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I'm watching the thread with interest, and will certainly be contributing regarding my time-travel criminal empires game which I'm still working on...
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Nov 22, 2012 22:31
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I've started to rethink my Time Travel Criminal Empires game, and would love some advice. I've scrapped my original few drafts (far too complicated) and would like to rebuild the idea from the start. The fundamentals: 1) Race to build a criminal empire and be the first to create a world-conquesting superweapon. 2) Use time travel to advantage yourself (and if I can do it without complex rules, disadvantage others) Originally I was looking at something which, across generations, had you acquiring resources through worker placement actions. This would be broken by a time travel action by any player, who'd use it to pass back resources or attack another player, at which point you'd start play again from that point, wiping all players' boards of anything after it chronologically. But this was a huge mess of needing to recalculate 'current' resources, and so on. So now, my approach is less 'gather resources' and more 'build pipeline'. Imagine instead a set of cards, played lengthways, each of which has an IN side and an OUT side. Some starter level cards, like RECRUITMENT, have no input required, but generate a constant availability of the MINION resource. A PETTY CRIME card may have no input, but an output flow of the MONEY resource, whereas an ORGANIZED CRIME card requires an input of MINION for an output of TWO MONEY. And so on, generating an engine where eventually you generate the right set of inputs to build your superweapon to win the game. It'll probably be a branching flow (otherwise you end up just refining the one resource) so you'll probably take something like 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 actions per phase, or 1 > 2 > 4 > 8 actions per phase. Time travel is something I really want to get the core concept down for before I start expanding the engine-building aspect, as I want it to be significant. As I want it to be a key feature of the game, and not a sidelined optional approach, that means it'll be quite frequent, which means it must a) be balanced and b) not require massive recalculating of the game state when it's used. To this end, the current simple time travel mechanic I'm thinking about takes that INPUT > OUTPUT card flow and allows you to, if given a better card, go back in time to replace an older card with a newer one. So for example I might replace my 'INVESTMENTS: Money > 2 Money' card with 'CHEAT STOCK MARKET: Money > 4 Money'. I'm interested in feedback as it currently stands, and also should mention that I haven't yet considered HOW players actually get their cards, so I'm interested in ideas there. Things I may consider when I have the core concept down: * Playing cards to attack other players' engines * Protecting your own engine from attack * Resource trees using things like Chemicals, Uranium, Explosives, Science, Metal, Circuits, Robots, Cyborgs, Spies, Engineers, Scientists... * Cartoony superweapons like Massive Bomb, Army of Robots, etc... * (Even further down the line) I'd love to allow for situations where popular culture time travel can be referenced - robots to be sent back in time as attackers, becoming your own father, etc
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Dec 5, 2012 20:34
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Crackbone posted:As you're describing this it doesn't sound Time travel-esque at all. It is literally just upgrading parts of your engine, which is a pretty standard game mechanic. OK. Like I say, very interested in suggestions, so please let me know how you'd expand it to make it more genuinely time-travelly. It was my intention to get the most minimal version in place before I start growing it, but one thing I was certainly planning was the attacking opponents through time, causing their engines to crumble. For example, a combination of explosives and minions, when sent using time travel, might destroy an opponent's building , causing their entire engine to crumble in a sequence of "nope, that didn't happen"s. I imagined that with this approach you'd have a 'paradox' defensive card which, if you had it, you could play on (purpendicular to?) the attacked action to make its output remain even though it had been destroyed, for example. I'm certainly moving in that direction, but wanted a starting point set down first (minimal engine, minimal time travel) so that I have a base to start testing and expanding from.
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Dec 5, 2012 20:50
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xopods, Crackbone, hito, many thanks for your input. xopods, Crackbone: Yes, I imagine it as four or five time zones (or 'phases'), each with an increasing number of turns per phase (representing a successful empire naturally growing in influence, and making time travel further back have the biggest ripples). I'm starting to imagine that you have a hand of cards which you always replenish to maximum. Usually you'll play a single action (input > output) card to continue the flow, but you'll need one time travel card (or one per time zone distance) additionally in order to replace a prior turn. That, or perhaps having time currency be an actual independent resource. Ooh! Maybe spending time travel cards moves your 'current time zone' marker, but you'd need more to get you back again, leaving you potentially undefended in the future! In my original plan (when it was worker placement), each time zone was a generation, each with two children: Victorian mastermind, two 1940s superscientist children, four modern scientist grandchildren, and eight futuristic megascience great-grandchildren. Actions included stopping another's action so it never took effect, and (much more difficult) killing that worker, meaning that it (and its kids) couldn't take actions. Defenses against this were a cheaper proactive 'time lock', meaning that an action (and its worker) were untouchable; and a expensive reactive 'paradox', meaning that action was stopped or worker was killed, but its effects (and their ripples) still happened. But we encroach on getting too complex. I'll certainly see how these themes play though. I think your idea is a little more elegant: Your actions may be overwritten by an opponent (by literally placing the new action over the top), but playing paradox cards can let you dig back through that event's stack to pick your original move again. hito, I do like the notion of time travel events 'wiping' all times after their placements. That's how I originally conceived it, where the game restarts at that point but with 'artifacts' from the previous timeline generating the advantages or disadvantages. I like your notion of it being beneficial in terms of information, and with the game as I currently have it that would lend well to having the superweapons (win conditions) being secret until one is completed (ending the game): Travelling back in time, you'd take with you the information about the kind of engine your opponents were trying to make, and could try to stop them from making their build. I'll play more with that idea. Please, keep the feedback coming, this is very valuable. EddieDean fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 5, 2012 23:31
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I've been thinking of a possible solution to the randomness-unfairness issue and zombie AI. What first came to mind was Left 4 Dead's much-vaunted 'Director', who intelligently assigns zombies based on how the players are playing. Which led to a 'director' ruleset idea. But then, probably better, would be to play it like Descent: with n-1 human players, and one 'all zombies' player. The director could draw abilities etc based on what the humans did, to keep it all in balance. For example: 1) For each item the humans loot, the director gets some amount of resource toward more zombies or an ability. 2) For each zombie the humans kill, similar. 3) For each turn where nothing significant is done by the players, director gets to move one position up a track towards getting a horde. (Hurries the players up.) 4) 'Loot' tokens with the same fronts, but with different backs, so either the map rules or the director can choose what kinds of loot are in which location (including traps and suprise zombies). 5) 'Special' zombies which are tougher and with other abilities but which the director can play like lieutenants.
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Jan 8, 2013 10:02
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