Category: Game Musings

Random game ideas and concepts

A trip down Denial

2023-01-07 / / 0 Comments

Pack your bags, we’re heading for a trip down “Denial”. So far, I’ve wrestled with my creative muse, wrangled with game mechanics, and tackled the near vertical learning curve of computer graphic design. I thought I had this game design gig licked until I was derailed by the insidious specter of Denial.

Recently, the design of the Arachnid game was going OK. I was at version #24 when I decided to change things up.I modified a few things to make the game more interesting, which seemed to be working. I also decided to tackle the biggest problem, quarterbacking, which can be a serious issue with cooperative games like mine. I scraped the shared tableau where players selected their actions, for individual hands of cards for each player. It would work similar to the hand of action cards in the game “Concordia”. This way, the players can manage their characters on their own, without an alpha player constantly telling them how to play. This seemed to work….sort of.

I ran through a few simulations of the game, but kept getting hung up at a certain point in the game. I would tweak a few things, then try it again, just to end up at the same impasse. I kept tweaking, and running tests, but amazingly, something would always distract me or I would discover something else that had to be fixed around the same time that the strange flaw would appear during the game. I even put the game aside for a while, hoping the flaw would somehow work itself out. I was in a serious state of denial.

It took a lot of effort and a little soul searching to finally face the fact that the game was currently broken. My new fangled solution to the quarterbacking problem just didn’t work. Reluctantly, I scraped the new card based action system and replaced it with individual player boards with worker placement spaces. Not only did this get the game back on the right track, but it proved to be a more flexible system, while still reducing the quarterbacking issues. I had wasted a great deal of time and effort because I didn’t want to admit to myself that the game was broken. It was surprisingly easy to lie to myself, rather than face the possibility of a long hard path in front of me.

Designing, whether it’s machines or board games, can be a really fun and challenging endeavor. It can also be an arduous and tiring task. Those are the times when we’re tempted to overlook the flaws or settle for something that is just barely good enough. It is important to recognize these biases that arise during a design. Taking an impartial look at your project through another person’s eyes is a simple concept but it is definitely not easy.

I’ve gotten over myself and busted through the latest wall of Denial. The design is back on track. I hope, after all of this, the game works well. I guess the players will have to decide this for themselves. Just like Martin Luther King Jr said, I just have to “keep on keeping on”.

Fix’n Moonshine Empire

2022-12-18 / / 0 Comments
Moonshine Empire on BGG

I finally got my Kickstarter copy of Moonshine Empire. The components were top notch, the artwork was good and the game tray holding the components was very handy. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t as smart as it looked.

The characters in the game were portrayed a dim-witted country yokels with teeth missing. This was a a bit too cheesy for for my taste but I was willing to overlook it if the game played well. The movement mechanism seemed really cool because you could chain together various modes of transportation for some really great plays. In reality, however, it was very difficult to accomplish any significant chain of movements. The swamp tiles, which you get to explore, looked like fun until we realized that they tend to beat up on the players and some were so punishing that they could cost you the game. The rewards for exploring these tiles were minimal, so we avoided this part of the game. Finally, the randomizing of the turn order before each round was a real pain in the butt and had a very minimal effect on game-play. Overall, the game was very mediocre.

This game had many cool items and could potentially be a lot of fun, so my wife and I decided to tweak the game to try and fix it. The first thing we did was cut out some of the components we didn’t like by removing the following:

  • “Fix a Moonshine Still” tile – this tile trapped you until you removed one of your stills. This is a game-ender if you only have one still.
  • “Find an inventor who Needs an Idea” tile – this tile traps you until you discard an upgrade card. If you don’t have one you you’re stuck until you win one at auction, just to give it away. Another game-ender.
  • “Hire a Sneaky Thief” cards – Stealing half of another player’s cash just didn’t seem like fun for us.
  • “Steal an Upgrade” cards – These didn’t seem like fun either
  • “Mix it Up” cards – These allowed a player change the player order. They just seemed ineffective and not worth bidding on.

The first thing we need to do is tweak that really cool movement mechanism. During set-up, we decided that each player will get one additional vehicle which they don’t already have and place it anywhere on the player-board on the appropriate terrain. According to the current rules, whenever a vehicle makes it to Pappy’s Tavern, it is removed from the board. Instead of this, the player who is last in player order (last to move) will place the vehicle anywhere on the board except on the outer edges. These two rules should get more vehicles in circulation, which should make for some interesting moves.

The turn order is the next item to be simplified. In the original rules, the turn order is randomized each round. This is too often for something that doesn’t seem to have a strong effect on gameplay. Why not randomize the play order at the beginning of the game then alter it each time somebody makes a delivery to Pappy’s Tavern. Whoever made the delivery would take the position at the end of the queue which will let them go first in the auction and last in movement. All of the other players will shift down to suit. This should provide enough variability in player order, reduce the administration, an opportunity for the players lagging behind to catch up.

Finally, there should also be more of an incentive to explore the Swamp Tiles. After removing the two tiles mentioned earlier, there are still three red tiles left. These tiles should be included in the other tiles used each game while setting up. Each time a player reveals a red tile, they can take an Auction card from the top of the Auction deck. This might make it more worthwhile for a player to explore and flip over the Swamp Tiles.

Hopefully these changes will make the game much more fun to play. If anybody has tried these house rules, I would love to hear how it went. Please leave your comments below.

Voices in my head?

2022-05-15 / / 0 Comments
The Sheeny-Man Game

My head is a scary place lately. I’m supposed to be working out the kinks of my latest game “Arachnid” and finalizing the rules, but I keep getting distracted by two new games in my head, just itching to get out. I’ve put a couple earlier games on the back burner for now so I can concentrate on the latest one, but these two new games are coming together as if they’ve got a mind of their own. Here’s a peek at one of them.

Sheeny-Man

Sheeny-Man will be a card based game that has a two-phase turn system. Each player, in turn order, will perform phase one, which will be two actions from a list of three or four available. These actions will include “Pick’n” to collect items, “Shift’n” to arrange them on your tableau (Your junkyard) and “Swap’n” items with other players. There will be a unique method of set collection and a super simple but effective market mechanism. Turn order will be tracked by the “Sandford and Son Pick-up” first player marker which is passed to the next player after phase#1.

The second phase will be led by the previous winner of the “Gavel”, rather than the next player in turn. This is where a player can auction things off to other players, sell items at the market and then auction off the “Gavel” by itself, or auction off various power-ups which become available in the later part of the game. The player with the “Gavel” will have an edge when auctioning the power-ups and can only sell their valuable sets of merchandise when they have it. This will make the “Gavel” a very desirable item. It is passed to the winner of the Auction, ending phase#2.

The next round will be started again at phase#1 by the player who has the pick-up marker. Phase #2 will then be initiated by the player who holds the “Gavel”. It is possible for one player to have both items, which could result in a powerful turn.

Timing is crucial in this game. The value of your items will fluctuate with the market, there will be times when you really need that Gavel, and don’t forget about the “Market Crash” which happens near the end of the game.

Accurately assessing your opponents is also important because different phases of the game are triggered as players fill their mattresses with money. You need to anticipate when somebody is going to trigger the market crash or the final phase where the market is declining again and you must hurry to sell off your items before they become valueless.

There should be a lot of fun decisions in this game. For example, when Pick’n at the dump you might find a “Diamond Ring”, but you could also find a “Dead Possum” which will actually cost you money to get rid of. Don’t worry because you can always auction off the possum to another player who’s desperate for that “Gavel”.

Stay tuned for Sheeny-Man…..At tables near you.

Fear of Winning

2021-12-12 / / 0 Comments

When I was a teenager, somebody accused me of self-sabotaging my own success. After a couple self-help books and some introspection, I realized that I actually have been setting myself up for failure. I was hard wired to fear success. As long as I was constantly aware of this, and overrode these natural tendencies, I could manage ok. Over the years, constantly pushing ahead and committing to success has done me well. Even my catastrophic failures have turned into funny stories and life lessons.

I was wondering how often this fear of success finds its way into our board games. Even in the Magic Circle of the game group, people may be reluctant to leave their comfort zone, or to stand out too much. It takes more than a little effort to commit to a successful path, which sometimes involves responsibility to your teammates, or even opens a player up to higher expectations in their future performance. The primary goal of a board game is to have fun, so I can never fault anybody for laying back and not taking things too seriously, but I wonder if a fear of success could cause a player to play sub-optimally, or even make some serious mistakes.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, or some personal experiences which might be contributed to a fear of success. Feel free to comment, even if you think I am way off base with this oddball theory.

The Teeter Totter Effect

2021-11-26 / / 0 Comments
The Teeter Totter Effect in Board Games

A player uses extreme actions which will  indirectly affect the advance or decline of the game state which trends in one direction or the other due to its own momentum.

It will work much like a person running around on a heavy platform which is balanced in the middle. The platform starts to tip, so the player has to run over to the high side to reverse the action. As it starts heading back down, the momentum will carry it too far, so the player has to run over to the other side to bring it back. This continues with the player running back and forth, making smaller and smaller corrections until a state of equilibrium is almost accomplished. Random events occasionally occur which result in the player having to run toward the edge, starting the whole thing over again. Speed and timing is critical to keep the platform from tipping over.

This can be accomplished in an economic game where the players actions create advances and declines in the market. The market momentum will carry the market toward either extreme.

Feast or famine can also be simulated this way, with the players creating surpluses or deficits to try and correct the trends. These corrections can be extreme, while the over abundances and shortages can be slow and very hard to stop.

An adept player could instigate severe shifts to take full advantage of either extreme, but if they push things too far, or their timing is a little off, it could end in disaster.

I wanted to implement this in my Arachnid board game, but I couldn’t fit in in. The game was much too complex and plodding to incorporate this whiplash effect between abundance and starvation. Sadly, It ended up on the editing room floor. I hope to use it someday in another game, perhaps a stock market day-trading game. Done right, it could add a lot of tension to a game, where the players are constantly on the verge of losing control.

Keep posted, this wonkey idea might become a reality some day.