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Also, on an unrelated note, since discussion of the Firefly board game has been tossed about in the main Board Game thread (concerning how it seems to miss the point of the show) it got me to thinking -- how would you make a GOOD game based on Firefly?
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Feb 19, 2013 02:26
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:What is Frags main mechanic, just out of curiosity? Thanks for the tip, fella. D6s. Oodles and oodles of D6s. But on another note, I really dug Gears of War (the board game) using a hand of cards as both special abilities and health. Using cards to do both creates some inherent tension and emulates playstyles - going for broke on an attempted kill, or grabbing the super-armor and trying to outtank the other player's damage. DirkGently posted:Also, on an unrelated note, since discussion of the Firefly board game has been tossed about in the main Board Game thread (concerning how it seems to miss the point of the show) it got me to thinking -- how would you make a GOOD game based on Firefly? I dunno, how you translate flippant dialog into a board game?
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Feb 19, 2013 02:27
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I tweaked the Infinity rules to speed things up and more closely imitate an FPS a while back. It needs more play, but it was fun while we were playing it. Plus the respawn point gibbing we had in there became completely ludicrous. The balance of Infinity's volume burst vs reaction shots plays well in that setting. Not exactly a board game, though.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:34
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DirkGently posted:Piles of Rad Ideas Thanks, lots of these are great ideas, and I like the concept of a momentom system, though I think in practice it might be an issue. It could be really frustrating to end up careening all over the place without the control you'd expect in a FPS game. Might be worth a try though! On the lack of things to do, I think that boils down to a lack of creativity. QuakeGuys could lay down bombs, trip mines, create plasma walls, bounce grenades, I mean the fiction is the easiest part here. I know modern video game guns generally boil down to "Shoots harder" but if you take inspiration across the board, there's not really much you do in Wiz-War that doesn't happen in a game somewhere. hito posted:It's been quite a few years since I've played Frag (Deadlands), but as I recall the biggest problem with Frag was it's stupidly discrete damage system. So often you would do exactly one damage, so a lot of it was ordained well in advance, and the luck that did mix it up was not really controllable. Thats kinda silly, you'd want some level of randomness, but the idea of tweaking Tannhauser works. Also reminded me I have Tannhauser Minis I can use to test this, so thanks! Crackbone posted:D6s. Oodles and oodles of D6s. See, Dice seems like a silly way of going about it, if ever there was a time for a fat deck of cards, this would be it. Imagine having several preset spawn points, a couple preset weapon spawn places. You run through one, pick up a card. Could be a crazy powerup, a weapon or something. Spend the card to use that weapon, discard it, grab some more. I think this idea has legs. I have my next game lined up  Minor Aside; Anyone else really annoyed that Wiz-War 8th mentions a whole bunch of stuff about Creatures, but the rules for what creatures are, and indeed any cards centered around minions, are wholly missing? I guess they planned some expansions but it never happened. Oy. Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 02:50
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:What is Frags main mechanic, just out of curiosity? Thanks for the tip, fella. Yes, Frag may have found the most needlessly-complicated process possible for generating a result from 0 to 3.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:50
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I think the way to go to simulate the FPS experience is to have shooting be more or less automatic - if the guy is in your firing arc at the end of the turn, you shoot him - and have the players' actions focus around movement and rotation. Probably using some kind of simultaneous action selection mechanic, possibly programming in several actions in advance to be carried out sequentially. Though now I'm basically describing RoboRally, minus the whole racing thing. It also has the cards-as-health thing sort of, in that your health determines how many cards you get to have each turn. So maybe Wiz-War + Gears of War + RoboRally = the game you're trying to make, if you can find a way to mash up the best elements of all of those.
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Feb 19, 2013 05:09
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Here's a hypothetical question regarding design for an FPS style game: Sometimes in an FPS, not knowing where your opponent is/is going is relevant to strategy. Is there any way to incorporate hidden information like that into a board game experience without it being utterly obtuse/overly complex? The closest thing I can think of that tries to capture this element is the recent X-Wing Miniatures, which has players simultaneously assigning a movement pattern face-down to each miniature at the start of a round, and then revealing & resolving them one at a time in an initative order. So you know where each ship is now, but don't know if they're going to bank left/right, charge straight ahead, etc., and have to try to anticipate and strategize around it. I was thinking something like this could be relevant to an FPS game if say, a player picks up a sniper rifle and wants to setup a until-he-fires hidden position to score a kill, or a player wants to try to sneak up on a player and knife them ("humiliation!", a fairly big thing in most FPS's, right?). I can't think of any realistic way of doing a system like that and think it would have to be reserved for full-scale role-playing game or at least something closer to an FPS-style Descent (but isn't that pretty much what Doom/GoW are? Forgive me, I haven't played them first hand), but figured it might be worth a discussion, and some of the super clever folks in this thread might have some good ideas to share? 
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Feb 19, 2013 14:24
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What's stopping you from just using hidden orders a la Game of Thrones or the like? You put down your player marker to denote where you were last seen (like, say, Frozen Synapse, which is a video game of course), and then spread some orders out that allow you to go in various ways. Each order token has a "this is what I will do if I see an enemy" sort of thing on it, and if you put down "snipe" and someone manages to close to the same space as you and puts down "smash face with shovel", obviously they're going to win/do better.
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Feb 19, 2013 14:36
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This is basically what I was getting at in my post above; to simulate not knowing where someone is, having a hidden queue of actions makes sense, in that you're making decisions without knowing quite what the game state is going to be when that action is going to take effect. My instinct is that including attack commands as well as movement is going to be too confusing and awkward, which is why I said I think it should be more like RoboRally in that you automatically shoot at the end of each action phase if the opponent is in your line of sight. Maybe a roll is required to hit, maybe it's automatic if you're facing the right way, but either way, the act of shooting isn't a hard one to execute in an FPS - all it requires is pressing your index finger on the mouse... actually hitting is another story. A thought does occur to me though... instead of discrete turns like RoboRally where you do five actions at a time, then start over with a new hand and a new action queue, maybe to more accurately simulate the flow of an FPS, it makes sense to have a rolling action queue. I.e. you start the game by putting four cards down, but after that, the game proceeds with each player revealing the first card in their queue, executing it, shooting if they can, and then adding another card from their hand to the end of the queue (and presumably drawing to replace it). Combat worked basically like that in a modern RPG I designed back in my university days (except that the queue was more fluid and players had an Instinct stat that they could roll against when adding to their queue, which determined how soon in the queue they could slip in their action, rather than always putting it at the end.) xopods fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 14:42
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The only reason I suggested attack commands is that which weapon you have out, and whether you're zoomed in or not, can make a huge difference in a clash. Maybe if you're switching weapons, you put that card down underneath your movement card? And, if a weapon has zoom, zoom in or zoom out? Nothing like sniping someone across the room only to get knifed in the back, after all.
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Feb 19, 2013 14:46
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I recently posted a boardgame design idea in the regular games game-making thread that dealt partially with hidden information, though in the context of an RTS adaptation rather than an FPS one. Though most of the points made in the subsequent discussion there echo the ones here, it may add some value/contrast. I'd also appreciate any further input this thread might have
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Feb 19, 2013 14:55
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DirkGently posted:Also, on an unrelated note, since discussion of the Firefly board game has been tossed about in the main Board Game thread (concerning how it seems to miss the point of the show) it got me to thinking -- how would you make a GOOD game based on Firefly? Crackbone posted:
Players each control a crew member from the show and try to accomplish their own story goals while cooperating against the forces that opposed them in the show. Cards with flippant dialog, ideally all written by Joss Whedon, are the primary actions in the game (though obviously some are flippant dialog + "you pull a gun and get the drop on him"); they are marked to show the circumstances under which they are playable. Some are not character-specific, but some refer to series canon, and some refer to other dialog cards (and so can only be played after them). I think it would work best as a LOTR-type LCG, with new scenarios and new dialog bits coming out to keep things fresh. New art rather than show screencaps so they can introduce new characters. Each expansion comes with a new Whedon-written comic book introducing the scenario.
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Feb 19, 2013 15:43
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silvergoose posted:The only reason I suggested attack commands is that which weapon you have out, and whether you're zoomed in or not, can make a huge difference in a clash. Maybe if you're switching weapons, you put that card down underneath your movement card? And, if a weapon has zoom, zoom in or zoom out? Nothing like sniping someone across the room only to get knifed in the back, after all. Zooming in and out is probably too much detail, but having a "switch weapon" action makes perfect sense, yeah.
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Feb 19, 2013 15:53
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The hidden info thing actually reminds me of an idea some friends had when discussing game design with me. They came up with a Risk-like that used flat counters as armies, with certain values being bigger/smaller counters. You'd put them facedown and only reveal once the counter is 'scouted' or something. They wanted to simulate Fog Of War. I was kinda stoked cause that's a really nice, simple and easy to test game idea they came up with on their first try. Edit; for the shooting game, what if you had a pool of actions, which you could spend on movement, switching weapon (represented by a growing hand of cards you drew whenever you went through a draw point), using Alt Fire, etc. You spend the pool and after you're done, whoever is in your LOS, depending on the rules for each specific weapon, you fire/stab/whatever. Have the defender roll to dodge, maybe let them use interrupts/shield cards to auto-dodge, then inflict damage. How does that sound for a mechanic? Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 15:59
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The hidden info thing actually reminds me of an idea some friends had when discussing game design with me. They came up with a Risk-like that used flat counters as armies, with certain values being bigger/smaller counters. You'd put them facedown and only reveal once the counter is 'scouted' or something. They wanted to simulate Fog Of War. I was kinda stoked cause that's a really nice, simple and easy to test game idea they came up with on their first try. There are a huge number of games that use the "hidden unit strength" mechanic. Stratego is obviously the best-known example, but Sekigahara: the Unification of Japan and Napoleon's Triumph are examples that I see played a lot, though I haven't tried either of them myself. There's actually a whole mechanic category for "secret unit deployment" on BoardGameGeek if you want to browse more examples.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:15
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The hidden info thing actually reminds me of an idea some friends had when discussing game design with me. They came up with a Risk-like that used flat counters as armies, with certain values being bigger/smaller counters. You'd put them facedown and only reveal once the counter is 'scouted' or something. They wanted to simulate Fog Of War. I was kinda stoked cause that's a really nice, simple and easy to test game idea they came up with on their first try. I may be missing something from your description but that basically sounds like Stratego. A fun game to be sure, but not quite fog of war as it's commonly seen in computer games. The main problem with simulating fog of war on a board vs. on a computer is the mirroring of the fact that as soon as you lose vision of a region, you should immediately lose all information there except terrain. I may of course be missing something but I've not been able to think of a way to model this amount of information loss in a physical game without a huge amount of logistics such as reshuffling all the counters in that area, writing down orders in secret or some such. Further potential difficulties are the prevention of cheating, a lack of interactive turns as long as both players are manoeuvring outside each other's sight and just general rules hassles. I'm a huge fan of knowledge asymmetry in games, and things like giving closed orders is I think a good way to implement it in physical games.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:20
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Yeah, they had a lil more to it that made it not quite like Stratego, but it was obviously heavily inspired by it. I didn't say they were highly original in the idea or anything, it was just awesome to see someones first design idea not be like, 30 decks of cards and a bunch of complicated subrule stuff (Like my first game was. Oy.)
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Feb 19, 2013 16:24
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Yeah, they had a lil more to it that made it not quite like Stratego, but it was obviously heavily inspired by it. I didn't say they were highly original in the idea or anything, it was just awesome to see someones first design idea not be like, 30 decks of cards and a bunch of complicated subrule stuff (Like my first game was. Oy.) Sorry, I didn't mean to come off negative about their idea, I was hoping you'd go into the non-stratego aspects, and how they tried to get closer to fog of war a bit more.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:34
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Osmosisch posted:Sorry, I didn't mean to come off negative about their idea, I was hoping you'd go into the non-stratego aspects, and how they tried to get closer to fog of war a bit more. Oh no, I didn't read it as negative, we're all cool dawg. I'd have to talk to them again and get the full idea. One half of them is the guy who I was thinking of collaborating with earlier, and they hate talking about half-formed ideas with me cause they don't want to me to think of them as the kind of people XoPods was warning me about. I remember me asking if it was like Statego and them saying 'Sort of, but' and giving some other mechanics but I'm drawing a blank now. I don't think Hidden Movement/troops would work well in the FPS style game I'd try to make. Already you're running around a maze like a jackass and while not knowing exactly where your opponents are works for a game where you're moving and shooting constantly with 15 other players, it probably won't translate into a Turn Based 4-6 player game.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:40
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I think it's important to remember that FPS games are already a thing that exists and if you want to play an FPS, you can play one. So the goal in making an FPS-inspired board game shouldn't be "how can we make this as much like an FPS in every possible way?" as it should be "what is it that makes an FPS so much fun and how can we capture a similar sort of fun in a board game?" So I think something like a movement queue works well because it's going to lead to players careening around wildly, trying to get each other in their sights, desperately dashing for cover, and constantly shooting at someone who isn't where they were a moment ago. Hunting around in a maze for an opponent you can't see and whose whereabouts are unknown isn't really the main fun of an FPS, so if we can't easily replicate that, it's probably not a big deal.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:00
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I swear, knifing a sniper in the back is the second-most fun part of FPS's. The most fun, of course, is sniping, but it unfortunately leas to the second-most way too often! So yeah, the action queue, with weapon switching and then some sort of resolution phase wherein you check line of sight, guns fire, knifers knife, spinners spin, and so on. Feels like it would be a lot of bluffing and not as much action, if designed wrong, though.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:02
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I thought the #1 most important thing in FPS games was tea-bagging dead opponents and being as profane as possible?  Really though, good points being made about stuff. I love this thread. This, quote:So the goal in making an FPS-inspired board game shouldn't be "how can we make this as much like an FPS in every possible way?" as it should be "what is it that makes an FPS so much fun and how can we capture a similar sort of fun in a board game?" really is a good point, not only for Nemesis Of Moles' idea, but attempting to port a non-table top concept into a board game.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:14
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xopods posted:I think it's important to remember that FPS games are already a thing that exists and if you want to play an FPS, you can play one. So the goal in making an FPS-inspired board game shouldn't be "how can we make this as much like an FPS in every possible way?" as it should be "what is it that makes an FPS so much fun and how can we capture a similar sort of fun in a board game?" Essentially, I'm thinking of how in a 1v1 match of, say, Quake 3, you're not just thinking one step ahead, you're thinking in "phrases" of actions, and each kind of movement benefits different kinds of weapons and is better if your opponent has one thing versus another. If you're playing Q3DM17, a valid movement "phrase" would be "jump below cover/under a deck, then hit the jump pad to the rail gun, then bounce back, then rocket jump onto the upper platform" which would be countered by, say, "shoot a rocket towards the rail gun, bounce up to the top level/quad damage level, drop to the top platform, then run to the shotgun ammo to take out the rocket jump" but would defeat half a dozen different action "phrases." gently caress, I kind of want to try and do something like this now too, but with a different theme.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:28
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That's not so much a unique attribute of FPS games though as it is a phenomenon of player skill. A beginner's experience of a FPS is more like "there's a guy, I'm going to try to shoot him" and "there's a power-up, I'm going to go get that." It's no different from chess, where beginners think in terms of "Can I capture something? Can he capture something of mine?" and masters read out long sequences of moves. Or in a sport, where a beginner badminton player is just thinking about getting the bird back on the other side of the net, whereas a strong player is thinking about where he's trying to force his opponent to run, and where the return is likely to come, and how he can position himself to take best advantage of it...
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Feb 19, 2013 17:43
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That's a really good point; I think I was just getting inside my own head too much about how to make a turn-based game feel as fast paced and fluid as playing a FPS well. I really like the idea of having a highly elaborate rock paper scissors movement queue, and I think I'm going to put that into my notebook of ideas, but you're correct in saying that's not FPS specific.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:55
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I guess when I was thinking of the idea, I didn't really think of it in MLG style phases and action plans, but closer to twitch, reactionary style play. I think both have some place here but the action queue style stuff is a different feel than what I was originally thinking. I think it might actually be a better game though.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:11
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I'm not sure how you could capture "twitch" gameplay in a board game though.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:22
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Me neither, which is one of the reasons this has been a rad discussion. Differentiating between the things that I can capture, and things I can't, is kind of an important lesson when trying to transfer ideas across mediums.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:27
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xopods posted:I'm not sure how you could capture "twitch" gameplay in a board game though. Or, make a non-cranial dexterity thing? Like, players have three different colored "targets" each made of florist foam, and they can move one at a time (at any point) and must leave each target touching the table. Other players, at any point, may throw cards from their hand at these targets, with the intent of making their Red card stick into the opponent's Red target. Alternatively, there's a card game called Blink that has a pretty loving fast twitchy gameplay, but that's more stressful and luck based than skill based.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:30
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xopods posted:I'm not sure how you could capture "twitch" gameplay in a board game though. To really do it, I think you would need to add some physicality to the game (which I realize, moves it away from an 'ideal' board game type). I am not sure this is a good idea but, what if, at the start of play one player grabbed a number of tokens (say, 4 per player) from a bag and dumped them in the middle of the playing space. These would be marked with various sorts of actions -- lets say: [sprint straight], [curve left], [curve right], [change direction], [spray and pray], [aimed shot], and [dodge]. Then, every 'round', someone counts to three and everyone grabs a token at the same time. If you don't have a token by the time that everyone else grabs, your character doesn't move and is an easy target (however that is defined). Without really thinking the mechanics of this through, this seems to me that it would feel pretty 'twitch' based (without being completely random). For me, I think that Merauder's idea of ripping off the X-Wing/Wings of War movement system seems to fit FPSs better than the action queue (which would nevertheless make an awesome game). Each player has a hand of possible moves with the more 'awesome' [like the full sprint or flip around] moves causing the player to become 'stressed' (which impairs shooting and cannot be removed until you perform some 'simple' maneuvers). At the end of every round, you can take a set number of shots at anything that is in your cone of fire -- although unlike X-Wing you would need to bring in some stationary cover and some pickup objectives. You could even make it so that different weapons allow different movement profiles, so that the heavier 'rocket launcher' type weapons restrict your movement more heavily.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:24
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I think the "action draft" mechanic sounds pretty cool, if not for an FPS-like board game, then for something. Like card drafting but with a realtime element... maybe it needs a trigger event like Jungle Speed or the children's classic "spoons."
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Feb 19, 2013 19:32
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I've got a ton of ideas floating around in the noggin' and I need to dump them before I forget them. I have an idea for a tile based dungeon exploration game. For lack of a better name, let's call it Dungeon for now. My design goals: solo only (because sometimes I'm a lonely nerd), quick to play (about 30 minutes), no dice involved because I want to challenge myself by avoiding the base mechanic of practically every dungeon crawler, and practically no text outside the rules: it needs a very concise symbology. The concept is that you're an evil overlord. A hero has entered your dungeon stronghold, stealing your treasure, and bullying your minions. The goal is to kill the hero before he makes off with your magical artifact or whoops your rear end in the final room. You can't directly attack the hero until he reaches your throne room, instead you have to rely on your traps and minions which are determined by the dungeon tiles you place. It's unlikely traps or minions will outright kill the hero so ideally you want to wear him down before finishing him off yourself. The caveat is that you must reward the hero for each tile he conquers with one or more treasure chests. Each treasure strengthens the hero but you also get to keep one piece of treasure for yourself. If the hero reaches a shrine tile, he will sacrifice unused treasure to level up which makes him more powerful. However, if the hero acquires the artifact of foo (which will be in a random spot near the bottom of the treasure pile) you lose. That artifact was passed down by your great grand-overlord and he'll smite you from hell if a hero gets his prints on it. Scoring is based on a fixed number minus the gold value of treasure the hero sacrificed. So let's say the max value is 1,000 and the hero sacrificed 200gp worth of treasure, your final score is 800 or something. Bonus gold is awarded based on other conditions like number of tiles placed, minions defeated, etc. So the basic strategy of the game is to use smart play of tiles, traps, and minions to wear the hero down and prevent him from acquiring and sacrificing too much treasure but play enough tiles to amass treasure for yourself. Tile Placement and Movement Hero starts at entrance. At the beginning of a round you draw a hand of tiles equal to the number of exits in the current room + 1. Place the tiles in any order so the entrances line up. Each tile has a number indicating minions, treasure chests, and traps if any. Traps are printed on the tile while minions and treasures are drawn randomly from separate decks. You always draw treasure equal to the number of chests plus one. Keep a treasure for yourself and give the rest to the hero if he survives. Heroes have inventory limits so if they can't carry treasure they'll leave it on the tile, picking it up again if they pass by with extra space. Some tiles have locked treasures. If the hero doesn't have enough keys to unlock chests, you keep unclaimed treasures. Keys are worth absolutely nothing to you, but they potentially keep heroes from getting treasure. Traps are generally one use tiles that come into effect immediately. Some traps reset after the hero leaves the room so they'll work again if you can lure a hero back there. Tiles have a level value which represent how deep the adventurer is and the level of minions you can place. Once all level 1 tiles are used up, you can start using level 2 and so on but you can't play any more minions from a lower leveled deck (the bigger monsters bully them!). There's a special level 3 tile, your throne room, that can be placed at any time during level 3. This is the final room. If the hero defeats you here, you lose you big weenie. Hero Movement The hero always moves directly to the tile containing the most treasure chests. If a room loops back into a cleared room, the hero automatically moves to the next uncleared room with the highest treasure, taking the shortest route possible. If it's impossible for a hero to move further (for example, by creating a loop that blocks off a legal tile) the hero discovers a "hidden passage" adjacent to the room they're in and continues from there. Treasure Hero's acquire treasure automatically after defeating minions. If a hero reaches a tile with a shrine he "sacrifices" monetary treasure. Sacrificed treasure gives the hero experience points. The hero can level up which improves his health and combat. Treasure Types Keys: No value, no special abilities. Hero uses these to open locked chests. Potions: Hero uses these automatically under certain conditions. Low value, but they have powerful abilities like healing. Equipment: Medium value, equip-able items with special abilities. The hero replaces equipment with the highest valued stuff. Gems/Art/Gold/Whatever: High value treasure with no special abilities. Hero sacrifices these for experience so don't give him too much! Combat Combat is based on a point value. You select your minions and line them in a row. Hero and minions, one-by-one, compare values and assign the difference in damage (minimum 1). Minions are generally weak but they have special abilities that harass heroes. Defeated minions are sent to the spawning pool. You can sacrifice treasure to bring minions back equal to the treasure's experience rating. ---- This is all WIP stuff but I really want to see this idea fully realized. I don't think there are enough fun little fantasy games that try to be something other than HeroQuest derivatives. My stupid doodle that spawned the idea 
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Feb 20, 2013 00:45
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Your post is very long and Game of Thrones season 2 came out today so I only read the introduction and skimmed the rest. But it occurs to me that there could be an interesting "take your shot" mechanic revolving around the fact that you want the hero to be defeated by you, the "boss", and that you lose if he reaches the artifact. As your minions wear the hero down, he'll get weaker and weaker, so you become more and more likely to win your final confrontation... but if you wait too long, he finds the artifact and he wins. So you have to decide when to take your shot at defeating him (if he defeats you, you lose too, of course). You could use a mechanic similar to the "urban renewal" cards in Urban Sprawl, in that the "hero wins" card begins in the discard pile, but a certain event in the deck causes the discards to be shuffled back into the deck. So you're safe for a certain time, but once that card comes up, you know the hero could find the treasure and win at any moment, so there's ever-building stress in terms of deciding whether to try to finish him off now or see if you can hit him with one more trap/wave of goblins without him finding your precious. ------- On a semi-related note, you've reminded me that I've got a solo card-based solitaire dungeon crawl game that my publisher passed on simply because he's not sure how marketable a solitaire game would be in his demographic. Are solo fantasy games much of a thing and if so, who publishes them?
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Feb 20, 2013 01:42
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Couldn't tell you how large the demographic is, but "good solo games" is one of the more consistent questions that pop up on BGG and Geeklists. I've seen across the internet at least 3 or 4 variants to play the original HeroQuest solo and Warhammer Quest/Advanced HeroQuest are always popular subjects for their solo design. People clamor for fantasy dungeon crawlers that don't require the DM player like most of them have. I want to say majority of Print and Play games are solo-able as well so a good solo game with decent production values could probably be successful. I do think Mage Knight and the recent D&D crawlers helped revitalize things and now people want more.
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Feb 20, 2013 06:32
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xopods asked for pics of a playtest session with components, so we took some tonight on a pretty short track:    
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Feb 20, 2013 08:48
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That looks pretty awesome! How much is the terrain involved in the gameplay? Do people crash into stuff a lot, or is it mostly just there for looks? If you were to look for a publisher, are you thinking of this as a board game (where everything comes in one box) or a Games Workshop-style modular miniatures game? I ask because I think your odds of finding a publisher are much, much better if you go the former route. If it's the latter, it's a much bigger endeavor and I doubt you'd find a publisher willing to take the risk, but them Kickstarter boys love their eye candy, so you might be able to pull it off there (though there'd still be significant up-front investment for you in that you'd need to hire guys to do the sculpting etc.)
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Feb 20, 2013 14:28
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The terrain is as important as you make it, honestly. We've had courses that were lousy with tight corridors of walls, and some that were pretty wide open. The only drawback to having little or no terrain is that there are sections where the players could attempt to cut a tight corner through the weeds (which basically means everyone can). Part of it mitigated by the checkpoints, but it's generally more fun to have the threat of some terrain out there at the end of a long straightaway or on the inside of a hairpin. Naturally, you can use anything, but I know that's not an answer. I think it'd be reasonable to do up some fold-out or on-stands chipboard for a few easy obstacles, maybe a grandstand, but it does feel a whole lot better to be playing with proper terrain. As for the publisher vs Kickstarter route, I think it'd probably be destined for Kickstarter, if that's still a thing by the time that I've got all my ducks in a row. There's plenty of opportunities already in the design for expansions that can be trickled out via stretch goals, but at the same time I can see those being packed into a single expansion box as well. I would really like to work with a publisher, because there's a ton of material support stuff that I just don't know, but I think it's going to be a matter of selling them the potential audience (those with access to terrain) along with the product. But I'm getting way ahead of myself. There's still a lot to do.
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Feb 20, 2013 19:05
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So quick question; I'm building a prototype right now and wondering, how important are copyright concerns here? I have a game I made ages ago that I don't have on my site cause all the artwork is EDF art that I applied some filters to. Obviously for just playtesting, I can just steal and use whatever I want, but say I wanted to shop this to publishers, are they gonna turn me down the moment they see artwork ripped from Betrayal or am I generally ok?
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Feb 20, 2013 22:37
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I imagine some publishers would be bothered by it and others wouldn't care. I wouldn't recommend it... I think it would be better to just use colored squares or whatever to represent things than stolen artwork. That's the kind of question you might ask Travis at Indie Boards & Cards though... he's generally quite happy to tell you how things are from the publisher's perspective.
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Feb 20, 2013 23:11
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Would colored square stuff work for like, rooms and junk? I always feel that sort of incredibly barebones basic look will lose me points. I'll email Travis though. Thanks.
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Feb 20, 2013 23:14
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