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xopods posted:As far as non-abstracts go, the only one I can think of offhand to include a pushing mechanic is Robo Rally, although there you're not trying to push someone off the board, but rather into pits and lasers and stuff, which are placed erratically around the board, so there isn't this sense of "distance from the edge = hit points." Blood Bowl is another non-abstract game with positional pushing being a core game mechanic. Like Robo Rally, there isn't a direct correlation between distance and health--you are usually pushing the target into sporadically placed threats (the other players), or trying to create a positional advantage/disadvantage. But you can push players off the field and into the "crowd" to incapacitate and/or injure them.
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Dec 5, 2012 08:03
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I'd love to see a copy of the rules, if you're willing to hand them out to a less-frequent BG Thread poster. With any luck, I might be able to get a group together this weekend.
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Dec 17, 2013 01:56
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CodfishCartographer posted:-monster hunter chat- The worst thing about following this thread: Encountering the most exciting, ludicrous game concepts, and knowing that it will be available to really play in maybe a few years at best, if ever. If you build a playtest model, I want in.
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Feb 7, 2014 07:25
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CodfishCartographer posted:I like the idea about having attacks that have a delay on the damage itself, could then set up for various timings on attacks. Are you thinking it would work with the Galaxy-Trucker-style of initiative - whichever unit is in first goes first - or a Space-Alert-style of everything happens in one round, then goes onto another? Maybe just make it Tokaido style - the person furthest to the left on the initiative track (i.e. the person who has thusfar spent the least amount of time) always takes the next action. So if you play a bunch of small, unimportant actions, you can chain several in a row while the monster charges for its attack. To further streamline the delay-on-attacks and attack interruptions, maybe you play your action card down and move your initiative marker the appropriate number of steps. Then, when your next turn starts, the card in front of you resolves. So let's take our example, with Hammer, Bow, and Monster (I'm not actually familiar with the Monster Hunter games, so forgive me using generic fantasy words) quote:H . B . . . M . . . . . Hammer is farthest left, so it's her action. She plays Overhead Smash, which costs 6 initiative. She puts the card face-up in front of her, "charging" the attack. quote:. . B . . . M H . . . . Bow is furthest left. He charges Eat Herbs, to draw some cards or recover hit points or whatever. The Herbs cost 1 initiative. quote:. . . B . . M H . . . . Because all he did was jam some plants in his cake socket, Bow is still farthest left, and acts again. Herbs do their effect. He charges Take Aim, which costs 2 initiative and gives him a bonus to his next attack. quote:. . . . . B M H . . . . It's still Bow's action. Take Aim resolves, giving a bonus to the next card. Bow finally quits faffing about and charges Killing Shot, which costs 6 initiative. quote:. . . . . . M H . . . B Monster's turn. He draws an attack card, Tail Sweep, which costs 3 initiative, placing it next to the monster board. (Alternately, to preserve suspense, the cards could have initiatives printed on the back, and effects printed on the front, so you only know when the monster will act, not what he'll do. Of course, seasoned hunters will know the various things a monster can do on a four initiative card, and can plan accordingly.) quote:. . . . . . . H . M . B Hammer's turn. She finally lands her Overhead Smash, dealing six damage to the monster's right forepaw. She then charges Uppercut Smash, a 6 initiative attack. quote:. . . . . . . . . M . B . H The Monster attacks with its Tail Sweep, hitting the Bowman. The hit disrupts the Bowman's attack--forcing him to discard the card he was charging for no effect. Monster then draws a 2 initiative attack. quote:. . . . . . . . . . . B M H Bowman's turn. Because his Killing Shot was disrupted by the Tail Attack, Bowman resolves jack poo poo. He charges Hide In Tall Grass for 3 initiative to protect himself. (Perhaps Hide In Tall Grass has a protective effect while it's charged, rather than on resolution.) quote:. . . . . . . . . . . . M H B Monster turn. His 2 initiative attack resolves--a Terrifying Roar, which pushes both the Bowman and the Hammer four spaces further down the initiative track! Monster then conveniently draws another 3 initiative attack, which will now resolve before the Hammer gets her swing... And so on until someone dies or flees. You could also use this mechanic to streamline evades and blocks: If a Hunter and a Monster end up on the same initiative, the Hunter's attack is instead treated as an Evade/Block to reduce damage. I'd also just remove or abstract the range, since you've already got a positioning puzzle going on with the monster-board. Maybe an effect like Leap Back moves all Hunters into the monster's front arc. Possibly with an initiative penalty to the Hunter already in the front arc, since they're now out of position and need to run a bit to catch up. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 06:47
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CodfishCartographer posted:Eh y'know what, Galaxy Trucker just kinda glanced over this problem so I think I'm just overthinking this way too much. Galaxy Trucker solved the problem by just making the track large enough, compared to the average movement range of the ships. In 80-90% of play states, the convoy order is pretty easy to read. And the few exceptions are usually pretty exciting and memorable (Oh god, is Alice going to lap Bob?!), so the players aren't losing track. The simplest solution I can think of is this: Take the largest initiative card cost in the game (e.g. 10). Make the track three times as long as that card's cost (e.g. 30 spaces). Now, under even extreme gameplay circumstances, the distance from the first player to the last player is fully twice as long the "wrong" way as it is the "right" way. Make sense? Whenever possible, let the game interface itself do the heavy lifting, without stuffing in extra rules architecture.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:23
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CodfishCartographer posted:So, even though the real world kinda delayed me a bit, I finally got a paper mockup for the Monster Hunter board game put together and tested. Unfortunately I couldn't wrangle any friends together this weekend to test it out, but testing it alone worked out fine enough. Some extra details that I added to the system that weren't mentioned much here: Getting a bit tricky to track all this mentally. Any chance you'll have a rules doc or a shareable prototype soon?
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Mar 2, 2014 22:08
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CodfishCartographer posted:So I'm working on a print-n-play mock up of the Monster Hunter Board Game right now, despite the fact that my gaming group has been too busy to help me get a playtest in. Anyways, I was curious: how does everyone like to handle scaling difficulty? Right now I'm facing a bit of a problem where I want the game to always be pretty challenging, but it's turning out to be pretty hard to balance that when you can have 1-4 hunters wailing on the monster. If I make it challenge for a group of four to down a dragon, then it'll be drat near impossible for a solo hunter. If it's challenging for 1-2 hunters, then it'll be a walk in the park for a group of four. The easiest answer to this is to just give the monster more/less health depending on the number of players, but I'd like a bit more elegant of a solution than this. Anyone have suggestions? Scaling health is just going to make the game longer--already a problem with increased player counts, so you're going to get an exponential playtime problem. Likewise, you need to account for the fact that the hero team is not only getting more combined health, but more combined actions each turn, so the monster will get still get easier with more players. Instead, I'd vary the amount of damage/drawbacks the monster is dealing each turn, either by making the damage on cards a variable (e.g. Claw does 2X damage, where X is the number of heroes), or the initiative value of the monster cards a variable (i.e. -1 initiative cost per player after the first). A possibly more elegant solution would be to let the monster charge multiple cards simultaneously, with multiple initiative markers. So on normal difficulty, a monster fighting two heroes is charging two attack cards at a time, whereas a monster fighting four heroes is charging four attacks at a time. Countblanc posted:...or having one die means a failed hunt. Also, seconding this.
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Mar 8, 2014 21:33
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"Behemoth," maybe? Pithy and evocative without being too generic.
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May 17, 2014 05:34
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CodfishCartographer posted:Oh dang, I'm super pumped to try this out, I loved the idea. Not sure when I'll get a chance, but I'll do my best to give it a shot and get back to you. Sorry! Your PNP version just happened to arrive at a bad time. I'll try to get in a game this week or next.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:22
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Having the name below the text box feels extremely weird. Why not at the very top of the card, either above or between the attack and time symbols?
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Jun 14, 2014 00:49
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ActingPower posted:...say, a game set in a monastery; a horror game where speaking draws the monster closer... ...Pardon me. I'm just going to, um, put these ideas somewhere safe. Yeah, that's it.
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Jul 4, 2014 03:11
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ZorajitZorajit posted:This is a general question, but I'm looking for broad answers because I have a problem I want to be able to work around before I put a draft together. I mentioned previously that Sentinels of the Multiverse can be really prone to quaterbacking. That is to say, an experienced player can run the table in co-operative play and put less experienced players in a position to not make their own decisions. Giving each player a hidden agenda is an obvious solution to this; but not really the route that I'm interested in. I'll grant that this is only really an issue in co-operatives that have tables with new and experienced players, Pandemic and others pretty much ignore it -- but I'd like to hear how some other games address this. To my knowledge, there are five major methods that see usage.
Limited communication Major users: Hanabi, Mysterium, Onirim, Ravens of Thri-Shikari, And Then We Held Hands, Consentacle Minor users: BSG, Tragedy Looper, Space Hulk: Death Angel Ostensibly the most direct method to solving quarterbacking--you can't tell someone what to do because the rules explicitly forbid it. The system sees a lot of use, so it's clearly got some advantages. But it comes with two major flaws. One, it's easy to cheat, even without intending to. Human communication is so multifaceted, it's impossible for a designer to circumscribe it entirely. Take Hanabi. Sure, I can't tell you what card you should play next. But what if I stare at it? Is that cheating? Is it still cheating if I'm not trying to signal you, but I'm just failing to properly police my body language or attention and you pick up on the cue? Do we have to wear sunglasses or face masks to play? And if I do accidentally cheat in this way, is anyone going to call it out? Sure, ostensibly we all derive a better experience from a strict interpretation of the rules, but we're also all supposed to want to win, and anyway, is it really against the rules? It's not as clear cut as making too many moves in Pandemic. You end up with a big wobbly pile of cognitive dissonance, which can torpedo your engagement with the game. And two, by limiting communication, you've put a leash on a crucial advantage of board games over video games, the social aspect. Sure, you can say that non-game-related discussion is totally kosher. But in practice, I've never seen this work. Socializing is a fluid thing, and does not react well to barriers. Either everyone feels muzzled by the restriction and social conversation dies along with the game conversation, or the players stop paying attention to the game in favor of the socializing. Time pressure Major users: Space Alert, Escape: Curse of the Temple, Zombie 15. Look at it a certain way, and a timer is simply a specific permutation of "limited communication." But instead of a bunch of wibbly social contracts keeping you in line, you have something hard--a ticking clock. You only have X minutes, and there's just not enough time to evaluate and dictate someone else's turn along with your own. This method clearly gave us One of The Greatest Board Games of All Time, Space Alert. But the problem is, I've yet to see another iteration that doesn't feel like a simple imitator of the Space Alert formula. I'm worried that the design space here is too limited to evolve beyond Vlaada. Intelligent Opposition Many vs 1: Descent, Mansions of Madness, Tragedy Looper, Fury of Dracula, Pandemic's Bio-Terrorist variant, like a billion others. Hidden traitor: Battlestar Galactica, Dead of Winter, Shadows Over Camelot I'm lumping these two together, because they come with the same overall benefit, a player who can adapt to the quarterback. At the very least, you don't want to detail out all your plans and secrets where the Enemy can overhear them. But these games aren't "true" co-ops. Part of the appeal of a co-op is the feeling of togetherness, of tapping into human bonding instincts through the introduction of group problem-solving and interdependence. It's a key reason why co-op games exist in the first plays, and adding an opposition player(s) shifts the frame back into a competitive mindset. Which has it's own appeal, but it's still a fundamentally different experience. Dexterity and Non-Transferrable Skill Major users: Dungeon Fighter, ?????? To quote from Richard Garfield's Characteristics of Games: "If Kasparov tells you to move your rook forward two squares, your making that move will be just as good as if Kasparov made the move himself. If Michael Jordan tells you to throw the ball through the round metal hoop, there is still something for you to do." I've only seen one example of this, and Dungeon Fighter is kind of a mediocre implementation. I sold my copy within a month. But the idea of using intransible skills intrigues me. (I've expanded beyond just dexterity, because this could also include things like endurance or memory or other challenges). At the same time, dexterity games hold a bit of a weird spot in board games. We seem to take them less seriously than strategy games, and a "hardcore" co-op with dexterity elements might be a hard sell. Also, accessibility issues are a major barrier here. Enormity/Complexity Major users: Mage Knight. I put Mage Knight in a category all by itself here, although you could expand it to, say, co-op Magic Realm or something. Mage Knight tries to solve the problem by making the multiplayer puzzle too goddamn enormous to fit inside a single head. Vlaada accomplishes this by giving each hand a staggeringly large decision tree. Even the most basic hands can be played two or three different ways, and optimizing a late game hand is a game unto itself sometimes. From my perspective, this is a dangerous route to go, and requires a deft hand. Make the puzzle too simple or predictable, and it falls back into quarterbacking. Make it too complex, and the game will implode on itself. Hell, Mage Knight is already a legend of analysis paralysis. And of course, I'm certain there's some egghead somewhere who can toootally quarterback five-handed Mage Knight, or at least thinks he can. But you can't balance every game for Stephen Hawking.
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Dec 26, 2014 08:06
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It's not part of the PNP yet. The PNP has a little note in it, saying "The guide isn't ready, here's what you need to know that the tutorial video didn't cover."
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Feb 19, 2015 17:40
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CodfishCartographer posted:Hey Seattle goons, starting at 11 this morning at the Mox Boarding House in Bellevue, there's a big event going on where people can bring in and show off their own board games. I'll try to take pictures and bring back details on any particularly creative or nifty games I see. You still working on the Behemoth project?
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May 30, 2015 18:26
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My first thought: You need an exact amount of money to win, and you're not guaranteed to get it from the vaults. Maybe you're all in deep to a loan shark, and you need the amount in full by tonight if you want to keep your kneecaps. The vaults are full of cash (you'll need to pop at least one to win), but they're hard to break into and time consuming. And some of the deposit boxes are full of people's random poo poo--patent documents, car titles that are useless without the car, someone's Beanie Baby collection that's going to be worth a fortune any day now, just you wait. Meanwhile, the cash registers and pocketbooks are all small change, but they're easy to access, and can fill in the crucial last thousand or two.
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Aug 18, 2015 21:19
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Yo, design thread. Been a while, but I've got something new. I've been working on a couple concepts the past few weeks, and I've got one that I think is ready for alpha testing:  “Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win.” ~Gen. Thomas Power, U.S. Strategic Air Command 1957-1964 19XX. The unthinkable finally happens. The world is scoured clean in nuclear fire. The oceans are poisoned for generations to come. Only one last patch of habitable land remains: Antarctica. The remnants of humanity huddle together in a fragile patchwork of research stations and refugee ships. But even here, the Cold War survives. And your civilization may not. MELTWATER is a post-nuclear abstractish wargamish thing for two players. The game is vaguely inspired by a mix of Volko Ruhnke's COIN system and Brenda Romero's art-game Síochán Leat. It's about struggling over an ever-shrinking board and slowly starving to death. Each turn that the fighting continues, the radioactive ocean eats a few hexes away from the board, while more refugees wash ashore and stretch the limited space even thinner. The game is in a very early state, and is probably broken in half in some way I can't see yet. I'm putting it here because I'm hoping one or two goons might give it the brutal beating it needs, and I can suss out what needs fixed. Anyone interested? Current rulebook is here,, map sections and card sheet files are here. If you wanna read what the hell I was thinking when I slapped this abomination together, my design blog is here. (Warning: full of my half-assed rambling on design principles. If you just want the Meltwater stuff, that's here.) Sailor Mercury not needed for gameplay, but recommended.
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Apr 20, 2016 10:06
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Mister Sinewave posted:I have a question - the mini-map cards - what are they? I thought maybe they represented different "seed" setups but there aren't enough markings on them for that... I am sure I am missing something, can you spell it out for me? The mini map cards are the Doomsday Cards referenced in the "DOOMSDAY PHASE" section of the rules. Every turn you draw a card, then add a radiation counter to the black circles shown, then a refugee in any white circles shown. If any of the indicated hexes is already irradiated, you place the new radiation/refugee in an adjacent hex instead.
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Apr 25, 2016 01:36
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For anyone following Meltwater (which I imagine is just Sinewave), the test rules have been updated to version 0.4. Version change notes and revised player aid cards are here. EDIT: Also, here is my testing metrics chart, if you want to see what I'm currently looking for in test results. If you want to playtest the game, please feel free to log your play in a new column on the sheet. Also, I'm interested in ideas for other metrics to track! gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 25, 2016 07:37
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Mister Sinewave posted:Looking forward to trying this out once I locate some pieces You can't hear it through the internet, but i just made a high-pitched excited dog noise. quote:Quick questions for Starvation / unit limits: Yes, supply depots are units. Will clarify in next revision. quote:1. Hex unit limits / determining Starvation status in the starvation phase: Rules say "A dirty snow hex (white) can normally support ONE piece" (or TWO for x, THREE for y, etc) but the sidebar implies the scope of this phase does not include the enemy. Does this mean a dirty snow hex supports one friendly or one neutral unit (and all enemy units are ignored)? Or up to one friendly and up to one neutral (and all enemy units are ignored)? Each hex supports X units total, between player pieces and neutrals. Enemies and friendlies can never co-occupy the same hex for any reason (cf. "Ownership and Loyalty" and "Action - Move"), so that's not a case you need to worry about. quote:2. The rules say that if there are too many units in a hex, those units are Starving. Do they cease Starving as soon as the hex is at or under its "capacity"? (Or is the Starvation attribute 'sticky' and only goes away once they move i.e. all Starving units must vacate the hex if possible?) The first one. Starvation is handled one piece at a time, and pieces stop starving as soon as the excess is dealt with. quote:Clarifications: Correct on all counts. And specifically, only enemy Soliders adjacent to your performing hex block Threaten/Pressgang/Raid. (Basically, your forces are a bit distracted by the angry men pointing guns at them, and can't engage in other operations until that's tidied up.) "Armaments" were a holdover from a previous version of the game, and I've fixed it now. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 05:41
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Yo, design thread! Meltwater has reached a stability point I'm comfortable with, and I think it's time for some larger guided tests. To that end, I would like to open a handful of Play-by-Post games, here on SA, for the purpose of road-testing the latest build! Each game will need two players, and I think I can handle running three side-by-side games at once. So I'll take the first six players who are interested. Please post below if you want in, and please specify US, USSR, or no preference.
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May 14, 2016 22:30
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MELTWATER playtest threads are up! Sorry for the wait, setting up the backend took more time than I estimated. Sinewave vs Tricky theroachman vs rchandra Players, please remember to bookmark your thread.
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May 16, 2016 20:26
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CodfishCartographer posted:80 Weapon Attack Cards (4 weapon decks with 20 cards each) You can massively reduce all of these numbers (except maybe the Behemoth deck, if you're using it for hit points), and I absolutely think you should. Not only will this reduce your print demands, it will give you MUCH better testing numbers, because you'll be reducing variables. Like, the environment decks? Seven cards, all one ofs. Maybe eight cards if you wanna be squirrely. Because even if you see all seven Jungle cards in a single game, you'll theoretically see them in a different order each game, and that can produce wildly different experiences (Vlaada does this a lot in games like Dungeon Lords/Petz. You'll basically see every monster and room in each game, but the order of availability produces entirely different experiences.) al-azad posted:Mechanically I'm interested in the politics of the era. You'd have the Oda clan who are dedicated to unifying Japan through force or diplomacy. Another player is the disparate major clans desperately clinging onto power (Otomo, Mori, Takeda, Hojo, Uesugi) who vastly outnumber Oda but their lack of unity means they're slow to respond to threats (once a single clan activates they're done for the round). And the third player represents the Society of Jesus/Europe who are trying to undermine Japanese powerbase. They can't build their own military, instead they're influencing the board indirectly by converting provinces to Christianity. Christian controlled provinces let the Japanese players build arquebusers, the strongest unit. More importantly the Society player can "loan" Christian daimyo to the Japanese players. In this way the Japanese players get extra actions by making deals with the Society player at the expense of setting themselves up for potential backstabs. I like this idea, save for two things. 1) Historically, the Christians (specifically the Dutch) had almost no influence on the late Sengoku period, aside from selling poo poo. And Japan was much more valuable to the Dutch as a trading partner than a colony. Making the Dutch a full player doesn't make particular sense. On the other hand, the Ikko-ikki were hugely influential, both as a religious movement (through the Jodo Shinsu sect of Buddhism, which gained alarming popularity with the peasantry and lower noble houses during the Sengoku Jidai) and as an unconventional military force with unique resources, but with little ability to marshal samurai. The monastic side of the Ikko-ikki were a gigantic thorn in Nobunaga's side for much of his ascendancy. This video gives a pretty good idea of the Ikko-ikki's influence on the period. (The whole six-part series is really good.) 2) For gently caress's sake, don't make "honor" a resource. That's some John Wick orientalist poo poo right there. Yes, notions of honor and bravado were influential in the period, but it's not a friggin' currency. Koku (a unit of measuring rice) is much more period-appropriate currency, and crucial to mustering and feeding armies. If you want to reflect a system of social prestige, you might look to Sekigahara by Matt Calkins, which models the political clout gained from heroic deaths and the benefits of having your daimyo lead from the front, rather than from the rear. Alternately, you could research the system of interclan grudges and rivalries, and offer benefits and/or discounts for aligning your actions with the goals and desires of particular generals/families. (E.g in the video I linked, Nobunaga demonstrates his particular hate-boner for the Azai, and disrupts his own battle lines to charge them down personally.)
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Jun 3, 2016 00:54
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CodfishCartographer posted:Actually typing this out, I suppose that each newly shuffled deck would result in the cards coming in new orders, which would alter gameplay decisions a decent amount even with small deck sizes. I'd just be worried about players sticking to 1 or 2 "best" card combinations and getting to those as quickly as possible. Man, I'm fighting with that question in one of my own designs. If I figure out how to cut that particular Gordion knot, I'll let you know.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:39
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You could also just let players "bottom out" at zero, and not incur any additional penalties. Like, at a certain point, you just don't have any dignity left to lose. For that, you'd probably want to start at a number of VP above zero (like, 10 maybe?) so that the hunters have something to lose from the first few possible attacks. And you can find a middle ground between draw one and draw-full. David Sirlin's Codex, for example, uses a system where you discard your hand, then draw that many cards plus to, to a max of five. So you tread water if you only play two cards a turn (the average for the game), but your hand gets reduced if you play 3+ cards in a turn, and you might need to spend future turns only playing one or zero cards to recoup handside and deck velocity.
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Jun 6, 2016 04:41
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So, the first forums playtest of MELTWATER is complete! Thanks again to Sine and Tricky! Figured I'd link it here, if anyone wanted an example or some tool recommendations for running forums PBP tests. And related, MELTWATER v0.61 is live, incorporating a lot of lessons learned from the PBP. Cardsheet and map are unchanged from previous version, except for the player aid cards on sheet 4. A full version changelog can be found at the back of the document. But the two big changes are a) massively simplifying Pressgang and Threaten, and b) supply depot no longer count as "units," which removes a lot of unintuitive crap from starvation, flight, and various actions. I'll probably be launching another round of PBPs later today, for Sine, Tricky, and any other interested parties.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:11
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...aaaaaand here's that second PBP! Sinewave, Tricky, please report to the thread!
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Jun 7, 2016 06:39
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Guess who was up all night working on her sellsheet for potential publishers.   I'm worried the design is too cramped. But I can't look at the drat thing right now without going crosseyed. I'll get around to hating it when I wake up. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 14:06
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Mr.Misfit posted:A good game can have a similiar mechanic and still play radically different. I´d say go for it, if only to see how it plays out. Anniversary posted:I'd also say don't worry about it. You'll likely find your implementation is fairly different in resolution than how it does it (at least from what little I know of both, I do see why you'd be worried about superficial similarity though - which might be an issue down the road but doesn't have to be at this stage.) Mister Sinewave posted:Give the same idea to ten different designers and you'll get ten different games. Don't let the fact that "it's already been done" stop you. Prototype it up and see if it has something to it. All of these are entirely correct! That said, it's good for a designer to build and consult a bibliography. Of the top of my head, the following games have implemented at least similar systems: BattleCON Yomi EXCEED Dragon Punch ABXY It would probably be a good idea to try as many of these as possible, so you can get an idea of what you're building upon. Thankfully, most of these games have free Print N Play versions on their respective developer websites. (I know BattleCON, Yomi, and AXBY do, anyway. Haven't looked for EXCEED or DP.)
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Aug 23, 2016 02:55
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Also, for anyone still following the development of MELTWATER, two PBP playtest games have just wrapped up, and two more have just started. And I'm perfectly happy throwing a couple more games in the mix, if any of you are interested in taking a crack at it. Completed Games [MELTWATER Playtest] Sinewave vs Tricky (v0.52) [MELTWATER Playtest] Tricky vs Sinewave 2: Communism Harder (v0.61) [MELTWATER Playtest] We must not allow a mineshaft gap! (v0.63) [MELTWATER Playtest] Toe to toe with the Rooskies (v0.63) Active Games [MELTWATER Playtest] You ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water? (v0.64) [MELTWATER Playtest] As you know, the Premier loves surprises (v0.64)
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Aug 23, 2016 02:58
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Time for a another minor Meltwater update. Version 0.65 is up. Aside from a bunch of terminology changes and template-rejiggering, the big new innovation is an experimental set of quickstart rules, bypassing the setup phase. Some card changes as well--I've removed the "weirdo" refugee spawns, so all refugees now flow in through the same eight hexes. New PNP files are here. At the same time, I'm mourning the loss of my cool minimalist board. I've now gone from this  to this  and it's killing me inside. 
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Oct 4, 2016 16:06
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CodfishCartographer posted:As for the less minimalist map, why include all the location names? As far as I can tell they aren’t required knowledge during gameplay, and they muddy up the map more than other symbols. Later on maybe you could include a more detailed, somewhat realistic-looking map in the rulebook that includes more fluffy details like area names, that isn’t intended for gameplay. A) The names make certain setup rules "click" more easily. If the players see abstract shapes with no context, they don't remember what the shapes mean, and don't internalize the related rules. But once I added names, players got the idea more readily. "Oh, these are my cities/settlements! I set up my troops in and around my cities." B) The names help differentiate the research stations from the quickstart setup symbols, so you don't confuse the two. C) It just makes the game feel more wargame-y, and enables more interesting discussion of the board state. "I need to hold Vostok" just sounds better than "I need to defend that bit near the bottom? South, I guess? But no, it's Antarctica, every direction is north..." In the end, the names aren't the part that bother me. The quickstart symbols bother me so much more, and the map key is pretty ugly too.
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Oct 4, 2016 17:49
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CodfishCartographer posted:Anyways, I'm not super clear on how your time delay system works. So on my turn I play a 4 time card, which immediately deals damage (or whatever). Then the enemy does a 2 time card which does its thing, then I can play a 6 time card? Could I not have played the 6 time card until I earned that difference? I'm not super sure how the time difference effects what I can (or can't) play. I think he means that you can play any card you goddamn like, but each card gives the opponent an amount of "time" resource, which the AI immediately spends on the most expensive thing it can and banks the rest.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:21
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More MELTWATER tweaks! Meltwater's been pretty stable. But "stable" isn't good enough, I need "brilliant." So let's give it a good swift kick to see if I can make it fly farther. As of v0.66, moving a stockpile costs only one action instead of two. I'm hoping this will allow for more dynamic piece-stealing plays. Also pushed through a map update, which hopefully fixes the visual clutter problem. New PNP files are here. You'll need to reprint cardsheet 4, and I recommend reprinting the map.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:35
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Hey all. Haven't posted about my designs here in a while, but I figured I'd close the loop: Meltwater: A Game of Tactical Starvation will be available from Hollandspiele this summer. quote:“Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win.”
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Apr 5, 2018 20:20
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With the "choose your phase" cards, I feel there's not really a way to cleanly convey it in the current layout. So why not cut the knot? How necessary is it that X effect can happen in one of multiple phases? Is there a way to make the specific card effect work in just one phase?
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Apr 14, 2018 01:11
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All good poo poo, with just one add on:Frozen Peach posted:GenCon is busy as hell. Most pitches are setup weeks/months in advance, but it's a good way to meet people and get started. This is absolutely true for the big conventions, the formal slots will be booked months in advance. But there's always cancellations. Get on your walking feet, go to booths, and ask if the person who's responsible for new game acquisitions is around. If they aren't, ask if they've got a business card handy for acquisitions. Leave a card and/or sellsheet if you've got it. Take a moment to shoot an email at the address on the card. Hit every booth that you think would be even remotely interested. I walked into GenCon 2017 with four publisher meetings scheduled. I had done ~15 by convention's end. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 04:12 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 25, 2020 04:07
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Trying to gather data and feelings about a chess puzzle microgame I've been working on. It's an 18-card micro, and the game ends in a victory for Black if the last card is played without a winner. I'm worried that too many games might go to this sudden death condition, and I'm worries it gives black too much of an advantage. Would anyone be willing to take a couple cracks at it and offer thoughts? I'll PM links to the online prototype to anyone curious. (The digital proto uses https://screentop.gg, which is kind of a free browser-based 2D tabletop sim. No download needed. I'd just put the link here, but I don't wanna risk pissing off any publisher's "no prior web publishing" clause.) Also, a followup question: Is chess as a game theme/reference point a complete turnoff to you in hobby games? I'm worried I might be chasing a dead end here, because I'm afraid a hobbyist market will look at something with pawns on it and think, "Chess? I hate chess," or discount it as Wal*Mart discount bin fodder.
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Jun 19, 2020 01:54
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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 |
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Sep 15, 2020 23:01
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link)