few fun rounds of that.

Time's Up!
Every year I like to get in on the Time's Up! tournament, so Andrew and I talked 2 of the Bananagrams players to join us for it. Tricia was my partner and she was hilarious! I had a lot of fun, even though we got smoked by Andrew's team - who went on to win the final round as well :)

Zendo
After Time's Up I played a little Zendo - or tried to anyway. I am no good at that game whatsoever! I think it's because I never know how specific a rule might be - so when I DO figure it out, I think I haven't because I think of all the other possible things it could be.

Galaxy Trucker
Fortunately, some of the Zendo players wanted to play something else, so even though it was Galaxy Trucker, I was happy to join them. I have never played Galaxy Trucker, but never really cared too much to try it. It was nice to give it a shot, but I really didn't know all the stuff on the cards so I had no idea what I was putting on my ship. I went ahead and looked at the cards you're allowed to look at, but much of the info didn't make sense to me. I got pretty wrecked, but it was kinda fun. I'd play it again, but I wouldn't run out and buy it or request it myself.

Sunday
Corte de Lorenzo
Sunday morning I met up with David Cunkelman and I talked him and Sean into playing one of the submissions I'd brought with me. We played Corte de Lorenzo, and then we chatted a little about how to evaluate a submission. I'm new to this, so it was interesting to talk about that.

Ground Floor
As an example of a game that really grabbed me right away, despite the flaws it had when I first played it, we next played Ground Floor. Ground Floor is intended to be published in 2011 by Tasty Minstrel Games, designed by David Short, a guy here in Tucson who I met at RinCon last October. I really like Ground Floor, and have been working on developing it with David for about 6 months and at this point I think the game is really solid.

Sean McCarthy, David Cunkelman, and a friend of Davids who's name I didn't catch played a 4p game of Ground Floor. Our game went well with the slight exception of David spilling his soda on Sean's player board - could have been a lot worse! Only lost 1 player's worth of Ground Floor tiles and 1 Specialty tile - easily replaced!

David made some skeptical comments early about game balance, but at the end I think he saw how for example my large money advantage early didn't necessarily equate to a large positional advantage in the end. He did have 1 comment that hadn't come up and which might be an issue - that the last player in the randomly determined turn order may be a little screwed when it comes to popularity and rewards... I don't know if this is a problem though, and I think it could be taken care of via some easy method.

After the game, I went upstairs with Sean to get a sandwich for lunch, and he asked me what specifically I did to develop Ground Floor, so I got a chance to go over it and see what I contributed. That was a fun discussion for me, and hopefully interesting for Sean too.

Innovation
David wanted to play Fresco, but we couldn't find a copy of either. Doug Garret's copy was sitting there in his tub, but we couldn't find him to ask his permission to use it, so instead we played Innovation while I used my social resources to try and track down Doug. This game didn't make me feel any better about Innovation, though I did win by 1 turn this time instead of losing by 1 turn.

Fresco
Fortunately, my social networking came through, and we got permission to play Doug's copy of Fresco - which it seems was nominated for the SdJ (German game of the year award). I have played twice before, bot only with all the optional rules on. This time we played with NONE of the optional rules, only the very base game. I think I prefer the optional rules, which aren't much more complicated, but I did note a distinctly different feel to the game without them.

Eminent Domain
After Fresco, I bumped into Scott Caputo and chatted with him about general games-being-published stuff, since his Kachina and my Terra Prime just recently came out. Then Scott, JT Mudge and I played Eminent Domain - I wanted to know what they thought of it. They liked it (JT won pretty handily), and they said that they thought it was my most polished design that they'd played (they played and liked Wizard's Tower a year or two ago, and they might have also played All For One that year).

Jab
(BrainFreeze - broken clock :( )
At this point I wandered around a bit and ended up chatting with Brian Powers, who had entered a game in the Design Contest. He was short on time, so I showed him a quick game - BrainFreeze! I haven't played BrainFreeze! in ages, and as it turned out the chess clock was broken! :( Hopefully I can fix it. Meanwhile I showed him the second quickest game I had with me, Jab: Realtime Boxing. We played 1 round but then he had to get into a game of Power Grid.

Eat Poop You Cat
I found the Zendo group playing Eat Poop You Cat, and they invited me in for their last round. That's a fun game for late night gaming!

Monday
Triplets
I went to the Game Design contest award presentation so I could scope out the games and see if anything looked interesting. I walked away with 2 prototypes to bring home and play - one was Heroic Deeds, a card game about being a superhero and solving crimes... the interesting concept in it is that you have to worry about your Alter Ego and what your Heroic Deeds does to your everyday life. I fully suspect it to be a rehash of last year's Tomes of Knowledge, a neat foundation with a "Take That!" card game on top of it... But I'm really curious to see how they've approached this aspect, and who knows, it could be awesome!

The other prototype I walked away with was Triplets, an abstract tile laying game which has a similar feel to Set. The designer is a friend of Ricks, and so he, Rick, Aliza, and I played a game of it after the awards presentation. Triplets was one of 2 winners of the contest (they couldn't choose between the 2 so they crowned both games winners). The other winner was called Destroy Atlantis, another tile laying game, and the designer of that game will be sending me a copy.

Mosh Pit (Aliza and Karlo)
By this time the convention was winding down. Karlo (from the BGDF chat room) was hanging out, along with Aliza and Andrew. I wanted to get Mosh Pit played once more, so I taught it to Karlo and Aliza so they could play a 2 player game of it.

Lord$ of Vega$
While they were playing Mosh Pit, I noticed that James Ernest was playing a game of Lords of Vegas, a game coming out from Mayfair later this year. I saw a GIANT prototype of it at GTS in March, this one was much more reasonably sized. I was happy to be explained the game while watching, and it looks really, really good!

Eminent Domain w/ Aliza and Andrew
Finally, I had about an hour before I had to leave for the airport, and Aliza, Andrew and I played a final game of Eminent Domain (mostly so I could show Aliza because she was interested in seeing it). It went pretty fast because both Andrew and I dug into the Warfare stack, and it got down to 2 cards very quickly. However, Aliza was winning, so neither of us wanted to take that second to last Warfare card! The cleaning staff needed to take down the table, so rather than fight tooth and nail to come back, Andrew went ahead and chose Warfare. I did what I could to get points, but I couldn't quite catch Aliza so she was able to end the game in the lead. She said she thinks her RftG group would get a kick out of it so she may print up a copy to play with them.