Playtesting time again

I've been working on a game themed on  The Princess Bride ( non-commercial) . It's a re-working of the Legendary Encounters:Alien game system with a re-theme of the cards and the contents. I finally got around to running the first play-test today. It was a loss. :(  That darned princess was not rescued.

Sorting the cards into seperate decks...

Ready to play...

Game over man, game over.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Rise of the Shoggoths

I had an idea last night for another game. I have too many ideas, and don't have enough time to make all of them into reality. The idea was to base a game around the uprising and rebellion of the Shoggoths against their "Elder Things" masters.  This theme is Lovecraftian and if you google those terms you'll get some interesting images to show you what they look like.

My first thoughts were that this would be an excellent solitaire deck builder, but I'm wise enough to know that the reason I think that, is that I'm working on a solitaire deck builder right now. Thus there may be a better implementation for the theme. If it's to be a two player game it can be asymmetrical powers, with the Elder Things having technology and bio-engineering, and the Shoggoths being sneaky and having brute force.

This theme seems really good to me, strong, with an appeal to Lovecraft fans. I have a bunch of ideas for sub themes and various mechanisms but... At this point I suspect I'll never be able to progress the game because I don't have a ready supply of the required art. :(

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Progress report...

My work on my WWI deck builder game is progressing nicely. I'm finally working on the rules for the game. This includes not only words but quite a few diagrams to help explain whats what and how. I'd kind of forgotten that the rules would require this. After spend weeks doing all the cards I finished the last card and was pretty darned glad to have got it done and dusted....

Only then I realised I needed some art for a couple of stat-tracks. Then I noticed that I'd done the text wrong on nine of the cards. Then I started the rules and more graphics work is needed.

I can only say, I'm so very glad I'm starting to get a handle on Inkscape. This software makes the kind of work I'm doing here fairly easy, and being SVG based it scales to any size should I need to. So if I want to convert it to use hobbit sized cards or even giant cards, I'm set :)

The problem is, I'm getting pretty worn down, working on this game. I'm so close to the end and the lure of the next game is niggling and trying to drag me away from completing this project. I will overcome!

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Card design for a deck builder

I'm working on a deck builder card game, and have just completed the play testing phase. I've been dickering around with the design of the card for much of the day, and I'm finally narrowing down the final format. As it's a deck-builder game the cards do not have to be used in-the-hand so I haven't had to worry too much about sticking information in the corners of the cards.

It's tricky because I want the art to show through, but still make the cards easy to see and read. A classic design problem. I'm aware that the edges should really be white to avoid the wear issue, but I am otherwise quite happy with where I've got to.

 

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Free Trader, goes digital!

A board game I developed a few years ago called "Free Trader" which has you on a solitaire mission flying around the galaxy dodging pirates and aliens as you try to pay for your space ship is now available in digital form on Android and iOS.

Baby Marsupial Creations LLC has given the game an all-new look but kept the core mechanics, so that if you're familiar with the board game version you'll be up an running with this digital version in next to no time.

Here are some screen shots for your visual pleasure:

The game is available on Android and iOS.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Political game design

I've seen some press recently where the media appear to be turning against whistle blowers. This seems rather dubious to me, a bad sign that the "system" is taking control of the media on this issue. Anyway that spurred me on to make a video about using game design to make a political point. It's a bit of a low-key rant to be honest, but there is a game in there :)

Watch and enjoy.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Planning a new gamebook

Having recently completed and published my gamebook "Dwarven Vengeance" I started thinking about a starting another. Despite it being a lot of work, I have really enjoyed the end result, so I wanted to start another one.

This time I thought I'd do a little market research about the subject matter. I went onto Role Playing Game Geek (RPGGeek.com) and posted a poll asking which genre would they be more likely to part with thier hard earned money for.  the poll ran for 15 or so days and got 49 responses.

The options on the poll were:

• Sci fi trading and exploration: 18 votes
• Pulpy noir detective (with tentacles): 9 votes
• Marines vs Bugs: 4 votes
• Dungeon crawl/landscape crawl: 4 votes
• WWII, pilot escaping occupied territory: 10 votes
• Other: 4 votes

I was hoping for Marines vs Bugs, but the omens have dictated otherwise.

This is a new genre for me, especially in gamebook form. It's set me a challenge. A gamebook needs a "system" of rules, those rules should match the expected game play. For instance it's no use having game rules for trading if there is no trading in the game.  So now I'm going to have to spend some time debating with myself what the focus of this new gamebook will be and once I've done that, how to implement a complimentary set of rules that fit the genre without over complicating something that needs to be really simple to fit the book format.

So now I'm collecting ideas and making notes about possible scenarios that could appear in the book. At the same time trying to avoid going too far down one line of thought without considering mechanisms at the same time.

At this point I know there are some limits on story. I polled a bunch of role players and "sci fi trading and exploration" means the RPG "Traveller" to them. The Traveller game has a number of tropes and associated expectations that goes along with the name, so those will be my focus to start with...

Publicising my new game

My new game design is nearing its play-test stage.  Board and counter art is complete, cards are in-progress, rules, still to be done.

I've been pondering how to approach telling the world about this fantastic game.

I liked the approach taken by the designers of Where There Is Discord. They got the game into the database at BoardGameGeek and started throwing up over a number of weeks a few teaser items, and even posted the rules asking the community to proof read them.

Once that was done they started posting well written and detailed Session Reports, each made of multiple posts made on separate days that really related the narrative of the games story. All in all it was a good way of building interest in the game, it certainly sucked me in, I ended up buying the game (and I'm delighted with it!).

I still have to finish up the little details of the game, but once that done I'm going to start following the model above. I'll register the game, put the call out for play-testers and start posting teasers and rules on the 'Geek. Of course I'll post those same teasers here. It'll be an interesting experiment to see if such an approach works with a print and play game!

Designing a new game

I've been working up a new game design for a few months now.  When I say "working up", what I really mean is that I've been thinking about it. What "thinking about it" means is that when I wake up in the middle of the night stressed out by work and money worries, I try to distract myself by thinking about this game.

I've found that during this game thinking I get into a mental flow. Where ideas build one upon another.  I'm also a bit of a writer and the I enter the same "flow" state when I'm sketching out a stories outline. It's a hard thing to describe, but it is most definitely a different state of mind. I suspect that it is almost meditative, perhaps it is meditative, I've never studied that sort of thing.

Do other game designers do a similar thing? Let me know if you do, I'd like to think that I'm not a lonely weirdo!

So what's going on in my mind during these flowing game design periods? I usually start by reviewing what I'm trying to achieve with the game, what the feel should be, and how the interaction with it should feel. From there I start going over mechanisms that could be used.  There is no order to this, I don't have a list to work from, it's just a random selection. Each one is considered, can I use it, how, where, what for, would it be better than one I've already decided on, which is best, all these questions just kind of whirl around in my head.

For example, if I'm thinking of cards within a game, there are so many uses that can be made for them I usually work my way through them all. Consider this little off the cuff list of possible uses...

Resources ... wood, sheep, computer time, interrupts
Timing .. count down, count up, increasing danger levels
Combat ... collecting combos, take that, initiation
Events ... lose all your items, an ogre attacks, you gain a gold, jump forwards to spaces

That's just a sample of what can "flow" over my mind in the middle of night, along with counters, tiles, dice, figures, tables, charts and every other game crafters tool.

I find myself considering, as I've said, what the feel I want the game to give the players, and so my mind often drifts into art, but this is a dangerous area for me, I'm no artist, and despair lies this way! Where, I ask myself, can I get public domain art, and so what Google searches can I use to find what I need....

But enough of the midnight stuff, what about the actual play testing? Well, in this case I take the ideas I've been pondering in the night and with pencil sketch out a board, then if there are counters in my idea, scissors find their way to a cereal packet, and if cards are in order, a few A4 sheets of paper are cut up.  Then these components are marked with a pencil. and finally the whole laid out on a table.

During this phase I'll put counters on the board, cards in my hand, and shuffle everything around seeing how they fit together. Try different set ups. Consider the juxtaposition of the various parts and how the board might be rearranged.

Then the cat walks across the board, sits on it, gets bored and walks off, and if I'm lucky something the cat did makes this paper and card game work!

In the case of last night, the cat didn't help. But I did rough out a play sequence for my current design and discover that the feel is right, but the game was too easy and needs to be ramped up.

That's all for now.  I just thought I'd share some thoughts about how I'm going about my current game design. Tune in later for more. :)