Games in the Snow

Hello all!

With Jack enjoying the sunshine over in the states while the UK shivers in (occasional) snow and sleet, I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you an update on what I've been doing.

Citywise:

After a few playtests and a lot of rules changes last year, I decided to let this rest over christmas. I'm now re-writing the rules and adding in some more varied task cards. The original task cards were along the lines of 'Go to place A, collect package, take to place B, collect 500 credits'. I want the new cards to include secret tasks that are only revealed at the end of the game, such as 'If you hold a computer at the end of the game, gain 300 creds'. I'll be working on these for the next week or so, i'll keep you updated.

Space Campaign:

As mentioned in a previous post, i'm also collecting ideas on a space campaign game, that is going to be on a very large scale. I want it to contain all aspects of running a galactic empire, but in a fun and, erm, serious way. I also want to include a tactical battle segment for resolving combat, but that could develop into a mini-game of it's own. This game is purely in the ideas stage at the moment so if anyone has any features they'd like to see, please let me know ('How about the game plays in real time, and it takes 6 months to travel form one planet to the next, Dave?').

I think these two should keep me busy for a while. I'd like to get a workable version of Space Campaign by the end of the year and get a final version of Citywise together as well. I'm not sure it'll happen, but it'll be fun trying!

All the best

Playtest-O-Rama

Dave came round Tuesday night, ostensibly for more Space Hulk, but we both really wanted to do some playtesting too. Dave had brought Citywise, and I had Artist, Jorvik and 'The Submission' to get to the table too.

First up was 'The Submission', which I'll be pretty vague about until I've made a decision about it. The game is designed for 2 - 4 players, and Dave and I played a 2-player game. Initial impressions were that the game would definitely be better with more players, it was good fun with just two though. Dave ended both rounds, and although I won on points in the first round by a small margin Dave slaughtered me in the second, striding to a comfortable victory. I need to play this a lot to reach a firm decision about whether or not to invest large amounts of my money and free time in publishing it. Initial impressions were favourable though. I'm not wholly convinced about the theme, I like the theme, but as a publisher I've got to think of the theme as the hook that will take a potential player from seeing the box to wanting to buy (and play it). I don't think the theme as it stands is the best for that given the market I'll be predominantly selling to (the UK).

After that we had a quick game of Jorvik. Dave didn't seem overly enamoured of Jorvik, noting that there was very little player interaction. This is something that I'm aware of, and need to put some effort into fixing. Hmmmm. Dave won again, Two for two.

The third game of the night was Space Hulk. We've been playing this now over a few weeks, taking it in turns to play both sides of each mission. It was my turn to play the marines in the third mission, and with a nice winning streak behind him already for the night, and knowledge of how hard this mission is for the marines, Dave thought he stood a good chance of winning his first Space Hulk game. And he was right. So right. I was slaughtered, in about four turns. Oh, how the mighty have fallen - nice work, Dave!

Seeing as Dave had made such short work of me in Space Hulk, we decided to get a quick game of Artist in to round the night off. I explained the rules of the game to Dave and we were off. As I've mentioned before, Artist can be a bit of a brain-burner, and leaving it to the end of the night was possibly a mistake. Still, I enjoyed it (and I think Dave did too), and I finally won something. I'm beginning to think that Artist is possibly closer to publishing than Jorvik, despite being much newer - I need to play it a lot more to make sure. Dave had some good ideas too about how to simplify the scoring areas. Another good night of games.

Citywise: First Look

Hi there, time for my weekly update. Again, it’s been a busy week so I haven’t had many chances to get gaming. Playtesting has continued on Citywise to ensure that the new Riot and Patrol mechanisms are working okay. As a special treat, here’s a shot of Citywise set up for playtesting. It’s halfway through the game, so two Riots and Patrols are on the board.

What’s next? Well, more playtesting; but I’d like to start writing the ‘blurb’ on some of the cards to really add to the whole feel of the game. Fortunately, this is one of the best aspects of game design, coming up with the background and theme (often called ‘Chrome’). So I’ll be watching lots of Sci-Fi on TV, reading lots of comics and doing as much daydreaming as possible!

All the best, see you soon!

Dave

Citywise Update

Hello all, its Dave here again with the latest update on my games. Last week, I just gave a general introduction to myself and the games that I’m working on. This week I’ll focus on the work that I’ve been doing on Citywise, my game based around a city in a dystopian future.

The first major changes have been to the board, instead of lots of small spaces for the players to move around in, there are now 25 larger squares representing entire city blocks or sections of streets. Of course, I have had to reduce the movement rate for characters as well, but that’s no big problem. There are a lot of advantages in increasing square size; it means interaction between characters is more likely and so is an encounter with a riot or police patrol.

After a playtest with Jack we came upon the idea of a ‘moving’ element of the game, such as riots spreading throughout blocks or patrols roaming the streets. I tried out some ideas and settled upon these being moved by players during the action phase after a re-ordering of the turn sequence. I have also had to extend actions throughout the whole game to ensure that patrols and riots didn’t get stuck in one location for the final third of the game.

I have increased all the characters statistics from a maximum 10 to a maximum 12 and made them all movable. This ties in with the rationalisation of item cards as I can now reduce the types of dice in use to D6, D12 and D20.

The problem that I have had when developing this game is to ensure that there are plenty of options for the players, without presenting too many decisions that would slow down the game.

As an example, one worry that I had was that people would go to a shop to buy items only to spend ten minutes searching through the item deck to see what was there. I considered providing a list of all items so that people could window shop, but that would cause just as many problems. The best thing to do was to rationalise the items in the shops, so instead of having 6 different types of weapon, there are only 3 types available, the same for Tech items as well. Though to ensure that the ‘chrome’ of the game remains intact, I will be ensuring that each class of weapons has a range of different pictures and descriptions.

I had another solo playtest last night, and all the elements seemed to gel together in a good way. The next step will be to rope in my playtesting buddy Jack (you may have heard of him) to give it a try. See you all next week.

1977 and all that...

Hi there!

As mentioned last week, Jack has invited me to add my thoughts to this blog every now and then on games that i'm developing. Like many others, I’ve had a few ideas for games over the years and recently have started taking my ideas and developing them into playable games.

As with many of my era (Born in the late seventies) I developed a fixation with Games Workshop while at school, my favourite game being Advanced Heroquest, and I ended up spending a small fortune on miniatures while not actually playing that many games!

After a few years away from gaming I picked up a copy of Heroclix at my local comic shop, it looked fun and played well, but it started costing too much to collect. Eventually I ended up buying a copy of Lord of the Rings (on sale at Toys R Us) and was instantly hooked. I started looking on the internet for similar and found Boardgame Geek, bought some more games and ended up joining my local games group (Beyond Monopoly!)

Since then I’ve been a regular gamer and have started developing my own games. The main one that I’ve been working on is ‘Citywise’ a game of a race against time in a future city with players competing to raise the most cash in a 24 hour period (game time, not real time!), this is coming on well and is starting to take shape.

My other games include Steam Car Racers; A Victorian racing game, BMX Challenge; A Card based game, and Space Campaign; A ridiculously complicated game of galactic control. All of the above are just in the idea stage at the moment.

I’ll be posting here on a regular basis to update you on my game developments, I’ll gratefully receive any comments and feedback.

All the best, see you soon

Session Report: Space Hulk And More

Tuesday night Dave came round again for games. As before, the headline act was Space Hulk the old Games Workshop game with a very similar feel to the Aliens film. As a bonus, this week we had a warm-up act: a game of Dave's own devising.

We set up Dave's game and he talked me through the rules - it was interesting being on the other side of this, in the last few months I've explained the rules of Border Reivers a lot, but this was the first time I'd ever played another designer's prototype. I'll not go into much detail of Dave's game as it's his job to decide how much information about the game he wants to make public and when, what I'll try to do is get across how the evening felt from a playtester's point of view.

First impressions of the game were good, the prototype was well-made and visually interesting, and I could tell from one look at the board what the theme was. If anything, the prototype was over-produced, as this was the first time Dave had played the game, so a lot will change over the coming months. While he explained the game Dave was quite self-deprecating, which I was told I was doing at The Cast Are Dice - it's obviously a common reflex. However, if you start disparaging the game you've designed, you'll put players off. The game had several things I really liked: fixed length; a clearly defined beginning, middle and end; some excellent events. It also had it's fair share of weaknesses, as you would expect from a game in the very early stages of development. The first few plays of one of my games are awful, as it takes time and practice to take the ideas in your head and turn them into something that works in reality. It came in at around an hour, and although I was at a loose end a couple of times, at no point was I bored or regretting playing it - a good sign.

After the game, we went through the notes I had taken about the things I liked and disliked about the game. We discussed possible solutions to some problems the game had and ideas for ways the game could be changed. It reminded me how much my playtesters had influenced the design of Border Reivers, especially The Wife and Mal, who contributed some excellent ideas to the finished game. One of the things I do is keep a list of people who have playtested a game I'm working on - they definitely deserve a mention in the rules for their contributions.

I'd definitely be up for playing it again, and I'll be interested to watch another designer's game evolve over the coming months. Perhaps we'll play Jorvik or Sennon next time too...

After that we played a couple more games of Space Hulk. We played the second mission again (I was the Genestealers this time), and then the third mission from one end only. Again, I really enjoyed the Space Hulk, good clean fun, and since I was the stealers both times, I got a side order of vicious disemboweling of my enemies with my good, clean fun. The theming of Space Hulk is really well done, when playing as the marines you feel very claustrophobic as the unknown numbers of enemies swarm around your limited troops. Coupled with the enhanced maneourveability and faster top speed of the stealers you feel very vulnerable. I remember a computer version, which really laid the claustrophobia on thick - the cramped corridors felt tiny when a stealer swarmed towards one of your marines, followed by static as contact was lost...

Both sides have definite tactics, with the stealers wanting to stay out of LOS for as long as possible. They are also far more powerful when they attack in waves, that way you can maximise the chance of a weapon jam being capitalised upon by a stealer, as you will undoubtedly lose a few before the weapon jams. Marines on the other hand want to keep as much distance between themselves and the stealers as possible, and excel when they can cover a long approach with overwatch fire. Great stuff.

In the end I won all three games that evening, I'm keen for more though :-)

I had hoped to do a load of construction this weekend, however I might have to go to Bristol instead. The reviewer from the BBC magazine had some difficulty getting their head round the game, and wanted to play it with my parents (which would be a case of the blind leading the blind :-) ), and conveniently there's a do on, in preparation for my sister's wedding this weekend so I've an excuse to be down in Bristol. We shall see.