tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77840293676537405242024-03-16T14:52:00.275-04:00game thoughta record of thoughts on games and game designNolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-41504150349367111392016-01-17T23:11:00.001-05:002016-01-17T23:11:51.865-05:00auctions vs pay-to-draftI've been working more on my "sports drafting game." The pitch:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As owners of 3-on-3 basketball franchises, players will draft teams and continue to build them over a series of seasons. The owners can use their scouts to see how players' values will change each season, or take risks on unscouted players. The results of each season is determined quickly to allow owners to carry their team through multiple seasons. The owner that can maintain the most successful team throughout the years is the winner.</blockquote>
That probably needs some work.<br />
<br />
I prefer auctions in fantasy sport as there may be a significant value difference between subsequent picks. Auctions force owners to put a more precise number on how they value the players.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, traditional auctions are slow, and can be bogged down by small incremental bids. This is where drafts have the advantage over auctions. And so, I was hoping to find a way to <i>combine</i> the two. The process requires tracking the shifting draft order on a draft board, and goes something like this:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Randomly determine the first draft order. Place the owner tokens on the 1st ($9) round, in draft order from left to right.</li>
<li>Starting with the left-most owner, the owner can choose to draft or pass.</li>
<ol>
<li>Draft - The owner takes any player into their team area, and places the appropriate amount of money on that player. The owner's token will move to the next round. If they don't have enough funds to draft in the next round, they must move their token to the round where the cost equals the owner's remaining funds. The owner's token is placed in the rightmost open position in that round. If the owner has already drafted 4 players, remove their token.</li>
<li>Pass - Move the owner's token to the next round in the leftmost open position.</li>
</ol>
<li>Continue with the next owner, going left to right, moving to the next round when there are no more owner tokens in that round.</li>
<li>Continue in this manner until all owners have drafted 4 players, or until all owners' tokens are on the 10th ($0) round.</li>
<ol>
<li>Once all owners are in the 10th ($0) round, do not move tokens after drafting. Continue drafting in left-to-right order until all owners have 4 players.</li>
</ol>
</ol>
<div>
This method of drafting teams is quicker than an auction, but still forces players to place a value on the players they wish to draft. It is more complicated, which concerns me from people learning from the rules. When being taught, I have found that it makes sense.<br />
<br />
My bigger concern is if it removes the tension that comes from an escalating auction. It's fun to bid up an opponent. It's fun to get caught up in the auction and bid more than you planned. Sometimes it's fun to bid on something you know is worthless, and then stick your opponent with it when they try to bid you up.<br />
<br />
You lose all of this with the draft.<br />
<br />
I plan on continuing to use the draft until it appears that it's missing some spice. If I find there to be less tension, I'll have to make a decision -- does the increase in tension make up for the increased play time?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-69759982178650415392013-06-27T23:56:00.003-04:002013-06-27T23:56:40.225-04:00quick notes - 25-Jun-2013<br />
I started this post about 6 months ago. What I wrote originally pretty much explains why I didn't finish it:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It has been a bit busy around our house lately. The arrival of our twin baby girls have dominated any semblance of free time that I once had. This means I have little time to write journal entries, write rules, review other's rules, or build any prototypes. It's a bit frustrating to not be able to participate in an apparently thriving Twitter community of game designers, but I know that they will all still be there when my life reaches a point where I have more time to commit to hobby game design.</blockquote>
<br />
Things have settled down a bit, but my design time is still scarce. I have had the opportunity to participate in <a href="http://hyperbolegames.com/" target="_blank">Hyperbole Games</a> Pen-pal Prototype Program, but only as a play tester so far. I have had time to focus a bit on one game design, which actually played half-decently in a solo play test.<br />
<br />
Here's what's on my plate:<br />
<br />
<h4>
<b>Construction Contracts</b></h4>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
No, this is not what I want to call the game, but it's what I got so far. I wanted to make a game entirely with cards, and this has been the result. On your turn, you play one card in front of you face down, discard a card, and draw two new ones. The first card you place face down is a worker of some type. Each subsequent card pays for that worker until you have met the payment requirement on the worker card. Then, the next card is another worker. At the end of your turn, you have the option to open bidding on any of the contracts for a building that are in the center of the table. You have to meet the requirements for that building with the workers that you have been placing in front of you. Each building has a certain type and victory point value. Sets of types score more points. Some buildings can count as two types. Play continues until all building contracts are won. It works, but I'm not sure if the fun is there. I need to get it in front of other people, but I want to tweak some values first. I had a ridiculous spread of victory point values which made the math a bit silly. Also, the game took a little too long, so I want to reduce the costs of the workers. Once I complete that, I'll print out a new deck and force someone to play it with me.<br />
<h4>
<b><br /></b></h4>
<h4>
<b>New Phoenix</b></h4>
<br />
My dice-pool-collecting game with a dash of role selection has stalled out, but I have a new idea I need to try with it. Instead of it being role selection (where players can "follow" the role chosen by the active player), I think it would work better as something closer to a worker placement. It makes more sense thematically as well. You take your dice roll and assign the appropriate dice to one of the tasks for the community (tribe? clan?). Subsequent players cannot perform that task this round and must choose another task or freeze one of their dice for the next round. After the tasks are all chosen, the players execute the tasks in a given order (develop technology, recruit/protect #1, recruit/protect #2, freeze die, scout). The turn order for the next turn is determined by the reverse order that the tasks were executed in (primarily so that there is incentive to scout knowing that you can choose recruit/protect #1 first). I need better developments, and well, to actually try this new system, but I think it will be better than what I had.<br />
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
Franchise (or some drafting game)</h4>
<br />
My post on some ideas for a <a href="http://gamethought.funkcracker.com/2012/05/drafting-with-hidden-attributes.html" target="_blank">drafting game</a> is pretty much where I left this one. Basketball would be my sport of choice if I pursued a sports-related theme. I think that some sort of racing game or goofy robot combat game would still be fun. This is definitely in the pre-alpha-you-can't-hardly-call-it-an-idea phase.<br />
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
Partnership games</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I had two ideas. My last post describes the <a href="http://gamethought.funkcracker.com/2012/07/partnership-card-game-highs-and-lows.html" target="_blank">issues I had with the card game</a>. In the end, I think it was too long, and not really fun. I'm not sure it's worth pursuing any further, at least not until I'm happy with (or ready to abandon) my "contracts" card game.</div>
<div>
<br />The other idea was for a board game that involves some amount of terraforming and magic. Tricks make up the elements for spells that change the terrain of the board, and each team is trying to help their clan grow by terraforming the board in their favor. I believe I mentioned <i>Populous</i> as an inspiration. I should probably play <i><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/120677/terra-mystica" target="_blank">Terra Mystica</a></i> as well, although it sounds more complicated than I was imagining.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can now say I've successfully updated my blog in less than a year. Now, to actually work on one of these games!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-1060697725226887662012-07-23T23:48:00.000-04:002012-07-23T23:48:17.654-04:00partnership card game highs and lowsI printed out a prototype for the partnership card game I've been working on. I've been calling it "Builder" for lack of a good name. I used nandeck with a data import to generate the cards, so they are functional but text-only.<br />
<br />
The game works, which makes me want to continue working on it. I'm not sure it's fun yet. I think part of that has to do with limited decisions. However, sitting down and playing all 4 hands shed some light on some obvious problems. The out-dated, rough draft of the rules can be found <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TAbo1vEq2pnBje4USEu6XPslxX3lYr62gwDDBYqYR3Y/edit">here</a>.<br />
<br />
First, the game was moving too slowly at the beginning. This was easily fixed by given each player two workers to start instead of one. This also alleviated the pain of not gaining a worker cards in the first couple of hands.<br />
<br />
Second, the prices and the card values did not match up. The prices were too low for the values of the cards. I couldn't lower the card values, which were currently 1, 2, or 3. Solution? I doubled the prices, and increased the card values by 1 (2, 3, 4). I think this allowed the values to match the prices better, and it decreased the factor between the maximum and minimum card values. Better!<br />
<br />
I fear adding too much complexity without justification, but I think the game is too simple right now. I'm going to add "Advisers" to the game to see if it adds some extra decision-making without making things significantly more complex. The Advisers will be portrayed on the Worker cards, so now the Worker cards have three purposes: 1) play for resources, 2) player to gain a Worker, or 3) discard a Worker to place this Adviser in your tableau. A player can have up to two Advisers in their tableau at a time. Each Adviser gives the player an extra ability. Here are some ideas:<br />
<ul>
<li>Architect - Allows players to use one worker like a foreman</li>
<li>Recruiter (idea #1) - May play a worker card when anyone calls produce to add a worker to a production building before producing</li>
<li>Recruiter (idea #2) - On your turn, may discard any card to add a worker</li>
<li>Production Manager - Without moving any workers, may produce from one building before taking your normal turn</li>
<li>Efficiency Manager (idea #1) - When opening a new project, after every other player has made their contribution, may contribute to any open project</li>
<li>Efficiency Manager (idea #2) - When another player opens a project, may contribute to another open project or directly to the Castle if you are unable to contribute to the newly opened project</li>
<li>Ambassador - After opening a new project, may compel one player to contribute a card of a specific type</li>
<li>Resource Manager - Maximum hand size is increased by one. This does not affect the capacity of a warehouse.</li>
<li>Merchant - May use the Market any number of times after producing</li>
</ul>
<div>
Right now I'm planning on 12 worker cards, so that leaves room for 2 copies of 6 Advisers. Hopefully I can come up with 6 that are reasonably -- but not necessarily perfectly -- balanced.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">There are two things I need to work on still. At this point, I think there is still a distinct advantage to simply drawing the best cards. I think I can make some changes to affect this. Namely, I want to change the rules so that when someone opens a project, other players only score if they contribute to that project. I'm not sure if that's the way to go. I should probably play a few games to completion before making that call.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
Lastly, I'm not too thrilled with the theme. You are a builder. In medieval times. Helping build a kingdom and castle. I think it's been done. However, the game mechanics do fit with the theme, and I haven't been able to think of anything else. So I'm sticking with it for now.<br />
<br /></div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-70754498995611044232012-05-16T23:21:00.000-04:002012-05-16T23:21:11.691-04:00drafting with hidden attributesAs a follow up to my previous entry, I want to consider some more specific themes that could be used with a drafting mechanic that utilizes hidden information. The drafting mechanic discussed here is not the typical "pick one and pass" card drafting that other games utilize. Instead, it's something more commonly seen in both real and fantasy sports. There is a known pool of items to draft from, and players take turns picking an item to add to their set of items.<br />
<br />
If the draft is the meat of the game, the majority of the time spent playing the game should be spent during the draft. Resolving the draft -- i.e, determining which set of items is the best -- should be a relatively quick exercise. Ideally, multiple drafts would occur, and the winner of the game would be based on the outcomes of each competition that occurs between drafts.<br />
<br />
The most obvious theme is drafting and managing a sports team. The obvious benefit to using this theme is that it closely mimics what happens in real life, and there are millions of people that play fantasy sports every year. The problem with sports is that most sports require fairly large teams. Of the major U.S. sports, basketball requires the least number of players with only 5 playing at a given time. Even then, 5 players for each team with 3 - 8 teams requires 15 - 40 players available for each draft. That's a lot of players to consider at once!<br />
<br />
Sports do play well into the theme for other reasons. Players generally specialize in a position or skill that every team needs, and each team would need to have players that fill all of the needs of the team. Players can have synergy with other types of players that would enhance their value to the team. Using dice, players can be represented as providing consistent value, or they can be inconsistent but have high potential -- adding a bit of risk-reward to the situation.<br />
<br />
Finally, the hidden attributes: each player could come with a randomly assigned card that slightly modifies their attributes, but the contents of the card are unknown to the teams. A team can hire a scout to allow them to look at the contents of the cards for a particular player. Teams with more money can hire more scouts. The teams that perform the best between drafts (in either head-to-head matches against other teams, or perhaps in some calculated ranking) earn more money to use for scouting in the next draft.<br />
<br />
I could expand further on ideas I've had for doing a sports drafting game, but I want to focus on one other route that I've considered.<br />
<br />
Instead of building a team, players are building a machine. Each machine requires certain parts to run, and each part affects the performance of the machine. Each machine also has a maintenance cost (again, randomly assigned) that is hidden from the player, but can be revealed to a player if that player sends one of his "experts" to examine the part. Each part has an initial cost that the player would have to pay when they pick the part in the draft. Before the next draft, they would have to pay the maintenance cost or trash the part. The game would flow something like this:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Create pool of parts for drafting</li>
<li>Send out experts to look at hidden maintenance costs</li>
<li>Draft parts, pay cost, reveal maintenance costs</li>
<li>Compete, earn payout based on performance</li>
<li>Create new pool of parts for drafting</li>
<li>Pay maintenance cost or trash each item (not sure when exactly this should happen)</li>
<li>Send out experts, etc.</li>
</ul>
<div>
So what are these machines?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One idea is to make it an auto racing game. I know nothing about racing, and I haven't played any board games based on the theme. However, the advantage of a race is that the results are determine in one race! You don't have to have several head-to-head matches. No matter how simple the method used to determine the winner in head-to-head matches, that process will almost certainly take longer than running one race. Additionally, defining how the head-to-head matches should take place between drafts can be difficult with variable player numbers, unless you do a round-robin. And nobody wants to do an 8-player round-robin.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other idea is robot combat. Yeah, you heard me. ROBOT. COMBAT. Now the head-to-head matches don't seem like such a bad idea, do they? An interesting aspect of this theme is that players could design their robots with a particular opponent in mind if they were only facing one or two other robots between each draft. The makeup of your opponent's robot becomes one more factor in the decision on which parts to draft. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Perhaps it should be a Robot Battle Royal.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So what sounds good? Sports? Auto Racing? Robot Combat? Robot Battle Royal?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-13939502937500500132012-05-11T23:12:00.000-04:002012-05-11T23:12:04.997-04:00distilling the nfl draftA recent tweet reminded me that I have a "fantasy sports as a board game" design that I was once working on.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Any games themed around (or work mechanically like) the NFL draft? There's so much good subterfuge and meta-gaming involved.<br />
— Matt Worden Games (@MattWordenGames) <a data-datetime="2012-04-30T15:51:48+00:00" href="https://twitter.com/MattWordenGames/status/196990242731982848">April 30, 2012</a></blockquote>
<script charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">
</script>
<br />
Let's break this down.<br />
<br />
The purpose of the NFL draft is to give each team the opportunity to add pieces to their team in order to improve it.<br />
<br />
<i>The draft adds pieces to a whole with the intent to improve it.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
The order of the NFL draft is determined by the performance (win-loss record and playoff performance) of the teams in the previous year. The teams with the worst performance select first. This is necessary as the draft is inherently unfair. The first selection is more valuable than the last player.<br />
<br />
<i>A draft is inherently unfair, so the drafters must start in unequal positions.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
The players drafted are evaluated on a variety of aspects. They have shown their football abilities at the college level. They have shown their athletic prowess at the combine. They have a perceived potential. The position that they play can add to their value. Each player has a better fit in some systems than they do in other systems. The player's character is evaluated as well. All of these are factored into where a team will rank the player on their "big board".<br />
<br />
<i>The pieces have a known value, a potential value, and a value that is dependent on the whole they are being added to.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
There is no winner after the draft is completed. Instead, the results of the draft are determined in a 16-game season, followed by a 4-round playoff. While favorites can be identified based on the make-up of the teams, there is enough unpredictability that the champion cannot be determined until the entire season is played.<br />
<br />
<i>The results of the draft do not determine the winner. Instead, each whole is has the potential to be the winner, but some are more likely than others.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
But what about the "subterfuge and meta-gaming"?<br />
<br />
Each team has its needs and has its own valuation of the players available in the draft. If there is a player that a particular team wants, but they are afraid that the player won't be available when it's their turn to pick, they will make a trade -- players or future draft picks -- to move up to secure the player that they desire. So when another team feigns interest in a player, they can convince a team to make a trade, perhaps unnecessarily, to acquire the player they want.<br />
<br />
Can this be built into a game? Or does a game rely on players to create the meta-game?<br />
<br />
A lot of this relies on the players. The design can encourage bluffing and posturing, but it can never force a player to act in such a way. <i>Werewolf</i>, <i>Mafia</i>, and games of that variety are built entirely around meta-gaming. If a player refuses to lie or otherwise trick and deceive the other players, the game will be much less interesting.<br />
<br />
Auction games afford some amount of meta-gaming because players have the ability to affect the price for items that other players want. A player can force another player to pay more for an item that is only valuable to one of them. In the same right, a player could be caught bidding another player up too high, and be forced to pay more for something that isn't as valuable for that player. Games like <i>Homesteaders</i> and <i>Power Grid</i> excel in creating that tension of one player seeing how far they can push up the price for another player. <i>Ra</i> not only forces you to judge how much a player will bid on a set of items, but it also allows you to choose when to offer some items up for auction. In the right group, extensive meta-gaming can emerge from these simple mechanics.<br />
<br />
Coming back to the draft, I believe that while meta-gaming could emerge from the uncertainty of how each player values a particular draft pick, the addition of hidden information would encourage meta-gaming even more. Imagine a draft where each item in the draft (e.g., a player in a football draft) has a set of know attributes that all players can use to judge the value of that item. However, each item also has some hidden attributes that not every player has seen. Players that have this information can use it to get a more accurate valuation of the item, and they can deceive other players in what they saw. If more than one player has seen the same hidden information, the two players can create confusion if one is trying to tell the truth about what they saw while the other is deceiving the other players. While this still requires the players to create the meta-game, it adds another layer to the design to encourage it.<br />
<br />
Since this post is already too long, I'll save my game ideas for drafting games for another post -- hopefully soon!Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-44351703069286585602012-03-22T16:36:00.000-04:002012-04-18T22:32:32.588-04:00custom dice: oh, they're expensive?A tweet I saw yesterday sparked some thoughts on my game involving custom dice.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-in-reply-to="182575193112322048">
@<a href="https://twitter.com/Crash_Games">Crash_Games</a> custom dice = $2,200 up front and about 2.8 cents each at 250,000 quantity...Or so...So, yeah, expensive for small runs.<br />
— Tasty Minstrel Games (@TastyMinstrel) <a data-datetime="2012-03-21T21:34:46+00:00" href="https://twitter.com/TastyMinstrel/status/182581039351345154">March 21, 2012</a></blockquote>
(Side note: If anyone knows how to properly imbed a tweet within a Blogger post, please let me know.)<br />
<br />
<script charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">
</script>
Oh really? Ouch.<br />
<br />
My dice game, as is, requires 4 unique dice per dice type. That's 16 - 20 unique dice. Assuming the $2,200 is per unique die, that's roughly $35,000 to $45,000 for set up costs.<br />
<br />
That will never happen.<br />
<br />
For reasons like this, it's important for a designer to know the costs of production before they dive too far into a design. Unfortunately, it takes some leg work, and personally, I'd rather be designing. It's helpful to follow conversations on Twitter and from the BGG game design forums for this very reason.<br />
<br />
As for my design, I came up with what is hopefully a solution to the problem. Instead of 4 unique dice per type, there would just be 4 unique dice. Essentially, all the dice were the same across types. So instead of having the unique icons for each type, the dice would display "primary" and "secondary" icons. The type of the dice is still signified by its color. There would have to be a legend that indicated what the primary and secondary icons were for each type.<br />
<br />It's not as ideal as a bunch of custom dice, but it should be would be much cheaper!Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-26768314444388543752012-02-23T15:25:00.002-05:002012-02-23T15:25:27.009-05:00hobos: the be-picked-up-and-delivered themeIn the midst of resenting the amount of stuff we have in our house, I must have had a romantic vision of getting rid of everything and becoming a hobo. Given how unrealistic (and honestly, not all that romantic) the idea was, I had to do the next best thing: design a game!<br />
<br />
Be warned: what follows is a brainstorm. Ideas within may contradict each other, or might not make any sense!<br />
<br />
The heart of the game revolves around jumping on trains to hitch a ride to various towns to find jobs. Jobs provide money and/or food, change your reputation (positively or negatively) with the town and/or the hobo community, and change your happiness. Victory conditions are based around money, happiness, and reputation.<br />
<br />
Food is required periodically, or else you'll lose some happiness.<br />
<br />
Happiness is factored into your final score.<br />
<br />
Money is required to buy food and train tickets. It also factors into your final score.<br />
<br />
Train tickets allow you to legitimately travel on commuter trains. Otherwise, you have to jump a freight train.<br />
<br />
Reputation allows you to get better jobs or receive charity. It also factors into your final score.<br />
<br />
The board is a hex map that contains several towns. The towns are connected by railroads. If it's not too complex, some of the railroads may be commuter trains while others are freight trains. If it's too fiddly, we can pretend they are one in the same.<br />
<br />
The trains move between towns autonomously. The train tracks would be segmented into spaces, and each space would be 2 (or 3) hexes in length. Each turn, every train moves one space. Hobos can board trains when the train is at the train station (otherwise the train is moving too fast!).<br />
<br />
In a town you can take one of the jobs currently available there. Jobs may have a reputation requirement before you can take them. You can take charity in town, which provides money or food but hurts your reputation. You can use money to buy food in town.<br />
<br />
Turns correspond to trains moving one space. Jobs may take multiple turns to complete. Hobos may move by foot one hex space each turn.<br />
<br />
That is the basic framework I have in mind, but I already see a glaring problem: moving one space per turn, or waiting for a train to get to the next town, or waiting for a job to complete could be <i>boring</i>. Perhaps in practice it would move fast enough that it wouldn't be a problem.<br />
<br />
The map might be the biggest challenge. Routes would have to be designed so that there are multiple ways to get around. Going by foot should be inefficient, but viable if a train isn't immediately available.<br />
<br />
I can see this becoming more interesting as a design problem than as an actual game!<br />
<br />
<br />Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-15732073982220337302012-02-11T22:24:00.002-05:002012-02-11T22:29:22.990-05:00Dragon Sneak<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Deep within the caverns of mountains, a dragon holds a treasure trove of unimaginable wealth. Even greater than the wealth is the dragon's desire to protect it. Yet, the dragon must sleep, and when he does, you'll seize the opportunity sneak in and relieve him of his gold.</blockquote>
I recently had an idea for a game similar to <i>Incan Gold</i>. I don't quite remember, but I believe the idea crossed my mind after reading the <a href="http://condoofmystery.com/?page_id=34"><i>Belfort</i> comic</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Contents</b><br />
<br />
Instead of cards, the game uses 10 custom dice: 2 treasure dice, 5 black dragon dice, and 3 red dragon dice:<br />
<ul>
<li>One treasure die has the values 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 on its sides</li>
<li>One treasure die has the values 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11</li>
<li>The black dragon dice have one side with a dragon eye, and 5 blank sides</li>
<li>The red dragon dice have two sides with a dragon eye, and 4 blank sides</li>
</ul>
<div>
There are three types of action tokens: "Take Gold", "Stay Still", and "Run!" There are enough for each player to have one of each.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Setup</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
Start with one black dragon die and the two treasure dice as your active dice. Set the other dice to the side.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Give each player three action tokens, one each of the "Take Gold", "Stay Still", and "Run!" tokens.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<b>Gameplay</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
The game is played in a series of rounds. In each round, the following is performed in order:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Roll Dice</li>
<li>Choose Actions</li>
<li>Distribute Gold</li>
<li>Add/Remove Dice</li>
</ol>
<div>
<b>Roll Dice</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
</div>
<div>
Any player (you can rotate for giggles) rolls all of the active dice. The sum of the two treasure dice indicate how much treasure is added to the amount of treasure found. Before the first round, the amount of treasure found is 0, so the first roll determines the initial amount of treasure found.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If two dragon eyes are revealed, the round ends immediately.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Choose Actions</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
Each player secretly chooses one of their actions by placing the chosen action token in one hand. The other two action tokens should be hidden in the other hand. Once all players have chosen an action, they simultaneously reveal which actions they have chosen.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The three actions are:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Take Gold - All players that choose "Take Gold" will divide the found treasure equally among themselves (see below). If no player chooses "Take Gold", all of the found treasure is available for the next round.</li>
<li>Stay Still - A player that chooses "Stay Still" gains nothing. If all players choose "Stay Still", one dragon dice will be removed (see below).</li>
<li>Run! - A player that chooses "Run!" does not gain any treasure. The player returns safely to the village with all of the treasure in his bag. The player does not participate in the remainder of the rounds.</li>
</ul>
<div>
If only one player is remaining in the round, that player cannot choose "Stay Still" as an action.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Distribute Gold</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
</div>
<div>
All players that choose "Take Gold" will divide the found treasure equally among themselves. If all of the treasure cannot be divided equally, the remaining treasure will be included in the found treasure for the next round. Players place the treasure that the gain in their bag.
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Add/Remove Dice</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
If all players selected "Stay Still", and there is more than one dragon die among the active dice, one dragon die will be removed from the active dice. If there is a red dragon die, remove it. Otherwise, remove a black dragon die.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Otherwise, if at least one player did not choose "Stay Still", one die will be added to the active dice. If no dragon eyes were rolled, add a black dragon die. If one dragon eye was rolled, add a red dragon die.<br />
<br />
<b>Round End</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
When all the players have chosen Run!, or when two or more dragon eyes are rolled in a single roll, the round ends. If any player was still active when two or more dragon eyes were rolled, they lose of the gold they had accumulated in their bag.<br />
<br />
<br />
Play would continue in this fashion until some larger end-game condition is met. This could be a fixed number of rounds, a particular amount of gold for one player, or until a certain amount of total gold is exhausted from a common supply.<br />
<br />
There are enough differences between <i>Incan Gold</i> and this design that I believe that it could stand on its own two feet. That said, I'm not sure if the "Stay Still" action would really work out or not. In my head, trailing players may work together to build their wealth while a player in the lead sits out. However, it may be more of a losing proposition to take "Stay Still" if the only way you benefit from it is if everyone does it. If players never can trust each other, no one will take it.<br />
<br />
If that is the case, the rules could be changed to protect players that choose "Stay Still". If two dragon eyes are rolled, players that had chosen "Stay Still" in the previous round could be safe from that roll.<br />
<br />
Hopefully playtesting would reveal the right way to go with this.<br />
<br />
The problem is that this game requires at least 3 players, and would probably be best with 4 or more (up to 6? 8?). I'm not sure I could gather a group like that regularly enough to test it out!</div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-49260648113518053622011-11-20T21:14:00.001-05:002011-11-20T22:50:22.399-05:00quick notes - 20-Nov-2011For my dice game:<br />
<ul>
<li>It might make sense to force the player to select a certain number of dice to roll on a turn instead of being able to roll all of their dice. Perhaps this would be based on the highest value die that they are rolling -- perhaps the value of their highest die plus one. For example, if they only have 1-star dice, they could only roll 2 dice on their turn. If they gain a 3-star dice, now they can roll up to 4 dice on that turn. This would prevent a player from gaining a bunch of 1-star die quickly and running away with the game. It would also affect the utility of buildings and techs.</li>
<li>I'm still not convinced I need both buildings and techs, but I'm also not sure which I would keep.</li>
<li>For thematic reasons, I'm considering making the role selection a vote each round where the number (or value) of dice committed each round would serve as votes for performing a particular role. This could fail miserably if one player could dominate the voting, so I'd have to include some restrictions to prevent this. Maybe it's too complicated.</li>
</ul>
<div>
For the train-deck-building game:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Card games really want cards with power. Right now all I have are links, loans, and money. Boring.</li>
<li>I'm considering giving the links a second use -- perhaps they can be discarded for some temporary effect.</li>
<li>I'm not convince this won't suffer from the dreaded "multiplayer solitaire" feel. The problem is that if the right links aren't available to buy, there's no competition for goods. Of course, I've only simulated 2-player games, so maybe this wouldn't be as evident with 3 or more players.</li>
<li>A possible solution to this problem would be to make the link cards generic (1-track, 2-track, 3-track, etc.). A player would purchase the generic link, and then could meld the card to claim a link on the map. This would require pieces to mark claimed links, but I was planning on doing this anyway. I don't want to move this into board game territory -- the point was to make a card game. I suppose as long as it plays quicker than the board game, it would be an accomplishment of sorts.</li>
</ul>
<div>
For <i>Franchise</i>:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>Blood Bowl: Team Manager</i> does a lot of things right, but it's still just as much about playing the game as it is building your team. In fact, it's probably more about playing the game. I want to do the opposite.</li>
<li>I think getting rid of the "games" would be okay in order to speed the game up. Some sort of team "strength" would determine how well your team does in a season (a la <i>Basket Boss</i>). However, I still want there to be some variance in the team's strength. The final strength should be unpredictable, but the player should be able to understand the likelihood of reaching a given strength.</li>
<li>I want players to have attributes that synergize -- like in basketball, a 4 or 5 that is a "Passer" would increase the value of a 2 or 3 that's a "3-point Shooter".</li>
<li>Basketball seems like a good target sport because you only have 5 players on your team. (American) Football would be more fun, and is a much more popular sport in the U.S. Soccer would be most popular world-wide, but I don't really know that much about it.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I should probably focus on one of those more. I think the dice game is winning out.</div>
</div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-83347628561368767952011-11-04T16:06:00.001-04:002011-11-16T23:10:51.027-05:00a train-themed deck-building gameRecently, a friend asked me if Railways of the World: The Card Game was a train-themed deck-building game. I think it's fair to say that he was turned-off by the theme and art in Ascension, and was wondering if a train-themed deck-building game had been published. RotW:TCG is certainly not a deck-building game, and I'm not so sure that one exists (a quick look at BGG suggests not).<br />
<br />
Of course, this led to me thinking about what such a game would look like. I'm not an avid train game player. In fact, I've only played Ticket to Ride and Railroad Tycoon/Railways of the World. Those games all have one thing in common: the player buys links between cities. This is the basis of my train-themed deck-building game.<br />
<br />
As much as possible, I want everything to be represented by cards in the players' decks. Links and money (3 denominations in $1000 increments -- $1000, $2000, and $3000) are the first two types of cards. In order to obtain links, players would have to spend money. Money can only be obtained in one of two ways: takings loans and delivering goods.<br />
<br />
Loans are a single card that a player can gain at any time. When a player takes a loan, he also takes the appropriate amount of money (e.g., $4000). The money goes into the player's hand, and the loan card goes into the player's discard. Loans also have a negative victory point value.<br />
<br />
I created 48 link cards to begin between 18 cities, borrowing heavily (okay, completely) from Railways of the World. At first blush, I think some cities have too many links (Toledo has 8!), and some links are too expensive (Buffalo to Boston is 14 times more than New York City to Philadelphia), but I recognize full well that this is just a starting set around which I will build the mechanics.<br />
<br />
I'd like for only a limited number of links to be available to players at one time, similar to the center row in Ascension. Because of this, there may need to be a balancing mechanism to counter-act first-player luck. For example, maybe there needs to be a varying start player that players bid on after each player takes a turn (i.e., bid, everyone takes a turn, bid, etc). Alternatively, all links could be available all of the time, but that could still give the first player a significant advantage.<br />
<br />
When a link is purchased, the player should have the option to either put it in his discard or immediately open the link (or maybe it should go directly into his hand -- forcing another action to open it?). Opening a link allows the owning player to deliver a good from either end-point on that link, and it also allows other players to use that link in a multiple-link delivery. Players only need to own the link coming from the source of the delivery. If the player chooses to place the link in his discard, he may later open the link when the card is available in his hand.<br />
<br />
When a player opens a link, he must either discard any currently open links, or incorporate the new link into a single route with any or all of the links that he has already opened. This may be too restrictive, and it may be necessary to allow players to include other players' open links to create a single route.<br />
<br />
There will need to be a small map to keep track of the goods available for delivery, at the very minimum. I found that it also might be useful for players to mark the links that they have purchase on the map as it can be difficult to keep track of what you have purchased. I don't want memorization of purchased links to be a necessary in order for a player to be successful in the game.<br />
<br />
At this point I have four different colors of goods, and 11 cities that can receive one color of good (2 of one color; 3 of the other three colors). Every city is initially stocked with some random goods; the number of goods on each city is dependent on the city itself (a la Railways of the World -- surprised?).<br />
<br />
When a good is delivered, the player receives one $1000 money card for each of his own links that he delivered across. If he utilized any other player's link, that player gains one $1000 money card for each of his links that were utilized. I think I want to also include engine upgrades, which would require a player to have an engine level at least a high as the number of links that he wishes to utilize in a delivery (e.g., he would have to have at least an engine level of 3 to deliver across 3 links). It's something that I would include in the beginning, but will be more than willing to cut out if it appears to be unnecessary.<br />
<br />
On a players turn, he may initially perform two actions. The available actions are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Buy a link</li>
<li>Open a link in your hand</li>
<li>Consolidate funds - Return any amount of money from your hand to the supply. Gain an equivalent amount of money in any denomination (to your hand or discard?).</li>
<li>Deliver a good</li>
<li>Upgrade your engine</li>
<li>Increase the number of actions you can perform (hire workers?). This increase would not be available until the next turn. (not sure this is necessary)</li>
</ul>
<div>
Players can take a loan at any time without using an action.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Play continues until a predetermined number of cities have exhausted their goods.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I haven't decided on a winning condition. "Most money (minus loan penalties)" would seem apt, but I'm afraid that not separating money from victory points could cause a runaway leader problem. However, they are so inextricably linked, I'm not sure that it matter. One alternative would be to give victory points for various other things -- delivering, each link is worth some points, perhaps some goals that give you points (again, a la RotW) -- but I don't want to make the game too complex. I'd like to keep it a fairly simple card game.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've played part of one game where I was playing two players. I was only giving each player one action, and I was limited the "consolidate funds" action to returning exactly two cards to supply in exchange for one. This was much too slow, which led to the current rules outlined above.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other difficult problem is determining how the links should flow from the center row. Initially, I was not only replacing purchase links, but was cycling out a link every time someone took a turn without buying a link. This was clearly cycling links too fast as it was possible for a player to never have the opportunity to purchase a link. I'm thinking about cycling cards when a link it purchased or if nobody buys a link for one round (i.e., if the last person that purchased a link passes on his next turn -- in which case everyone has passed on the current pool -- then one or more of the links are discarded and replaced). It's a tough problem that would probably work itself out better in playtesting than in theorizing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think balancing the cost of links, the number of goods, and the location of the various colored cities is going to be difficult. Hopefully cheating off of RotW will give me a good head start. I think that I can find out if the game has the potential to be fun without it being well-balanced, so it's pretty far down on the list of problems to worry about.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-17784552050365887172011-09-05T21:35:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.936-04:00complexity reduction: simplifying researchI made my third annual trip to Gen Con this year. I didn't get to play as many new games as I prefer, but I did find <a href="http://indentedblankdice.com/">indented blank dice</a> for sale at Nich Vitek's booth. $40 later, I had 120 blank in my possession. (Tangentially, I also picked up <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83068/1955-the-war-of-espionage">1955: The War of Espionage</a></em>, which is a really great 2-player card-driven game.) Unfortunately, I found absolute no 0.5in or 14mm stickers to apply to said dice. I resorted to cutting up a full label sheet into 9/16in (14mm) squares, and then applying and writing on each sticker. 240 stickers and about 5 hours later, I had 40 dice -- 8 dice of each type for my prototype.<br/><br/>I sat down and rolled through a couple of rounds, mostly just to test out the dice. However, I knew I couldn't really continue until I created the player mats for the tech trees and the building cards. I went back to my notes and found that I had 24 of my planned 25 techs, and only 9 builds -- and 5 of those were just for scoring points!<br/><br/>I needed some new effects for the buildings, but I couldn't identify anything that didn't feel redundant alongside the techs. I decided that the diverging tech trees weren't necessary, and were probably unnecessarily complicated. The idea was that each type would have 3 levels of techs with 2 of each of the level 2 and 3 techs, and the players could only research one side of the tree. By creating a linear research path for each type -- something more like an upgrade than a tree -- I can free up 9 more effects to use as building powers instead of techs. I'm also eliminating complexity without sacrificing decision-making!<br/><br/>Unfortunately, I need to figure out which techs to keep, and which ones can be converted into buildings. The main difference between buildings and techs is that techs apply to one type of die whereas buildings tend to affect one action. There are various ways I can go with this; hopefully playtesting will bring some light to it.<br/><br/>With the new tech structure decided on, I was able to mock up some blank player mats to print out. Once I print those out and cut up some index cards for buildings, it will be time to start some solo playtesting!Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-89064459463101244302011-06-23T09:33:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.936-04:00role selection and opportunity costI am not an expert on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost">opportunity cost</a> (or economics in general), but I've learned to recognize it's application in various game designs. I find it easier to think about the colloquial term "trade-off". I'm sure someone better versed in opportunity cost could point out the differences. I don't think it's important for this discussion.<br/><br/>In three role selection games that I'm fairly familiar with -- <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico">Puerto Rico</a></em>, <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8217/san-juan">San Juan</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-for-the-galaxy">Race for the Galaxy</a></em> -- you'll find that on a given turn there is generally an optimal role to choose when you consider only your position. When you start to evaluate other's positions, you'll see that the optimal role is not necessarily the one that is most beneficial to your play. For example, you may be able to build a better building (or world/development) if you trade first and then build. However, when you consider that your opponent is both low on cash and has a good that will trade for a lot of cash, you may find that building now is actually the better choice, forcing your opponent to either miss a build phase, or build a building that is relatively worse than the building you can build.<br/><br/>In these games the value of a role selection is driven by quantity of resources (abstractly, goods and cash) as well as timing (which choice do you benefit more from now relative to your opponents). You are gauging your abundance against your opponents' scarcity in the given moment, or vice versa. This is a simplification; there are more factors to weigh than this. At a high level, it summarizes my point sufficiently.<br/><br/>Evaluation of opportunity cost feels slightly different in <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68425/eminent-domain">Eminent Domain</a></em>, another role selection game that I have had the opportunity to play several times. Timing is still very important, but quantity feels a bit different. In the case of <em>EmDo</em>, quantity generally refers to the quantity of icons any given player has. Resources on the players planets play into this as well, but a player cannot do anything with the resources unless he has the proper icons. The problem is that the majority of the time, your opponent's quantity is not known. You can infer a lot from what they have discarded (and discards are open information), but you are still limited in your knowledge.<br/><br/>Additionally, scarcity can be created simply due to diverging strategies. If two players are specializing in different roles, scarcity is a common occurrence when those two players are compare their positions when determining which role to choose. On the other hand, even when players have two similar strategies, it can be difficult to gauge scarcity unless one of the players had spent a lot of one type of card on the previous turn. With either diverging or similar strategies, timing is easier to gauge than quantity, and therefore it carries more weight in the decisions of the players.<br/><br/>Having played <em>EmDo</em>, I don't see this as a problem. It feels different than other role selection games, but not in a negative way. Most importantly, it doesn't feel like the game plays itself. However, this is an initial concern of mine with the dice game that I'm working on. Admittedly, it's still in the "theory" phase, so it could be that any concern will disappear once I prototype and play it. The above thought process was important to me so that I could understand a potential problem if I find that the game plays itself.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-6213605747578466952011-05-26T09:08:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.936-04:00finding the survivorsLocking down a theme really helped me narrow the focus of my design. As a player, you are seeking to lead a group of survivors in restoring society following the (still undetermined) apocalyptic event. Unfortunately, the survivors are scattered, and other survivors are looking to build and lead their own society.<br/><br/>Instead of making all of the dice available to every player all the time, I wanted to introduce a scout action where the player would randomly select X number of dice from a bag that they have scouted. This creates a "do the best with what you get" scenario. This created die type #1: Scouts. Players keep scouted dice, but cannot roll them until they add them to their society.<br/><br/>Next, I wanted to give the player two ways of adding scouted dice to their society. At first, I was thinking of using the war/peace diverging paths, but it didn't make sense to me that you could forcefully add a person to your society. Instead of ditching the military option, I decided to make the two paths to adding more dice "provide protection" and "recruit". Right now I'm giving recruit a religious bent, so two more types: Militia and Priests.<br/><br/>Finally, I wanted some modifiers on your typical actions, but I didn't feel like one more type would provide enough strategy space. Again, two paths to modifiers seemed interesting to me. First I wanted to be able to enhance a particular type of your choosing, so I decided to introduce small tech trees for each type. This tech tree could be advanced with the use of research; type #4: Engineers.<br/><br/>Finally, I wanted to allow modifiers that weren't necessarily tied to a certain type, so I introduced buildings; type #5: Builders. While Engineers develop a tech tree (where some technologies have prerequisites), Builders can build anything they can afford.<br/><br/>The general purpose of both Builders and Engineers is to introduce game elements that create exceptions to the rules.<br/><br/>With the 5 roles comes 5 actions: Scout, Recruit, Protect, Research, and Build. The roll of the player's dice determines how much support they have for performing a particular action that turn. Since the purpose of using dice is to introduce a random element, not every face on a given type's die should display the type's corresponding action (e.g., a Scout die should not have 6 Scout icons).<br/><br/>First, each die will have 1 - 3 or 4 (or 5?) VP icons. The total number VP icons on the die represent the die's value at the end of the game. However, the VP icons do not support any action. Therefore a die that is worth more VP at the end of the game will be less likely to help you build your engine. A die that has more icons has a better chance of helping you to build your engine, but it will be worth less points at the end of the game.<br/><br/>Next, a given type will actually contain icons for two actions. The majority of the icons will always be the primary action that corresponds to the given type. However, they will also contain icons for a secondary action. For example, a Scout's primary action is Scout, and its secondary action is Protect. A 1 VP Scout die will contain 3 Scout icons and 2 Protect icons (and 1 VP icon). A 2 VP Scout is 3/1; 3 VP is 2/1; etc. This allows for more variability that the player has to manage, while also providing access to actions without procuring the type of die that has that action as its primary action.<br/><br/>A turn would look something like this:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Active player rolls his dice</li><br/> <li>Active player chooses his action</li><br/> <li>Other players roll their dice</li><br/> <li>Active player carries out his action</li><br/> <li>Other players choose<br/><ul><br/> <li>carry out same action</li><br/> <li>task a die</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/></ul><br/>At this point I believe that the active player should choose their action for the turn before the other players roll their dice. This is mostly to keep the game moving and mitigate analysis paralysis. However, if it makes for better choices, I am open to changing it so that everyone rolls before the active player chooses the action for that round.<br/><br/>In each turn, if the an inactive player does not want (or is unable) to perform the action that the active player chooses, he can instead "task" a die. This simply means that he can take any of the die that he has rolled that turn and set it aside, locking in its current value. On a future turn, he can choose whether to keep the current value of any tasked dice, or re-roll as many of them as he wishes. Once a player decides to perform an action, all of his tasked dice must be rolled on the next turn, regardless of whether they are used or not.<br/><br/>That's the game in a nutshell. Players will spend each turn building their engine by adding more dice, adding buildings, or researching new technologies. Currently I think the game-end condition should be when a player has no scouted dice, and there are no more unscouted dice (the bag is empty). Players tally their points from their dice and buildings. The player with the most points win!<br/><br/>Once I mock up a player board (maybe multiple -- with each one giving each player a different set of dice to start and/or a special bonus) and determine the dice distributions (roughly symmetric across die types, with low-value dice being more common than high-value), I'll have to start on a prototype.<br/><br/>I guess I need to find a bunch of dice and stickers...Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-4688906540830173232011-03-28T11:40:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.936-04:00rolling right along with a theme!My first approach to my dice game was to keep some of the same elements as <em>Eminent Domain</em> (or <em>Race for the Galaxy</em> for that matter) while changing the theme. First, I thought about making it a game about getting people to join your faction. This can be done through persuasion or coercion. Each die represents a person: a priest (persuasion), a soldier (coercion, attacking), merchant (money which acts as a wild card of sorts), or a worker (builds buildings).<br/><br/>On your turn, you roll all of your people and choose an action (persuade, coerce, attack, build). Each die type requires a certain amount of persuasion or coercion to join your faction. If you have enough of the appropriate symbol showing on your rolled dice, you can perform that function. There are also buildings to build that, again, require an appropriate number of "building" symbols to show on your dice. I never fleshed out how attacking would work, but I saw it as a direct conflict with another player.<br/><br/>After your choose your action, each of the other players also rolls their dice. Then, each player chooses either to perform the same action as you or to "freeze" one of their dice, locking it's result in place. Frozen dice remain frozen until the player chooses to roll it again, or until the player performs any action (regardless of whether the frozen die is used or not).<br/><br/>Each person (die) and each building is worth points. I'm not sure what the game end was going to look like, but it would like it to be controlled by the players to some extent, as opposed to a fixed number of turns. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game has the most successful faction and wins the game!<br/><br/>The original goal was to create a "light" dice game. I originally planned on having different costs for each type of die, but I decided this was unnecessarily complex. To simplify it further, I threw out military as an option in order to create one way to gain dice, and to avoid having to balance direct conflict between players.<br/><br/>Finally, I started to think about theme. The labels for the various people and buildings were generically medieval. Not only was this boring, but it didn't really make sense -- why were there various factions trying to recruit people to build buildings? I went through various tropes for games in my head, and decided on a post-apocalyptic setting. While it's not that much more unique as a theme, it does lend itself to explaining the game play, and will hopefully provide a platform to solve some of the design problems. With a specific back story still to be determined, we find each player attempting to find and recruit the best and brightest of those that remain after the (again, TBD) apocalyptic event. Your recruits and the buildings they produce will contribute to your ultimate goal of being the most prestigious leader in the new society.<br/><br/>At this point I was still working under the constraints of the design contest; most notably, I was limiting myself to 40 dice and 16 half-cards. The cards were going to represent buildings constructed by the player. Having dropped military, I felt it was important to focus on multiple build paths for the buildings. I created 4 specialist types (Farmer, Architect, Mechanic, and Engineer) that would each specialize in locating different resources (food, structural, fuel, and electronic) and also serve as prerequisites for the buildings. All of the resources would be used to create buildings, but only food and structural resources were used to gain additional specialists. I added a fifth type, Laborer, that could be gained for free. They aren't worth any points, but are able to produce all resources with a higher probability of producing food and structural resources.<br/><br/>My first concern that with the limited number of dice, the game wouldn't be able to scale for a larger number of people (another contest-driven design consideration). To work within this constraint, I made the specialists a permanent gain for player, but the Laborers would be returned to the dice pool after they are used to gain a specialist or building. This allows for a smaller number of Laborer dice.<br/><br/>I playtested the game once or twice using a spreadsheet. The biggest problem I ran into was that food was too important, which made Farmers dominant. I exacerbated this problem by creating a "Farm" building that provides one food resource each round.<br/><br/>I felt that there was a foundation for something, and perhaps some simple balancing could solve some of the problems. However, I had moved away from a game where the action chosen was the more important decision, to a game where the resources and upgrade path chosen was the more important decision. At this point I had no more time to work on the game for the contest, so I decided to relax the constraints in order to allow for a larger design space to be investigated.<br/><br/>In the next post, I'll look at the game again by reducing the number of different types of resources, adding in a scouting action (to find the recruits), and toying with the idea of military.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-76348811345394427982011-03-10T12:17:00.000-05:002011-10-24T18:05:53.937-04:00dice, cards, and managing probabilityThe latest <a href="http://www.bgdf.com/">Board Game Designer's Forum</a> <a href="http://www.bgdf.com/node/4434">Game Design Showdown</a> was a call for a game that uses many dice as a primary component with the added restriction of only being able to use one other small component. With the extra lure that the Michael Mindes of <a href="http://tastyminstrelgames.com/">Tasty Minstrel Games</a> would be looking at the entries, the contest drew 38 entries!<br/><br/>The idea of a "quick playing, light game made primarily of dice" doesn't really appeal to me on the surface, so I more or less wrote off trying to come up with a design for the competition. It didn't help that I didn't have any ideas either. I moved the competition to the back of my mind.<br/><br/>I've been able to get some <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68425/eminent-domain"><em>Eminent Domain</em></a> plays in lately, so naturally I've been thinking about the design mechanics that it utilizes. It's easy to compare it to <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218/dominion">Dominion</a></em>, but it's not really like <em>Dominion </em>at all. The only common element is that you are building a deck, but the purpose of that deck in each game is vastly different. In <em>Dominion</em>, you are constructing a deck of cards that consistently work together so that you can gain points with more efficiency than your opponents. In <em>EmDo</em>, you are constructing a deck that will allow your role selections to be more powerful, and more suited to your situation. It really is a role selection game where you are increasing the chance of having the right role with sufficient power at the right time.<br/><br/>And that's when a light went off in my head. It's a game of <em>managing probabilities</em> as much as anything. When you draw your next set of cards, you want those cards to maximize your next best move. Your cards need to be the best they can be for the current game state, including your setup and each of your opponents' setups.<br/><br/>In my design for <em>Franchise</em>, I tried to design the stamina and consistency attributes as a way to manage probabilities. The consistency attribute guarantees that a player will always roll that many dice. The stamina tokens allow you to roll additional dice. However, stamina tokens must be spent to perform certain actions, which decreases the likelihood of high rolls as a game progresses. In short, players with high consistency and a high number of stamina tokens have a higher probability of rolling desirable results.<br/><br/>Looking at <em>EmDo</em>, it's interesting to consider what it would look like as a dice game instead of a card game. Instead of role cards and planet cards, consider using dice to serve both purposes. Each die will display 0 - 3 star faces, which represent its point value, but do not boost a role. The additional spaces will contain role icons which vary depending on the planet type, similar to the planet cards in EmDo: Advanced will contain a mixture of Research and Trade; Metallic, Survey and Warfare; Fertile, Produce and Colonize. On your turn, everyone will roll their dice. You choose a role and execute it. Everyone else has the option to follow or dissent. In this case, a dissent would be to "freeze" one die that would retain its value for the next turn. In this way, a player can build up guaranteed rolls for their turn if they choose not to follow.<br/><br/>There's a variety of problems with this that I haven't taken the time to consider or work out. How does the game start? Exactly how do Colonize and Warfare work? How can Produce/Trade be a viable strategy?<br/><br/>The point of this mental exercise was not to design <em>Eminent Domain Express</em>. Instead, it sparked an idea of how dice could be used in a light engine-building game. Such a game is more interesting to me than <em>Zombie Dice</em>, which apparently was the inspiration for the contest. I'd want a typical turn to look something like this:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Roll your dice</li><br/> <li>Determine your action based on the result of the dice roll<br/><ul><br/> <li>Gain more dice</li><br/> <li>Gain a permanent modifier ("building", "technology", etc)</li><br/> <li>Gain points</li><br/> <li>Attack an opponent?</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/> <li>All other players roll, and either perform the same action or "freeze" one die</li><br/></ul><br/>At the risk of making this post too long, I will cut it off here and discuss specific game ideas in a future post. As for the contest, I did not enter mostly because I ran out of time. It didn't help that the contest deadline as March 6, and I spent March 4 - 6 at <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/65190/indycon-2011-collection-of-great-geeklists">IndyCon 2011</a>. I figure that's a pretty good excuse. I do need to make a point of getting design ideas out for critique, and BGDF seems like the perfect place to do so.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-33349286428934837482011-01-26T11:01:00.000-05:002011-10-24T18:05:53.937-04:00franchise and similar gamesIt's important to be knowledgeable of existing work when working on a game design. I want to be aware of what is already out there not only to know if my design has already been done, but even more so to steal utilize the good ideas from existing games. Most existing sports games fall into one of two categories:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Play the game with varying degrees of simulation</li><br/> <li>Manage a team for a season</li><br/></ul><br/>I'm not trying to accomplish either of those with <em>Franchise</em>. I want "playing the game" to be part of the experience, but only a small part. You could argue that the auction is managing the team, but it's not the same as dealing with match-ups and injuries and other factors that might go into a team management simulation. At its heart, <em>Franchise</em> is an auction game with a sports theme. Strangely, I didn't find much else out there like this.<br/><br/>Then I stumbled upon <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56758/basketboss"><em>BasketBoss</em></a>; I don't even remember how. It's published by <a href="http://www.cwali.nl/">Cwali</a>, which appears to be the name of Corné van Moorsel's self-publishing company. Regardless, thanks to a video review from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842VTJR2kt8">Tom Vasel</a>, I discovered that <em>BasketBoss</em> accomplishes some of what I am setting out to accomplish with <em>Franchise</em>. In particular, the players are drafting a team through multiple seasons, and a draftee's value changes from season to season.<br/><br/><em>BasketBoss</em> handles variable valuation by giving each player a color (which appears to translate to their position), height, and fame value. The colors affect the team's final strength, height is used for a tie-breaker, and fame increases the team's income. In <em>Franchise</em>, players aren't defined to play in certain positions, but their attributes will make them more effective in certain positions. I like the way that I'm handling the variable valuation as it affects how the players are used in playing the game.<br/><br/>That is where the biggest difference lies between <em>BasketBoss</em> and <em>Franchise</em>. In <em>BasketBoss</em>, you never play a game. The outcome of a season is determined by which team has the highest total strength plus number of different colors, with height as a tiebreaker. I think this loses something. I like to have a little bit of randomness effect the outcome, which is why I wanted the teams to actually play against one another in a season. As in real sports, you can try to build the best team possible, but you have to play the game to determine the winner.<br/><br/>I don't want to take anything away from <em>BasketBoss</em>. It looks like a fun game that accomplishes exactly what the designer wanted to accomplish. For me, it's refreshing to know that a game similar to <em>Franchise</em> exists as some indication that I'm not the only one whole likes the idea. It's equally refreshing to know that there are differences which separates <em>Franchise</em> from existing games.<br/><br/>On a separate note, I think I have all of the cards created and ready to print. I need to print them out and find a suitable 2-sided token to use for stamina tokens (at this point, pennies are the best thing I have). Once that is complete, I think I'm ready to actually try the game out. Hopefully it's fun!Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-87541682874569993142010-11-19T10:07:00.000-05:002011-10-24T18:05:53.937-04:00partnerships: bring out the board!The card game idea discussed in my previous post was neither my original intention nor my original idea when I began thinking about partnerships in board games. I wanted to move away from card games, but the hidden information mechanic that is inherent in them made it easier to think in that space.<br/><br/>There is something different about a board game that separates one from card games. Perhaps they can have richer themes. Perhaps relaxed limitations on components can create for a deeper strategy space. Perhaps there is something more enjoyable about manipulating the wooden/plastic components. Whatever it is, I think it would be hard to deny that it is certainly a different experience.<br/><br/>Regardless, I wanted to introduce the partnership play as something that affects what is occurring on a shared board. Each player would hold some cards that would be combined with other players' cards to trigger some event or modify the board in some way. Immediately I began to picture a game where each player is acting as a deity controlling the environment in which one or several civilizations are forming.<br/><br/>The board is a discrete map (square or hex grid) that is seeded with tiles or markers that indicate whether the land is barren, fertile, or flooded. The civilization is represented by meeples that can occupy these spaces. Periodically (after a turn or a round of turns), the civilization can grow, shrink and/or relocate depending on their occupied and adjacent terrain. Before that happens, the players change the terrain by casting spells.<br/><br/>The players cast spells by completing a set of three colors that define the spell. The first player plays a card with the name of the spell he wishes to cast. This card is also one of the three colors in the spell. The next player must play another color in the spell, and the third player (the first player's partner) must complete the spell. Once completed, the spell affects a given area of the board -- perhaps each player has an avatar which he can move to indicate what area the spell will affect. After the board has been modified, the fourth player begins the next spell.<br/><br/>That's how I imagine the "happy path" play of the game. Where the game would get more interesting is if the players had ways to counter-spell, or boost spells. Rules would also have to be defined how to handle a player's inability to contribute to a spell. There are also thematic issues as to why one deity would contribute to another deity's spell assuming that it would be detrimental to him. Other open questions include whether it is one civilization of which all deities are vying for control, or whether there are separate civilizations that each deity is attempting to make the dominant civilization; and also the ever-troubling question of what an end-game condition would look like.<br/><br/>I hadn't consider this until I read <a href="http://pulsiphergamedesign.blogspot.com/2010/11/playing-at-being-godlike.html">Lewis Pulsipher's post on god games</a>, but there is likely a bit of an influence from Molyneux's <em>Populous</em> in my idea. It's probably been more than a decade since I've played that game on my SNES (for hours straight!), but I'm sure the experience has affected my design subconscious.<br/><br/>I'm not sure whether I like the idea enough to put the effort in place to try to solve some of the unanswered questions. My best bet would be to mock up a prototype, and give it a try with the understanding that it wouldn't be a good game. At least then I might be able to recognize the parts worth keeping and narrow down what needs to be improved upon. If only I knew which of my design ideas were worth my limited "hobby time".Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-55926025876335011182010-11-02T11:53:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.937-04:00partnerships: next thoughtQuite a while back, I started the thought process for a design for a partnership game that wasn't another trick-taking card game. It seems that this model of partnerships games is ingrained in my head, which made it difficult to "empty my cup" when trying to think of a new way to approach a partnership game. With that, I still felt that two components are important:<br/><ul><br/> <li>hidden information</li><br/> <li>communication through game play</li><br/></ul><br/>Several ideas have (false) started, but there were two in particular that I need to record for my own reference. I started this thought process nearly a year ago, but <a href="http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2010/10/yesterday-thought-came-to-mind-about.html">one of Seth Jaffee's recent blog posts</a> reminded me that I hadn't actually recorded any of these thoughts yet.<br/><br/>One of my ideas was a primarily a card game. The cards serve two purposes. First, each represents a certain resource, such as stone, wood, etc, with each card carrying a different quantity of that resource. Second, they depict some sort of building or improvement that you can bring into play -- I'll just refer to them as buildings for now. Each building requires a certain number of resources of one or more types to be built. The resources are separated by type into several decks, perhaps with there being multiple decks of each resource, with higher level decks providing higher value cards that have a prerequisite that must be met before a player can draw from it.<br/><br/>Each player starts with a small hand of one or two resource types. The first player (holding a start-player token) leads with a building that they wish to build. Each other player, in order, must contribute to constructing the building if they are able by playing a card that is represents one of the resources still needed to complete that building. If they are unable to play such a resource, they may play another resource to contribute to an incomplete building. If the building is completed after all players have played, the lead player places that building with his active buildings. Otherwise, the build remains inactive until it is completed in a future round. Following that trick, the player to the left of the start player leads, and so on. After each player has a chance to lead, the hands are replenished using the active buildings to determine which resource decks you can draw from, and how many cards you can draw. Then play continues with the start-player token being passed to the left, and the new start player leading a new trick.<br/><br/>Additionally, there would be one large end-game building (such as a castle) that players would contribute to building along the way. Whenever a player overpays with a resource, or is unable to contribute to any other building in play, the player helps build this end-game building instead. These contributions would have to be carefully tracked. This building would be represented with a game board with empty spaces representing the resources needed to complete it, and each player would be given tokens to mark the space(s) when they contribute a particular resource. The game would end when the end-game building is completed, and scores would be a combination of points rewarded for individual buildings completed as well as contributions to the end-game building.<br/><br/>I believe that this game would work just as well without partnerships as it would with, which is good because one of the hard problems of partnership games is figuring out a way to make it work for any number of players other than 4 (or 6, I suppose). I'm not sure that it would meet the goal of forcing players to communicate through game play. It certain could create some tense moments if you are holding on to a particular building with the hopes of getting it in play, and then your partner plays a building requiring the resource type that is on your building card, and it's the only one you have! It is possible that certain plays could telegraph particular intentions, but without further thought, I'm not sure how to design that into the game.<br/><br/>Since this post is getting a bit long, I'll save the other idea for another post. I think I like the above idea better anyway, but I should make the time to post about the other idea just for the record.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-65286852490733109672010-10-22T11:18:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.938-04:00cards as a design decisionThe deluge of card games being released (I think primarily on the coattails of the success of <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218/dominion">Dominion</a></em>), as well as the consideration of using cards in <em>Franchise</em>, sparked some thinking as to when it makes sense to use cards in a board game.<br/><br/>Even with pure card games, one could argue that tiles could just as easily serve that purpose. For example, <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/811/rummikub"><em>Rummikub</em></a> could just as easily have been a pure card game. I'm assuming that the production costs for tiles is higher than cards. In addition, the use of tiles necessitates that each player have a rack, which additionally increases production costs.<br/><br/>So why use tiles when the game would have been equally functional and cheaper with cards? The size of a standard card would have made holding 14+ cards quite unwieldy. Additionally, melding dozens and dozens of cards would take up quite a bit of tablespace (even though this could be mitigated through card design that allows for overlapping cards). In the end, tiles make sense from an interface design perspective.<br/><br/>Clearly, many cards games are just that because cards provide several interface advantages. Quite a bit of information can be displayed on a single card. The ability to hold cards in one hand allows for the information on the cards to be viewed quickly by the player holding the cards, while also keeping them hidden from his opponents. A stack of cards is easily randomized through various shuffling methods. A draw deck is an easy way to organize a pool of card from which a player can quick gain additional cards.<br/><br/>Sometimes the consideration goes beyond cost or interface design. In <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12/ra"><em>Ra</em></a>, players draw tiles from a bag to place on a track to bid on. When you win the tiles, they remain face-up in front of you. Not only would cards work fine for this scenario, but I would argue that they would actually speed up game play. Instead of a bag of tiles, you have a face-down draw deck. The auction board might need to be a little bigger, but it could certainly be re-designed to accommodate cards over tiles. Perhaps this alone made it an interface desicion to use tiles over cards, but part of me believes that there was some aesthetic reason as well. There is a certain amount of tactile pleasure that people get from playing board games, and tiles certainly have a more substantial feel to them than cards.<br/><br/>As a final thought, I want to compare the use of resources cards in <em><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan">The Settlers of Catan</a></em> to the resource components in <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26566/homesteaders"><em>Homesteaders</em></a>. In both cases, resources gained remain hidden. <em>Settlers </em>uses cards to keep your resources hidden, while <em>Homesteaders</em> utilizes tokens that you place behind a screen. The biggest difference between the two is that in <em>Settlers</em>, there is no real advantage in knowing how <em>few</em> resources a player holds. However, knowing that another player is broke in <em>Homesteaders</em> can significantly change your approach to an auction. It should be noted that in <em>Homesteaders </em>you generally hold on to significantly more tokens (including resources, silver, trade chits, and victory chits), which also makes cards less viable from an interface perspective.<br/><br/>In the end, it appears that the decision to use cards is primarily an interface decision. However, it's important to consider how other components can be used as an alternative (or vice versa) when designing a game. Asking yourself, "What if these were/weren't cards?" may open alternate uses or streamlined gameplay that you may not have previously considered.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-1677330862254123032010-09-24T04:41:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.938-04:00adding situational valueAs I thought about the value of the draftees in <em>Franchise</em> (which is what I am calling my "fantasy sports game" for now), I realized that their values were fairly cut-and-dry. While the offense and defense ratings provide a need for both attributes, it's pretty clear that a draftee with a rating of 6 in either category is always going to be a better choice than a 3/3 draftee.<br/><br/>The stat adjustment cards and the mandatory loss of a stamina token at the end of each season were created to make the value of a draftee more dynamic. However, this doesn't affect the first draft, and the value of the draftee is still basically the same for all players.<br/><br/>In order to make the first draft more interesting, the draftees will be displayed in 3 rows, with the number of draftees in each row being one more than the number of players. In the first row, the draftees have 3 stamina tokens; in the second, 2; in the third, 3. This would only apply to the first draft, and would create the same dynamic that you would get in subsequent drafts. For the subsequent drafts, the new draftees would start with 3 stamina tokens.<br/><br/>To create situational value, the draftees would have another attribute -- a classification of sorts. If two draftees on a single team had the same classification, they would each receive some sort of stat bonus. I haven't quite decided what the classification or bonus should be. For classification, I was thinking of something along the lines of nationality, play-style, or some generic "chemistry" value. One idea for bonuses would be that if the defender and midfielder shared the same classification, they would increase their defense attribute by one; if the forward and midfielder share the same classification, they would increase their offense attribute by one. A more simple version would be to increase the consistency attribute of any player that shared a classification with another player on their team, even increasing it by the number of players that it is share with (i.e., as many as +2).<br/><br/>This classification makes individual draftees more attractive to players that already have a draftee with that classification on their team. This situational value is key to making the auctioning more interesting, so that players have to be more careful about bidding an opponent up.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-57829901962860775892010-09-17T04:47:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.938-04:00draft, play, repeat!I had the idea about creating a "fantasy sports" board or card game for some time now. A recent <a href="http://taogaming.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/that-blood-bowldominion-mashup/">Tao of Gaming post regarding the upcoming Blood Bowl card game</a> brought it back to my mind again. I looked at my initial notes, and only made some small adjustments, so I might start prototyping the game -- the first time I'd ever consider doing this with any idea I've had.<br/><br/>The inspiration comes primarily from my own feeling that the best part about fantasy baseball is preparing for and participating in the draft at the beginning of the season. After the draft, it feels like there's a lot of motion to see what final result is, even though the majority of the season is determined by the result of the draft. <a href="http://www.baseballhq.com/free/free100611.shtml">An article by Ron Shandler</a> (which may or may not be available any longer) showed the results of a survey amongst fantasy experts. The results mirror my sentiment: the draft contributes the most to success; next in line is luck.<br/><br/>I have less experience with fantasy football, but it seems to me that the situation is similar: a small percentage of time (the draft) is spent on something that has a large impact on the results. The rest of the time is spent on activities that have little impact on the results, or merely on waiting to see the results.<br/><br/>The goal of the design is to create a game that would involve spending less time on determining the results of the season, which would allow multiple rounds of drafting. Here are the key principles:<br/><ul><br/> <li>The draftees (I use this term to separate the in-game player from the player playing the game) have some sort of quantitative value or values (e.g., skill attributes) that force the player to determine an relative value for that draftee</li><br/> <li>Preferably, it would be an auction draft, allowing the players to assign a value to a draftee</li><br/> <li>The results of the draft impact the result of the season, but don't dictate the results of the season. There should be some luck involved, but players should be able to play the percentages.</li><br/> <li>The season needs to be resolved quickly.</li><br/> <li>The value of a draftee should change over the course of the game, forcing players to re-evaluate the value of the draftee versus newly available draftees.</li><br/></ul><br/>I came up with a system that I'm fairly happy with, with a bit of a soccer flavor to it. The draftees have three attributes: offense, defense, and consistency. A team consists of three players: one defender (defense only), one forward (offense only), and one midfielder (situationally offense or defense). Each action is carried out by rolling some dice; the number of dice depends on the draftee's consistency attribute plus the number of active stamina tokens the player has remaining. The highest roll determines the result of the action, but the offense/defense attribute determines the draftee's maximum roll value (rolls higher than this are rerolled). The various actions are performed, eventually goals are scored, and the game ends after about a dozen actions by each player. Finally, there's a simple system for adjusting the attributes of the draftees, changing their attractiveness for the next draft.<br/><br/>It works, but only playtesting will reveal if it's fun. Here are my primary questions:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Is good drafting required to win?</li><br/> <li>Is the luck manageable?</li><br/> <li>Can the games be played quickly enough?</li><br/> <li>How many seasons can be played in 30/60/90/120 minutes?</li><br/> <li>Are 3 draftees enough for a satisfying draft?</li><br/> <li>Are both the draft and playing the game <em>fun</em>?</li><br/></ul><br/>I wish that the particular sport doesn't matter, but I believe that it would be important to be able to simulate, even if at an extremely abstract level, a real sport. Unfortunately, the most popular fantasy sports, baseball and football, require drafting players with extremely specific roles. This would require a large pool of players to draft from. With soccer, you can fudge it a bit, as I did above, and probably something similar could be done with basketball. Choosing the theme is important for two different reasons: it affects how the game is played, and it affects the attractiveness (i.e., marketability) of the game. Hopefully refining the core mechanics will allow them to be applied to a high-level simulation of almost any team sport.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-34902436650906976902010-09-16T05:13:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.938-04:00eminent domainI've been playing a prototype of <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68425/eminent-domain">Eminent Domain</a>. Seth Jaffee provided the files needed to print it out, and I've been playing 2- and 3-player games over lunch. It took about a half dozen plays to get <em>all</em> of the rules right, but we even enjoyed the game when we were playing it wrong.<br/><br/>Briefly, it's an engine-building game that utilizes role selection and deck construction. In fact, the role selection <em>is </em>the method for adding cards to your deck, which forces you to weigh the desire to use the benefits of a particular role with the consequence of adding that role card to your deck. There are three ways to score points (planets, technologies, and trading), and so far it has proven viable to pursue any combination of these three. That's the short of it; I'll let the BGG entry and <a href="http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/">Seth's blog</a> add details.<br/><br/>Our last two 3-player games proved to be extremely close. Starting with a fertile planet, I pursued a harvest/trade strategy, trying to take advantage of reasearch, survey and colonize when possible. My opponents dabbled enough in harvest/trade to take some advantage of my calls, while also using warfare, colonize, and survey to play some high-point planets. The VP token pool exhausted to end the game, and the final scores tallied 21(1)-21(0)-20 (I was the 20). The winner had successfully been collecting armies with a "Take 2 armies" technology action, and then utilized a single warfare card to occassionally attack planets. Otherwise, he primarily relied on colonize to settle planets, while also gaining moderate VP tokens. A single leftover army won the game for him.<br/><br/>In our second game, I drew a fertile world to start again, but decided fairly early to eschew the harvest/trade strategy for something different. Instead, I tried to use a combination of warfare and colonize, along with some research and survey. Unfortunately, my surveys were fairly shallow, and I was drawing fairly low-point planets. I was last, which is a nice advantage in that you can guarantee yourself a win if you know that you can end your turn with more points than everyone else. (Points are fairly easy to track; the only "hidden" points are on research cards purchased and placed in the player's deck, but these are not so many that they are hard to remember.) When it came to my turn, I recognized that I could end the game while also building a 5-point technology, and it was unlikely anyone else would be able to research for points. However, this would have tied me with the leader, who also had some armies while I had nothing to help in a tie-breaker. Instead, I extended the game another round. I believe I researched that round for 2 points, and then followed a trade or attack/colonize so that by the time it was my turn again, I was only down by one point. The leader exhausted a role card pile on his turn, which was immediately before mine. Down 29-28, I held only 3 research symbols in my hand, but I also held a tech with a "Draw 3" action. I played that tech, and drew 3 cards. Only 1 research card came up. With no other way to gain points, I was forced to end the game 1 research card short of victory. Final score was 29-28-27.<br/><br/>Eminent Domain is well-received with my lunch group. Although it fills a different strategy space than <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-for-the-galaxy">Race for the Galaxy</a>, there is one major similarity that forces it to compete for playtime: we can play two games of either within 90 minutes (yeah, we take long lunches if we're playing games). The role-selection also gives a similar feel where it's important to read your opponent, and gauge the optimal play based not only on how it helps you, but also on how it helps your opponent. The deck-building mechanic in Eminent Domain adds another layer to the role-selection, which complicates that decision. However, the cards are much less complex, which makes it easier to teach and learn Eminent Domain. If I had a group that wanted to learn both, I'd probably teach Eminent Domain first.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-26471368485112382192010-03-02T07:47:00.000-05:002011-10-24T18:05:53.938-04:00partnerships: race for the galaxyWhen considering a game that I could modify to approach the partnership design problem, I immediately considered <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143" target="_blank">Race for the Galaxy</a> (RftG). Primarily, I chose this game because I am very familiar with it as my game group plays it often. Additionally, it already meets two of the four criteria I laid out in my previous post:<br/><ul><br/> <li>closed information - Each player holds cards in their hands that are hidden to other players. Additionally, Action Card selection is hidden until all actions are revealed simultaneously.</li><br/> <li>not a trick-taking game - Unless I drastically change the rules, this is most definitely not a trick-taking game.</li><br/></ul><br/>Obviously the first point (partnerships) is the easiest to implement. For my design process, I focused on a four-player game, with two teams of two players each.<br/><br/>The only point that remains is to allow the players to communicate through play. Obviously there are a lot of other logistics involving how to players can play as a team, but I felt it was more important to focus on communication and let the details grow from that.<br/><br/>As noted above, there are primarily two aspects of the game that are hidden: cards in hand and the action selected by each player. These are what partners may wish to communicate to each other is some form.<br/><br/>When you consider a trick-taking game, usually the communication is open so that all players have a general idea what is being communicated. Leaving Bridge out of the discussion (as I am not qualified to speak to it), in many trick-taking games, players will play cards that do not affect the current trick to signal something about their hand. In RftG, if you are playing something that is ineffective, you are playing inefficiently and are going to lose. Therefore, another form of communication is necessary that does not require for inefficient actions.<br/><br/>I believe the best way to communicate with another player in RftG (without table talk) is to pass action cards and/or hand cards.<br/><br/>Action cards would be the easiest, as partners could share their planned action first, and then have the option for one or both of them to switch actions before playing them. This would require some verbal communication ("I'll switch mine. You keep yours."), but it would be a simple way for two players to act as a team. However, I think the uncertainty of non-verbal communication leads to more rewarding play. There are also other balance problems that would have to be worked with (Produce-Consume strategies would be especially strong).<br/><br/>Hand cards provide a variety of methods of communicating. Players could exchange cards, show their partners their discards (and perhaps allow them to exchange a discard for a hand card), or players could even openly discard as a way to openly cue their partner.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, the ways to communicate hidden information is not the most problematic portion of creating a partnership game out of RftG. Larger issues of balance with two players working together would need to be worked out. If I were pursuing this more seriously, I would consider setting up the game like a 2-player game with 2 actions per turn, and each partner is selecting an action. A shared tableau between partners is a possibility, but only if a system can be devised to determine who gets cards from trades and consumes (perhaps the one who chooses the phase IV action?). There are several routes that this could take, but lots of playtesting would be needed to determine if the game ultimately breaks when two players are able to share information.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-70391492042641224872009-11-25T10:26:00.000-05:002011-10-24T18:05:53.939-04:00partnershipsPartnership games are appealing to me. A lot of this can be attributed to the "high-five" factor; it's more fun to succeed along with someone else.<br/><br/>However, for a partnership or team game to be successful, there needs to be the ability to cooperate without one person running the show. One night, 6 of us sat down to play a game of Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights, in order to shorten the game length, we decided to play teams. We didn't change the gameplay drastically, so one key strategy was to balance your cards and your partner's cards at the end of your turn so that you stayed below the hand limit.<br/><br/>What ended up happening is that one player (me) on the winning team basically ran the game for both players since the other player was fairly new to C&K. We overran the competition, and it generally wasn't any fun.<br/><br/>In retrospect, it wasn't really a team game because there was no team play. We didn't need to communicate, cooperate, or otherwise by "in sync". These are the aspects of a team game that differentiate them from individual games.<br/><br/>Although I'm speaking from limited exposure to the wealth of existing games, the partnership or team games that I have played (or have otherwise been exposed to) seem to fall primarily into three categories: trick-taking cards games (e.g., Bridge, Euchre, Spades), semi-cooperative games (e.g., Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica), and party games (e.g., Taboo, Pictionary). I recognize there are probably more that I don't know about, and I would love to hear about them. <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/466" target="_blank">Inkognito</a> seems to fall outside these categories, and does interest me. However, it seems that it would have some of the problems I have with semi-cooperative games, which I will describe below.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, these three categories feel a bit stale to me:<br/><br/>I love trick-taking games. However, I find myself more and more wanting to have a richly integrated theme in my games. This is an entirely subjective point, and I couldn't even begin to explain why, except that I find myself enjoying a game more when the actions a more tightly tied to a theme.<br/><br/>Additionally, their mechanics are so similar that I usually don't care whether I play Euchre, Spades, or Rook (or whatever other trick-taking game you want to teach me). But I'm definitely not going to quit a game of Euchre and switch to Spades over some other game.<br/><br/>Party games are fun for a social gathering. I usually don't find them intellectually challenging, and many times the teamwork is more about having a breadth of talents/knowledge than it is about working together.<br/><br/>It's hard for me to complain about semi-cooperative games because I haven't played them. I suppose one reason I avoid them is that they usually contain information that is only known by yourself (or a select few), and require bluffing to play well. Let's put it this way: I don't play poker for (a lot of) money for good reason. Bluffing stresses me out. I prefer games that I can play straight.<br/><br/>All of this generated a design problem for me -- create a game with the following properties:<br/><ul><br/> <li>partnerships -- two players playing together as a team with a common goal</li><br/> <li>closed information -- each player has only partial knowledge of the entire game state</li><br/> <li>communication through play, not table talk -- partners can only reveal information to each about their knowledge of the game state through their own play</li><br/> <li>not a trick-taking game -- because there are plenty of these</li><br/></ul><br/>Initially this design problem led me to explore partnership possibilities in <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143" target="_blank">Race for the Galaxy</a>. Following that, I began exploring my own design that centers around actions triggered by set completion as a mechanic. My next two posts will detail these thoughts.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7784029367653740524.post-75412372097600668452009-09-09T12:38:00.000-04:002011-10-24T18:05:53.939-04:00small world contest: results!I decided to submit the Giant Spiders, Flanking, and Stealthy to the contest. Given that Days of Wonder has already contacted the winners and that I was not contacted, I guess I didn't win anything.<br/><br/>Despite the disappointment of not winning, it was a good exercise to go through. Here are some of my takeaways:<br/><ol><br/> <li>Hit lots of ideas quickly, and filter out any that unreasonable or unoriginal.</li><br/> <li>Engage other people that are either interested in the design process or are willing and able to give good feedback.</li><br/> <li>(cliche alert) Think outside the box</li><br/></ol><br/>Although I have not seen the winning entries, I believe that my submitted ideas were too unoriginal more than that they were untenable. In retrospect, I wish I had submitted Instigating, although I'm not convinced that would have done any better. Hopefully I can objectively compare my entries to the winning entries to determine where I fell short.<br/><br/>I was hesitant to "bother" other people with my ideas as well. I don't like rejection and failure, but I love to get constructive criticism. The problem is that I haven't found a definitive source of it. The people I usually game with may or may not be helpful. The primary problem there is that we find our game-time so limited that we would rather play tried-and-true games than playtest something that may not be fun.<br/><br/>It was definitely a worthy exercise, and I look forward to entering future design contests!Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14974573758954633074noreply@blogger.com0