Rules

For a long time the rules of my games live in the Apple Notes app.

I can read them whenever I want.

Tweak them easily.

Edit them easily.

Check them on my phone, when I'm pulling out a prototype I've not played in a while.

At some point they have to become official though.

Graphic design.

Diagrams.

That takes time and effort.

So I tend to leave it until near the end.

When I'm not expecting many more changes.

I'm doing the Gal4Xeon rules now.

In InDesign.

With diagrams.

And graphic design.

It's slow going.

But an important step.

Progress

It's been a week of great progress.

Paul has parcelled up and shipped three pallets of games to GamesQuest.

On their way!

Two will cross the Atlantic by boat and then go via road to their US hub.

Then be broken down and shipped across the US and Canada.

The third will be broken down and shipped to the EU from their UK hub.

That's over 85% of the rewards of the last campaign shipped.

The last few will probably go in the next week or so.

Meanwhile I've been doing the proper rulebook for Away Team Bingo.

My next print at home roll and write game.

The low ink rules are finished!

Now I can send it out for review.

Last time I tried this I got no reviews back.

Hoping for better luck this time...

Rules

I’ve almost finished the graphic design for the Away Team Bingo player sheets.

The four low ink ones are done. 

Two out of four high ink ones are done too.

Next up is the rules.

Rules are hard

I’ve a pretty spartan rulebook that went to the playtesters.

But I need a new one.

With diagrams.

And examples.

It takes time.

It’s my current focus.

Next up is review copies and the Gamefound page.

It’s going to be a busy couple of months.

Rules

For the last couple of weeks my focus has been the Rocky ‘Roid rules.

Oh, and AireCon.

Oh, and shipping Gamefound rewards.

But mostly rules.

The rules have crystallised now.

But the old ones were very basic - few examples and no diagrams.

They were easy to edit while the rules were changing, but they weren’t good enough for release.

So I’ve been splitting them up. Adding more examples.

Adding diagrams.

The low ink rules are done now.

Got high ink maps done too!

I can share them with reviewers.

High ink rules should be quite quick.

Meanwhile, I’ve been shipping the stuff I brought back from Paul’s.

Ordering packaging for the big box orders.

I’m going to sort out some more to ship once Paul’s back from his holiday.

Let him focus on cutting the last of the deluxe and EU rewards.

In The Early Hours

I spent last week in the US again (second time in three weeks!), this time visiting towns north, west and south-west of Boston.

As before I was pretty jetlagged, waking up very early in the morning (between 3 and 4:40am). But rather than just lie in bed face down trying to get back to sleep unsuccessfully for a few hours I chose instead to spend the time productively. I practiced my German and Portuguese on Duolingo, read books and also finished the first draft of the new Zombology rules, incorporating my friend Mal's excellent grammar and clarity-improving feedback and a bunch of illustrated examples to clarify the finer points of the rules.

Mal has offered to go through the finished rules with me for a final proof read so hopefully the final version should be complete in a week or so, once we've found some time to sit down together and read through this version. In the meantime, if any of you fancy trying out the new rules or providing any feedback on their clarity, style or completeness it would be much appreciated. You can get the new rules here (and here are the old ones for comparison).

The only substantive changes to the rules are the set up for 3/4/5 player games (so the setup guide on the first round card is not the same as the previously published version) and the rules around Gurus and failed cards. This means that the new version is playable with the previously published cards :-)

I've also had a chance recently to get back to my German language Windows Phone app. I've been adding a lot more vocabulary, so it's slowly becoming more useful.

Next weekend I'm down in York visiting my friend Paul. I hope to get some gaming in, including a few new to me games :-)

Gaming With a Four Year Old

This week I'm off to America for work (I'm writing this at 5am in an airport cafe!), and I'm intending to spend a decent chunk of the early hours that I will have free due to jet lag laying out the new rules for Zombology v2. I've honed them and now my mate Mal (who has a far deeper grasp of English grammar than I do) is going through them with a fine toothed comb weeding out a few extraneous words and fixing all my errors.

In the last week The Daughter and I have spent a lot more time gaming than previously so seeing as I have no progress to report yet, I thought I'd talk about that instead.

Since she was three we've played a bunch of the Orchard Toys games with her: Lunchbox Game, The Cupcake Game, The Ladybird Game, Monster Dominoes and more recently Shopping List (which is essentially a rebranded Lunchbox Game). She's enjoyed a few of those (not so much Ladybirds, but Cupcakes was very popular for a while) and a couple of more dexterity based games: Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Elefun.

These games have been entertaining enough and she's enjoyed them, but there's very little in the way of decisions to be made (in fact The Cupcake Game is entirely predetermined by the shuffle of the cupcake deck), so there's not been much preparation for real games.

I was determined not to force her into playing real (i.e. my) games too early as I didn't want to put her off, but then a few months ago I read a post on BGG about how much fun a four year old son was have with Carcassonne, just because there were choices to be made ('it's like a jigsaw puzzle but I can put the pieces in lots of places'). So I soften my stance a bit.

The Daughter and I started playing a cut down version of Carcassonne - no scoring, no farmers, just taking it in turns to place tiles and optionally add meeples in legal places. She really enjoys it ('Carcassonne is my favourite game of all I want to play it every day with you Daddy'), but she still doesn't have the attention span to play through the full set of tiles, so we just play until she gets bored (20-50 tiles in). Because there's no points involved she often helps me ('I'll add this to your city Daddy to make it bigger'), but she knows what she's doing and she's enjoying it, which is the important bit.

We've also played a few rounds of Martian Dice together, not tracking the scores between rounds, just taking it in turns playing a round and noting the points we got for that round. She's enjoying that too.

This week I bought Animal upon Animal (Tier auf Tier) and The Wife suggested getting Dobble Kids too. She wasn't ready for Tier auf Tier, we started playing a game but she wasn't really engaging with it at all so I've stowed that for later, but she loves Dobble. We've played it loads of times already, and we've only had it a week. I can see that being a huge hit for months to come.

With all this real gaming going on she's now showing a lot more interest in my games. Frequently asking questions about the pictures on the boxes racked up in our Games (Dining) Room. Fun times ahead!

Brevity

This week I made it to Newcastle Playtest for the first time since April! It was a great evening - good to see the guys and catch up and also check in with their games designs. First we had a couple of games of The Book of the Dead, a fantastic little timed game from Paul Scott. We played it for almost the first time back in April and I loved it, and I was delighted to see that it was just as much fun this time round (by now with much nicer art!). Paul is thinking of Kickstarting it reasonably soon I believe. We ended with Galactic Contractors, one of Dan's that had improved greatly since my last play.

In between those we played a couple of games of Zombology, but with some slightly different rules. I'd played it a couple of times recently at work during our lunchtime games club and the rules explanation and then the confusion around hands of different sizes going round made me think I needed to do something about the Guru rules. I had an idea a couple of weeks ago that I tried out one lunchtime and that idea has since evolved in my head into a more streamlined idea. It has the double bonus of simplifying the Guru and failed cards rules and simultaneously getting rid of the uneven hand size too.

It worked pretty well, we played a seven player and then an eight player game (I think!) and won both. Everyone thought it was an improvement on the old rules, but we won both games, the first one in round three! The fastest win I'd seen in the previous 100-odd games was round five. So there's a chance it's suddenly much easier. I can't think how that would be true, but I need to play a load more games to get some empirical data.

During the week I've been working on the rules for a second edition taking the rules from the handmade limited edition as a starting point. I've changed the Guru rules as mentioned above which simplify things quite a bit and I've also tried to cut down on the word count. The rules sheet for the first version looked like a fairly intimidating wall of text, which considering it's not too complicated a game is a bit disappointing. It was so wordy once I'd covered off the rules and tried to make sure all the grey areas were clearly explained that there was no room for diagrammatic examples :-(

So this week I've been trying to pare the rules down a bit. The rules changes removed quite a lot of 'if this then that otherwise something else' and then I went through trying to cut out all the places where my natural loquacity had made things unnecessarily wordy. I've managed to shave off nearly 300 of 1844 words which, when I lay them out in InDesign, will hopefully free up some space for more diagrams and examples.

I'm not expecting to get much done this week - I've a work night out on Tuesday, Games Night on Wednesday, I've got to get stuff ready for a trip to America next week for work and I also want to spend some time with my family before I go.

But next week I'm in America all week so I'll probably have the hours of 3am to 7am every day to spend on sorting out the new rules in InDesign. Gotta love jet lag.

The good news is that the new rules don't require any new components - they work with the cards as published in the first version. The only slight exception is that the cards dealt in the first round have changed slightly, so the cheat sheet on the first round marker is now out of date.

NaGa DeMon 12: One Final Version

With two days left to go I've got one final version for you. I've now played the new version six times and it is I think too strongly weighted in the dragon's favour. I'd been hoping to try these new ideas before posting them (to check they weren't rubbish like an earlier version of the rules!) but I've been unable to get a game in, so these are untested - play at your own risk! This is your last chance to get some PIPs before NaGa DeMon comes to a close at the end of November.

The good news is that there's no card changes since the last version (so if you've already printed those out you're good to go). The rules are pretty similar, there's only one change (to the Discard card and die section, highlighted in blue below) which now reads:

Discard card and die
At the end of the round both players discard the card they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. If there were already two cards discarded, you may now return one of these two discarded cards to your hand (not the one you just played). Discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player and cannot be chosen during the Choose a card or Choose a die sections described above.

The Recuperate card allows you to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning all the discarded cards to your hand. Once you have reclaimed the dice all your dice are re-rolled.

Please give it a try and let me know what you think.

NaGa DeMon 10: Hopefully, Less Rubbish

I wrote this blog post on Monday night, but I've been waiting to post it until I had a chance to test it, to avoid the problems I had with the last version. Then I got sick, missing a couple of days' work and then finally we've had some bad news and I'm off again, so no real chance to test it. Seeing as Derek and Enrique have both requested it in time for the weekend, here it is. Hopefully it's better than the last version, it is at least possible for the knight to win this one!

As I feared the last version was pretty unbalanced. Sam and I played it three times on Monday lunchtime with the dragon winning by 10 points twice and by 15 once! All in under 10 minutes :-(. I'd made the Breathe Fire work at long and short range and added another dragon attack (the Tail Lash) at long range. Despite the better defence cards for the knight he was still hopelessly out-classed. Discussing it afterwards with Sam I was quite happy with his idea that the dragon would win more games than the knight (if only slightly), but as it stood, the knight had no chance.

So, in fairly short order, here's a new version. This version has even more asymmetry added, now the knight has 9 cards and the dragon only 7. The knight's extra card is a short range defence that can be combo-ed with an attack or two, and the dragon has lost the Tail Lash and Breathe Fire is back to long range only.

New rules follow, with new print and play files at the bottom.

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

9 Knight action cards
7 Dragon action cards
1 Knight player aid card
1 Dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a die and then a card to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but it's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished. The game weaves between long and short range as combatants close and retreat to catch each other on the wrong foot.

Setup

Decide between yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent its life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aid cards with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence but to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen cards are placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards you can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range. The only effect of the short and long range icons is to limit the cards available to you during this phase. If one or both players play a card which changes the range, the cards chosen are still valid as long as they were valid choice at the starting range this round.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '5' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Knight's Block
The knight also has a block card which reduces damage dealt. If the dragon player has played an attack card and a die, the block will reduce the value on the die before calculating the damage dealt. This could reduce the damage dealt to zero. The amount the dragon's die roll is reduced by depends on the die the knight used in conjunction with it: with a 1,2 or a 3 the dragon's die result is reduced by two, with a 4, 5, or a 6 it is reduced by one. If used without a die it has no effect or against a defence or maneouvre card it has no effect.

Example 4:
Enrique (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Block card. Mal chooses a '5' and the Bite card. With a '4' the Block reduces the dragon's attack die by one, so Sam's '4' is changed to a '3'. Sam's attack now deals 2 damage to the knight, instead of the 4 damage it would have dealt with a '4'.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword and one short range defence 'Riposte'.

• If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack using the other short range attack card.
• If Riposte is played and it successfully reduces damage dealt, the knight may perform follow up attack(s) using one or both of the short range attack cards.

You can only use Combo if the combatants remain and short range and the knight has one or two short range attack cards in his hand along with unused dice to assign to the attack(s). These attacks are undefended and deal another (two) rounds of damage this turn.

Example 5:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage, the second attack cannot be defended against. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players reduce range you are now at short range
• If the knight plays Retreat you are now at long range
• If the dragon plays Advance and the knight plays Retreat your range remains the same

Both players must now flip their player aid cards as necessary to show the range they are now at. Both player aids must always show the same range.

Note that the knight's Advance and Retreat cards also prevent one damage if played with a die showing a 1, 2 or a 3.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the dragon has zero life force, the knight has won regardless of whether or not he has life remaining. Otherwise the dragon wins.

Download the cards

There are two versions of the cards: either front and backs as two separate files or alternatively, all the pages as a single file interleaved for easy double-sided printing.

• Version 2.1 A4 fronts
• Version 2.1 A4 backs

or

• Version 2.1 A4 interleaved

NaGa DeMon 8: Redux

It's just gone half-time in November, and finally I've got a second version of Dragon Dance for your delectation. Initially I'd intended to make fairly minor changes (decrease dragon hit points and tie = knight win), but feedback from Konrad's three games and a game I played with Dave late on Thursday night inspired some more sweeping changes which kind of crept up on me while I spent 6 hours on trains on Friday.

The changes have led to the dragon becoming stronger (more damage, another attack card and breathe fire now works at both ranges) but also clumsier (0 damage for low dice on most attacks) and bolder (no retreat). Meanwhile the knight now gets some defence while advancing and retreating, and his block reduces the dragon's attack die roll potentially reducing the damage received to zero! In the last version I think the dragon was too strong, and yet these changes have probably made it stronger still, so the knight needed some bulking up too. I've no idea whether these ideas will improve things, or how broken they are, but hopefully they are at least more interesting!

New rules follow, with new print and play files at the bottom.

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

8 Knight action cards
8 Dragon action cards
1 Knight player aid card
1 Dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a die and then a card to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but it's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished. The game weaves between long and short range as combatants close and retreat to catch each other on the wrong foot.

Setup

Decide between yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent its life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aid cards with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence but to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen cards are placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards you can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range. The only effect of the short and long range icons is to limit the cards available to you during this phase. If one or both players play a card which changes the range, the cards chosen are still valid as long as they were valid choice at the starting range this round.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '5' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Knight's Block
The knight also has a block card which reduces damage dealt. If the dragon player has played an attack card and a die, the block will reduce the value on the die before calculating the damage dealt. This could reduce the damage dealt to zero. The amount the dragon's die roll is reduced by depends on the die the knight used in conjunction with it: with a 1,2 or a 3 the dragon's die result is reduced by two, with a 4, 5, or a 6 it is reduced by one. If used without a die it has no effect or against a defence or maneouvre card it has no effect.

Example 4:
Enrique (the knight) chooses a '4' and the Block card. Mal chooses a '5' and the Bite card. With a '4' the Block reduces the dragon's attack die by one, so Sam's '4' is changed to a '3'. Sam's attack now deals 2 damage to the knight, instead of the 4 damage it would have dealt with a '4'.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword. If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack. Providing the combatants remain and short range and the knight has his other short range attack card in his hand he may immediately play it (assigning a remaining die if any) as an undefended attack which deals a second round of damage this turn.

Example 5:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage, the second attack cannot be defended against. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players 'reduce range' you are now at short range
• If one or both players 'increase range' you are now at long range
• If one player 'reduces range' and the other 'increases range' your range remains the same

Both players must now flip their player aid cards as necessary to show the range they are now at. Both player aids must always show the same range.

Note that the knight's advance and retreat cards also prevent one damage if played with a die showing a 1, 2 or a 3.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the dragon has zero life force, the knight has won regardless of whether or not he has life remaining. Otherwise the dragon wins.

Download the cards

To keep everyone happy there's now two versions of the cards: either front and backs as two separate files or alternatively, all the pages as a single file interleaved for easy double-sided printing.

• Version 2 A4 fronts
• Version 2 A4 backs

or

• Version 2 A4 interleaved

NaGa DeMon 3: First Rules!

We're still right at the beginning of November, but things are off to a great start. I've managed to play Codename: Dragon a few times at work this week already and considering how fresh the idea is, the game works remarkably well. Don't get me wrong, it's a long way from finished. But even now it's playable and interesting. I was delaying putting the rules up here until I'd had a chance to play them and check them for glaring problems, but here are the first version rules for critique:

Dragon Dance
Fire v. Lance
2 players
10-30 mins
10+?

Contents:

8 The knight action cards
8 The dragon action cards
1 The knight player aid card
1 The dragon player aid card
9 heart tokens representing the knight's life force
20 gold coins representing the dragon's life force
3 large red dice for the dragon
5 small white dice for the knight

Dragon Dance is a game of bluff, cards and dice between a knight and a dragon in a mortal fight over the King's daughter.

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life force through cleverly timed attacks without running out of your own life force. Each round you will simultaneously choose a card and a die to action - either attacking, defending or manoeuvering as you dance around each other looking for an opening to exploit. The dragon is more powerful and has more life force, but he's also less agile and slower, so the knight has to strike fast before his limited life force is extinguished.

Setup

Decide amongst yourselves who will play the dragon and the knight. The dragon player takes the dragon player aid, action cards, three red dice and the twenty gold coins to represent his life force. The knight player takes the knight player aid, action cards, five white dice and nine heart tokens representing his life force.

Both players roll all their dice and place them in front of them and place their player aids with the 'Long Range' side face up nearby.

Play

The game takes place over a number of rounds during which the players act simultaneously. Throughout the game the players' life tokens, remaining dice and played cards are kept open so that both players can see them.

Each round consists of four phases:

1. Choose a die (or none)
2. Choose a card
3. Action the card
4. Discard card and die

Choose a die
In the first phase, both players simultaneously choose either one of their remaining dice, or none. High values boost attacks, low values boost defence and medium values boost both attack and defence to a lesser degree.

During this phase, hide your remaining dice from your opponent and then choose one of them to use this turn (by, for example, placing a finger on it) or choose none (by, for example, placing a finger on the table next to your dice). Then reveal your dice along with your selection. The chosen die will be used to either boost an attack or defence card, or as a bluff to trick your opponent into playing a sub-optimal card.

Choose a card
Once both players have revealed their chosen die (or none), both players simultaneously chose a card to play this turn. The chosen card is placed face down on the table in front of them and then when both players have chosen the cards are revealed. Chosen cards must be playable at your current range, check your player aid to see which cards your can play at your current range, or check the 'Short range' or 'Long range' icons on the cards in your hand. You begin the game at long range.

Action the card
Both cards are actioned simultaneously.

Attacks & Defence
If either player chooses an attack card, calculate the damage they deal as follows:
If they have chosen a die, use the table on the card to determine how much damage they are dealing, if no dice is chosen determine damage using the no dice column in the table.
If their opponent has not played a defence card, they lose life force equal to the damage dealt.
If their opponent has played a defence card, use the table on the defence card (along with any die chosen) to determine the defender's protection as for the attack damage. The attacker's damage minus the defender's protection is the amount of damage dealt to the defender.

Example 1:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '5' and the Hack attack card and Derek chooses a '1' and the Flap defence card. With a 5, the Hack deals 3 damage, but the Flap and a 1 prevent 4 damage, so no damage is dealt.

If both players attack, the damages are calculated and dealt simultaneously, possibly killing each other at the same time.

Example 2:
Roberto (the knight) chooses a '6' and the Charge card and Todd chooses a '3' and the Breathe Fire card. With a 6, the Charge deals 5 damage, which is unblocked, so the dragon loses 5 life force. Breathe Fire with a 3 deals 3 damage, so the knight loses 3 life force.

Charge
The knight has the Charge card, which is a very powerful long range attack, combined with a reduce range movement. After dealing damage, if any, resolve the movement as described under 'Movement' below. For example, in Example 1 above, the combatants would now be at short range.

Dodge
The knight has a Dodge card which if played reduces damage dealt to him this round to zero regardless of what attack the dragon performs.

Example 3:
Jack (the knight) chooses no die, and the Dodge card. Sam chooses a '6' and the Rake card. Sam's attack would have dealt 3 damage to the knight, but the Dodge reduces that to zero, so no life force is lost.

Combo
Knight has two short range attacks Hack and Slash which have the 'Combo' keyword. If a Hack or Slash is played and deals damage as described in the 'Attack and Defence' section above, the knight may perform a follow up attack. Providing the combatants remain and short range and the knight has his other short range attack card in his hand he may immediately play it (assigning a remaining die if any) as an undefended attack which deals a second round of damage this turn.

Example 4:
Konrad (the knight) chooses a '4' and Hack, while Roberto chooses a '2' and Advance. The Hack deals 2 damage to the dragon, and seeing as it dealt damage, Konrad can use the Combo effect to immediately play the Slash card from his hand (not the discard pile) along with the remaining '1' die to deal a further 1 damage. Roberto's dragon loses a total of 3 life force.

Movement
If either player has played a movement card (Charge, Advance or Retreat) then the range is adjusted:

• If one or both players 'reduce range' you are now at short range
• If one or both players 'increase range' you are now at long range
• If one player 'reduces range' and the other 'increases range' your range remains the same

Flip your player aid cards as necessary to show the range you are now at.

Discard card and die

At the end of the round both players discard the cards they played (face up where they are visible to both players) and any die they used with it. These discarded cards and dice are unavailable to the player until they play the Recuperate card, which allows them to reclaim all discarded dice and cards, returning the cards to their hand. Once they have reclaimed the dice all their dice are re-rolled.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player has been reduced to zero life force. If the other player has at least one life force remaining they are the winner, otherwise the game is a draw and the Princess wanders off.

NaGa DeMon 10: Rules Re-Write And Modified Cards

There's a new version available at the bottom of this post. It's pretty similar to the previous version, only six cards have changed. If you want to print it out for the first time I've included the A3 and A4 PDFs again, if you printed out the last one there's a couple of update PDFs (front and back) that just provide the six new cards. Replace the Groundwork 3s (Works in Mice with a green Groundwork back) with these new cards. It's a single sheet of A4 so not a big deal.

The rules for this version haven't changed from the corrected version of the last version, but the have been re-written in place to hopefully make them clearer. Anyway, here they are (I've excised the exposition and the acknowledgements for the web):

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

Version 4 - 22/11/2013

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

• DNA Retroviruses
• Stem Cells
• Herbal Extracts
• Vegan Diet
• Pharmaceuticals
• Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x Bad Science (value: -2 - flip 1-5)
• 3x Strong Rebuttal (value: -1 - flip 1/2)
• 5x Theoretical Framework (value: 1)
• 5x Petri Dish Proof (value: 2)
• 2x Works in Mice (value: 3)
• 2x Works in Monkeys (value: 4 - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x Successful Human Trial (value: 5 - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Separate the cards into their three types: Groundwork, Trials and Prejudiuce. Shuffle each pile separately. Deal each player five of the Groundwork cards and two Prejudice cards. The remaining Prejudice cards will not be needed and can be placed back in the box. Place the remaining Groundwork cards centrally as a face down deck and all the Trials cards in a deck alongside them, also face down.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and place it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

The eight rounds are eight Research or Conference rounds:

(Deal 5 Groundwork and 2 Prejudice cards to each player)

• 1: Research
• 2: Research
• 3: Research
• 4: Conference

(Deal 3 Trials cards to each player)

• 5: Research
• 6: Research
• 7: Conference
• 8: Research

Research rounds

In Research rounds the players can only play the Groundwork (or later, Trials) cards from their hands.

Conference rounds

In the Conference rounds the scientists get together to debate their progress. It’s your chance to debunk, rebut, lambaste or otherwise rubbish your opponent’s support of ridiculous treatments. You can either present new research (play a Groundwork or Trials card) or attack an opponent’s shoddy research by playing one of your two Prejudice cards. After the first Conference round, deal each player three of the Trial cards and if any player has one card less that any other player they draw an additional card from the Groundwork deck. After the second Conference round, if any player has one card less that any other player they draw an additional card from the Trials deck.

Requirements

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless one of the required cards in the same treatment has been played in a previous round by any player. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

Prejudice cards

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card in any player's collection to target that was played in a previous round. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science (-2) card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys (4) in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

Repeated Experiments

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Note: Do not pass on your Prejudice cards, they remain with you.

Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Each player adds the value of their cards in the highest two treatments together and then subtracts the value of their cards in the least successful treatment. Note that if you have played negative cards in the weakest treatment then they will score you positive points.

The player with the highest score wins and can boast, brag and crow about their scientific prowess, while ridiculing the pathetic attempts of their fellow scientists.

Downloads

If you want to print the game from scratch you need either the A3 files (5 sheets) or the A4 files (14 sheets), not both, plus the rules (2 sheets of A4). If you have already printed out the last version, then you only need the updated rules and the V3 to V4 updates (1 sheet of A4, front and back):

• A3 fronts
• A3 backs
• A4 fronts
• A4 backs
• V3 to V4 update front
• V3 to V4 update back
• Rules

NaGa DeMon 5: Second Version - Now P&P!

Thinking about things, and considering the feedback I've had, I'm going to try these rules next, and so can you! Print and Play PDFs at the bottom:

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

3-10 players, 20 mins

It finally happened. The Zombie Plague has arrived, decimating entire continents and turning the masses into drooling, stumbling, brain-munching hordes. You're not that bothered though, you live and work in a high security government facility, and for you the plague is an opportunity. It's your chance to finally prove that you're a world-class genius in the field of curing diseases, not like that chump Dr. Gimlet at the CDC, what a tool! Seriously, the guy's an absolute fool, as if DNA retroviruses are a credible cure for anything.

You've got a few weeks to come up with a cure before you run out of the test subjects needed to show that your cure is the best. Choose a method or a few different ones and then quickly gather the evidence you need to prove your genius.

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

• 1) DNA Retroviruses
• 2) Stem Cells
• 3) Herbal Extracts
• 4) Vegan Diet
• 5) Pharmaceuticals
• 6) Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x -2 (Bad Science - flip 1-4)
• 3x -1 (Strong Rebuttal - flip 1/2)
• 5x 1 (Theoretical Framework)
• 4x 2 (Petri Dish Proof)
• 3x 3 (Works in Mice)
• 2x 4 (Works in Monkeys - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x 5 (Successful Human Trial - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Shuffle the cards and deal ten to each player, place the rest back in the box they will not be needed this game.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and play it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless any player has already played one of the required cards in the same treatment in a previous round. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card played in an earlier round in any player's collection to target. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Each player adds the value of their cards in the highest two treatments together and then subtracts the value of their cards in the least successful treatment. Highest score wins.

Download

You can get the files to print your own copy of Zombology here, you only need one of the cards options, A3 is more efficient, but few people have access to an A3 printer, so I've done A4 too:

• Cards on A3 paper (5 sheets)
• Cards on A4 paper (14 sheets)
• Rules (2 sheets A4)

Next Up

I'm going to try to get this played in a lunch break at work this week, most of my Games Night attendees work in the same office, so I'm hoping I can recruit some of them!

Epic Fail

The week before last I sent two copies of Codename: Vacuum to my friends Paul in York and Terry in Bedford. In both cases the games arrived in time for their Thursday Games Night, and that Thursday Vacuum got played at my Games Night - I was excited that it could be getting simultaneously by three groups at the same time!

Paul, who had played it once before about nine months ago, emailed me to let me know he'd received it and it all seemed fairly self explanatory, he just had one query - the rules contradicted themselves - which bit was right? It was an artefact of me creating a new 'simpler' version of the rules at the last minute, I let him know which bit was right and fixed the other bit straight away so the next printing wouldn't have the problem.

A week passed, still no word from Terry. Then last Friday I got an email from Andrew (who plays games with Terry, was also one of my key Reiver Games playtesters in my Bedford days and who accompanied me to my second Essen show in Germany). It turns out that my attempt at writing the rules had been an epic fail. Terry, Andrew and Stewart (all three very experienced gamers who regularly learn new games from their rulebooks) had set up Codename: Vacuum to play the previous week, read through the rules and then put it away! After reading through the rules, three very experienced gamers were so confused that they just packed up and played something else instead. That is a legendary rulebook failure. In the end, Andrew took the prototype home and has tried to work through it solo to get his head around it enough to explain it to the others.

Clearly, the rulebook needs a lot of work. The fact that Paul had played the game once before gave him enough of a frame of reference for the rulebook to work for him, but for both playtesting and game sales, the rulebook needs to be clear enough that you can learn the game from the rulebook. This was the first attempt at a proper rulebook for Codename: Vacuum, and the first attempt at a blind playtesting, where you learn the game from the rulebook. The rulebook as it stands fails to pass muster. I need to restructure it to give a better sense of how the game is played, what you are trying to achieve and how to achieve it. The rulebook was a fairly last minute thing done when trying to get the prototypes out the door. It needs more effort than that!

Rule book

Sooner or later, our children must fly the nest and strike out on their own. My daughter is only six months old so, thankfully, that day is a long way off for her, but for Codename: Vacuum it's much closer. Until now, every single game of it has been played with my copy, with me playing and explaining the rules. As a result, the rulebook has been fairly simplistic, and for the last three months or so, quite out of date.

After 15 months of internal development, it's time for Codename: Vacuum to see the light of day. The first stage of this is to run it by a few of my key playtesters from my Reiver Games days: my friends Paul in York and Terry, Andrew and Graham in Bedford. Knocking up a couple of prototypes isn't too onerous: just a couple of hours per copy. The big difference however is the rulebook. If I'm sending them a copy and they have to play it from the rulebook, then the rulebook has to be:

• complete
• up to date
• well-written
• comprehensive
• illustrated
• with examples

Sadly, until a week or so ago, none of these were true of the Codename: Vacuum rulebook :(. My focus now is on getting it ready, so I can send games complete with rulebooks.

First problem is that writing rules is hard. You need to be both complete, clear and unambiguous and also concise. You need to provide examples of anything that could be unclear, you need to expect that people reading it will get the wrong end of the stick. You need to have good grammar and the whole thing mustn't look like a dictionary.

Making this visibly aged me

It's really hard. When I ran Reiver Games I had my friend Mal proof-read the rulebooks for me, and I got people to play the games from the rulebook and then tell me what they thought was unclear so I could improve that section. I got more feedback from people who translated the rules into other languages, and still at the end of all that there are plenty of people playing the games wrong or asking for clarification on BGG. And these were simpler games than Codename: Vacuum.

This first draft of the rulebook won't be playtested before the guys down south get their hands on it (they are inadvertently doing the playtesting for me :) ) and it won't be proof-read, which just makes me more paranoid about getting it right. It'll be light on examples and illustrations too, but it's a step in the right direction.

As a general rule I try to structure a rulebook like so:

• Front cover
• Inside cover: contents list
• Exposition: A brief description of the setting and a very high-level overview of the game
• Aim of the Game: What the players are trying to do to win
• Setup: How to get ready for a game
• Play: Rules of the game
• End of the Game: when it occurs and under what circumstances
• Scoring: How the winner is determined
• Acknowledgements: Thanks to playtesters, proof-readers, etc.
• Credits: Artists, translators, etc.
• Back cover: Quick rules overview

For Codename: Vacuum I'm thinking of adding a description of all of the decks and cards between the scoring and acknowledgements covering exactly what you can and can't do with them and answering some FAQs.

My aim is to get the playtest copies ready by the end of the month. This week is my quarterly hospital trip which involves four hours on trains, so I should be able to make some progress and maybe even build up a backlog of blog posts. But even with the train trips I've got my work cut out!

Changing Form Factor

In the early stages of making cards for a game I do the art on A3 sheets of paper, with the cards in a 5 x 5 grid. I've got a blank document ready in Adobe InDesign which already has all the document guides to line things up to and the cutting guides ready prepared on a separate layer.

Having the document with A3 print size is convenient for printing, and works fine at the beginning when the card count and mix is changing regularly, but once things start to settle down it is good to move to a new format.

For Carpe Astra and Sumeria I got the printing done by LudoFact one of Germany's big games printers. They want to receive the cards as a print quality PDF or PostScript file, with one card per page, each page the size of the cards themselves. So I had to make a document where the page size was 56mm x 87mm (a standard card size, apparently). This is actually pretty convenient for doing the rulebook too, as it's easy to place a page of another InDesign document as a graphic in a document, so I could place page 40 of the cards document to get a particular card for illustrating an example.

Switching to the smaller form factor too early makes thing awkward as you now have two documents to update before printing: Make the changes to the single cards document and then go to the A3 print document, update the links and delete pages and re-add them to make the changes to the card counts. But once the card balance is steady it's not bad at all. All you need to do is open the A3 print document, update the links to the modified single card-per-page document and then click print. In fact, in some ways it makes things slightly easier, as while working in the A3 print document I keep the cutting guides layer hidden so that I don't accidentally drag some of the cutting guides around with the card art. On at least two occasions I've forgotten to show the cutting guides again before printing, which means I need to either mark the guides on with pencil (a real arse when there's 36 of them per page and 14 pages) or print it again and waste loads of card. Having them separate means that I'll no longer be doing anything in the A3 document, so I can leave them permanently enabled.

Of course, seeing as I'm moving things around, I'm taking this chance to tweak a few of the cards again and do a little bit more layout/pictography improvement too. Barely a week goes by without me making some small changes to the game. Fortunately, I'm not thinking of backing out the bigger changes between my current version and the previous one - just improving the balance of some of the weaker sets of cards.

The next step after changing the size of the document and getting the print document to link to the new one is to do a proper rulebook. Initially the rulebook was just a set of notes for me. The current rulebook is a complete description of the (previous version of the) game (but without examples or any illustrations/clarification). I need to update the rulebook to the new rules and get it into a finished enough state that people can learn the game blind from it. Then I hope to send it to a couple of my previous gaming groups (which obviously requires making a couple of extra copies) and possibly to some of my far-flung Reiver Games playtesters (or I might wait for that until I've incorporated feedback from my ex-gaming chums).

The other advantage of the single-card per page version is that it allows me to set up an A4 print document that's easy to keep in sync as things change so that I can provide print-and-play copies to selected others (seeing as most people don't have an A3 printer).