Essen and GSH

So this weekend I headed out to Essen to attend Spiel - the worlds largest board game fair.

And believe me when I say it's massive.  Multiple halls - each one as big as I've ever seen a UK games con manage (and possibly bigger) and swarms of people.  Endless milling swarms.  The latest release - all the hot games. Last years hot games at knock down prices - and 2nd hand games stores for the years before that.  The companies also setting out tables and just let you play - with people explaining the rules.  So you can get a look at something before you buy.

Yes most of it is in German - and if I was German it would be even more awesome - but it's still damn good.

There is nothing in the way of evening events - so your left to your own entertainment.  We found a hotel with a large downstairs area and just play games there.  Along with about half the hotel making it an impromptu games convention and really quite awesome.

This year we also branched out and headed out to a metal pub and then a metal club until about 4 in the morning.  The bouncer seemed unsure about letting us in - but we convinced him that we were in fact Metal enough to get in - I think he spotted my hair.

It's not cheap  - but it is awesome.  I normally only go ever other year - but for some reason I'm tempted to go again next year.  But you need a group of people to go with, hang out with, and play games with.

One day I want to be there with a pile of my games and my own stall.  It can happen - there was a man selling his own game based on the gangs of Rome and the proscriptions of Sulla with a count of how many of the 100 games he had left to sell.......  By Saturday he'd stopped trying to sell it as he only had twenty left and just treated it as his own personal table to play games.  But then he was clearly treating the whole thing as sunk expenses since he was selling his games for 50 euro's and they cost 35 to make - not including the £1000 he had spent on art....  or the time he'd taken to make little boxes.......  A real reminder that self publishing board games is not a way to make money.

I also discovered that a luggage allowance of 22 kilos is a lot of games.....  My loot came to just under 18 kilo's not including two copies of infinite city (3 euros!)  that were in my hand luggage.  If your wandering what 18 kilo's of games looks like.....

Including funky metal money for Libertalia for only 3 Euros - bargain.


I did however get a play test of GSH in - and with people who had played one of the earlier version.  Generally positive feedback - it was clear it was not right - and that the new mission cards were not doing what I wanted them to do  But the general feedback was "heading in the right direction" - and better that a lot of there concerns in earlier version had been taken away.

One person specifically liked the resource card - as a nice simple way of giving people choice - but preventing a resource gap opening up between players.

It was interesting listening to people talk - I've been trying to encourage people to attack but because stone heads are worth more VP's at the end of the turn - they are encouraged to defend more.  So I want to try something - it's a pretty big flip - but make stone heads worth 3 vps to the person that builds them straight away.  However give 1 VP to any player that takes a freshly built stone head off another player - while introducing a card so that at the end of the round you can get a bonus point for a stone head. Inverting the current point system in effect.

This may result in non stop overly aggressive attacking if defending is not seen as worth doing.  But I want to give it a try.......  Mr P will roll his eyes at me of course.

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......

A playtest - a palpable playtest!

It’s been really quiet over here which reflects a general lack of gaming but specifically no chance to play test the GSH.

But that ended Monday night when our regular RPG got cancelled and nobody said “nooooooo” quickly enough when I suggested playing GSH…..  Somebody said they wanted to play a “new game” and I pointed out that nobody had played this version of GSH before……

Good stuff – it was a tight race to the end – with lots of violence and chaos – and using cards to do cunning stuff.  The new cards definitely worked – and added a nice bit of uncertainty and chaos to the game.  The “peace card” is now simple to play – but seemed to work well enough……

People got confused about the population cap increase rules – but somebody made a suggestion which is functionally the same but about 100 times easier to understand.  So that’s going in no matter what..

It’s not perfect – went on a little long – the board is quite samey so there does not seem that much to fight over at first (later one space becomes a premium) – the build cards are not very diverse.  But they all felt tweakable issues.  That the framework of the game was right – you just needed to hit the right combination of numbers and the problems would go away.

But there are a few structural problem – attacking is not very well rewarded.  The combat is by elimination – so attacking costs you as much as it costs the defender leaving you with less to defend yourself. 

Equally at the end of the game – going last is very powerful and the result tends to be known before the end of the game.  There is no hidden information to add an element of uncertainty over that last turn.  Worse you can find yourself in a position where you can no do much to affect your – or even other peoples position.

The now departed renown mechanic (no flowers) was an attempt to solve this but it never quite worked – it was fiddly and people (including me) forgot about it.

Likewise RongaRonga cards were meant to drive attacking behavior - and they do but maybe not enough – but as a man who ended up with a hand of the damn things last night there just not that useful.  So perhaps they just need to be more powerful – that would change that.  But at the same time they can currently cause a three point swing (gain 2 and reduce opponent by 1) which is as good as a stone head….. (The card mix may also need playing with – a few less RongaRonga cards might not go amiss…..)

I need something that will fit into the flow of the game – provide an element of the unknown – and reward attacking.  I’ve had an idea – currently called “trophy taking”.

There will be a deck of special items – ownership of which will give you a VP.

You will also get a card at the start of the game which gives you bonus VP’s if you hold a particular item and negative VP’s if somebody else does.

A small number of items will be face up next to the board.

When you win a fight – your opponents pieces do no go back to there pool – you collect them.

At the end of the turn the person who has killed the most gets to pick a card (and then the dead return to your opponents pool ready for the next turn).

What I think should happen is…….

a)      People have an incentive to attack as that is the only way to get a card – but this will mainly happen when the card there interested in comes up

b)      At the end of the game people will be unsure about what’s happening – and always have something to fight over (that last card) – in fact I’m rather hoping it will cause a massive blood letting frenzy in the last turn. 

If that works – that just leaves game end condition to get right.  Tiny Tiny steps.

Other Peoples Thoughts

The only thing I read about boardgames (other then randomly reading board game geek) is 'cardboard children' on rock paper shotgun.  It's been a bit quiet recently but today post really struck a cord.  So go over there and read it.....

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/22/cardboard-children-some-games/

Since I've got two shelves of unplayed games and found myself walking along the lines of games at Manorcon trying to find something I to buy he's certainly struck a cord.  I just don't think it's limited to board games for me - since I've got a pile of books next to bed, a stack of DVD's under the tv and piles of computer games on steam I've never finished (or even started in some cases).

But part of what I like is learning new games - and seeing how they fit together - and what I can do in them and that is driven by a need for more games......

Manorcon & Version 3.03

I headed to Manorcon this weekend and had a really nice time.  Managed to play  ninja legend of the scorpion clan a hidden movement game - which was good as I was tempted to buy that and now I'm not.

I've got fairly strong opinion about hidden movement games - and while this is no Innsmouth escape it had it's issues.  A lack of feedback for the guards - and very high stakes combat being my two.  One mistake saw one of the infiltrators dead - he went from fine to dead in one go.  It makes me want to work on 'Kill Him You Fools!' which is where my game designing started.

But I had a 3 person play test of giant stone head.  My opinion was.....

1) The action deck is just not very exciting - and needs a wider variaty of cards.
2) The number of men for three players is a little low.
3) The simplified hiden pathways a) was simplier and b) made them more useful.

The play tester provided three bits of feedback...

1) They like the whole resources being used up mechanic
2) They thought the 'pool' mechanic was overly complicated and fiddly (which surprised me since it's about 100 times better then the village one).
3) The action deck was a bit bland

I want to think on there feedback - but the same idea has been cropping up time and time again for me - the action deck needs spicing up.

So that's going to be changes for next version.

Ideas for cards.......

Invite the Neighbours - pick another player if they attack you steal 2 VP's from them.
Big Damn Hero - either an attack or a defence but only for a big man
Got Lost  - Two attackers retreat
Cowards - Two defenders retreat
Ambush  - two hearts but only when defending a terrain heart
  
Other ideas.
Cancel a card
Redirect an attack to an adjacent hex.
Kill a big man before the fight resolves
A random defence card so even holding a single card you could have a big defensive boost.

But I'm not sure about how to implement those so I'll leave them out for now. 

Some form of peace card is good - and this is much simpler then the original one.
Boosting big men in a flexible way is handy.
Retreating two men is useful but less useful then killing two men - it feels like it should be somewhere in the middle.........
And a big boost for defending terrain hearts will make them feel a riskier target to attack.

The five above should introduce enough new stuff for now.