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Sammyz
Dec 24, 2005

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Now that the November design contest is over, I'm hoping we get a bunch of new posters looking for help with their designs :shobbon:

I'm writing up my Sellsheet to send off today. Anyone mind if I post it in here for feedback?

I'll happily look at your sell sheet if you playtest my game (:

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Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Sammyz posted:

I'll happily look at your sell sheet if you playtest my game (:

Works for me, emailing you. Be warned, I am awful at fitting in games.

Heres my first draft, any pointers anyone?

Good Afternoon,

My name is [NemesisOfMoles] and I am writing to you to submit my game, Parlay, for publication consideration.

Parlay is a party game for 4 to 8 players where players draw a hand of cards with complex and archaic words printed on them. Players also draw a Topic card that asks a question. The players must then answer this question, whilst trying to fit as many of their words into their answer as possible. During this, other players may also throw their own word cards at the speaking player, forcing them to use those words in their answer.

As the players use their words and the ones that are tossed at them, they accrue coins from a chest, once the chest is empty, the game is over and the player with the most coins wins.

The game has a Pirate theme, and comes with designs for papercraft costumes and props (treasure chest)

Parlay has an average running time of about a half an hour, though that can be extended by increasing the number of points available at the start of the game.
I have been extensively playtesting the game, including blind playtesting.
Thank you for your time and consideration, please email me if you have any further questions or issues regarding the above explanation of the game.

Sammyz
Dec 24, 2005
I don't know exactly what a publisher would think but I love the sound of it. Kind of like a more academic "Once Upon a Time" type game.

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Works for me, emailing you. Be warned, I am awful at fitting in games.

Heres my first draft, any pointers anyone?

Good Afternoon,

My name is [NemesisOfMoles] and I am writing to you to submit my game, Parlay, for publication consideration.

Parlay is a party game for 4 to 8 players where players draw a hand of cards with complex and archaic words printed on them. Players also draw a Topic card that asks a question. The players must then answer this question, whilst trying to fit as many of their words into their answer as possible. During this, other players may also throw their own word cards at the speaking player, forcing them to use those words in their answer.

As the players use their words and the ones that are tossed at them, they accrue coins from a chest, once the chest is empty, the game is over and the player with the most coins wins.

The game has a Pirate theme, and comes with designs for papercraft costumes and props (treasure chest)

Parlay has an average running time of about a half an hour, though that can be extended by increasing the number of points available at the start of the game.
I have been extensively playtesting the game, including blind playtesting.
Thank you for your time and consideration, please email me if you have any further questions or issues regarding the above explanation of the game.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Its very theme heavy, people get into character really quickly and people are shouting at each other in thick pirate accents in minutes. I'm very happy with the game and really excited to shop it around.

Found a couple more helpful links while doing some searches. The guy behind Wiz-War talks about games publishing-
http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/design.htm

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

You're mixing up your submissions letter with your sell sheet.

Think of them like your cover letter and your resume when applying for a job... the sell sheet is more of a point form general explanation of the game, but you should submit it attached to an email which introduces yourself and explains why you think the game is a good fit for that specific company.

Here's what my sell sheet for Duck & Cover looks like, for instance... obviously, I'm a graphic designer so I was able to pretty it up a lot, which isn't super-essential, but the content will give you a general idea of what goes on one:

Duck & Cover sellsheet

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007


This is what I'm up against? Jesus christ

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

This is what I'm up against? Jesus christ

You should see how pretty my resume is. :D

Seriously, though, it doesn't have to be so elaborate in layout and have as many images... but it should have similar content. Some bullet-point lists to give the gist of the game, one paragraph-form section narrating a little example of play, the age/players/playtime info you'd see on a box, and maybe some little diagrams using your prototype art to accompany the example of play.

What's missing from that sellsheet (which I later learned I should include) is another bullet list of the components. Obviously, publishers care about how much the game is going to cost to produce.

Fix
Jul 26, 2005

NEWT THE MOON

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Found a couple more helpful links while doing some searches. The guy behind Wiz-War talks about games publishing-
http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/design.htm

Thanks for this. It was a really interesting read. If you've got any others like it, I'd like to see them.

jmzero
Jul 24, 2007

Just a small note to congratulate Muuphish on winning the October board game design contest with his mazebuilding cave horror game Speloink! (it's linked to in the Contest Thread if you want to have a look).

There was a lot of good entries, and it was fun going through them. If you're interested in game design, I recommend playing through a few rough print-and-plays like this; you get some general game design ideas, but more specifically you see what works and doesn't work in terms of presenting a game idea and rules.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Well, here's my first run at a sell sheet then;



Obviously the scrawled out contact deets aren't like that in the proper one.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Yup, that's much more like it. There are some graphic design issues, but the content is about right. Maybe just keep everything left aligned and in two columns; those centered lists at the top don't align with anything else so they make the page feel messy. (If you look at mine, even though it looks elaborate in its layout, it's really just divided into three equal columns, disguised by the fact that the title at the top and the diagrams at the bottom span two columns, and the top of the third column is occupied by the "time bomb" image).

EDIT: Oh, and one typo jumps out, though I didn't proofread the whole thing carefully, so there might be others: "acquire" has a C in it.

xopods fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Dec 13, 2012

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Here it is again, few tweaks, fixed that one typo, will give it to someone who can actually loving read later.



While I'm here, some more links for the pile of resources I keep lovely all over everyones awesome discussions;

List of submission pages and publishers
Same

Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Dec 13, 2012

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Come January when I actually have more time, I promise I'll go through the thread before it gets too long and collect the links into the second post.

That sell sheet looks much better now.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.
Something that I'm always striving for in all my game designs in theme. to me, it's what separates a memorable game from a bland but equally good one. For example, Lords of Waterdeep is one of my favorite recent games, but it is essentially a cube-pushing euro game. Not much new to it. I just think it executes its theme better than most Euros, and its theme is more unique and compelling to me (don't get me wrong: trading in the Caribbean or Mediterranean can be cool, but man has that poo poo been run into the ground).

So, how much or little do people think theme matters?

What challenges or triumphs have people had with theme?

What are some good ways to incorporate theme into a game design?

I have a quick story about that last question. This dice game I'm designing now has the players like Caesar: taking big risks to seize all the power in Rome. I've tried to incorporate theme throughout the design process, so much so that there's this line in my rulebook draft:

"The most Caesarian player goes first! (?)"

I don't even know what that means. It's just a placeholder, but I want to think of a fun little touch of flavor for that obligatory "figure out who goes first" mechanic. Some great games have great ones: One Upon a Time has "the player with the longest beard goes first," which is funny and thematic. it's little stuff liek that that helps draw me into a game and enjoy it more.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

I think it depends on who you ask. I catch a lot of flack for saying Theme is one of the more important aspects of making a game memorable and getting people on board. I believe a solid mechanical underwork is required, but I've never played a game with a strong theme that I didn't enjoy at least once or twice.

Its part of the reason I can't stand Catan and Carcassone and Dominion, despite them being corner stones of the hobby. They are each very well made games with simple rules and tons of depth but god drat if they aren't boring as all hell besides that.

On that last note, To decide who is the Pirate King (starting player) in Parlay, I have all the players go YARRRRR and the vote for the best. This gets everyone in the pirate-y spirit, and gets people excited about the general idea of the game (voting for your fave argument)

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.
I agree. I love a game of Dominion as much as the next person, but I find myself building a little narrative in my head based on what I buy and what I'm playing, just to fill the void.

The last two games I designed were based on some mechanic that called out to me and theme came later. This current one, which I'm calling "Rubicon" for now, had its initial impulse from theme. It's about Caesar crossing the Rubicon. My thought was, "this story or risk and rivary for power would make a good game," and it absolutely has to be a dice game ("The die is cast," and all that). I already wanted to try my hand at a "dice-building game," so off I went. I'm not sure if this difference in theme-as-source rather than mechanic-as-source will help me or hurt me here, but it's been a fun experience because I enjoy theme so much.

There are some games that capture theme in subtle or unusual ways. Abalone comes to mind. It's an abstract on its face, but it's about sumo wrestling. When you play the game, that theme is pretty well communicated by the mechanics, if not the components. Black and white balls don't need to resemble sumo wrestlers if the mechanics are strong enough to support the theme. As long as something maintains theme, I'm happy.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting
I feel like the theme could be drawn from the mechanic though.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

My process is to start with the core mechanics, then decide on a fitting theme... but then draw inspiration from the theme when I'm looking for tweaks to fix balance or depth issues in the mechanics. So although the core of the game is abstract with a layer of theme thrown on it, there are particulars to the mechanics that were influenced by the theme, which ends up tying it together better.

For instance, in my "backgammon-like monkeys-in-a-bamboo-grove" game, after a few tests, I found that I needed a way to break defensive stalemates, at which point the theme inspired the idea of throwing coconuts. So now there's this way to snipe the other guy's pieces off from a distance if he's keeping all his monkeys in a big defensive clump, which would seem pretty arbitrary and weird if the game was totally abstract, but creates a good narrative and visual image within the theme of the game.

So a totally top-down approach would be Theme -> Core Mechanics -> Details, and a totally bottom-up approach would be Core Mechanics -> Details -> Theme, whereas I go Core Mechanics -> Theme -> Details.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.
Yeah, I usually work "bottom up," deriving the theme from the mechanics, but this project just have me working in a different mode. It's weird.

muuphish
Nov 1, 2006
I'm more top-down as a designer and player. I love games with good themes and mechanics that seem representative. I think the BSG or Game of Thrones board games are great examples--they have a really strong theme that has obviously influenced the mechanics, but that doesn't mean the mechanics are weak by any means. I love Dominion and Carcassonne, but my most memorable gaming memories are usually games with stronger themes.

Whenever I have ideas for games, its more of a "oh this would be a neat theme" and then I look for mechanics that would best support the theme. This has led to, in the past, very complicated mechanics as I attempt to force mechanics onto a theme, so it seems like a balancing act to me.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

muuphish posted:

I'm more top-down as a designer and player. I love games with good themes and mechanics that seem representative. I think the BSG or Game of Thrones board games are great examples--they have a really strong theme that has obviously influenced the mechanics, but that doesn't mean the mechanics are weak by any means. I love Dominion and Carcassonne, but my most memorable gaming memories are usually games with stronger themes.

Whenever I have ideas for games, its more of a "oh this would be a neat theme" and then I look for mechanics that would best support the theme. This has led to, in the past, very complicated mechanics as I attempt to force mechanics onto a theme, so it seems like a balancing act to me.
This is how I tend to design and I find that it often leads to overcomplicated games that are difficult to balance. I still approach things this way though, just because that's mostly how ideas come to me. I sometimes wish I could design a game around a mechanic but I don't really get hit by great ideas for mechanics on their own.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

:toot: Parley is now out there, I sent off my sellsheet (after being extensively picked apart by my long suffering writer wife and my friends) to 6 publishers this morning, all of which I'll post under this for everyone else to nab and send stuff to.

And in the process of writing this, I got my very first rejection, wooo, party time! :toot:

max@otb-games.com - Out Of The Box Games - Party games, simple stuff, etc)
customerservice@alderac.com - Alderac
info@nestorgames.com - Nestorgames - My first rejection! Does not like card games
submissions@playrooment.com - Looks like they like simpler, younger people games mostly
ideas@cambridgegames.com - Super Simple, non collectable stuff, no custom models.
contact@indieboardsandcards.com - Cool people, according to Xopods

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

I don't think Indie Boards & Cards is going to be interested. He told me he wants what he calls "Eurothrash." Games with Eurostyle mechanics but juicier themes, shorter playtime and more player interaction. Parlay sounds more social and party game-like, so it's probably not his thing.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Yeah, he was my second rejection, it wasn't 'Game-y' enough for him unfortunately. Eurotrash sounds exactly what I want to try knocking up next though...

Up to 3 Rejections and one 'We'll get back to you when we've looked at it!' and one cryptic 'Thanks for the idea'. One more reply and that's my lot.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Tunga posted:

This is how I tend to design and I find that it often leads to overcomplicated games that are difficult to balance. I still approach things this way though, just because that's mostly how ideas come to me. I sometimes wish I could design a game around a mechanic but I don't really get hit by great ideas for mechanics on their own.

Not every game has to have an entirely innovative core mechanic. Being unique in the details and solid in the implementation is enough.

So try this: pick a game you like, borrow the core of the mechanics, think of a different theme that would work with similar mechanics, and then go from there.

E.g. say you like 7 Wonders style card drafting. What's another theme that goes with drafting? Recruiting a team... super-heroes? Too cliche. Casting actors for a movie or play, perhaps. Okay, let's go with that... what details could be different than 7 Wonders? Well, how are you deciding what actors to cast for your play? Presumably you've got a script... maybe each player starts with a random hand of four scripts that are kept secret, and at the end of each round of drafting, they choose one of their four scripts to produce, using the cast that they've recruited. Etc. etc.

The end result would be very unlike 7 Wonders, except for the fact that you're drafting cards... you just used it as the inspiration for the central mechanic, then picked a theme to go with that, and went off on your own tangent.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Yeah, he was my second rejection, it wasn't 'Game-y' enough for him unfortunately. Eurotrash sounds exactly what I want to try knocking up next though...

Up to 3 Rejections and one 'We'll get back to you when we've looked at it!' and one cryptic 'Thanks for the idea'. One more reply and that's my lot.

Wow, at least you're getting rapid responses.

Your target market for this game is probably going to be very different from normal board games though. Maybe go to your FLGS and look at their party game section, try to find publishers who do stuff like Apples to Apples or whatever but aren't big names.

P.S. Note that Travis uses the term Eurothrash not -trash. The "H" is important. :)

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

xopods posted:

Wow, at least you're getting rapid responses.

Your target market for this game is probably going to be very different from normal board games though. Maybe go to your FLGS and look at their party game section, try to find publishers who do stuff like Apples to Apples or whatever but aren't big names.

P.S. Note that Travis uses the term Eurothrash not -trash. The "H" is important. :)

One or two of the publishers I approached are mostly focused on party games, but thats a swell idea. Thanks!

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Sorry for the double post, but I got an order from The Game Crafter for an Xmas present I was working on. I know a lot of people were asking about this so...

Not impressed at all, frankly. First of all, the service itself is slow and a pain in the rear end and full of awkward printing sizes and stuff. Their printing system must be horrendous because even with all the buffering space I gave them, some of the cards are jacked. Not to mention the overall print quality is dreadful.

The box I ordered is just super super thin card. You could make this at home with little effort. Its not even folded well.

The rules are just printed paper, that's all. Not even bound.

Overall, not a great experience. It'll work for what it needs to, but I'm pretty upset considering I paid a chunk of cash for this. If you're looking for a very cheap prototype copy that you want to use to wow someone, maybe this will do in a pinch, but I have to guess there is better out there.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Yikes. I guess when I collect the resources people have been posting and put them in the second post, I'll file TGC under "To Avoid."

I wouldn't have expected much from them, since print-on-demand is usually low quality and board games are such a niche on top of that. But that sounds even worse than I would have expected, especially for the prices they're charging.

A color laser printer is such a good investment for anyone who's serious about making games, even as a hobby. They're not that expensive, and so much cheaper in the long run than inkjets. (And you don't have to worry about them clogging if you don't use them for a few weeks.) It does suck when you have to replace a toner cartridge, because they're close to $200, but it's like one a year on average, as opposed to feeding your inkjet a couple of $20 cartridges every month.

Admin Understudy
Apr 17, 2002

Captain Pope-tastic
Not owning a good printer I've printed a couple of my prototypes (I've only done this twice now, and then a third time just to update one) at a Kinko's center which was easy enough albeit expensive for what it is. I just throw my files on a flash drive, plug it into their printer, swipe a credit card and then print. Prints at full color on thicker paper are a little pricier close to $1 a page but standard copy paper is cheaper.

They also have those guillotine paper cutters available which I also don't own so that's nice, too.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

Admin Understudy posted:

Not owning a good printer I've printed a couple of my prototypes (I've only done this twice now, and then a third time just to update one) at a Kinko's center which was easy enough albeit expensive for what it is. I just throw my files on a flash drive, plug it into their printer, swipe a credit card and then print. Prints at full color on thicker paper are a little pricier close to $1 a page but standard copy paper is cheaper.

They also have those guillotine paper cutters available which I also don't own so that's nice, too.

Yeah. It's not really that much cheaper to own and operate your own printer, but the advantage is that you don't have to make a special trip... and that you're less averse to making changes to your prototype in that the additional cost and effort of printing a new one isn't so great.

ZebraByNumbers
Oct 26, 2009

Railing Kill posted:

So, how much or little do people think theme matters?

I enjoy it when the theme helps me think about how to play. Like in a zombie game, I'll be more inclined to work towards getting a shotgun than a 2x4, because movies have taught me that the former is more useful. A well-applied theme can make a mediocre game more interesting - as other have said, the imagination can run wild when it has a touch of flavor to work with.

At the same time, if a game slaps zombie-thematic elements all over itself just for the sake of "zombies are popular", I tend to be less interested.

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Now that the November design contest is over, I'm hoping we get a bunch of new posters looking for help with their designs :shobon:

I discovered the november game design thread too late to enter. I'm glad I found this afterwards, though! Been catching up over the past couple days.

Fake Edit: Oh God, here comes a wall of text. I hope nobody minds. Apologies especially to those who have to scroll through on the Awful app.

Currently I'm working on a completely themeless game. Bright colors, easy mechanics. It still needs work, but I'm getting close to my goal: To make the “Uno of Deck Building games”. I'd like to spin mechanics from a somewhat complex genre, into something incredibly user-friendly*. I looked a lot at traditional playing card games for inspiration, as they use concepts even non-board gamey people are already familiar with. High card, user interaction/competition, social cues (bluffing), etc.

*It will never be AS simple as uno, but I'd like to make it as inviting/unintimidating as uno.


Objectives
  • The rules need to be simple and easy to understand.
  • It should be very interactive. When it’s not your turn, you still matter.
  • Colorful and legible. Players should know what cards do the moment they see them.
    • No Magic: The Gathering template, where it’s fantasy art up top, italic text down below, and the in game effect/cost shoved off to a corner.
  • Small and portable. So people don't have to lug around a 10”x10”x4” box if they want to take it somewhere. I'd like it to be something easily be tossed into a bag.
  • Depth: simple games can be boring. It needs to be able to incorporate as much nuance as the players bring to the table. See: Poker.

Game title: Nope.

The Gist:

It's a competitive deck-building game for 3-4 players. Think Spades meets Dominion meets Kill Dr. Lucky. Each round has two phases. “Purchase” and “Play”. While the buying phase is actually first, it's easier to explain it second.

The Competitive, Interactive Phase - “Play”:
Example of cards in play
The central mechanic is a twist on the “High Card” concept found in most traditional card games. Instead of having cards that represent a fixed number (in spades, you play a 6, and you’re beaten by a 7), all the cards are modifiers (ranging from +3 to -3).

Each round, players start with a score of zero. They take turns playing cards to either raise or lower a score (their own, or someone elses), until all players either run out of cards or fold. To win a round, you have to end with the highest unique score. Being unique is the key to Nope. No matter how high your score is, if you tie? you lose.

When you win, you get a Nope card. These are your victory points, and determine the winner in the end. Nope cards also go into your deck. When drawn, it can be played directly on any card to cancel it out (even another Nope Card). Which makes it a fairly powerful trump/wild-card, but playing it comes with a risk: whoever wins the round also wins all the nope cards played.

Just another take on rubberbanding, really. Cautious players who don’t want to risk their nope cards have less of a hand to work with to win rounds, and ballsy players can gamble their victory points to net more wins, or lose it all. A nope card always negates points, so it always pushes players towards a tie. Which can lead to the ultimate “nope”: If all players tie, the nope cards played go back into the main deck, and have to be won all over again.

I quickly realized players would be going OHGODFOURWAYMATH, so I designed a slider to keep track of your score. Like the cards, I mocked it up to be big, bright and colorful, so all players around the table can see where you're at. Ranges from +9 to -9, which will handle most circumstances.

The Deck Building Phase - “Purchase”:
Example of deck layout
I wanted to avoid having currency-specific cards, so I made all cards work like currency.

UPDATED
You buy cards in pairs. +/-1, +/-2, or +/-3. To buy a pair, you must to reveal a number of cards equal to the pair's value. Every pair's value is based on how much it modifies. For example: the pair of threes has a value of 3. So to purchase it, you must reveal 3 cards of any kind. Cards revealed and bought during Purchase go to the bottom of your deck.

Also, there is a "pass and draw" card. To counter the problem of the last person having the most control. Playing a "pass and draw" skips your turn, while maintaining your hand size. You effectively become the last person in the rotation. Costs 3 cards.

Each player can only buy one card per round, but nobody has to buy anything. Players enter the “Play” phase with all cards remaining, if any. So while buying a three almost guarantees that you lose the upcoming "play" section, you are better equipped to win the rounds that follow.

While not buying anything gives you a full hand, the next round, you may be facing cards you can't quite compete with (while still having a nope to counter).

------------

I'd love to hear any and all feedback. I have ready-to-print playtest materials too, if anyone wants to give it a go. nopegame /at/ gmail.com

ZebraByNumbers fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Dec 16, 2012

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

The biggest problem I see is that the negative cards cost the same as their positive equivalents, but are pretty clearly inferior; playing a +3 on yourself is equivalent to playing a -3 on every other player, so there's no reason ever to purchase a negative card if a positive one is available.

ZebraByNumbers
Oct 26, 2009

Yeah, working on incentivizing that. Current solution is to let a hand full of negative cards outright buy a victory point, but I might need to raise the penalty range to -4/ lower the bonus to +2


Edit 2: changing buy rules. You get cards in pairs. +1/-1, 2/-2, and so on. Updated the rules post. Cost is the same, and mixes up the hands.

ZebraByNumbers fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Dec 16, 2012

hito
Feb 13, 2012

Thank you, kids. By giving us this lift you're giving a lift to every law-abiding citizen in the world.
As a heads up, BoardGameGeek seems to be running a design contest of their own, for two-player print and play games. It doesn't officially start for two months, which I don't quite understand, but I'm assuming that we can start thinking of it now and the thread/feedback is the bit that waits until Feburary?

I'm hashing out a very rough idea called First Contact, a game about the first negotiations between aliens who crash-land on Earth and humans. You can have both players win through peace or one side or the other win through war. You can build up your military power, which makes you better at war, but the best peace options require you to have low military power. The game is basically about looking at the cards you can play and figuring out if you can win through cooperation or if you'll need to pursue a military victory.

I'm considering trying to make a meta-game around it Descent 2e style, if only because it's so much easier to design something like this when you can have different degrees of victory.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

hito posted:

As a heads up, BoardGameGeek seems to be running a design contest of their own, for two-player print and play games. It doesn't officially start for two months, which I don't quite understand, but I'm assuming that we can start thinking of it now and the thread/feedback is the bit that waits until Feburary?

I'm hashing out a very rough idea called First Contact, a game about the first negotiations between aliens who crash-land on Earth and humans. You can have both players win through peace or one side or the other win through war. You can build up your military power, which makes you better at war, but the best peace options require you to have low military power. The game is basically about looking at the cards you can play and figuring out if you can win through cooperation or if you'll need to pursue a military victory.

I'm considering trying to make a meta-game around it Descent 2e style, if only because it's so much easier to design something like this when you can have different degrees of victory.

That sounds like a great idea for a game. Keep us posted!

Going back to the custom dice discussion for a sec: I've decided to use markers to make the dice. I have seven types of dice and I want to try to color-code them. That would just make it a lot easier to play the game. The problem is that CD/DVD markers come in four colors, from what I can tell (Sharpie sells a pack with black, green, blue, and red). So now I'm thinking of using regular Sharpie on them, which will give me all the color options I need, but seal them with the aforementioned epoxy or puzzle saver to keep the marker from rubbing off.

My question is: will this work? I have 200 blanks here and I only need 100 for the prototype (yeah, only 100), but I'm a few days from making the dice so I figured I'd put it out to the thread before I start experimenting. I assume it will work, but I just want to make sure whatever I use to seal the dice doesn't have some weird reaction to the marker.

ZebraByNumbers
Oct 26, 2009

Generally only alcohol-based solutions and vinegar will easily remove/smudge a sharpie mark.

I don't think mod podge is going to cause a problem, as long as the sharpie has been given time to fully dry. Still, probably best to test it first.

xopods
Oct 26, 2010

The easy answer is make one die first, then rub it between your fingers once everything is dry. If you see smudging or some of the color comes off on your fingers, you may have to try something else. No color on your fingers and no smudging, then they're probably going to hold up well to being rolled and handled.

(That said, the above statement about needing a solvent to remove a sharpie mark is untrue when it comes to the very smooth plastic of dice. I've used sharpies on dice in the past and although it holds up for a while, they do gradually get smudged and start staining your fingers and stuff. That's why I recommended the CD/DVD markers.)

ZebraByNumbers
Oct 26, 2009

xopods posted:


That said, the above statement about needing a solvent to remove a sharpie mark is untrue when it comes to the very smooth plastic of dice...

Sorry, I meant sharpie would be okay to use with the glue/puzzle saver, as mod podge is not an alcohol based substance. Giving the sharpie a little time to dry out, it shouldn't have any strange smudgey reactions. But again, test it.

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Sammyz
Dec 24, 2005
Playtest Report for 12 angry dice

Got in the first two games this Friday with my wife. Game actually plays fairly well. Discovered a major issue in that one of the alleged power cards was in fact awful in it's wording and needed to be reworked but is working as intended now.

Had Cody Jones over for games yesterday and got him to take a run through and he gave it an initial thumbs up. All games played of it so far are running close in scores.

Is it a good thing if all the scores of your playtest game run within 1-2 points of each other? I would love to believe it's just because it's well balanced but I'm slightly worried that it's in fact because the saminess of the actions to take results in obvious best plays that result in samey scores. I don't really think that's the case however because players have been taking plenty of time considering options and no one has said that they felt a lack of control at any point.

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