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.
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