I often think about how little people create in the modern world. The lives of most involve pushing electronic bits from one place to another at work and consuming other people's creations at home. One of the great things about game design is the actual physical manifestation of an idea. A game can be held in the hand, its components witnessed in reality, not just on a screen.


I recently came upon an article that neatly summarizes some of my thoughts on this topic. Here is a snippet:
"What’s the last thing you built when you got that high? You know that high I’m talking about? It’s staring at a thing that you brought into the world because you decided it needed to exist."

Of all the selfish reasons for making games, the high of creation is a great one.

A few weeks ago I posted about a new casual game idea I was testing. Yesterday at the Unpub within Gameholecon I got a chance to try it out further, and thanks to great feedback from Andrew Hanson and Steven Dast the game has progressed and somewhat morphed.

The game was playable as it was, but a few of things struck us as being suboptimal. The betting phase seemed disjointed from the rest of the game, and the goal of a 5-card poker hand seemed restricting. It also seemed difficult to get new cards into play. After much deliberation and some additional play testing we think we addressed the issues while maintaining the heart of the game. I've dubbed the new iteration Trick Rummy.

Rather than being constrained to just two poker hands to receive a payout, in the new game you are dealt 10 cards and have to get at least nine of them into sets. The sets are of the typical Rummy variety; three or more of a kind or suited runs of three or more. This gives the players much more flexibility in choosing what cards to keep.

For the betting phase problem a different mechanism entirely was adopted. In some trick taking games it is common to bid on how many tricks you can take and/or to get the lead. We incorporated this idea in the following way. First, there is an ante. In order to have the game ramp up over time, this amount is based on the number of face up cards any player has on the table. Then the players bid in auction style. Only the winning bidder puts additional money into the pot. They get to lead. Essentially, they are betting how much more likely they will be to win the hand if they have the lead.

This notion was counterintuitive to me. It seems like you'd need the other players to put in money in order for coins to change hands. In practice, however, this system seems to work. Increasing the ante over time will address the free rider problem where people never bid and ignore the whole trick taking aspect of the game.

As far as the set collection aspect, the primary issue was a lack of new cards entering play. It was easy to get stuck in a situation where you need a particular card but just had to wait for it to appear by luck given very few opportunities. To address this, additional cards are added to the draft. The number is equal to the number of players. In addition, drafting continues for a number of rounds equal to the number of players minus one. This is for scalability because with more players there are likely to be more tricks taken during the trick taking phase.

As usual, the resulting game is different from what I would have come up with on my own. However, I think these differences are positive. Having other designers work on an idea with you is a great experience. If you haven't attended a Protospiel or Unpub, you don't know what you're missing!

Gaming Links and Resources Series
1. Forums
2. Blogs
3. Indie sites
4. Miscellaneous

I'm beginning a series of posts on resources relevant to the indie game designer. I've accumulated quite a few links of forums, blogs, podcasts, and designer sites, so I thought I'd share. If you have any sites to add, please leave a comment.

These forums are great places to get advice, learn about design, or promote your games.

Game Design Forums

• Reddit Board Games
  
• A cross between a news site and forum, this feed focuses on "modern board games".


• Reddit Boardgame Design
• Discuss, brainstorm, post links to your prototypes and finished products.
  


• Board Game Design on Board Game Geek
• Industry sources, intellectual property information, and general discussion including posting new games.

• Board Game Designers Forum
  
• Includes forums, design journals, blogs, and other information.
  

• The Game Crafter
  
• Design forum. The site includes a chat function where you can often get questions answered immediately.


• Crafters Circle
• Message board for a play-test circle.

Go on to part two: blogs.

I don't imagine anyone cares, but just to keep a record of these things, I figured out answers to some of my previous problems with TBD.

First, movement. I mentioned the problem of diagonals and my partial solution of a grid with octagons overlaid. I found an easy way to handle diagonal movement. It is only allowed within an octagon, not between them. This perfectly fits the movement I wanted and is an easy way to express and understand it.

As for the deadly nature of the game, I decided that one-blow character death would be no fun. I've devised the following mechanic- on any attack, the defender can choose to make one of the wounds "superficial". It lasts through the battle but not beyond. To do this in game terms the player must discard a defense card face down so it is removed from play for the battle. I like this because it imposes a penalty, gives the player more options, and will often avoid the one attack player kill.

I feel like battles took too long, so I'm lowering the base to hit target from 14 to 10. I also devised a point system for character creation. It will take some tweaking, but it's a start.

I have a "play date" set up for Sunday, and perhaps we'll get to TBD. It'd be the first test with another person, and we'll have to see if it's any fun!

As I continue to playtest TBD, I've been thinking about the process of playtesting itself. It seems to me it's a more complicated process than at first it might appear.

A good playtest should have conscious goals in mind. In my experience, the nature of these goals changes as time goes on. Playtesting can be broken into stages.

First, there are usually solo trials to test out game mechanics and refine the overall theme of the game. These may be split into mini tests to see whether a particular aspect will work. In ITTBZ for example, this involved refining and ultimately eliminating a weather mechanic that was a base part of the early game.

When solo testing indicates that the game is playable, it's time to invite other people. It's important to have open minded playtesters who will be willing to give constructive feedback and realize the game is a work in progress. The key to this phase is to determine: is the game fun and does it have potential. If the answer to either is no, it may be time to scrap the idea or radically rethink it.

If your game survives this far, you enter intensive regression testing. This means shoring up any weak spots and making sure the mechanics are rock solid. A later subphase involves searching out and correcting any minor niggling errors.

Usually the intensive playtest involves a core group of people who are able to dedicate the time to play regularly. In this last phase, it's time to spring your baby upon the world. First, introduce the game to people who have never played before. Often explaining the rules to a fresh set of ears will bring up questions or ambiguities that have gone unnoticed up until this point. Finally, have people play the game with no assistance from you, relying solely on the written directions.

Obviously the fine tuning of a game may continue even beyond when it is published. Keeping in mind the outlined sequence of testing can help you get to that point. It's a long journey from concept to complete game, but in the end it's worth it to sit down and play your very own creation.

The concepts and base mechanics for the new game have come along nicely. I've gotten to the point of solo playtesting, always a difficult, time consuming activity. As long as the game is decent it can also be fun.
Today I played a battle between a halfling thief type and a giant, one of my favorite stereotypical battles. The first time, the thief tried to stay in close and avoid the giant's club which requires more space. Unfortunately, this didn't work out so well because he only got one attack while the giant slowly beat him to a pulp.
The second battle, the halfling avoided the slow moving giant as long as possible. This meant the giant was more fatigued (fewer cards) than the halfling. Unfortunately, through one fairly lucky set of rolls the giant bashed in the halfling's head in one swell foop. I had expected the giant to win, but it would have been nice for the halfling to get in a hit or two first.

So here's a summary of what I've figured out and what I'm still working on, in no particular order.

• I think the basic mechanics are sound, but the characters had too many cards. Even when running around the room they only slowly got winded. 
  
• Fitness/stamina is super important and may be difficult to balance. I settled on a base recovery of 1.
  
• The game can be very deadly! Not sure if that is good or bad. 
  
• Having defense free, fatigue wise, might be the wrong choice. I'll have to try it the other way or find a way to "half do" it. I guess even if you're resting you'd have your defenses up, but actually dodging would be tiring..
  
• Movement is a PitB. Using diagonals as a single move is silly, but the alternative doesn't work well either. I devised an octagonal grid with squares overlaid that is mostly mathematically sound, but it might be too confusing. 
  
• Balancing everything for this game is going to be tough. For my next series of tests I'll try to make equal characters, probably the standard halfling thief, human fighter, dwarf cleric, elf archer, and or gnome mage. If I can get them pretty balanced it will go a long way toward figuring out the monsters. 
  

Those are the main things I thought of. For now, the game is going as TBD. We'll see how it continues to pan out.

Inspiration can come from all different places. Sometimes we ask for it, other times it just happens. So far this new game concept is a combination of the two. As mentioned in the last post, working on a mech combat game was inspired serendipitously by a chat room conversation. Now this new update to the idea has been largely inspired by comments from my friend Paul; comments I asked for. (Thanks again, Paul!) (Read the comments here.)

My takeaway from the feedback was 1. doing a Battletech clone is problematic, but 2. some of the mechanics I envisioned are worth pursuing. Honestly, I had qualms about the first problem right away. It seemed difficult to do a mech-type battle game without copying Battletech. Further, though I was into BT for a time way back in middle school, I have hardly played it in the last 20 years. So while working on even these very early brainstorms I was trying to think of a different genre that would work equally well, but nothing seemed to fit.

The other day I was in the chat room of The Game Crafter, and a couple people started talking about an idea for a mech battle type game ala Battletech but with cards. It wasn't so much the specifics they mentioned but just the theme that got me thinking about some interesting mechanics for such a game. This post contains my preliminary ideas. It may be a bit rambling, so bear with me.

I've been working on a logo for Archon Arena. With just about everything else done other than promotion, I thought I'd take a first stab at it and at least get the idea in place. Here are the initials. What do you think?

When it's done, there will be a surprise! Hopefully I can find a good artist to make a final version and also work on box art.

If you know anyone, contact me!

Since its inception I've been calling the new card game "Magic War" as a placeholder name. It came from the two main inspirations, Magic the Gathering and War. Obviously, it wouldn't work as a real name, so we'd been brainstorming for quite a while.

I was leaning toward something simple and alliterative like Deck Dual or Card Commander, but Paul suggested having a backstory that inspires the name. I argued that 1) I'm no good at making up such things, 2) I usually find them cheesy, and 3) that could be a subtitle to the regular, generic name.

Then last night I was letting my mind drift on the topic. I envisioned an arena with thin, angular projections pointing up to form a partial sphere over the combat area. I still had no name and kept thinking No Name, No Name, and Nemo ("no name"), which morphed into Nemyne as the place name.

At first then Nemyne Arena was the name I chose. Later I started writing up the little spiel and for some reason I can't recall, the word 'archon' was stuck in my head. I googled its meaning (it being associated with the 80s computer game in my memory) and found it is a Greek word for leader. Thus I settled on the name Archon Arena, where the lords of Nemyne fight fierce battles for supremacy.

It's short, alliterative, has a back story, and leaves room for expansions. After a few days, I think it fits. What do you think?