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Dang, I'd play that. A traitor dexterity game does sound interesting.
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Jan 10, 2014 18:48
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I love it. I think the robo-rally style simultaneous preplanned turns is perfect for a hilarious drunk fight. Make it or I will. I'm serious, don't make me steal your idea 
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Jan 25, 2014 18:40
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Plausible deniability and imperfect orders might be useful together. Like the workflow is a horrible mix of micromanagement, imperfect control over what's "downstream" combined with total blame/responsibility for the results, and resembles a game of Telephone. In the bomb-building example adding a couple knobs as an example would result in: - Commissar chooses bomb parts/procedure (ie chooses difficulty and relative importance of the task) as well as the workers to perform it. - "Overseer" is a mandatory man-in-the-middle micromanager. relays instructions to/from workers and Commissar. Overseer therefore has an opportunity to fudge orders/instructions in the process. Could be subtle, like swapping for a mirrored version of the assembly. (How good is the Commissar's memory? Is he SURE he didn't mess up?) But you can only see results. No one can actually verify the actual integrity of the workflow and orders from end to end. So bad performance could be any or all of: bad orders, fudged orders, workers deliberately botching the work, or workers "honestly" botching the work, and so forth.
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Feb 3, 2014 14:52
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Another thing that might be inspirational or useful is the concept of "soft" sabotage. It was a real thing in WWII. Say you're a metalworker forced by the Nazis to work in a factory helping their war effort. Obviously you can't just refuse because they will simply shoot you. So instead you do your skilled labour, but deliberately inefficiently. Push the cutting tools or bits into the material with too much force, doing the work but going through bits much faster. Insufficiently lubricate during maintenance, leading to increased downtime and machine wear. And so on. If everyone does their part then your factory requires more resources and takes longer to crank their poo poo out and every little bit helps. Studies were even done showing just how much production could be affected when the workforce is willing to engage in such things. And no one's doing anything they can get shot for (plausible deniability - the materials suck, these bits are poor quality and brittle, etc.) The only defense against it is total micro management and watching everyone and everything like a hawk - which is it's own form of soft sabotage since a factory operating like that sure isn't efficient either. In a way everyone was actually a traitor. But the boss's job isn't actually to root traitors out, per se. It's to get the work DONE, traitors or no. Maybe that idea helps.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:20
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Basically Space Alert + a Witch Hunt of an after-action report 
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Feb 4, 2014 23:59
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I like the idea but the Iron Rations were a little weird to get my head around. I want to suggest the idea of the First Equal handing everyone a different role which they must manage in addition to their construction die-rolling. You! You are responsible for quality control - ensure no one is "wasting" dice. You! You are output manager - ensure we meet our quota, no more no less! You! You must watch that no die rolls are being faked! And so on. The roles are just fluff but it provides a starting point for discussion/witch-hunting later. We were over quota! Jim, you should have noticed! Jane! Tom barely completed a single part! Was he sandbagging it? You were supposed to be watching! And so on. Also has that dystopia feeling of being held responsible for things you can't possibly actually control.
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Feb 5, 2014 05:34
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Two quotes come to mind: "No plan survives contact with the enemy," and "Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the head." (The latter being from Mike Tyson) I like the idea and would give it a shot. I am also biased in favor of solitaire games. e: Actually No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy would make a pretty good name.
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Feb 5, 2014 23:56
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CodfishCartographer posted:the problem I have with this right now is it adds another layer of upkeep, and I'm a bit worried I might have too much. When a player attacks, they'll roll their attack dice to see how much damage they deal. They then move the monster's health tracker, add damage tokens to the body part they attacked, and then grab aggro tokens. Does this sound like too much work for each attack? Surely there's a way to make one of those steps do two things at once? Perhaps a player's damage tokens are "stored" in a track on their player card. You remove damage tokens from e.g. right to left to take them off your card and move them to the monster when you deal damage. But as you remove damage tokens from your storage track you reveal increasing "aggro" numbers printed underneath them. So first damage token reveals "1" under it. Next is 2, then 4, then 6, then 9, etc. The highest revealed number is how pissed off the monster is at that player, and it attacks the player with the highest value. As long as the damage tokens are always used in the same way, it works. Something like the population, etc tracks in Eclipse. But you could add a few knobs to it, too. Something something allows you to refill your damage token storage track, therefore rendering your "aggro" to 0. Something something lets you add one damage token back to your card from the bank after dealing your damage, so your aggro is actually 1 level less than it would normally be, etc etc.
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Feb 7, 2014 23:12
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True, the idea falls down if the tokens are used for more than one thing / in more than one way. But there might still be a way to optimize in a way that makes one mechanic fulfill two roles if you're otherwise happy with the way things play but just want to optimize and reduce overhead.
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Feb 7, 2014 23:51
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I think it sounds pretty cool. I'd try adding a couple tables and chairs semi-randomly sprinkled around (can be broken by attacks for minor fame points, obstructs movement in some way, maybe acts as a shield if grabbed?)
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Feb 11, 2014 17:21
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I think that's a good example of "no right answer"  or more accurately, the right answer depends on other things. For example: if your game needs the action to stay quick maybe because the combat isn't the main meat of the game, then the less info for players to track and the fewer dice get rolled, the better. If the game's all about risk mitigation and being able to intelligently evaluate chances, then sure - make it more brain-burney and wind up with "wounded" units that don't easily slot into mental boxes. If there's push-your-luck involved and the combat is partly about knowing when to pull out and when to press on, then sure - maybe whatever way provides lots of dice and incremental combat resolution. And so on.
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Feb 25, 2014 18:53
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Space Bounty Hunters sounds like a  game conceptFor victory conditions you could always let people choose from a variety of bounty-hunter-ish things that area affected by which bounties you go after, what you choose to do and how you do it. Perhaps everything can affect your notoriety, fame, and cash. Magic Realm had the idea of notoriety and fame being able to both go positive or negative. Notoriety represented whether and how much you were feared (positive number) or reviled (negative number). Fame was how much you were celebrated (positive), or scorned (negative). Notoriety and Fame, along with money, were all just different currencies. Different objects and actions and enemies all either had a + or - for one or more of those attributes attached to them. Adds some extra numbers but allows very bounty-hunter-ish grey area reputation combinations, which in turn could be winning conditions (e.g. wealthiest, most feared, etc etc)
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Mar 6, 2014 00:32
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CodfishCartographer posted:MY knee-jerk thought when reading over the idea is that there'd be one overall victory point (same tokens?), but you can attain it in a ton of different ways. Capturing bounties would earn it, but so would raiding passing ships, and completing lots of (re)quests, or finding rare treasures, or you could just straight-up buy it. I like this idea particularly because it distills right down to a black and white "# of win points" while leaving the complexity to the decision-making of how to get them & keep others from getting them. In other words it's easy to see who is winning more than who at a glance so you can make strategic decisions, instead of "who is winning more than who" being all thinky (aka comparing more than one thing).
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Mar 6, 2014 16:55
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Can anyone tell me what the proper term for dice that are tiered, and the tiers' values are weighted in such a way that, for example: Tier 1 dice usually (but not guaranteed) are beaten by tier 2 and 3 Tier 2 dice usually beat tier 1 dice, but can in uncommon cases beat tier 3 Tier 3 dice usually (but not guaranteed) to beat tier 1 dice, and to a slightly lesser extent tier 2 dice. There is still a chance to roll lower than either tier 1 or 2, though. and so on Basically a die on tier N is most likely to roll higher than any die in a tier below it (<N), and most likely to roll lower than any die in a tier above it (>N). The degree of difference in values being proportional to the difference in tier levels. I know there's a term for this but I have no idea what it is. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 09:54
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That link and article gave me exactly the kind of details I wanted to know, thanks!
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Mar 10, 2014 17:22
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CodfishCartographer posted:I've always wanted to play Eclipse and Twilight Imperium, but holy poo poo those time investments. I picked up Eclipse for iOS, it's very well done. Plus it lets me play against AI opponents. Might be an option for you. e: And unlike some board game ports it has a very good "how to play" tutorial and manual. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 21:01
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I particularly like the ideas you have about e.g. no hit points or player levels per se - it's intrinsically handled by being further ahead or behind on the board. I also like having to escape the Dungeon. Sounds like some good design has gone into this, I'd give it a try. Are you planning to prototype it up? Just thinking out loud? I'd also totally print and try that Monster Hunter game. I love trying new games and seeing all the different angles and thought that went into them.
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Apr 1, 2014 23:47
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Sounds kinda Magic Realm-y. If so you might want to cop their "Hide" action and mechanic, it could work well. The Hide process I always thought was pretty sweet.
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Apr 29, 2014 18:56
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Magic Realm has days split into phases that are pre-planned secretly by the players then resolved together. Monsters "block" you (preventing you from doing anything else) if they encounter you during the day (unless you are hidden) and combat is all resolved at "midnight" (which is really just once everything else is resolved for the day). Mechanically the game completely allows for co-operative or lone wolf or even PvP play; it makes no difference whatsoever to the mechanics. The HIDE action in a nutshell: "Hide" is an action you can do. You roll a die and a 1-4 (I think) is "flip your token to the Hidden side" and 5-6 is "no change". So you can write down "Hide" as the action for one or more phases, but it's not guaranteed to work. And if it doesn't work then you still resolve the rest of the turn normally (so you might spend two phases on HIDE then set off regardless of whether you successfully hid or not - the idea being that you're unaware you didn't successfully hide.) "Follow" is also an action. It allows you to form a party and act as a guide, or to shadow someone (as long as you act first, you can FOLLOW them before they HIDE.) You could even guide people and then - making sure you act first the next day - HIDE and ditch them  There is more to it but that should give you an idea. Magic Realm holds a special place in my  and imo there's no other game like it.
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Apr 29, 2014 21:02
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I like the delay/timing concept in Behemoth. I thought it was a bit weird to see the items for the hunt laid out on the monster sheet. I think I get that these are the necessary items the hunters are bringing to this particular hunt, but having them on the monster sheet feels weird, it looks like treasure rather than common party items for the players. Or do I misunderstand?
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May 22, 2014 20:48
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That makes sense. Like that sheet is sort of the "contract" sheet. Take contract X to hunt Behemoth Y which will require $Z of necessary union-mandated supplies (and here they are).
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May 22, 2014 21:20
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I made a post in the board games thread that fits here, too. Pandante has a very clean, almost minimalist color scheme and graphical design. I like it very much. But the backs of the cards are pure red with some minimal white text. This clean and even design means that even minor printing glitches stand out like a sore thumb. On cards with patterned backs these minor printing issues might not even be noticeable. If your game (like Pandante) relies on the backs of the cards being identical to each other and indistinguishable, this is a problem. Minor printing issues means you can have a (partially) marked deck right out of the box. The card with the white blob is a "1", the one with the "birthmark" is a 6, etc. It's an example of how graphical design can have practical impacts beyond what you might expect.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:55
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ThaShaneTrain posted:I just found out about this thread so there's not much context on my journey but I got a contract with Mayday Games! I think this is clever and looks like fun. (I also love the concise sell sheet) Congratulations on your contract!
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Sep 15, 2014 13:05
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I don't know if this will help you, but when it comes to cards I prototype using something like Avery address labels - the ones you can print through a printer - then stick them on regular playing cards from the dollar store. It's a bit ugly but works fine. You have to stick each sticker on manually but at least you can easily pencil in changes, and you're spared from the drudgery of having to cut out your own cards or hand-draw onto blank ones or whatever. When ready for more serious testing, one of the online print shop links lets you upload custom artwork which they will happily print onto (blank) playing cards. I personally never got any of my prototypes this far, but from past posts people have been happy with the results.
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Oct 8, 2014 18:12
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Pimpmust posted:From discussion Alien: Isolation I got struck by the idea of a game, possibly single-player/coop/traitor-like and not necessarily a Alien game (maybe more suitable for a The Thing game, if it's supposed to be board game/multiple player friendly) were you got a bunch of characters at the start that may or may not become aliens later on depending on the choices made in the first phase. BSG was brought up a couple times and one thing I'd try to steal from them (in one way or another) is the way Sympathizers work. (There are Humans and there are Cylons but there are also Sympathizers - if someone is a Sympathizer and gets dealt a second Sympathizer card later in the game, they are a Cylon.) You may think: "What do you mean 'how Sympathizers work'? Being just a Sympathizer doesn't do anything!" You'd be right that just being a Sympathizer has no explicit game-rules effect, but they certainly DO something. When you're Human, you can "commit 100%" to the Humans' long-term goals. When you're a Sympathizer, you're Human but you can't be sure you'll stay that way so you kind of want to hedge your bets when you make your gameplay choices. I mean, you're Human (now and probably later...) but if you find out later you're a Cylon you'll want to kick yourself for any over-and-above-ing you did for Humanity before you switched sides. Later in the game any Cylons who are revealed gain power, but any Sympathizers who now know they are Human for certain can drop the bet-hedging, which is a nice gear shift.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:54
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Yeah, that looks pretty cool. I love the stark, high-contrast, cold and technical art style it's got going. It complements the theme of strategic planning at a higher level, removed from the grim realities of explosions and vacuum and screaming and biologically-contaminated flight suits/cockpits. The movement vector markers really caught my eye.
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Oct 17, 2014 04:15
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Gutter Owl posted:To my knowledge, there are five major methods that see usage. This is from a little while ago, but thanks for the effort in writing this up. ZorajitZorajit posted:Aside, I completely understand why dexterity games don't get judged at the same standards but there's some good game design to investigate there I suspect. In addition to the accessibility issue it immediately occurs to me that the larger capital-p Problem is that dexterity mechanics rarely fit the time of serious games. Extra Credits just did an episode about just that. Speaking of Dexterity games, I was just thinking about how Click Clack Lumberjack gets regular recommendation and accolades. Don't get me wrong, I think the game is charming and fun, and it is exciting to get lucky (find a grub under a bark piece) and it's fun to hope to get lucky / see if you get lucky. But no one ever goes all  FLAWED GAME  despite the fact that the game has a mechanic (the grubs) that literally functions to give the more successful players additional turns. Games have been roasted to hell over lesser sins. I suspect it's because it is considered a trivial game. I also suspect that Dexterity games are intuitively fun in ways no one needs to explain (or gets demanded to justify) - there's common ground everyone "gets" about them.
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Jan 5, 2015 15:25
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I like that sort of thing. I'll try it out and talk about how it went  Let's share! Someone held a solo player game contest here some time ago, I don't think anything happened with it but I made Minotaur Maze which is a super shallow but kinda fun solitaire game using a deck of cards. It offers minimal chances to use skill! (Rules could use some editing down, it's too wordy for how simple of a game it is.) e: I played with the idea of putting down playing cards to physically represent maze/dungeon corridors. You overlap cards slightly to make the passages. The pips on the cards are used to represent exits/branches. So most of the cards are used for their physical characteristics, not the way cards are usually used. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 04:41
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Poison Mushroom posted:Without further do, The Labyrinth of S'xsyde. I tried it out and here are some thoughts. Dang, it's hard. It's tough just missing opening a chest when you know it is (or could be) your one chance to get help. I originally thought that the floor navigation was a little pointless since all shortest paths to the Floor Guardians are equal, but I guess purposefully avoiding the Floor Guardian until you get some gear is not a bad idea. I really like the dungeon collapsing concept. I had to read the bit about "black out squares as though you had rolled doubled equal to 1/2 the DL.." a few times before I figured out what it was trying to say, though. I regularly misread DL as "Dungeon Level"  In tables, number to the right of the contents was a little weird to get used to (I'd expect index on left, contents to right) I had trouble remembering to apply things like "+1 to next ..." You didn't ask for suggestions, but one possible mechanic to use to mix stuff up would be to have unique table entries for items or monsters. Put two entries in a single table result. Find it the first time = get the first entry but cross it out, it can't be had again this game. Resolve the second entry in the table for all subsequent results pointing to that entry. Example (for e.g. Monsters): Monster Table result 5 = Dungeon Lioness (Unique), HP 3, Tg 4, Dmg 3 / Lion cub, HP 1, Tg 1, Dmg 1 First time rolling 5 on Monster table, face off against Dungeon Lioness. If victorious, cross her out. All subsequent table 5 results face you off against one of the cubs. Kinda  but you get the idea.fake edit: I didn't notice the update, I'll have to try the new one.
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Jan 21, 2015 06:30
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That sounds like an elegant way to up the average successful chest results, if that's what your game needs. It's rough to miss out on chests because of bad rolls because you know they're your only shot at upgrades. But that's life in a random dungeon!
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Jan 21, 2015 16:43
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Poison Mushroom posted:The Labyrinth of S'xsyde, Version 1.02! I tried the new version with an Explorer, again difficulty 1. Went OK but I still got creamed  Used my torch at the beginning to help find a Chest where I got a rad sword. Rolled snake eyes on a second chest that should have been a cakewalk near the end of level 1, so I took an exploring detour using up the rest of the torch to find a second chest (fireball scroll). Made short work of the boss (Giant Rat) with my sword. Second level highlights: found another torch and used it up, found a bow (useless to me as it was better to use my sword anyway), and another Fireball scroll. Got hurt bad by a trap. Made it to the boss (Pyromancer). Used both fireball scrolls then laid into him. Took damage but still just managed to kill him... but his 2 damage death blast killed me. We joined each other in death  Might make a fun app in the style of e.g. Totally Random Hero
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Jan 23, 2015 00:00
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Poison Mushroom posted:...that is a brilliant idea. It doesn't give guaranteed items, but it does give a guaranteed CHANCE of items. I think I prefer it being in the top-left corner, though, as opposed to randomly placed. Simpler to explain, and kind of subtly hints at the "explore more of the dungeon to find more chests" strategy. I used the Explorer twice for the ability to use the torch to increase my chance (a little) of finding Chests because the earlier the better for gear. I was considering starting my last game as a "Rich Explorer" who got went "shopping" and got two chest rolls for free before starting but that's just cheating 
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Jan 24, 2015 20:18
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I'll paraphrase something that might come in useful if you're asking people for their feedback on a game. When people tell you they didn't like something, or that something didn't work for them, take it to heart because they're almost guaranteed to be right. When they proceed to tell you how they think it should be fixed, they are almost guaranteed to be totally wrong. 
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Jan 26, 2015 21:51
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This might turn on some ideas in your head, but have you played Falling? It's kind of a speed game but the pace and tempo is set by one player who is the dealer. They deal cards one at a time faceup around the table, one to each player. If card resolution requires it they pause to resolve stuff, then move on. Sort of like a conductor, they control the tempo. Perhaps the idea and flow might help your thought process.
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Jan 29, 2015 00:13
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No prob. One other thing that comes to mind when you mention chains is Markov Chains. They are useful as the basis for making - among other things - "random" melodies. You can't just randomly go from one note to another because not all note transitions are melodious. So you set up a Markov Chain which says things like "note C can lead to D (30%) or E (20%) or F (50%) because those sound okay, but never to F sharp because C directly to F# sounds like poo poo." (Note: may or may not sound like poo poo, just an example.) Set up enough of that - permissible transitions are ones that sound melodious, non-melodious ones are forbidden - and you have a random music generator where you can play with the tempo, pitch, rhythm, weightings within the chain, or whatever and it might sound weird but never dischordant. And despite being random it's not random in the sense that "any note can lead to any other unpredictably". OK that's less applicable to you maybe but Markov Chain state weighting sounds oddly like not only how melodies are structured, but also sounds like the basis for a scoring or matching system, doesn't it? But I have a soft spot for that poo poo so maybe I just like stories 
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Jan 29, 2015 01:17
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This isn't what you're asking, but: I took fencing for a while in a previous life  and one thing that might work into your game and be a thematic match is that .. well, if we were in person this would make 100% sense 100x more easily but I'll try to explain. You can have multiple parries in the same "thrust" and at high levels it is as much a mind game as anything else, because it's happening too fast to actually see and react to.When I thrust and you parry, the parry is actually a very small movement but it is the difference between the tip going into your chest (hit) and the tip sliding past your body (miss). This is how it works: your blade is crossing mine on its way to me and and I can parry by rolling my wrist and pushing your blade to the side just enough to make it miss. But the thruster can counteract this by a tiny movement - if I dip the tip of my blade UNDER your parrying blade to the other side, then you're now pushing thin air (in the wrong direction) and I'm back on the way to your chest unopposed. The correct parry direction started out one side but is now the other side. This is a two-way street. If there is still time, the small parry movement can reverse to put the parry back on track. Which the thruster can counteract with another little dip. And so on. At high levels this can happen multiple times during a single thrust. So I've been told, anyway. The point is that in the game, the actual thrust and parry might be abstracted away but there might still be an opportunity -- if you want to add something -- for the attacker to react to defeat the parry and for the defender to recover if the attacker is trying that. It could be used to add an element of what are you going to do, what do you THINK I'm going to do, what do you think I think you're going to do, etc. In game terms, players could each have - number of each depending on the fencer's "Skill" or handicap - "Switch Direction" tokens and "No Change" tokens. You always play one to go with your play, revealing it along with your play. A plain Parry defeats a plain Thrust. But a Thrust + Switch Direction defeats Parry + No Change. A Parry + Switch Direction FAILS against plain Thrust BUT defeats Thrust + Switch Direction. And so on. This may of course have no place in your game design but if it does there might be a way to make it work.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:34
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Sounds easy to learn, but hard to master. I'm in. 
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Feb 7, 2015 08:29
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jmzero posted:Predicting my opponent's moves can be part of a game I like, but when used as a central mechanic it feels kind of random/hollow. How true this is. When you have computers playing against each other in hundreds or thousands (or tens of thousands, etc) of iterations, a game problem that consists entirely of predicting opponent moves can get really really interesting. When it's two people sitting across from each other, playing rock-paper-scissors just doesn't have a lot of meat on it.
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Feb 18, 2015 19:37
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Re: RTS inspired board game, something that comes to mind is how there's this element of micromanagement to RTS games. You can fire and forget groups to 'go there [and attack whatever you run into]' but it's better if you can micromanage it. However you can't be in two places at once. I wonder if there would be any value in an RTS inspired game that gets players to balance between micromanagement and leaving things to fire-and-forget autopilot. Generally the more you can micromanage, the better but it's better yet if you can focus on where your opponent isn't (so there's an element to predicting what your opponent will or won't do.) It's a game about balancing the macro- versus micro- management, and also about knowing your limits because nothing's worse than biting off more than you can chew, micromanagement-wise. Time could be the limiting factor. Like, you only get a minute (or whatever) to direct everything for the upcoming turn and can freely select between macro- and micro- orders, the limiting factor is time and how much you can keep track of in your head. Probably a game where the people more suited to that kind of thinky brain burning would do well and those who are not simply get crushed mercilessly, but v v
The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 19:46
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 15:35 |
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Speaking of Final Attack!, is there a "How to Play" rulebook that I have missed or is it not part of the PnP? (yet?) The rulebook linked in the campaign says (paraphrased) "This isn't How To Play, go read How To Play" but if it's available I can't find it.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:23
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