http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-blogs_rss.php?ver=2 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:13:17 +0100 Tiki CMS/Groupware via FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://archive.bgdf.com/img/tiki.jpg http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-custom_home.php en-us darkehorse@bgdf.com http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=241&postId=1184
A few more ideas popped up mechanic wise. Based on Freerby's comments, I think it best that the tiles are removed less often. So, I am thinking that only matching a row of skulls will clear the affected tiles.

In addressing, the lack of randomness - I could just have each player's 3 stacks face down, and they have to pick one without exactly knowing which gem they are getting. There would still be some knowledge based on what hasn't showed up yet and you get to pick the shape. I will test random selection vs perfect info selection and see which is better. Also, instead of getting a special tile for 4 in a row, I could make it for getting two 3-in-a-rows at the same time. This would up the difficulty and force players to focus on both sides of the board instead of just building one string of gems. It could be too hard, I will have wait and see. I can just do away with 4 or 5 in a row for simplicity's sake.

Once I finish prototyping and get the basics down, only then will I start thinking about potential spells. Basically anything that seems too hard to do with the basic rules will be helped along by the spells as well as ways to interact with your opponent.
]]> markmist Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:13:47 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=55&postId=1183
Castle Raiders - I am in ur castle stealing ur phat lewt!

So I got to try out Mark's game on Saturday. We started out as a five player game although the leader of the Green faction quickly abandoned his quest for gold and moved to Paris in order to take care of a rat infestation. That left four of us to quest for gold and the ever elusive victory point!

The first three raids were fairly easy since the bulk of the opposition consisted of weaklings armed with pointy sticks. Much gold was hauled off to the forest to be spent. Phillip made himself an early target when he managed to upgrade his weapon twice in the first forest turn. I managed to purchase a +1 Cloak of Phillip Bashing (which would be useful later on) and retrieve my +2 weapon card.

The second round of raids was a little more bloody with my personal highlight being able to cause Phillip, the apparent leader, to take 6 damage from a knight due to the ability of my cloak to deflect hits. More and more of us were halted early in the raids and the second forest turn involved more people spending gold for healing and less retrieval of special cards. The map purchases seemed to be VERY wise investments. I managed to upgrade my weapons so I was not totally hosed (only mostly hosed).

The third round of raids saw me falling farther and farther behind despite my increased weapons. Ending the round with 4 wounds meant that I was pretty much toast. The leader of the Red faction had to bug out early for some much needed medical attention but still managed to finish with more VP than me (but that is jumping ahead).

The gauntlet round at the end was simply brutal and nobody got very far. In the end, Phillip was the winner despite being curiously close to my cloak and receiving extra damage for his trouble. All in all, it was a fun game even though I finished with less than half as many victory points as the winner.


]]> markmist Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:52:38 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=55&postId=1182
I am concerned that there might still be some balancing issues which solo testing cannot uncover. I would also like to test the rule-set to make sure that the game is easy to learn from the rules.

I have no idea how many people are still following my blog or what level of interest there is, but I am taking volunteers.

I will mail the game at no charge to you and then I can PayPal? you $ for return postage.

Please respond via private message, so that all who are interested remain anonymous. When you respond please let me know how many times you think you can test it, availability, the size of your group, and anything else you want me to know. Bonus points if you are detail-oriented and can nitpick the rules. I will take all of these things into consideration when deciding who to send it to.

Thanks for your interest.

Mark
]]> markmist Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:43:55 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=182&postId=1181
And as far as Prolix is concerned, it's been a productive one, too. I came in on Thursday night, exhilirated at its awesome showing at Protospiel. But at the same time, I was wary that a different group could always break the game.

Four playtests later, progress has been made.

Friday:

Playtest #1: Four players, not including me. One player, M, played at a deliberate pace. Not slow by any means, but he would take a minute or two to figure out an optimal play. The game was peppy, and finished in about 45 minutes. One of M's turns seems to slow down, but just before I propose the "unanimously agree to move the letters and start to play the turn again," M turns around with a brilliant 19-pointer.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the game. One fellow, J, ambled over in the middle of the game and was so intrigued that he asked to play it again. A friend of mine, G, also came by at this point and asked to play.

Playtest #2: Three players, including me. And suddenly: crash. J is slower than M was, and immediately realizes that interrupts aren't worthwhile enough. He can get bigger points on his turn. So the game takes more like an hour. Eeeyuk.

We discuss a postmortem, and I go up to my hotel room in a miserable mood. So much for "done;" the lockup problem is alive and well.

J is a very nice and intelligent fellow, and he designs variants for a published game, so he's not a stranger to the game design process. Still, all his suggestions for rules are much more high-reaching than I'm comfortable with. At this point, I don't want to change much more than the scoresheet and the tile mix, but J wants to see interrupted players not get a second turn. He also likes increasing penalties for interrupts, which I'd rather not go back to for reasons of simplicity. Still... does he have a point?

G thought the game was okay, but not great. J didn't seem to enjoy it... or so I thought.

Saturday:

I didn't play Prolix at all. I wonder if the 3-player game causes the downtime, considering that there's one less player to interrupt.

Sunday:

Playtest #3: Another game, with N, L, M again, and J again. Yeah, it turns out J wants to give it another whirl.

N is excited to play the game; he hasn't tried it in two years, with the old chip-based Interrupt system. I figure that between M and J, I can tell whether the lockup is specifically a 3-player problem.

It's not. The game lasts 75 minutes. The letters are incredibly difficult; lots of rare chips out there. I'm watching, in excruciating misery. I'm positive no one is having a good time, as M and J study the board.

One of J's turns lasts 20 minutes. At one point, we actually invoke the unanimous clearing rule for the first time in the game's history, but in practice, it feels like putting a band-aid on a broken leg.

L is not leaning forward. He's sitting back in his chair, seemingly disengaged from the game. He frequently doesn't have enough points to interrupt.

Halfway through the game, a bunch of nasty tiles disappear, and suddenly the pace of the game picks up. L and N start to lean forward. They start to interrupt. J loses a turn, then N loses a turn. Things are picking up.

J almost loses a second turn to interrupts, which would have been devastating, as he had only one interrupt and his turn was last in the game. He and L blurt at a word at the same time. L's interrupting word is a little worse in the tiebreaker, and J's word stays in.

Everyone exhales, and at first, I thought it was a sigh of relief that this damn, stupid game has ended. But no; L loved the game, despite his body language! N says he doesn't like any other word games, but he'd play this again in a heartbeat. J wants to play again RIGHT NOW.

All these players, who I thought were humoring me by continuing the game, enjoyed it! They all agree that the game ran a little long, but they were all engaged, and they all had fun.

So, I'm resolute. No big changes. I have to make tiny tweaks.

Playtest #4: A and S have been watching the game. I showed the game to A last year at a friend's house, and she was interested. I have no idea if she likes word games, but she seems like she wants to try it.

S has seen the game in various stages, and he's impressed by how far it's gone. He's an interesting guy, who has never actually played the game, but who glances at a board in progress when he's not playing something himself, and finds a word better than anything we see.

Bang, the game locks up again. I look at the board. Four uncommon tiles out. We invoke the cleanup rule, but now it's as if I've seen my enemy's face. We make sure no more than 2 uncommon tiles are out at any one point. It's a little fiddly, but it'll do for now. The game hums from there, and we finish in less than an hour.

I'm still not crazy about interrupts; both A and I have interrupted with 18-point words, and wound up losing points after the 4-point penalty. I suggest dropping the 4-point penalty to 3, and everyone thinks that might help.

So, the two tweaks I'll introduce in the game's next test are:

• No more than 2 uncommon tiles out on the board at any time. If it turns out to be too fiddly, I'll figure out some other way to address the problem. I could always add more common letters to the tile mix; that would at least make that replacement less frequent.

• Interrupt penalties will be -3 instead of -4.

Everyone really enjoyed the game, and I can't say how relieved I am. But I need more playtests!

Finally, an announcement: I just made an order for a bunch of poker chips, and I have a bunch of cloth bags. Once I'm happy with this round of tweaks, I won't be far from sending blind test copies out! I'm only 8 months behind with Seth's copy... :)
]]> IngredientX Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:38:43 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=55&postId=1180
]]> markmist Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:35:48 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=182&postId=1179
The game was hammered by all sorts of suggestions, some which didn't work, and some which did. I left knowing that the game wasn't done yet.

Turns out those suggestions were pretty good in the end. They led to a revised board and simpler letter-movement rules. I took these to Protospiel 2008, and battened down the metaphorical hatches for all the advice that about how the game was or wasn't yet.

I was stunned by the responses I got: "It's done." "How much are you charging?" "It's fun."

I won't say it's done just yet; I want to see how it does at Dexcon this weekend. But this game is awfully close to finished.

Some other quick observations:

• Tried 2-player Speed Prolix. It didn't work; it's too much math to count up the columns. Maybe if it was a different game...

• I posed a question about what to do about a game lockup. The unanimous answer was that a lockup would always occur if there's a problem player, who would cause problems in other games anyway. So for the boxed rules, don't worry about it. If there are ever Prolix tournaments, then maybe there should be a 3-minute timer. After all, timers are used in Scrabble tournaments, so there's a precedent there.

• I must get in touch with the game company about the new board. It's just playing too well to not let them know about it. Tomorrow, hopefully.

]]> IngredientX Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:32:00 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=34&postId=1178
It was great that Phil Reed and Will Schoonover for SJG attended for the first time both helping with testing and giving some prospective from their special corner or the industry. Steve Jones an alumni designer attended as a publisher this year, our usual helpers from Mayfair Games and ElfinWerks? were backing us up with advice and materials for the design exercise.

We had several alumni returning after a multi year absence. I hope they will return regularly from now on as their enthusiasm and experience deepens our pool of talent.

As is the norm Alex Yeager of Mayfair Games led an excellent talk; this year it was on how to get published in the hobby market introducing newer designers to the standard guidelines and reminding the rest of us that finishing the design is just the start of the process.

On the personal side I was able to get testing done for several games one of which i hope to have published in 08 and a second I am getting ready to pitch to a publisher. Although I consider both of these designs 95%+ done it never hurts to work on them right up to the wire so that I can be confident that I am providing the publisher and players with the best possible product.

]]> David E. Whitcher <service(AT)pyromythgames(DOT)com> Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:27:26 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=55&postId=1177
It started out as a potential 5-p, but then turned 4-p. Finally, during the game one of the players dropped out (due to physical condition, not boredom ) which made it a 3-p. I did NOT play myself this time (it had been a while since I did that and I wanted more of a on-lookers viewpoint).

Once again the changes I made were all for the better. The first three raids were really easy for them, but that was more a matter of what guards came up when rather than an actual issue. Once they got to the 2nd set of raids, they started to get nailed though. Wounds were flying around and most every player lost some points due to wounds which is how I wanted it. Some of the gear/skill cards really came into play as well.

The final score was 25-22-11. I was surprised at the 11, but i didn't see really bad luck so I wasn't too concerned. The winner had both cards that helped with die rolls, but I don't think it is an unbeatable strategy. Some slight tweaking might still be in order.

The action cards (for which I changed a +1 to a +2 for all players), I will make one more tinkering change. I am going to give each player 5 action cards instead of 4. One of them will be a +2, but they will only be able to use it once per game and cannot get it back. I liked the idea of the +2 but getting to use it 3 times was a bit much and caused players to forgo buying back their other ability for the +2.

Finally, I am going to make a change to turn order, but I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say that it will help clear up some confusion when placing the pieces and won't take anything away from the game.

All in all, I was very pleased with the playtest. We all played Caylus Magna Carta right after my game, and I felt like my game was actually in the same ballpark and maybe even more fun!

There weren't a lot of comments afterwards, but one comment struck me as very good. One player said they liked the "simple" mechanics. For me, this game was always fun but too clunky. To have someone say that tells me that I am very close to having a publishable game.

What next? I don't know. I will likely submit to another publisher but I am uncertain as to who. Zman is likely out even though I have changed the game significantly. Part of me wants to do more blind-testing, but I also don't want to wait 3 months to get additional feedback. Any suggestions?
]]> markmist Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:09:47 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=55&postId=1176
And I am glad I tested it since a few issues cropped up. I was generally pleased that the level of difficultly was much harder. However, I did not once get to the end of a raid and therefore did not score the 3 glory pt. bonus, although I ended with a respectable 22 pts. In previous versions, I was scoring this bonus 4+ times, which is really too much. The goal is to make it possible a max of 3 times, and players actually achieving once or twice, 3 times if they get really lucky.

So with the overall level of difficulty ramped up, how can I make it possible so that players can survive to the end occasionally? The immediate idea I had was to change the +1 to raid value action card to a +2. The +1 was actually kind of lame and didn't really help much. But a +2 will certainly give a player a sizeable boost in helping them to make it through 5 defenses successfully. Because actions can only be regained during the forest phases (except for one exception), this action can only be taken 3 times per game, so it won't have too much of an effect on overall difficulty.

Another change I am going to make is the cost of the alchemist (regain actions) in day 1 of the forest phase. It was free, but I think this was going to be too powerful, so it will cost 1 gold in day 1 - the same as day 2 and 3. So, why would anyone pick it during day 1? Because, that gives them first choice of an action during day 2. That was the only tweak that I could see for the forest phase by playing solo.

A couple other minor changes that I am going to try:
1) Not putting all of the defenses back under the draw decks after a raid is completed. Instead, shift the unrevealed defenses to the front of the line and use for the next raid. This change, in essence will give more predictability to the guards and add an element of memorization. However, I think it will be a benefit and not a determent and here is why. First, guards may not get placed back in exactly the same order under the deck each time, so there will still be a slight variation on when they appear the next time. Secondly, players will have some kind of guide for what might be coming up, but it will be an educated guess at best. This will only be an issue for the brown guards as the obstacles and royal guards don't come out enough to be an issue. If this becomes an issue at all, I can always increase the number of cards by printing more, but I would like to keep it at a minimum to keep costs down. Another benefit of this method is it is a bit quicker to shift cards then have to put all cards under the deck and redraw 5 more each raid.

2) After each forest hideout phase, place the currently available gear and skill card on the bottom of the deck and place new ones face-up at the beginning of the next phase. This change benefits a solo game more than anything as it won't force the solo player to eventually buy a specific gear/skill to get to another one he might want more. Instead, he will have the option of not buying that phase and waiting to the next phase for a different card. In multi-player it will be less of an issue, but I can still see times where no one wants a particular card and it would just sit there turn after turn and block anything else from coming up. In addition it would give incentive to a player to buy a specific card now rather than later, because it won't be there the next round.

That's about it. I didn't print the new board yet, because I wanted to see if the solo test led to any changes on it, but it didn't so now I will go ahead with the reprint. Then, if all goes well, I hope to have a playtest at this Saturday's monthly gameday.

I will report back after that.

Edit: Just thought of another small change - a 1 glory point bonus for finishing a raid without a wound. This would give a little more teeth to the wound system while still providing positive points instead of negative. I might need to print more 1 pt glory point tokens though...


]]> markmist Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:25:32 +0100 http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=241&postId=1175
Onyx (black) - acts as skulls - does damage to opponent
Aquamarine (lt. blue) - used to increase experience - get better spells
Emerald (green) - used to cast damage spells
Topaz (yellow) - used to cast placement/healing spells

I also came to the realization that all 2x2 4-gem tiles that could be rotated was not going to work. The ability to match gems with a rotation was going to be extremely limited in this configuration. Another issue would be constant resetting of the tiles in order to rotate tiles - imagine the ability to rotate tiles in Carcassonne and what havoc that would cause to the board.

Instead, I think I will go with a placement mechanism in which you can place tiles on top of other tiles. My inspiration for this mechanic was a game called Rat Hot. Like Rat Hot, I will use 1x3 tiles for gems, but I am also thinking of using 1x2 and 3 gems in an L formation. I haven't worked out exact placement rules but my early thinking is:

• The board will start out empty expect for a 2x2 tile in the center with 1 of each type of gem displayed. This tile is never removed from the board.

• Players can play on the surface of the board (1st level) or may play on top of other tiles (2nd and higher levels). If playing on top of other tiles, the only rule is that they must lay flat (meaning all gems on the placement tile must be on the same level).

• Players can only play tiles in their own territory (their half of the board).

• Players will each start with a fixed amount of each of the three types of tiles. On a player's turn he will have the option of placing the topmost tile in one if his three stacks. If a player runs out of a stack, he will limit his choice to 2 and then 1. Once a player uses all tiles, he will replenish his stacks. This mechanic will have players balancing which is the most beneficial tile to play while also thinking about not letting a stack(s) run out to keep the number of choices at its greatest.

• Gem matches (3,4, or 5 in a row) are not subject to level requirements. You can have a match consist of one gem on the first level, one on the 2nd level, and one on the 3rd level (as long as they are adjacent).

• When matches are made, all tiles that include at least 1 of the gems in the match are removed from the board. You can remove gems in your opponent's territory if they are used to create a match. The exception to this is the outer two columns. There will be a wall separating the two sides in these two columns. Players cannot bridge this wall to create matches. This gives each player a safe spot to make a 3 in a row vertically.

• Should the center tile have no other gem tiles on top of it, it can be rotated by a player in addition to his tile placement.

Early strategy thoughts:

Each player will start out being able to place gems unimpeded, but once they can get a few spells which allow for more encroachment on their opponent's territory, it will get more confrontational. Ideally, I would like there to be many different viable strategies depending on which gems a player decides to go for.

Lt.Blue/Green/Black strategy - Kill opponent as fast as possible.
Lt.Blue/Yellow/Black strategy - Encroach on opponent territory/slower kill.
4 and 5 in row strategy - get special victory tiles out to win before life gets to 0.

I am really starting to like how this is developing, so it is probably time to make a prototype and start testing.

]]> markmist Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:26:25 +0100