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Hello, I'm Nemesis of Moles and I design board games now. Great OP, first off. Secondly, for anyone that finds it helpful, here is a list of some small time indie publishers I found recently. Xopods can go over the list and be all 'No Nems those people just post junk on Kickstarter' and stuff. http://www.cambridgegames.com/index.php?page=submissions http://www.indieboardsandcards.com/publishers.php http://www.wishingtreegames.com/submit-a-game.html Currently I'm taking part in the SA Board Game Contests, and rapidly throwing together prototypes and ideas for games as quick as they come to me. I'll post a lil about some of the designs I've done later on, just wanted to say this should be a neato thread.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:12
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The way Chaos In The Old World handles downtime is pretty good. It minimizes it by making each player do one minor action on their turn, then play passes to the next player. Turns go quick because you spend the rest of the (short) turn time planning out your next move, and generally you'll have most of your turn planned out by the time the action phase comes up anyway. Encouraging talking or engagement outside of mechanical actions is always useful too. All my fave games tell you to openly discuss things, make deals, backstab, etc outside of your actual turn. In Parlay, I have players able to interject at any point in someone else's story. It seems like this is doing the trick of allowing people to stay engaged in the player speaking, while prepping them for their turns.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:23
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Tunga posted:Something I struggle with is rapid prototyping. I have a lot of ideas that get to the stage where I have a ruleset and most of the card concepts and then I am too lazy to actually make the cards. There were a couple of tools which got posted in the board game design competition thread which I forget now but might good for the OP if anyone can find them. And then, on that note, does anyone have any tips for ways to make this part of the process easier/faster? Magic Set Editor speeds up card creation like whoa so long as you're ok ripping off other card templates. Making your own is a non-trivial, but still not difficult process, but for rapid prototyping its no bigs. Rapid Prototyping is kind of an art in and of itself. Dont worry about art or anything, simplify your components down to their basics and try to steal stuff from other games/resources. Instead of making your own counters, use pennies, instead of putting tons of info on the cards, just the bare essentials. It's still a process, one that you'll go through a bunch of times, but I've prototyped Games out in less than a week, Parlay took me a day to go from 'Rules' to 'First Prototype' when I was happy with it.
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Nov 22, 2012 17:15
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xopods posted:By the way, I hope I'm not driving anyone off with all these extremely nerdy megaposts about defining things. Don't worry about it. Defining things is important otherwise we lack the basic language to be able to build games. I think Roll And Move could really do with some exploration. There isn't really such a thing as 'Bad Mechanics', only underdeveloped ones and rolling a big load of dice can be a lot of fun on a base level. Deck building has been done to death by now but the Dice Building thing that Quarriors did was neat and I'd like to see more of it. My fave mechanic style that I want to see more of is the physical kinetic style stuff of Ascending Empires and that one dungeon game where you flick your pieces around with your fingers.
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Nov 24, 2012 16:01
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Plenty of party games use Voting. I'd love to see something like Risk Legacy or Chaos In the Old World or Civilisation with an added Player Government model. With rulesets for being different forms of government.
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Nov 24, 2012 17:27
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Admin Understudy posted:So it really bugs me when I have someone try out a basic prototype and they'll innocently ask "so this deck of action cards sets the length of the game like in Brass or Dominant Species?" which is something I had never even thought of and I'll immediately want to scrap that whole game because I'm convinced that I've simply pilfered the core mechanics of other games. I have to believe this is a very unhealthy way of thinking because no game of any slight level of complexity consists of all original mechanics. Quit this. This is like, the silver rule next to 'Accept criticism' and 'Learn How to Type' an poo poo. No game is unique, ever. Dominion is just Magic is just Cosmic Encounter is just Blackjack. What you do with the idea is what counts.
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Nov 24, 2012 23:05
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Funny that we started talking about Roll and Move the week before Rab did a review on Escape, a game that does Roll and Move in a pretty neat and fun way. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/25/cardboard-children-escape/
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Nov 25, 2012 16:39
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So, thanks to SomethingAwfuls board game contests, and this thread, I've finished the first game I consider to be fairly viable. I'm going to wait a week or two to get back some more playtest stuff before I begin, but I'd really love some input on how to shop games to publishers. My degree is all about Business and stuff so I know a lil about proposal writing, but I figured, we have this thread for a reason.
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Nov 26, 2012 16:56
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Of course!
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Nov 27, 2012 22:08
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So I'm working on a new game now, I think it's got some legs to it. The concept is kind of a cross between Cosmic Encounter and Munchkin. The theme is that you're building a robot out of random parts that you draw from a deck in the middle, then trying to destroy every other persons robot and be the last one standing. Turnwise, you draw a card from a rumble deck (think Encounter Deck) and pick which of your arms to attack with. Defender rolls a die and, normally, a 4-5-6 hits and destroys whatever part of the robot that arm targets (Left Arm targets Body, Right Arm Targets Legs, by default). The robots are all split into Left and Right Arms, Body, Legs and Head. These all have various powers that effect the dice or change the encounter or something similar. I have a Set Bonus thing in there right now because I'm designing with 'Sets' of robots in mind, but that may change. The way I have it set up now is that the Head is the part that needs to be destroyed, but to get there you have to destroy the Body and Legs. Any thoughts? Right now its pretty Theme-y, I've not got any playtesting in yet and the rules aren't quite done, but its a pretty simple game and I think it'd be a good one to sell to publishers if I get it done.
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Nov 28, 2012 18:11
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jmzero posted:Why not add in Galaxy Trucker there? Have the construction be a free-for-all of grabbing parts. Maybe you'll build a cruddy, partially functional robot that's wobbly and underpowered - but you did it fast so you get to attack first! The first part is already SORTA in there. You assemble your robot infront of you and the card designs are set up so you can put it together and make it look like a robot. The free-for-all is kinda rad though. I'd want to try out GT first. Some robots already have that power, but maybe! I mean, already throwing a pile of games together, might as well add King Of Tokyo in as well.
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Nov 28, 2012 18:47
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All awesome ideas. I already have a 'Tricks and Traps' style system where some of the cards you draw will be poo poo you can play on others to have their robots malfunction or steal their cards, etc, and most of the robot part effects do stuff exactly like you're saying, example; Head – Hack Targeting Data, If only the Head remains, once per round, redirect combat to the player to your left on a roll of 4, 5 or 6, even if that player is the attacker. Heads, currently, are usually entirely defenceless.
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Nov 28, 2012 19:54
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If anyone finds any more Small Time Publishers, please post them, I'm looking for people now and I'm not entirely sure my massive contact list of 4 is going to do the trick.
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Nov 29, 2012 20:07
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I'd say thats almost exactly the reason of for this thread. Go ahead man!
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Dec 2, 2012 05:03
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I made a sort of similar game as my very first design. It ended up a godawful bloated mess. BUT, for Hitpoints, consider the way Mage Knight handles health. Each hit you take forces a Wound Card into your deck/hand, Too many and you're out for a turn. Wound Cards are basically useless chunks of crap that clog up the efficient deck-machine you spend the game designing. With a few tweaks, I can see it doing exactly what you're looking for.
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Dec 2, 2012 16:08
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Also brings up a point I've been thinking of. The term Ameritrash just seems really juvenile and derogation toward what is basically 'Theme Heavy Games'. It just seems way way dumb to me that we keep using it to describe an increasingly vague 'genre'. I mean, most games out these days don't fall into either Eurogames or the Ameritrash bin, but a combo of the two. As well they should. Thoughts? edit; Actually if we could get rid of the Eurogames label too, that'd be ace. The implication that Europeans are the ones who make smart games with deep mechanics is more than a little odd. Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 15:28
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Blockbuster/Arthouse is a good one, but I think you hit the crux of the issue in your first like. The idea that any game, these days, is either American Design or Euro Design isn't really a statement worth making anymore. When we're talking historically, we can say use terms like that that to describe the origins of ideas, Blockbuster games started in America, etc. But these days every game has some elements from both, or hell, neither. Board Games are just getting too big to consign all of them to one camp or another.
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Dec 3, 2012 18:25
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I'll accept that there is a distinction to be made between the two schools of design ideals and influences, I still hold some issue with the idea that most people lean one way or the other but I'm happy to admit I might not have a solitary clue what I'm talking about here. Those terms feel better to me though. Euro/Ameritrash always come off as derogatory which isn't really conductive to good discussion.
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Dec 3, 2012 18:49
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PaybackJack posted:a) They are not inherently descriptive but they are descriptive to people who understand them. While you're right that Arthouse and Blockbuster refer to something more people know about, they aren't helpful in describing the mechanics or gameplay of the game itself which is more important. Someone who has never played a board game will have no idea how a Blockbuster plays as opposed to an Arthouse game. People who've played board games already have a definition of a Euro and an Ameritrash, and adding in more terms isn't helpful to actually discussing the game itself none of those terms you created describe stuff relevant to how the game plays which is the most important part the game. Even a core level just knowing a Euro game is themeless but mechanically solid, while an Ameritrash is highly random with a ton of theme is a decent enough starting point to put most games between the two. Bolding the problem here. If a term is only descriptive in any sense to people who already know what the term means, then by definition it isn't descriptive. People, including board gamers, understand what a blockbuster/Arthouse is and its an easy image to convey over to board games when we're talking about them like that. If the terms 'Aren't important' then what's wrong with wanting ones that are a bit less geographically-centred and a bit less derogatory? We don't refer to basically anything else like we do Euro/Ameri. The closest analog I can think of is the JRPG, which in itself is a good example of why we shouldn't use labels like that. Just saying American is fine, I guess. Part of my main beef is that we call games that aren't developed anywhere near Europe - Eurogames and we call games not developed in America - Ameritrash.
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Dec 3, 2012 21:25
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I disagree, I dont think 'Blockbuster' or 'Arthouse' have any negative connotations, certainly not on the level of literally having the word 'Trash' after them. Ameri-trash and Eurogame don't describe the games at all to anyone other than people who already know what those terms mean, and even then its incredibly loose. Frankly I don't think any term like that would be useful, a more 'design' term, like Top Down/Down Up and a more 'Gamer' term, like Blockbuster/Arthouse would work best, I think. If you can't see the problem with having a whole subgenre of RPGs named after the country that made the first one with a similar template, I think we're on vastly different wavelengths here. Westerns aren't a good comparison, because 90% of all the movies in the western genre take place in 'The Wild West'. Its a setting. Like Space Opera or something. What we're doing with board games is saying half of them are French Movies and half of them are German Movies. It makes a pile of assumptions right of the bat that aren't useful or healthy.
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Dec 3, 2012 21:43
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I have a couple questions for the designers in the thread about their workflow/setup. I'm like, a week away from doing some sellsheet drafts for the thread, Parlay I think might actually be a good, viable game. What sort of response should I expect from the emails I send out? I've been job hunting for 5 months now so I'm used to not hearing a word from anyone, but should I expect at least a 'No Thanks' email? On that note, how many games do you guys crank out? When I get to work, my process is pretty rapid. Get to Prototype within 2 weeks or so, change up the prototype every other playtest. My prototypes are hodgepodge, full of stolen artwork, temporary lovely art, etc. Is this about right? Finally, anyone know of any publishers looking for party game/Baron Münchhausen style stuff?
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Dec 5, 2012 22:04
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One thing I learned early on is if you tell people this is your game, they will always have a million new ideas to throw into the mix. Parlay is a simple storytelling thing, but I had people suggesting gambling add-ons, expanding all parts of the game and adding tons of actions on your turn. So on that note, just dont throw in too many New Features if you feel like your game should be kept light. To answer your actual question, I mentioned I keep a fairly high rate of development, in early days anyway. When I first come up with a game, stuff gets added or changed almost every playtest or two. It winds down after that first stage till I'm happy with the game. "Burnout" I can't help you with, cause I have a whole games club to throw my games at.
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Dec 7, 2012 00:47
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Mr.Trifecta posted:So I recently found The GameCrafter online as a place to do a quick one off for your board game once you get out of the notecard stage. Anyone use them before? Prices are very reasonable to for one offs. I wonder if it would make due enough to put that example if you ran a Kickstarter. Xpods has said it before, but the margins are way too low if you want to do a KS with it. I used it myself for a one-off project a while back and it's pretty danged excessive really. I had 50 cards, 4 mats and a box and it cost me $30.
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Dec 8, 2012 00:03
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Now that the November design contest is over, I'm hoping we get a bunch of new posters looking for help with their designs  I'm writing up my Sellsheet to send off today. Anyone mind if I post it in here for feedback? Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 16:05
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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.
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Dec 13, 2012 17:14
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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
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Dec 13, 2012 18:28
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This is what I'm up against? Jesus christ
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Dec 13, 2012 18:41
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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.
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Dec 13, 2012 19:58
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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 |
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Dec 13, 2012 20:25
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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)
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Dec 13, 2012 22:37
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 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! 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
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Dec 14, 2012 18:32
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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.
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Dec 14, 2012 19:22
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xopods posted:Wow, at least you're getting rapid responses. One or two of the publishers I approached are mostly focused on party games, but thats a swell idea. Thanks!
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Dec 14, 2012 19:41
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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.
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Dec 14, 2012 22:19
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Ugh, another two rejections. That's me down to one last publisher now. Apparently it's a 'Fun and unique concept' but the pirate theme limits it to the hobby/niche market. I'm not really sure what that means but welp. Sorry for the no-content  post. It's just a bit disappointing  .
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Dec 18, 2012 03:43
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Yeah, that's a good idea. Will I be able to resubmit a game after I change it up like that? I know the odds are basically 0 in getting my first game ever published, I just didn't expect the rejections to be so rapid fire. In 2-3 days about 2 months worth of work got thrown out the window. Just sucks to have it happen so quick I guess.
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Dec 18, 2012 14:39
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Right. I have a couple other games in the works right now, so I'll finish off the last submission I have for Parley and get working on those in a more focused way. My current main game is the robot fighting thing I mentioned early, and that's coming along well. I'll shelve Parley for now, rework it sometime in the future. The 'Role + Situation' card idea is good and I think I'll just lift that wholesale.
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Dec 18, 2012 15:37
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All fantastic ideas guys, thanks. I've got them down and when it comes time to rework the game, I'll be including most of them in some way. I kept the game purposefully free of a lot of this stuff, the idea was to make a game as simple as possible and keep it that way, and it seemed to playtest well with that in mind. The way I saw it, most other party games are way less complex than Parley is right now anyway. I understand that previous comment about how people can have sillyfun time by themselves, but that's all any party game is, really. CAH is just madlibs, Once Upon a Time is just storytelling with more madlibs, Aye Dark Overlord, etc etc. Evidently people want more these days, oh well. You guys have been great feedback. If anyone wants to play Parley as it is now, let me know. On to new things! Super Robot Battler is coming along nice, and I'll have my first playtest ready by Thursday.
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Dec 19, 2012 15:02
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Tunga posted:There's a game called Aye, Dark Overlord! which has some similarities to the game you're discussing, you might like to check it out. It's a fun game but it's rather unstructured and requires people who are prepared to get into the mood of the game. The basic rules have a couple of odd restrictions that we didn't like so we ended up pretty much making up our game with the same concept and cards. There is a more structured ruleset included as well, which just sucks and shouldn't be played. Aye was actually one of the bases for Parley, and I implemented a couple changes to it that I felt fixed the Unstructured feel of the game, as well as the need for people to get into the 'mood'. Parley opens with everyone having to do their best pirate Yarrr, and combined with the silly hats and eye-patches I included in the game, it was fantastic for instantly getting everyone into the feel. Its one of the elements I'm most proud of in Parley.
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Dec 19, 2012 16:04
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Work on board game ideas is slow, but I should have a prototype of Super Robot Fighter for basic playtesting after Xmas. That aside, two new ideas I want to shop to you guys, and a few more links/resources. Both are still pretty loose and not fully developed, so excuse any vaugeness, I'm pretty One Project Minded so these back burner ideas just get any auxiliary brainpower till I get around to them. Idea 1: A drafting/worker placement game with a conspiracy theme. At the start, deal out x Objective cards. These will basically be variants on 'Get X Points in Y Region' with the odd 'Kill X' or 'Build a Y' thrown in. These get shuffled then dealt out at random. At the start of every turn, each player then bids/drafts a character or organisation, each comes with their own stock of Workers or cards that can be played on the various regions on the board. Game ends when someone hits their hidden victory. I want to somehow promote sneaky sneaky long term plans, backstabbing and such. I'm not sure how to go about that with this game, need to think on it. Idea 2: A cross between the exploration aspects of Betrayal/Mansions of Madness combined with the co-op mechanics of Ghost Story. You'd control 4 exorcists in a haunted house, tasked with dealing with the various ghosts. Trick being that the longer you stay in, the more ghosts appear, the riskier the game gets. You're semi-competing to see who can take out the most ghosts before escaping the house, stay in too long and get eaten by Ghost Mans. Not sure how I'll do powers/interplay on this one. Every other game I work with has bloody cards do I might just have it dice/abilities based, maybe. Also may need a Ghost master or something. And now, some links Every site on earth that lists 'Open Submissions' is so half assed its not even funny. Heres everything I've found, and some that I've posted in this thread beforehand. I'll just start editing and updating this post instead of posting links over and over. Fix up that second post Xpods http://www.indieboardsandcards.com/publishers.php - Indie Board and Card Games http://www.wishingtreegames.com/submit-a-game.html - Wishing Tree Games http://www.atlas-games.com/information_writer.php - Atlas Games http://www.brain-games.com/contacts/for-game-designers/ - Brain Games http://cocktailgames.com/en/cocktailgames/faq - Cocktail Games http://rprod.com/index.php?page=contact-2 - Repos Games http://www.rnrgames.com/ContactUs.aspx - RnR Games customerservice@alderac.com - Alderac info@nestorgames.com - Nestorgames - 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 contact_us@asmodee.com - Asmodee Games max@otb-games.com - Out Of The Box Games - Party games, simple stuff, etc) Obviously, most of my links are very small publishers, some with a major Party Game focus. Good resource for this is to go to BGG, look up the genre that your game is in, then just sift through some of the recently published things and pull up the Publishers. Generally BGG has some info about them and a link to their homepage. Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 2, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2012 22:02
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