So....

.....I made another version of These Dark Satanic Mills.  Printed it out - moved some stuff around - decided it was not working.  So then I made another version - which I've not yet printed out and moved stuff around on because two of the key mechanics are not in yet.  They have not been in previous versions either but I think I need to get them in.  But this time round I want to add in proper rules for acquiring "civic tiles" & "workers" to try and get a better view of the whole thing.

I'm not sure I'm following the rules about "make a simple version at first" - It's not pretty but I'm spending quite a lot of time just laying stuff out in a way that makes some sense.....

So I waved....

.....these dark satanic mills under a mates nose.

He felt it was rather dry - and did not really reflect the theme of turning orphans into VP's through the use of horrible machinery and inhuman conditions.  I felt it was fiddly and involved to much cube shuffling......

Still food for thought.

Waiting

Well I've got another version of GSH ready to go - a new idea added into the game which I hope might solve the problem with both attacking and a lack of surprise at the end of the game.  But while that's fixed until I play test I'll have no idea how it's gone.

Which is why I've been trying to make progress on another game - I was thinking about reserecting "Kill Him You Fools!" but the one that's been poking at my brain has been "these dark satanic mills" a classic Victorian resource management game with a twist.  This whole thing arose out a love of the Martin Wallace game - Brass , the steampunk music of 'The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing' and far to much hanging round with Dr Geof.

It's been very different process so far because Giant Stone Head was based on a dream - and while my subconscious apparently can not game design very well (how well my conscious mind does is yet to be decided) it gave me a solid framework to build on.  This time round I've not got that firm base - just a theme and a bunch of ideas and I've been finding it hard to pin things down. 

Take the cost of things - the cost of one thing depends on the cost of everything else.  In the end I abandoned trying to get it to make sense and just throw some numbers onto some tiles so I had something to work with.

This time I remembered a key piece of advice - print it out and try playing it on your own before you show it to anybody else because that can show the obvious crazy.  What it actually showed was that yes it seemed to work - however the numbers were a bit off so making progress was glacial.  Easy enough to correct I think.  I might even apply the rule of two - if you are not sure if a number is right - don't up it by one - halve it or double it.  That will give you a much clearer picture of what is actually happening. 

Of course since I can not even get Giant Stone Head play tested- starting a new game does seem rather foolish but then common sense would make me ask why was I even doing it at all......