|
Foolster41 posted:I'm actually working on a modern/sci-fi game sort of in the vein of stuff like TF2 and overwatch where it's equal-nujmbered teams shooting at each other, and only the attacker shoots dice, and have to hit a target number. Lmao I actually am doing it for a team based hero shooter idea as well! If you wanna chat and bounce ideas off each other sometime let me know. I love gloomhavens combat system for pve but for pvp it seems like it'd be a crazy system to implement
|
#
?
May 12, 2017 02:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 17:46 |
|
|
Kashuno posted:Lmao I actually am doing it for a team based hero shooter idea as well! If you wanna chat and bounce ideas off each other sometime let me know. I love gloomhavens combat system for pve but for pvp it seems like it'd be a crazy system to implement Sure! I'm Foolster41 on Skype and Foolster41 #8148 on DIschord. The rules I have so far are at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QNaDC-7-yfnxAx_zFesbfrs0ufEFvlMu1F3HOOUBTVw/edit?usp=sharing. The main mechanics I have is a hidden action distribution system (using tokens) and custom dice that distribute to 0,0,0,1,2 (WIth one of the zeros a sort of special that can be changed by certain abilities).
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2017 02:40
|
|
|
quote:I love gloomhavens combat system for pve but for pvp it seems like it'd be a crazy system to implement Why? We sometimes deathmatch at the end of missions, with no rules changes. It works fine. I mean, the characters aren't set up great for it, and they aren't balanced to make it work in practice (eg. some characters can kite pretty hard, and status effects like Stun and Immobilize are OP) - but it's not as far off as you might think. The initiative system, the card economy, and the modifier deck all seem like solid ideas for an interesting PvP game.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2017 03:36
|
|
|
So this is kind of arse about foot maybe, but I want to learn to code, so I'm going to write an app. I wan't to write a companion app (or like a mandatory one?) for a boardgame, because I know I'll actually be motivated enough to finish it that way, and I have a bunch of ideas for board games that I'd like to see to completion. I'm entirely aware this is a stupid stipulation, but do you guys have any thoughts on where phone apps contribute value? I have the companion app for Clank! which is pretty good, in that its got pretty seamless, simple integration, and adds just a small amount extra. But also I do really enjoy the XCOM game that revolves almost entirely around the app. I haven't had a go at mansions of madness yet with it, and in my head this is the sort of thing I'm imagining, but I know in reality that's going to be a way bigger project than I should take on at first because it essentially requires the board game component to be entirely fleshed out.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 02:00
|
|
|
!Klams posted:So this is kind of arse about foot maybe, but I want to learn to code, so I'm going to write an app. I wan't to write a companion app (or like a mandatory one?) for a boardgame, because I know I'll actually be motivated enough to finish it that way, and I have a bunch of ideas for board games that I'd like to see to completion. Space Alert's random mission generator app is very good because it allows you to really finely customise the difficulty and creates more replayability.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 02:29
|
|
|
Cthulhu Dreams posted:Space Alert's random mission generator app is very good because it allows you to really finely customise the difficulty and creates more replayability. Hmm, something like that seems like a good idea, so you could have a bunch of basic scenarios and then its essentially just random layouts for terrain or something? That seems cool.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 02:50
|
|
|
!Klams posted:So this is kind of arse about foot maybe, but I want to learn to code, so I'm going to write an app. I wan't to write a companion app (or like a mandatory one?) for a boardgame, because I know I'll actually be motivated enough to finish it that way, and I have a bunch of ideas for board games that I'd like to see to completion. I have some tangential advice: if you're new to programming, don't start out trying to develop a proper phone app. It adds a bunch of complications that make learning more difficult. Your best bet might be to do it as a web page. Javascript is quirky, but forgiving. It's easy to debug, easy to share with people, and there's tons of resources floating around. And if you build something you want to keep, you can package it as an iOS or Android app via Cordova.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 02:56
|
|
|
jmzero posted:I have some tangential advice: if you're new to programming, don't start out trying to develop a proper phone app. It adds a bunch of complications that make learning more difficult. Ok, cool, thanks! I'll look into that.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 03:16
|
|
|
What is a good resource if I'm looking to make an 18x27 grid so that I can print it out? Just ms paint a grid?
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 01:57
|
|
|
Kashuno posted:What is a good resource if I'm looking to make an 18x27 grid so that I can print it out? Just ms paint a grid? Here's one for a hex grid. I feel like you can find plenty of online tools for creating printable for square grids.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 03:49
|
|
|
al-azad posted:Here's one for a hex grid. I feel like you can find plenty of online tools for creating printable for square grids. thanks! I'm curious if anyone has card format feedback on this.  obviously all the icons, text, and image are just a quick mockup, but I'm wondering if the overall positioning of things allows the card to get the values across without cluttering the card too much.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 20:07
|
|
|
Kashuno posted:I'm curious if anyone has card format feedback on this. Having icons on the middle right seems very awkward to design around. For this much information density (and it really does seem like a lot of stats...), I think you're going to need to break up the card and have really distinct stat blocks (eg. like the Imperial Assault campaign player card things).
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
jmzero posted:Having icons on the middle right seems very awkward to design around. For this much information density (and it really does seem like a lot of stats...), I think you're going to need to break up the card and have really distinct stat blocks (eg. like the Imperial Assault campaign player card things). I hadn't even considered doing the card in a portrait style, that might make a lot more sense! I agree that it looks like a lot of stats, especially the way the layout looks now. The game currently has [HP, Mobility] (left), [Attack range, damage, and ammo count] (right). The icon at the bottom left is a cost associated with using the ability. Perhaps changing that format to look similar to the imperial assault cards will make the info not look as overwhelming. Thanks! Kashuno fucked around with this message at 21:18 on May 16, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 21:15
|
|
|
Are there any apps or other tools made for board game design? Something like a pre-made spreadsheet for deckbuilding, with simulated draws, etc? I know you can do all of this through Excel and, say, Tabletop Simulator, but I was hoping for something a bit more streamlined.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2017 01:03
|
|
|
It looks like some anime got on your card mockup.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2017 01:21
|
|
|
jmzero posted:Having icons on the middle right seems very awkward to design around. For this much information density (and it really does seem like a lot of stats...), I think you're going to need to break up the card and have really distinct stat blocks (eg. like the Imperial Assault campaign player card things). PS wanted to thank you extra for this! I've trimmed own the stats in game to use a single die pool (still have health though) so that make it much nicer and easier to work with.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2017 20:33
|
|
|
I've posted in here a little about an idea for a 4-player CDG. I kept telling myself "don't just steal Twilight Struggle mechanics!" But then I looked deep within myself and realized: what if I did just steal TS mechanics by making a mod that uses the TS board and engine? So here's my latest well-considered idea: Twilight Struggle, the 4 player mod. It uses a new deck of cards and adds two new players: PRC (China) and the third-world GSM (Global Solidarity Movement). Winning: Each faction scores Victory Points, tracked with 4 counters instead of 1. Scores are relative; you win by being 10 points ahead of each other player, or by being ahead after final scoring, which works like the base game. The US-USSR score counter is gone. Also it's possible to earn more than 40 points during the game, so the counters can warp from right to left. (Note that TS boards have different score tracks; in general counters should start at the far left side and advance right, regardless of board.) As in COIN games, only one player can win and table talk is allowed but not binding. My idea is to leave scoring cards the way they are in the base game, so Africa and the Americas aren't in play that much before Mid War. Events are a new deck of about 110 cards. Some reference the same events included in original TS, but with new names and effects. As in the base game events have an Ops value, an associated faction (or neutral), and a phase of the war (early, mid, late). Events work the regular way -- if you play your own event card or a neutral event card, you choose event or ops. If someone else plays your event, they get to do ops but the event still happens. I have a list of events I'd like to see but the effects are still up in the air for the most part. Turns: I want to keep the game playable by experienced players in 3-4 hours. Twilight Struggle just doesn't have the depth of a longer, more complex game so going over 4 hours sounds unpleasant to me. And I would like to maintain the basic TS turn structure: Headline events (highest ops first), then 6 or so Action Rounds. But each AR would have 4 cards played, so I would imagine that turns would take twice as long. Therefore I think 5 or 6 turns are enough. I haven't figured out where the shuffles would be, though, which are an important part of TS strategy. Obviously the space race will have to be shortened but I'm inclined to keep it in the game, because it's cool. US and USSR factions work much like they do in original TS. Ops available: place influence, realignment, coup d'état, or space race (once per turn). They also have to do the usual required military operations each turn, or lose some VP -- the new factions do not have this requirement. But DEFCON suicide is now impossible; no faction can do anything to reduce DEFCON below 2. (Letting one player end a 4-player game arbitrarily would suck, I think.) In terms of events, USSR enjoys early momentum in confronting US positions in Europe but late-game will find they are fighting GSM and PRC for influence in the third world. US has to scramble to prevent an early overrun of Europe, and gets stronger in the late game, though it should no longer be a rule of thumb that US wins if they make it to final scoring. Also, the game starts in early 1950 (after the Chinese Civil War but before Korea) so the initial influence US and USSR get in Europe has already been placed. GSM is like the Non-Aligned Movement, but more effective than it was historically. In reality it was hurt by internal conflicts and was effectively fractured by pressure from the superpowers. In this mod I am supposing that Third Worldist enthusiasm translated into cohesive leadership and more effective actions, and I'm also grouping other "non-aligned" organizations like OPEC, the OAU, and the G77 at the UN under the GSM umbrella. Additionally they get to place some free influence at game start in Africa, Middle East, and Asia, reflecting the first generation of anticolonial leaders. GSM has different ops than the superpowers. They can place influence, but they do not require adjacency to do so in S America, Africa, or Asia. They don't have realignment, but instead have infiltration, which lets them attack vs. non-controlling influence in a country and replace it (possibly) with their own influence. Instead of coup GSM has revolution, allowing them to attempt an overthrow of a country that they have influence in but don't control. And instead of the space race, they could discard once a turn to attempt a UN resolution, i.e. to raise DEFCON or impose a cease-fire in a region. PRC doesn't have the luxury to draw a line between external affairs and internal drama. China itself isn't a country, but it is (in my mod) adjacent to several countries in Asia and it has a place for PRC to place influence. This influence is development; it serves as a limit on what PRC can do with its Ops and several nasty events will cause China to lose a lot of development. PRC has the most difficult early game because of these setbacks, and to make matters worse they don't get to place any influence at game start -- all their effort went to winning the war for the mainland. But they can hang on with several events that let them get a bunch of VP during Mid and Late War, and all their development counts for points at final scoring, giving a large bonus. PRC ops: Place influence anywhere in Asia, or next to extant influence. Infiltrate -- works like GSM. Instead of coup, PRC has clash, using PLA forces or proxies to make a border attack in Asia (as happened in Siberia, Korea, Vietnam, and India). This would risk some development for influence and VP. China didn't explore space much, so their once-a-turn discard ability should allow boosting development, or changing leadership or something like that. That's the basics. Oh, and board spaces still can only contain 2 powers at a time, so you need to kick out one of the influencing powers to get into a country. Realignment and Infiltrate should help with this, but overall I think the board is going to get really crowded. I think with the right ops it will still be reasonably playable, and you can still win without much attention to a region or two. There's still a lot of things to do to make this variant playable (like the big pile of events!), but I'd be interested in any feedback you might have on how to make this fun.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2017 04:50
|
|
|
A little while ago I posted about a game I've been working on as a hobby for close to 2 years now and had some great feedback for. I had even met with some publishers about it and feedback was fantastic. However each of them said the same thing "we can publish this but need two things: 1 - proof of interest and 2 - a more finished product". I've now spoken with 4 publishers and they've all echoed that which leaves me in a spot. Do I kickstart a first edition? It's what each publisher has recommended at this point. I don't know the first thing about starting a crowd-funding project and was hoping there might be some advice. The second thing is that I wanted to show off a bit of the game (publicly, finally). Below are two videos I've been showing to publishers (caution: rough) Mechanics - https://youtu.be/cPxlmqIc_DY Gameplay - https://youtu.be/dWOkWEW3L20 The gameplay video was made before 1-2 mechanics tweaks so take that with a grain of salt. I've also vastly improved some of the mock-up art thanks to my wife and some borrowed assets (not to be used in final development):  I'd appreciate some feedback on kickstarting or what everything thinks. Always open to constructive criticism!
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2017 16:36
|
|
|
Since I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to look at publisher chat and can't watch the videos in full, I'll delve into that aspect at least. How far along is that prototype in the gameplay vid? are those actual cards or are they pieces of paper cut out to fit the sleeves? If the latter, have you looked into the production cost for what you need? thegamecrafter.com is a fine resource for a rough estimate. You'll need to talk to a company that can really delve into logistics and distribution, as well as decide how you want to handle it. Generally, the less work you have to put in to a production and distribution cycle, the more it is going to cost you. High quality video. I can't stress this enough. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it should look like you rehearsed your video a bit and have a clearly thought out plan for presenting your game. Use two cameras, even if it's two phones. Go to cons and get your game out there. Get business cards with your game's name on it, and go to as many as you can. It's a lot of work, and a lot of effort, but it's worth it. If the game is good, people will remember it and back it when the kickstarter launches. Get on social media with it. Promote the hell out of it before and especially during the kickstarter. Get some almost final art on your cards. It can be an annoying financial cost before you get it up there, but it really shows people dedication to finishing the product. also: read these https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter Jamey Stegmaier wrote the book on crowdfunding successfully, and it's great to go over.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2017 16:53
|
|
|
Balon posted:I'd appreciate some feedback on kickstarting or what everything thinks. Always open to constructive criticism! The game seems very simple, which is good - but I feel like it might need more going on in order to resonate with the kind of people who back games on Kickstarter. That could be anything: more content, more decisions.. just more stuff. It needs some reason why a person wouldn't just want to play, but why you are excited to back, and tell other people about it. A reason to put money down now, even though you won't get the game for 5 months. Dice Throne did very well on KS. Yes it's a heavier game and competitive rather than co-op, but that's what you're competing with (and even with all that stuff, it was still only $29). If your characters had the kind of options and content that the Dice Throne characters have, I think it'd be a lot easier sell. Sometimes you'll see very simple games like yours succeed at retail, but very seldom have I seen them succeed on KS (at least without a license/hook/IP/endorsement - like Exploding Kittens). Another approach I've seen work is to focus on "family gamers" (or some other niche that doesn't have as many options). I hate to say it, but Super Tooth is a hyper-terrible game that bored my 4 year old. But it did well at KS and is now published, based largely on fun illustrations and "family friendliness". Anyway, good luck.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2017 17:12
|
|
|
So after a bunch of talk in the boardgames thread about how someone should make a Star Wars COIN game, I just did it because why not. This is certainly completely unbalanced because I literally this minute finished writing (I only have 24 Event cards written, but that's enough to find where it's broken). I now need feedback from people who know a lot about COIN games to tell me which parts if any are obviously broken right off the bat. Once those are fixed, I'll hope to get a playtest going somehow so we can find the more subtle ways it's broken and all the numbers that need rebalancing. The document probably won't make much sense if you've never played a COIN game before. It is absolutely missing important rules that I didn't feel like re-writing from Cuba Libre (e.g. how Event cards and initiative work), so just assume they are the same as in Cuba Libre. It's not meant to be a rulebook that can explain to a newbie how to play, but experienced COIN players should get what I've written no problem. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fHl3K7PP4izjv9cZA6VC4Q0I32OiOu3x0gljUm653B0/edit?usp=sharing I expect and hope for heaps of criticism!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2017 06:21
|
|
|
Jimbozig posted:So after a bunch of talk in the boardgames thread about how someone should make a Star Wars COIN game, I just did it because why not. This is certainly completely unbalanced because I literally this minute finished writing (I only have 24 Event cards written, but that's enough to find where it's broken). I now need feedback from people who know a lot about COIN games to tell me which parts if any are obviously broken right off the bat. Once those are fixed, I'll hope to get a playtest going somehow so we can find the more subtle ways it's broken and all the numbers that need rebalancing. I've never played a COIN game but when this was being discussed in the board game thread I wondered to myself whether it would make more sense as a 3-faction game with Empire/Rebels/Fringe. Maybe it's just nostalgia for the first five Timothy Zahn novels (which of course now no longer canon) but the Fringe being caught between the Rebels and Empire was really interesting to me. I'm not sure splitting them into hutts on one end and literally everyone else in the fringe on the other makes sense to me.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2017 06:40
|
|
|
Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election).
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2017 22:40
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election). It's always very hard to predict/control/motivate players' behavior once you have "tiers" of victory. Like, you can say somewhere "you'd rather be president than vice president, and you'd rather be vice president than have your party lose" - but once "individual victory" becomes foggy, people will make their own goals. Like, in Eclipse, you'll get people who team up with someone, work for "the team" to their own detriment, then take the "team-breaker" penalty in order to help their teammate win. Even though their personal VPs are bad at the end, and that's the "official" victory condition, they feel they've won if their "team" wins (even if the "team" is dissolved). Obviously that's a bit extreme - my point is just that the idea of a team will really warp the way a lot of people approach a game. I think it'd be hard to make players "really" fight consistently during primaries - and if just one player decides not to fight hard, it puts a lot of pressure on for everyone to stop fighting and just focus on the team win; and if that becomes the pattern, the beginning part of the game withers pretty hard. Anywho, I wonder if there's some mechanism you could use to nip that - maybe some kind of hidden agenda or something that has the potential to pull party-mates in different directions? Or maybe you play over multiple rounds somehow, such that you want to get as many VP from each race as possible (making the "consolation prize" of vice president being less valuable).
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election). I mean, this is kind of what Pericles does, but for exactly 4. The two Athenian players are competing with the two Spartan players for the team victory, but also competing within the team for actual victory. And the team and individual conflicts happen simultaneously, but have the same tensions you're alluding to.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 01:29
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election). jmzero posted:Like, you can say somewhere "you'd rather be president than vice president, and you'd rather be vice president than have your party lose" - but once "individual victory" becomes foggy, people will make their own goals. Like, in Eclipse, you'll get people who team up with someone, work for "the team" to their own detriment, then take the "team-breaker" penalty in order to help their teammate win. Even though their personal VPs are bad at the end, and that's the "official" victory condition, they feel they've won if their "team" wins (even if the "team" is dissolved). Obviously that's a bit extreme - my point is just that the idea of a team will really warp the way a lot of people approach a game. I think it'd be hard to make players "really" fight consistently during primaries - and if just one player decides not to fight hard, it puts a lot of pressure on for everyone to stop fighting and just focus on the team win; and if that becomes the pattern, the beginning part of the game withers pretty hard. I was working on a game along similar lines before the election destroyed my faith in both the system and the universe in general. I skipped having any explicit element of competition within the team and just tried to keep the focus on trying to coordinate between teammates who have separate, secret, potentially contradictory strategies, more in the vein of bridge than anything else. (Come to think of it, overhauling it into a trick-taking game would be a great way to make a lighter, simpler, faster version.)
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 01:53
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election). My presidential campaign idea; similar concept but players are campaign managers doing damage control and scheduling events. Minor deckbuilding elements where you're trying to discard gaffes and guide their speeches but there's still an element of being unable to fully control their bullshit while simulating the fickleness of undecided voters.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 03:09
|
|
|
Jimbozig posted:So after a bunch of talk in the boardgames thread about how someone should make a Star Wars COIN game, I just did it because why not. This is certainly completely unbalanced because I literally this minute finished writing (I only have 24 Event cards written, but that's enough to find where it's broken). I now need feedback from people who know a lot about COIN games to tell me which parts if any are obviously broken right off the bat. Once those are fixed, I'll hope to get a playtest going somehow so we can find the more subtle ways it's broken and all the numbers that need rebalancing. Here are some thoughts I don't think Support and Opposition should be renamed, if they're not going to change how they basically work. I know people were saying that the Empire doesn't want Support, but they are wrong and dumb because getting Support is how you win an insurgency, which should be the Empire's objective! It would be thematically cool if the Empire could build Support by doing fearful scary things, though. I like the idea of bounties on rebels' heads. Flavorful mechanics like that are good to have. Like the idea of a Force-O-Meter to tell which side is powerful. But you could just make it a one dimensional track where 1 is light side ascendant and 5 is dark side. I don't think tracking each one separately adds much. This idea was cut or whatever but there should definitely be an off-map track for the balance of the force, or the progress of Luke and Vader's confrontation, or something like that! Naboo should be deleted, because the prequels were terrible and not what you want to base your game on. In general the idea behind the map is kind of unclear -- if a space represents a sector full of dozens of planets, why are there three spaces dedicated to single planets? I would probably get rid of Naboo and Corellia. I think the in-game logic behind ECs is kind of unclear too. Other COIN games have lines of communication instead of ECs; could this game have shipping lanes? Also, get rid of the four-corner intersections on your map. Is Mandelorian Sector next to Outer Slice North? I don't know from the map alone. Actually, what is this game based on? Is it the original trilogy, the expanded universe, the other movies, or some amalgamation of everything? It would be good to write a little about what the setting is. Overall (and without having played the game) I think one weakness is that so many mechanics are cribbed from Cuba Libre without necessarily being adapted to the Star Wars theme. Like the Scum are, at this point, really similar to the Syndicate in their design. All of the factions need more unique Special Activities. And really the Ops as they're written don't feel very space-y. What if you made space battles take an Op of their own and used a modified die roll to resolve them? It would make more sense for giant space battles than one-way Assaults. Granted the Rebel fleet can always run away (hell, this should be a Special Activity all its own) but space war should be more distinct from late 1950s tropical insurgency. Check out how Falling Sky does things. The tribes sure remind me of planets, and 3 factions have a leader unit on the board, which would make sense for Luke and Vader, no? Their confrontation is the emotional core of Star Wars!!! Even if you stick with the current model of population support and control, putting leader units in the game would make sense I think. Anyway I do think it's a cool idea and I'm not trying to be mean, just dumping a lot of reactions to the writeup. Regardless of your design decisions the game can only become fun through testing so you might consider making a VASSAL module for the game once it's a little more stable. Online play is very helpful for testing. Anyway good luck!!
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 10:23
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:I don't think Support and Opposition should be renamed, if they're not going to change how they basically work. I know people were saying that the Empire doesn't want Support, but they are wrong and dumb because getting Support is how you win an insurgency, which should be the Empire's objective! It would be thematically cool if the Empire could build Support by doing fearful scary things, though. It's a Star Wars insurgency, the Rebellion is defeated by blowing up their base and scattering them. The Empire thematically does not care about support. If you want to keep support and opposition then reverse them. The government wants opposition to the Rebellion while the Rebellion wants support from the united planets. The Empire controls the senate (and dissolved it in the first movie), they want everyone to oust Rebellion activity because if they don't a giant moon base will blow them up.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 12:09
|
|
|
Props to you for actually writing something up, especially considering the source material and trying to nail a certain feel. Since it's Star Wars, people will often have clear ideas already of what they want their star Wars game to be like & will be upset that your idea isn't it.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 17:21
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Random, possibly cool board game idea: A presidential election board game, but one that’s for 4+ players, and one that goes through the primaries as well as the actual election. Players would be split into two teams for the two parties, and then the first half of the game would be spent on the primary elections. The two teams more or less ignore each other, as they’d be competing against their own team members to win the primary election. But then once that’s over, it’s the two teams vs each other, and the players who aren’t presidential candidates then need to support their team’s candidate in order to help win. I think it’d be neat to have shifting focuses of competing against teammates, and then competing together as one big group. Also you’d need to play the careful balance of beating your competition during the primaries, but not totally beating them down so that they’ll get crushed in the presidential election (or be unable to support you during the election). Have any of you guys played Die Macher? I haven't, but it seems like a good starting point for what you're trying to do. Each player is a different political party and you play through several tiers of regional elections leading up to the national election, so you need to form coalitions and tailor your platform to align with popular sentiment.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 17:29
|
|
|
al-azad posted:It's a Star Wars insurgency, the Rebellion is defeated by blowing up their base and scattering them. The Empire thematically does not care about support. Well a Rebellion is literally "opposition". I still like my suggestion in which the Empire could be given an ability to score neutrality or passive opposition where it has control. poo poo, that could be what the Death Star card does: Alderaan Destroyed IMPERIAL MOMENTUM Until the end of the next Propaganda round, score all Empire-controlled spaces in neutral or passive opposition as if passive support. Could probably throw some kind of sweep/assult limop bonus on that, too.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 17:34
|
|
|
So, time to make another long-winded post about board game design lessons I’ve learned the hard way. Hopefully these are somewhat interesting to people, or can help others avoid the pitfalls I’ve not only ran into, but sometimes dove in head-first. After several months of having it on the backburner, I’m back to thinking about Behemoth. I was thinking about how i took it to a convention 2-3 years ago and it was really successful, but I feel like my attempts to fix some of the issues that it had kind of wound up making the game a lot worse. I haven’t really posted about the game lately because the last version was honestly kind of terrible, and I wasn’t sure how to proceed with it without completely overhauling the game into something almost entirely different. I kind of have been doing that, honestly, with an entirely new project, but this morning I’ve been thinking back on Behemoth and wondering if I was going in the wrong direction. How the rules used to work was your deck would be a mix of attack cards (unique to your deck) and item cards (generic ones that all players have). Back when I took it to the convention, I noticed that players kept item cards in their hands a long time and never really played them. I also noticed when I’d play I’d be like “aw man, another lousy item card? I want a cool attack card!“ so I decided to fix that by making it so item cards weren’t a part of your deck - they were instead separate entirely, and could be used independently from attacks. This meant that players’ decks were entirely attack cards. Every card has a cool effect and has cool combo potential! What could go wrong? But I think that in doing that, I kind of wound up making an entire cake out of icing, if that makes sense? The more simple, kind of boring item cards made the more complicated attack cards that much cooler by contrast. Also by making the deck nothing but attack cards, not only did they get a little more boring but it also slowed the game down a ton as players had to sit there reading like every card. With more attack cards also came more combo potential, and that meant players killed the behemoth way faster, which hosed with the pacing of the game. The most recently released version of Behemoth also taught me quite the extent of how royally and truly hosed the pacing of the game was. The win condition was to kill the behemoth by depleting its deck of attack cards. When you’d deal damage, you’d discard that many cards from its deck - when the deck’s empty, players win. Turn order was decided by the “delay” cost on cards. Basically, you could play a strong card in exchange for having to wait longer for your next turn, or play weak cards to have turns more often. HOWEVER players naturally want to wombo combo, and the game actually spent a decent amount of time promoting this and encouraging you to wombo combo. The problem is that when you would wombo combo, you’d increase your delay more and more - to the point where you’d maybe need to wait 5-10 minutes for your next turn. Not only that, but bigger wombo combos meant more and more damage, and that’s limited by the physical amount of cards in the Behemoth’s deck. So you wombo combo for like 14 damage and suddenly you’ve done 1/5 of the Behemoth’s health in a single attack. This all added up to mean you’d only get 2-3 turns in a game: meaning in a 30-40 minute game, you’d only get to actually play 2 or 3 times. Oof. So yeah, I think that the one small change of removing item cards from the deck more or less snowballed into all that. It might also be that removing item cards also helped me realize where the problems in the game really were: in the turn order system and the size of wombo combos. Items in the deck not only slowed the pace of the game down by forcing players to spend turns using them, but also meant wombo combos were much smaller and thus didn’t burn through the boss quite as quickly. After realizing all this, I’m considering reverting back to that older version of the game, and then trying to fix that with the knowledge I have now, instead of trying to fix the even-more-broken version that is the most recent one. Lessons of the day: 1. Sometimes the “boring” part of the game is important in keeping the interesting part of the game interesting. Don’t jump to get rid of or replace the less exciting elements of your game. 2. If something in your game seems massively broken or impossible to really fix, or you’re otherwise at a game design wall, maybe try looking back at older versions to try to find the source of the problem. It might be easier to go back to an old version using the knowledge you have now than it is to try and fix the latest rendition of your game. CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 17:54 on May 25, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 17:52
|
|
|
al-azad posted:It's a Star Wars insurgency, the Rebellion is defeated by blowing up their base and scattering them. The Empire thematically does not care about support. Maybe ignoring Support and focusing on blowing up Rebel bases is why the empire lost. Much like in a game of Cuba Libre where the government player spends too much time using Assault and Air Strike instead of getting shifts with Train and Reprisal. One thematic element I included is the fact that the Empire has a special activity combining Air Strike and Reprisal, so they really can try to win by blowing the Rebels up. It might be too powerful and make Blockade useless, but that's something I have to try balance. Removing Corellia and Naboo might make sense. Corellia might make more sense as an EC. Coruscant absolutely makes sense as its own thing, in my mind. By the way, I went with ECs over LoCs because of how I wanted the movement to work and wanting to see if the Empire's ability to Sweep anywhere is too overpowered. If it is, I may put in Hyperlanes as LoCs and swap out Sweep for Patrol. Having LoCs without Patrol didn't seem right, but depending on how playtesting goes, I might well reverse that decision. The lack of movement restrictions is one of the thematic things that should make it feel more space-y.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 17:59
|
|
|
I liked that you straight up made status = Fear, Neutral, and Hope. Empire wants fear so don't mess with "influence" or whatever, just make the empire actions literally increase Fear.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 18:28
|
|
|
al-azad posted:It's a Star Wars insurgency, the Rebellion is defeated by blowing up their base and scattering them. The Empire thematically does not care about support. Maybe if there was a Galactic Terror track indicating how scared people are of the Empire? If the Empire takes a lighter hand it could be harder for the Rebels to rally resistance against them, but if the Empire starts blowing up uncooperative planets I can imagine more systems falling in line, given Star Wars logic. A track like that could affect the Scum and Hutts too. And when the Rebels blow up the Death Star in a spectacular set-piece battle that would make the track swing the other way.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2017 21:30
|
|
|
CodfishCartographer posted:Lessons of the day: I think the first lesson is huge. I've been working on a player combat game for a bit now and I had been constantly trying to remove the whole setting yourself up/proper positioning aspect of it (the downtime) to make it more and more combat focused, but then it just became a mess. Having some breathing time and pacing in a game really adds to the overall experience. On a different note, I think I've finally got this thing ready for playtesting. Anybody willing to give a quick read over the rules? It's two pages (3 with game modes) Thanks in advance! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bs7yx0rDu1RpotzmSFLv5O30RrXierFrz2J8FkuX-Us/edit?usp=sharing
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2017 18:22
|
|
|
Kashuno posted:I think the first lesson is huge. I've been working on a player combat game for a bit now and I had been constantly trying to remove the whole setting yourself up/proper positioning aspect of it (the downtime) to make it more and more combat focused, but then it just became a mess. Having some breathing time and pacing in a game really adds to the overall experience. I mean, take some games where there's a resolution phase, like dungeon lords. Everyone secretly chooses their orders, which is exciting because it's your major decision points...and then you just place your dudes down in order with no decisions, then choose to take the actions which, other than monsters and rooms is mostly "yeah I'm gonna take this action that I'm on". But the secret choosing part depends wholeheartedly on the resolution mechanic! Basically I'm agreeing and it's pretty cool!
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2017 18:25
|
|
|
Jimbozig posted:So after a bunch of talk in the boardgames thread about how someone should make a Star Wars COIN game, I just did it because why not. This is certainly completely unbalanced because I literally this minute finished writing (I only have 24 Event cards written, but that's enough to find where it's broken). I now need feedback from people who know a lot about COIN games to tell me which parts if any are obviously broken right off the bat. Once those are fixed, I'll hope to get a playtest going somehow so we can find the more subtle ways it's broken and all the numbers that need rebalancing. Mind if I share this with some people who also play COIN and are really into star wars? I wish I could help more but I haven't even gotten this played yet.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2017 02:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 17:46 |
|
|
Thanks for the advice guys! I've started a Twitter and compiling some finalized art too - all original. Once I get it all together along with maybe a test printing I'll revisit a HQ promo vid and shop it to publishers before trying a Kickstarter.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 00:18
|
|