|
Anyone on here ever feel doing some online playtesting together? I've put together a TTS version of this attempt at a feminist wargame with deckbuilding elements that I am co-designing and would love to give it a few spins both to get more feedback and just learn more about using Tabletop Simulator for playtesting.
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2020 14:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 01:29 |
|
|
What's your timezone?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
Eastern
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2020 20:14
|
|
|
dhamster posted:So, it's come time to submit my game to a local board game design competition and it's looking pretty pretty good, I think. Working with a graphic designer I know, we managed to fit everything into a small box, by putting the board onto a series of cards: It's been over 3 years since my last update, but a few weeks ago I started building a digital version of my game using Unity. Even though it was originally a card game, it looks like the digital version won't need cards at all. In the physical version I was only using cards for double-blind input selection, and Unity can handle that in the background. So in some ways, I was making a turn-based computer game the entire time. https://twitter.com/MegaKnockdown/status/1282490427724066816 I also made a tabletop simulator version back in 2017, but I never released it because it just felt clunky on the platform, and some of the really dense cards were hard to read thanks to the limited resolution. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 21:23
|
|
|
Whybird posted:There's a mechanic that I recently ended up developing by accident that I haven't seen anywhere else and I'd like to share. I think there was a deck of event cards you could get for Catan, that was just 36 cards with the possible rolls of 2d6, to make resource production more level and predictable. The first arc of the anime/manga Kaiji (it's a gambling anime) revolves around "Restricted Rock/Paper/Scissors" where each player gets 12 cards, four each of R/P/S, each only usable once. This introduces a whole layer of metagame around probabilities and psychology.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2020 10:23
|
|
|
h_double posted:I think there was a deck of event cards you could get for Catan, that was just 36 cards with the possible rolls of 2d6, to make resource production more level and predictable. Made the game way way way more playable yeah. There's a reshuffle card that goes five or nine or something cards from the bottom, so you aren't guaranteed to get everything every time, but you're way more likely to get a regular distribution than with dice.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2020 13:48
|
|
|
Oh-Seven, the missing evolutionary link between Oh, Hell! and our own xopods's Insidious Sevens, is now available on BGA, implemented by yours truly. I'd like a second opinion on an unconventional phrasing choice I made in the end-of-game statistics that's baffling some translators. The conventional choice would be "Bid success rate", "Underbid rate", and "Overbid rate". But it makes me a little bit salty to read the word "underbid" or "overbid", because Oh-Seven puts you at the mercy of the shuffle in what you're allowed to bid each round. So I changed it to "Bid fill rate", "Overfill rate", and "Underfill rate". (These phrases always appear next to each other, otherwise "Overfill rate" and "Underfill rate" might have been too laconic without the context of "Bid fill rate".) Examining my feelings a little closer, it's because "fill" is an outcome that it feels like a proper term to describe an outcome statistic, whereas "bid" is more ambiguous. But on the other hand, even though this argument seems to me like it could be valid in older games, too, it remains that there's no such conventional term as "overfill" or "underfill", so why should I be the one to die on this
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2020 21:06
|
|
|
I think when I used to play ohell we used even, under, and over, just those words with no additional words. Okay your bid, we're two under. Wow you're bidding five, now we're three over.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2020 23:34
|
|
|
Or just plus and minus. We're at minus one, someone's taking an extra trick!
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2020 23:35
|
|
|
Oh, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about how many times you fulfilled your own bid, or went over or under.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2020 23:55
|
|
|
Xom posted:Oh, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about how many times you fulfilled your own bid, or went over or under. Ohhh completely misread. Hm. I would usually think of the verb to make, as in "I made my bid". Any way you could have it be something like that?
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2020 00:04
|
|
|
I really think it's between "overbid" vs. "underfill" (and "underbid" vs. "overfill"), for the pros and cons I described. IMHO, "underfill" et al. have all the merits except for being unconventional, which would be hard to improve upon by coming up with another phrase.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2020 00:17
|
|
|
Xom posted:Oh-Seven, the missing evolutionary link between Oh, Hell! and our own xopods's Insidious Sevens, is now available on BGA, implemented by yours truly. Xom posted:I really think it's between "overbid" vs. "underfill" (and "underbid" vs. "overfill"), for the pros and cons I described. I don't have a very strong opinion. It sounds like you're attempting to appeal to bridge players with these technical-ish terms. But I might be inclined to go even more basic and just have "Success %", "Over %" and "Under %" or "Hands Won" "Misses (High)" "Misses (Low)" . If it's really just between the options given, I think I personally like overfill and underfill, but if you're aiming to appeal to bridge players they might prefer you stick to conventional terms. I don't know.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2020 12:14
|
|
|
This is the post I'm leaning toward making on BGA, though I'll probably ruminate another few days before doing so:quote:I noticed that translators were having trouble with the three "fill rate" statistic labels, and I discussed it with the designer, who suggested making it more colloquial. I mean, if I was in the middle of the game, I'd never say "I filled my bid!" or "I overfilled" or "I underfilled"; I might say "I made it!" or "I missed!" or "I overshot!" Unfortunately "I made it" is hard to turn into a noun, and "I missed" is ambiguous, but "overshoot" is good, and in the other cases I still tried to do my best in a similar spirit:
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2020 03:26
|
|
|
Hello thread. I've been playing around with a game idea for a couple of years now so I thought I'd get some feedback. Here's a picture of a printed early prototype (bear in mind the shapes of the tokens aren't always the same as I've laid out below, I didn't want to lose my mind cutting it all by hand):  I'm a graphic designer so of course the art was the first (and only) finished thing on this game. It's very game-of-thronesy in its concept. The players are daughters and sons of the king who try to get enough of the king's favor through influencing the court to inherit the crown. The events of the game are randomized and progressed through the King's deck. The game ends with the king dying and leaving the crown to his most favored offspring. This is achieved through "king's favor tokens" which are basically "victory points".   The court is made up of three characters: the blacksmith, the stockkeeper and the treasurer, each with a corresponding deck and resources (weapons, gold, food). While the King's deck progresses the story, the courtier's decks contain resources and events that the players desire. Each card of their decks has an amount of the corresponding resource (hexagonal tokens) on top and a special effect on the bottom. When a player wins a courtier card they choose either to take the indicated amount of resource, or to keep the card to play the special effect at a later time.  This is the game board:  The courtiers' and King's decks are lined next to the board on top, and each turn begins with a card from each deck being turned face-up onto the board. The players bid on the courtier's cards, and the effect of the King's card is resolved at the end of the turn. The lower part of the board has three event indicators, each related to a resource. The king's deck (as well as some of the courtier cards special effects) move the markers up and down these scales until they either reach zero (all players discard all of the corresponding resource) or max value (WAR, DROUGHT, FEAST) where they exchange the corresponding resources for victory points. The starting point of the markers is randomized by a dice roll at the beginning of the game, and the range of the markers can be reduced before the game begins. This is all yet to be fine tuned, one day, one beautiful day in the far, far future.  The core mechanic of the game is the bidding system. After the courtier's cards are revealed, 3d6 is rolled and each player gets the same amount of influence tokens (not pictured) which they use to secretly bid on each of the three courtier's cards using the bidding trays (pictured in the photo at the top, white cardboard things with 3 compartments). Beside the tokens the player may also include relevant special effect cards into their bid. When the bidding phase is over, the players tip over their bidding trays and resolve the bids. Tied bids cancel each other out. The game ends with the "King is dead" card which is mixed into the kings deck, placement depending on how long a game you want, Pandemic style. I think that's about it. Excuse any lack of clarity, ESL and all. The bulk of the work now is testing and balancing the contents of the courtiers' decks (amount of resource vs. effect), but I'd appreciate any input or questions, fellow goons. burexas.irom fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 13:13
|
|
|
What's the reason for a random amount of bidding currency? Does the amount used to win a card matter, or will it just make the granularity of bids a little different (if it's 6 total the difference between each number is more relevant than if it's 16)? Do you save influence you don't use, or get some back for lost bids? Secret bids where you lose everything is among my least favorite mechanics, as it happens, and I think it's not entirely unwarranted.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 13:37
|
|
|
The idea is to add variety to every bid and not let the players calculate too much beforehand, i.e. present them with a new conundrum each turn. It's 3d6 because i wanted a minimum of 3 tokens, and a maximum of 18 was just a guess. Maybe 3d4 is better, but I wanted to keep the dice simple. You don't get to keep unused currency, future bids can only be augmented with won card effects. EDIT: You've given me an idea. I was tinkering around with carry-over bidding tokens early in the development, but couldn't find an elegant solution. It has to be an exorbitant rate, so I'm thinking maybe the value of the highest die rolled of tokens to carry over one to the next round. With just the one being the max allowed? Also I feel the game is complex enough as-is so I'm wary of adding new rules.
burexas.irom fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 14:09
|
|
|
The drought card symbol looks like Link is flipping me the bird. I approve.burexas.irom posted:The core mechanic of the game is the bidding system. After the courtier's cards are revealed, 3d6 is rolled and each player gets the same amount of influence tokens (not pictured) which they use to secretly bid on each of the three courtier's cards using the bidding trays (pictured in the photo at the top, white cardboard things with 3 compartments). Beside the tokens the player may also include relevant special effect cards into their bid. When the bidding phase is over, the players tip over their bidding trays and resolve the bids. Tied bids cancel each other out. 1) Three courtier cards come out. 2) Each player gets (the same) random amount of tokens. 3) They bid on the cards secretly. 4) Bids are revealed, the highest untied result for each card gets the card. 5) Remaining tokens and failed bids are then ??? Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 15:38
|
|
|
...returned to the pool until next turn. There's no incentive not to bid any tokens, only to bid them all strategically.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 15:44
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:The idea is to add variety to every bid and not let the players calculate too much beforehand, i.e. present them with a new conundrum each turn. It's 3d6 because i wanted a minimum of 3 tokens, and a maximum of 18 was just a guess. Maybe 3d4 is better, but I wanted to keep the dice simple. 1) Three courtier cards come out. 2) Each player gets X tokens. 3) They bid on the cards secretly. They must use ALL their currently available tokens. 3) Bids are revealed, the highest untied result for each card gets the card. 4) Tokens from successful bids are discarded, and each player retains all/half/whatever of their failed bid tokens. 5) (rest of the turn happens) 6) Three new courtier cards come out 7) Each player gets topped up by Y tokens. They must use ALL their currently available tokens. 8) Goto 3 So someone who fails to get any cards on one turn is likely to sweep the board on the second turn, but if they do they're going to be at a disadvantage the following turn etc, and the carryover means a lot of variety between bids.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 15:51
|
|
|
Splicer posted:
That's interesting. I'm wary of rewarding failed bids, although it may work into the narrative, as in "you've tried to influence the character, but someone else succeeded, therefore character feels he owes you one next time". It may be a good balancing tool, but it still leaves the problem of punishing the player that outsmarted the others, especially if they cancel each other out with high bids. An early playtest showed people will tend to "all-in" on a single card, and the idea between players always starting the bidding with the same amount of tokens is that a safe advantage is only attained by skill, i.e. having an extra influence (that safely puts you over the top without risking a tie) on a card you won previously (+1 influence on a specific courtier being a fairly common card effect). So, at most I would allow one token to carry over, but I'm thinking is there a more elegant solution than rewarding a failed bid? burexas.irom fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:09
|
|
|
Is there a way to generate tokens for bidding? Players would have more of an incentive to bid if it meant they could start deck/engine building. Splicer makes a good run-doen of one way that could happen. The way you initially described it is that you could, as a player, just not bid on early rounds to have a chip advantage later and lock out other players.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:15
|
|
|
I was playing around with something like that:burexas.irom posted:I was tinkering around with carry-over bidding tokens early in the development, but couldn't find an elegant solution. It has to be an exorbitant rate, so I'm thinking maybe the value of the highest die rolled of tokens to carry over one to the next round. With just the one being the max allowed? Also I feel the game is complex enough as-is so I'm wary of adding new rules. There already is a deck-building element in that you can choose to keep the card effect instead of the resource, and there is no limit to the amount of cards you can stack. I haven't fully developed/balanced the decks but influence effects are to be a big part of it. As for the carrying over, I'm thinking that the highest die in the bid roll determines the price of a single carry-over token with the caveat that it must be used next round. The die roll will add variety, and this rule can easily be removed if the card effects prove to be sufficient for this game element. Infinitum posted:The way you initially described it is that you could, as a player, just not bid on early rounds to have a chip advantage later and lock out other players. Should have been more clear, no carrying-over of bidding tokens whatsoever as is. You are forced to play the game of thrones... or you die. burexas.irom fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:38
|
|
|
Also the working title of the game is THRONE. As you have probably guessed I came up with this before seasons 6-8. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:41
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:That's interesting. I'm wary of rewarding failed bids, although it may work into the narrative, as in "you've tried to influence the character, but someone else succeeded, therefore character feels he owes you one next time". It may be a good balancing tool, but it still leaves the problem of punishing the player that outsmarted the others, especially if they cancel each other out with high bids. If you're worried about it from a narrative standpoint there's a bunch of ways that a failed bid could return all or some of your influence. e.g. if the blacksmith isn't interested in his nephew getting a cushy position as steward of your estate, well, maybe the treasurer has an unemployed cousin? Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Sep 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:46
|
|
|
Oh, okay, I think I get what you're saying now. I was wary of carry-overs because I want to avoid bids where one player is completely uncontested for the most desirable card, so the idea was to always start the bidding on as equal a footing as possible, save the extra influence cards which were "paid for" by not taking the won resource. This will have to be play-tested, I think, seems now that each bidding round will likely have a clear favorite with most tokens, and testing has shown that it's usually one card that everyone wants in a bid, since they vary by value tiers (1,2,3, 1d6 resources) and the correspondingly valuable effect, as well as their importance in regards to the position of the event markers (if war is close, everyone wants swords). So this may kill what I think is the most interesting part of bidding, that is bluffs and figuring out your opponents moves, game theory poo poo. But maybe I'm too married to this idea, maybe it just spreads the strategy over consecutive bidding rounds. Hard to say, but it's easy to include in testing as it doesn't require physical game alterations. Narratively, I'm not worried, it plays right into the "court intrigue" concept.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 16:56
|
|
|
Here are some example cards. This is the most valuable card in the Blacksmith's deck:  This is an example of a special event in the King's deck, namely a quest: 
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2020 17:16
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:Oh, okay, I think I get what you're saying now. I think you're leaning into the uncontested bids zone slightly, if you think through say a 3 player game. There are 3 cards to bid on, everyone get X tokens (X is irrelevant because everyone has the same). Player A has a bonus to bidding on Blacksmith cards , players B and C have nothing yet. Everyone wants to get a card because not buying a card is bad. For players B and C it's pointless to bid on Blacksmith as player A has that down. So for B and C they have a couple of options, go all in on one card and win it, or split 50/50 on the other 2 and win the one the other player doesn't want. Player A can of course bid X-2 on the Blacksmith card and 1 on each the other just in case. As you saw in your own playtest people will just tend to go all in on a card. I still don't get why the influence is random, it varies the power of the bonus cards a little but not enough to be interesting I don't think. Just give everyone 12 tokens? Prisoner's Dilemma games are always really tough to balance into something that's fun. If this plays up to 4 players there's a chance this turns into just a deeply frustrating experience for the person who fails to get on the escalator at the start as now they're in the same position as they were on turn 1 but everyone else has some bonus or another. If they fail again, which is just as likely all they do is fall further behind with no prospect of being able to catch up. One question, at what point are cards added to bids? How do you keep that secret or is that public knowledge?
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 09:49
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:This is an example of a special event in the King's deck, namely a quest: In a 3 player game if everyone supplies 1 does everyone lose 1 point? Is what the effect spreads on ties means?
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 09:53
|
|
|
Aramoro posted:I think you're leaning into the uncontested bids zone slightly, if you think through say a 3 player game. There are 3 cards to bid on, everyone get X tokens (X is irrelevant because everyone has the same). Player A has a bonus to bidding on Blacksmith cards , players B and C have nothing yet. Everyone wants to get a card because not buying a card is bad. For players B and C it's pointless to bid on Blacksmith as player A has that down. So for B and C they have a couple of options, go all in on one card and win it, or split 50/50 on the other 2 and win the one the other player doesn't want. Player A can of course bid X-2 on the Blacksmith card and 1 on each the other just in case. As you saw in your own playtest people will just tend to go all in on a card. I'm okay with this scenario, because the uncontested bid was earned twofold: by smart bidding when the playing field was level and by opting to take the influence effect instead of the resources on the won card. Also, the uncontested player may opt to bid just the influence effect card on the corresponding courtier card knowing he's not going to be contested, and try and go for a second card with the rest of their influence. That being said, I am intrigued about how the bidding will play out with carry-over tokens too. A lot of games have the element of giving the least advantaged player of the current turn the most advantage on the next one. Aramoro posted:I still don't get why the influence is random, it varies the power of the bonus cards a little but not enough to be interesting I don't think. Just give everyone 12 tokens? I can't even remember, 2017 being like 20 years ago now, but in retrospect it does seem unnecessary. Thinking about it now, I can't see a reason to use more than 6.  Aramoro posted:Prisoner's Dilemma games are always really tough to balance into something that's fun. If this plays up to 4 players there's a chance this turns into just a deeply frustrating experience for the person who fails to get on the escalator at the start as now they're in the same position as they were on turn 1 but everyone else has some bonus or another. If they fail again, which is just as likely all they do is fall further behind with no prospect of being able to catch up. True, this is why I want to experiment with the carry-over tokens. Aramoro posted:One question, at what point are cards added to bids? How do you keep that secret or is that public knowledge? It's secret, like the rest of the bid. That's why the trays are so big, to fit a card. Since it's a bluffing game I'm okay with players talking about their bids and making it clear they are using the advantage, kinda plays into the whole court intrigue narrative. Can you think of a reason to force keeping it secret or public? Aramoro posted:In a 3 player game if everyone supplies 1 does everyone lose 1 point? Is what the effect spreads on ties means? It means that if several players are tied for least contributing they all lose 2 VP, also goes for second least. So in this scenario each loses 2. That was more of a narrative decision, as the King imposes the quest and is pissed of if the offspring don't deliver. I really like games where there's a randomly-generated narrative (Pandemic, Dead of Winter) so I don't want the King's deck to be easily ignored.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 20:41
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:I'm okay with this scenario, because the uncontested bid was earned twofold: by smart bidding when the playing field was level and by opting to take the influence effect instead of the resources on the won card. Also, the uncontested player may opt to bid just the influence effect card on the corresponding courtier card knowing he's not going to be contested, and try and go for a second card with the rest of their influence. I do think you need something to keep the game interesting, how long do you think it will take to play, how many rounds of bidding are there? If the game is fast like 15-20 mins go wild. If you're expecting folk to sit down for an hour then it needs some game to it. if you had any written up games they'd be interesting to see how they played out. burexas.irom posted:It's secret, like the rest of the bid. That's why the trays are so big, to fit a card. Since it's a bluffing game I'm okay with players talking about their bids and making it clear they are using the advantage, kinda plays into the whole court intrigue narrative. Can you think of a reason to force keeping it secret or public? It's really just the logistics of picking up a card and secretly putting it behind a screen.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2020 21:46
|
|
|
Just pulling a small point of order here on naming here: the main mechanic employed by burexas's game is not aAramoro posted:Prisoner's Dilemma game As far as the rest of my gut instinct goes, I wonder if it makes sense to try dealing out N cards per round for a N-player game, giving each player 2*N influence to spend each round. This complicates how bids are set since it depends on player count, but scales the amount of prizes by player count well. There definitely needs to be compensation for players who fail to win any bids in a given round to keep them from falling too far behind. One simple idea is to give a one-shot influence token to such players that they can make use of in any future round. One-shot tokens might be worth multiple regular tokens for balancing as needed. Alternatively, you might take things in the opposite direction and temporarily reduce the influence available for the next round based on the number of cards won (perhaps think of this as player effort required to consolidate their gains). EDIT: Of course, one day later I make an important insight worth following up on. Not so important that it requires a whole new post, but still important enough to note. And that point is that the number of cards per round really wants to be greater than the number of players for the game to have a more interesting dynamic. When the number of cards is equal to the number of players, it is quite possible that a mutual agreement is made across the full table to distribute one card per player. This is a solid equilibrium: there is no real incentive for anyone to do anything but put all of their influence on their assigned card, as any deviations will be fruitless. When there are more cards to be won than players, this changes completely. Simply assigning one card per player leaves at least one card left over, and there will be incentive to distribute influence across multiple cards in order to pick up those spares. The game space for making bids becomes much more interesting when you have an actually compelling reason for competition and to risk not going all-in on a single card. My gut tells me that only one or two extra cards is enough to get a desired increase in intrigue; doubling the number of cards feels like definitely too much. MrBlarney fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Sep 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2020 07:38
|
|
|
Aramoro posted:I do think you need something to keep the game interesting, how long do you think it will take to play, how many rounds of bidding are there? If the game is fast like 15-20 mins go wild. If you're expecting folk to sit down for an hour then it needs some game to it. if you had any written up games they'd be interesting to see how they played out. The turns happen fairly quickly (bid, resolve bid, resolve King's deck), and the game length is variable and determined by placing the "King is Dead" card in the King deck, similarly to say Pandemic: divide the deck into quarters and shuffle the card into one, then place it as 2nd, 3rd or bottom quarter. Unfortunately I've lost all my notes from the original playtesting (I've moved twice since then and I have the excellent habit of losing half my poo poo every time I move), but the current state of the game has a lot of changes resulting from the playtest already implemented. I'm just trying to get it ready for a new round of low-key playtesting now. MrBlarney posted:Just pulling a small point of order here on naming here: the main mechanic employed by burexas's game is not a Thank you for this, this is priceless reading! A multi player implementation of the Goofspiel mechanic would be Libertalia, if I remember it correctly. MrBlarney posted:As far as the rest of my gut instinct goes, I wonder if it makes sense to try dealing out N cards per round for a N-player game, giving each player 2*N influence to spend each round. This complicates how bids are set since it depends on player count, but scales the amount of prizes by player count well. There definitely needs to be compensation for players who fail to win any bids in a given round to keep them from falling too far behind. One simple idea is to give a one-shot influence token to such players that they can make use of in any future round. One-shot tokens might be worth multiple regular tokens for balancing as needed. Alternatively, you might take things in the opposite direction and temporarily reduce the influence available for the next round based on the number of cards won (perhaps think of this as player effort required to consolidate their gains). So here's what I'm thinking: Maybe players don't choose resource or event, but keep the card to use the resource or event at a later time. Influence tokens are distributed for each player as 2*N-(number of cards held). Although I feel this may put players in the position of not wanting to bid on anything in many weak-card rounds. Can't really tell how this would play out. MrBlarney posted:EDIT: Of course, one day later I make an important insight worth following up on. Not so important that it requires a whole new post, but still important enough to note. And that point is that the number of cards per round really wants to be greater than the number of players for the game to have a more interesting dynamic. When the number of cards is equal to the number of players, it is quite possible that a mutual agreement is made across the full table to distribute one card per player. This is a solid equilibrium: there is no real incentive for anyone to do anything but put all of their influence on their assigned card, as any deviations will be fruitless. Even at 3 players and 3 decks I don't see players reaching an equilibrium that often, competition for high tier cards and general mistrust doing their thing. But I do see your point aboutt having more decks than players making a more compelling mechanic. I really wanted to avoid adding decks / characters, as I already felt like the game was bloating, but I could include the Spymaster as a courtier. And maybe another character. So, so many decks. Guess then I'd have to max out at 4 or 5 players which, really, not that terrible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2020 21:27
|
|
|
Fun resource other people might find useful https://maps.six.nsw.gov.au/ - Six Maps is Spatial Imagery for all of New South Wales, Australia. I use it for work for a ~variety~ of things One cool thing I discovered today is that you can fiddle around with the Base Maps to the right, and one of the maps you can select is 1943 War Time NSW.  - Set the bottom one to 1943 and the top to whatever you like. - Now lower the slider on the right (Or just set the top to 1943 if you don't give a poo poo about swapping between the 2 eras) Congrats you're now looking at Wartime Sydney + NSW!  Protip that's a zoomed out view, and you can get in supppppper close  This is super useful to me for.. reasons, though I'm more interested in 1800's era maps for my little backburner project. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 14:52
|
|
|
burexas.irom posted:Thank you for this, this is priceless reading! A multi player implementation of the Goofspiel mechanic would be Libertalia, if I remember it correctly. burexas.irom posted:So here's what I'm thinking: Maybe players don't choose resource or event, but keep the card to use the resource or event at a later time. Influence tokens are distributed for each player as 2*N-(number of cards held). Secondly, if you have cards such that a player would rather retain an influence token instead of gaining the card, then you might want to eliminate those cards from the design and raise the floor level for card power. Winning a card should always feel good -- there's enough bad feelings in the game already from making a substantial bid that loses out to another player or not getting any rewards in a single round. burexas.irom posted:I really wanted to avoid adding decks / characters, as I already felt like the game was bloating, but I could include the Spymaster as a courtier. And maybe another character. So, so many decks. You don't really need to think of adding additional decks to the game. Having too many decks and corresponding resources may end up complicating the game for no gain. My idea was that you could simply draw multiple cards from the existing three decks until the quota of cards is met. You can have a token to place on the decks to mark the last deck drawn from, so that over the course of the game, each deck is drawn from equally.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2020 06:31
|
|
|
MrBlarney posted:Secondly, if you have cards such that a player would rather retain an influence token instead of gaining the card, then you might want to eliminate those cards from the design and raise the floor level for card power. Winning a card should always feel good -- there's enough bad feelings in the game already from making a substantial bid that loses out to another player or not getting any rewards in a single round. I think this is really the crux of the issue with games like this which can just be bad feeling generators. That turn where you get nothing is going to feel terrible, much worse than the other rounds where you get something. I know I asked this previously but I think knowing how long the game is kinda matter here. I get that it's variable based on drawing a specific card but is that ~10 rounds or a 100. Your King deck looks reasonably chunky, like 40 cards? So that would make a game length between 31 and 40 turns. If you clip through that at 5 mins a turn which doesn't seem unreasonable for a 4 player game especially if you get rid of the randomised influence. so somewhere in the 2 1/2 - 3 hour mark. If that's a 20 card King Deck then, 1h 20 mins to 1h 40 mins. Is that what you were imagining?
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2020 17:07
|
|
|
Hey design thread. Been a while. Need some help. So I'm deep in the tank on my next big overambitious project (which might get thrown at the same publisher as my last game but nothing's set in stone yet, this is not an announcement ok?). And I'm at a bit of a creative/concepting/scenario logjam that I need a bit of help wiggling loose.  (cover very not final) THE DEVIL! (or, thedevilthedevilthedevilthe etc) is a 2 player asymmetric hidden-movement horror game, partly inspired by Emperors of Eternal Evil's Halloween Nightmare Horrorgame Magazine series (Psycho Raiders, Freakface, Sea Evil, Don't Let the Wolves Eat Our Baby) and by the wreckage of broken promises that is Betrayal at House on the Hill. the pitch posted:In unassuming place, on a certain night, on a given hour, a small and devout community has determined that one of its own daughters is fated to become the Devil. With grim determination, they have resolved to offer her to God. They mean to save her from her sins, and absolve themselves of their own. One player, the Community, wants to find, capture, and kill the girl, but must do so "properly" following specific ritual needs--ideally in the church, the pastor should be present, there should be readings from scripture, etc. But their dogma loosens as the night wears on, the girl gets closer to escape, and/or members of the community become martyrs. The Girl player, meanwhile, wants to run away from home. She needs to collect some stashes of supplies she left with her friends and-or her ex (if she can really trust them), then catch a late-night Greyhound out of town. She's outnumbered, but she can conceal her real position by spawning decoy markers, and use a few tricks to escape capture--early Manifestations of her true self. Or, if completely cornered, she might have to do the unthinkable... The twist is, at a specific point in the game (currently a preset turn, but this is still in testing), the Girl will draw a card that changes her into The Devil. Each of the cards comes with a rulebook page of rules changes that drastically alter how the girl plays, giving her new powers and drawbacks to grapple with. And the girl can often only find strength in embracing what she is becoming... --- Here's where poo poo gets weird and difficult, because The Devil! is, well, trying very hard to be a bunch of my pretentious games-as-meaningful-art poo poo. Where Meltwater was a pretty straightforward game with a pretty straightforward antinationalist thesis, The Devil is meant as a messy, puking pile of conflicted feelings about queerness, isolation, estrangement, and rebellion in a hostile environment, expressed through metaphors of occult body-horror. (The joke pitch is, The Devil is a game about killing your dad.) I'm trying to come up with enough scenarios for the... I've been calling them Devil Puberty cards in my head, but that's probably not the final name? I want at least six, both for play variety and also because  . Each one is meant to convey some specific sort of body horror/body alienation. But I don't want to just do thematically bland poo poo like vampire and wereworlf cards. I wan't unsettling and meaningful and, well, personal.I've got three so far. (Images spoiled for low-key  )
 This sorta thing. But I'm having trouble building out another three concepts, and I need maybe a nudge to get my brain in the right place. I've got a slate of body-horror-centric cult movies to marathon thru for inspiration--Ginger Snaps, Jennifer's Body, Raw--but I also thought I'd see if anyone else has any thoughts on a direction to push towards. Specific mechanical suggestions are okay, but I'm looking more for concept ideas. Execution is going to be constrained by small press wargame-style publishing. (I mean, there's no way Asmodee's gonna touch this poo poo.) tl;dr I need help finding body horror scenario ideas for my horror game, but specifically ones that can carry meaning (esp queer meaning) beyond eep spooky monster. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Sep 16, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2020 23:01
|
|
link)
|
MrBlarney posted:Two things here. First of all, I've got mixed feelings on making won cards a permanent drag on influence for as long as cards are held in reserve. Outside of game-bending powers with situational usage, it feels like this would just encourage spending cards really quickly rather than retaining them for more optimal situations. Maybe that's actually something you want for the design, maybe I'm wrong with my gut assessment! But separately, the idea of holding cards for resource value seems like interesting potential since it might result in dropping the requirement for any resource tokens completely. The resources you have are simply what are printed on the cards. This also brings to mind the drafting game Point Salad, where taking a card face up or face down determines whether you get a resource or a personal rule for scoring resources. Having fewer components to juggle is sometimes an appealing design point, especially if it's a game meant to be on the lighter side of things. I'm not 100% sure what the best solution is, but I do want to playtest some of these options. I really like the idea of dropping the resource tokens altogether and just have players use the cards. The "power level" of cards and the corresponding resources is something I expect to spend the longest time tweaking. I'm thinking now that I absolutely need more cards available than players, so I'm thinking that a 3+ player game would automatically have 2 cards drawn from each of the courtiers (totalling 6), and have the cards remaining after bidding moved down 1 space until they "fall off the board" (there would be 2 spaces for each courtier card on the board so that any un-picked card can spend a max of 2 turns on it). Aramoro posted:I think this is really the crux of the issue with games like this which can just be bad feeling generators. That turn where you get nothing is going to feel terrible, much worse than the other rounds where you get something. That sounds about right. I don't think the average turn will take 5 mins, I'm expecting more like 3 mins (save the outliers like King's quests and other more complex events) so I'm looking at a short game in about an hour. Regular one about 1:30. When I did the first playtests things were significantly different but they were leaning towards the 2 hr mark, and I agree that I need to keep an eye on the playtime. Thing is, I want a semblance of a narrative to emerge through the King's deck before the game is over. Ideally when the game is over you can have a little story of what actually happened there. "The country was teetering on the brink of war for the longest time", for example. I think I can achieve this and bring the game into a reasonable time-frame. I think this balance will be achieved through three elements: the power of the King's cards influence on events, the range of the war/drought/feast markers, and finally the size of the King's deck.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 10:27
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:tl;dr I need help finding body horror scenario ideas for my horror game, but specifically ones that can carry meaning (esp queer meaning) beyond eep spooky monster. Here are some quick spaghetti chucking thoughts, might have more later. (I hope this is not an intrusion since I am not a queer woman, nor a horror fan.) Everyone knows: your shameful secrets (biological or otherwise) are not just obvious but loudly broadcast to all, coupled with an inability to escape or be alone for even a moment. I'll show them all: perpetual invasive thoughts of violence due to a construction of an incoherent worldview mandating it as a coping to alleviate chaotic feelings. Weak and powerless: Languid impotence against the unyeilding system that they call just, despite a reinforced view that 'you can overcome anything' and 'bootstraps motherfucker'.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 10:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 01:29 |
|
|
Depending how hard you want to lean in to games-are-art: They Were Right: the Girl lacks the willpower to stand up for herself, and I dunno how it works mechanically, but if she gets caught everyone loses. (note: ofc I know this isn't very helpful, and I'm kinda sorry for posting it now that I think of how "empty" an idea it is... ) Dancer fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Sep 16, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 11:10
|
|