Category: Nova Raiders

Nova Raiders version #20 has some new features. So far, they have tested well enough to show off in the next On-Line Protospeil coming up in January. The game has been streamlined and has a new dice engine. It still needs a little tweaking, but is is coming along quite nicely.

I had originally considered abandoning this game because it was a bit repetitive, had a little too much “Take That”, and wasn’t really engaging enough. While playing the game with a game developer Chris Chung, we came up with the idea of drafting the dice rather than constantly re-rolling a set of your own dice. This sounded like a great idea, so I started to come up with a dice drafting mechanism to suit. It had to have the following attributes:

• It had to be simple and fast
• accumulation of bonuses must be possible
• players could use more than one die on their turn
• a player can’t be faced with no movement options on their turn

I started out with a public pool of dice (The Power Market) which each player draws from on their turn. They then add the new die to their personal power bank, and decide to use any or all of their dice to move. Any spent dice are re-rolled and added to the public pool. Bonuses are enabled as the power banks fill up, so a player can sit back and try to build up a killer combo. This gave the game a nice syncopated rhythm and allowed for more strategic play.

The original “Hijack” move had to be modified. It was too punishing, too complicated, and didn’t allow for an easy counter-attack. Players can still land on another player’s ship, but the attacked ship is simply bumped around the orbital ring onto the next open spot. This allowed for a possible counter-attack, and was much more fun.

The game, however, got a bit more aggressive. It became much more challenging to bring home stacks of energy, so I had to modify the time track to speed up the game. I also eliminated the “Expansion Rate Track”, which was too complicated anyway. The time track is much shorter and is advanced each time any player brings in an stack of energy to their dock. This gave players some control over the game pace and added more strategic possibilities.

Overall, the game is much more engaging and might be more appealing to hobby gamers. Players can chose to play with the simpler movement rules if they want a lighter game, giving the game a broader appeal. Let me know if you want to try it out, I’m always looking for play-testers.

I had set aside the Nova Raiders game for quite a while. I did this because I was going in circles and couldn’t quite solve the problems in the game. There was a really cool dice roll mitigation mechanism, where you could bank a roll to be used at a later time. It made for some interesting decisions. There was also a major problem in the movement mechanics which brought the game to a standstill. I set out to resolve this movement problem by changing one of the mechanisms and got it flowing well. It flowed a little too well, however, and players rarely banked dice because of the varied movement choices. By fixing one thing, I killed one of the most fun parts of the game. The game was soon added to the pile of defunct and broken prototypes.

The other day, I had a sudden idea strike me. I was able to resolve the movement problem, eliminate the convoluted rules regarding the distribution of captured energy chips, and give players a reason to bank die rolls again. All this was done with a single rule change which was very simple and obvious in hindsight. (The best ideas usually are.) I revised the game and am ready to play-test it again, all because of an idea that came out of nowhere.

After spending more than 25 years designing machines, I got used to wrestling with my creative muse, teasing, cajoling and using brute force to squeeze out ideas. Creativity on demand was a necessity, as I’m sure it is in any creative field of work. There’s no time to wait for ideas to rear up after percolating in your subconscious; solutions had to be provided yesterday, if not sooner. That’s why was so refreshing to have a great idea just pop up out of nowhere. It was like my brain just gave me a present to open up and play with. It also reminded me why I had taken this creative path in the first place. Creating, as a pastime, is the best job in the world.

I will soon find out just how good that idea was. My playtesters are experienced and honest; they tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. I can hardly wait. 🙂

After the test……

The game flowed smoothly, as if the prior problems never existed. The decisions were interesting enough and everything was going well until the end of the game.

The players seemed to hit a wall on the last couple of turns and the game slowed down until it became a tedious chore to finish. This, however, might be easy to fix.  If I could just end the game before this happens, the problem goes away. I’ve played a few other games that ended, just as I managed to get everything going well. The ending felt a little abrupt, but I suspect that prolonging the game until it started to get boring would have been much worse.

Overall, I have solved many more problems than I created with this last revision. I consider this a win. Look for “Nova Raiders” at a game store near you. 😉

You can try out the Tabletop Simulator virtual prototype here…