Page 4 of 11

Chaos Reigns in Arachnid Land

2022-04-04 / / 0 Comments
Arachnid Board Game v18 by RogerDogerGames

I’ve always enjoyed a little chaos in my games, and I also like simultaneous play. These two things are tricky to pull off in a board game, but I think I’ve done it. The new action selection board for Arachnid is shown above, and it seems to work well in initial testing. I guess I should start at the beginning.

The earlier designs of Arachnid (Versions 16 and 17) had been switched to cooperative mode which eliminated many of the problems of politics and the boring “tit for tat” play of the competitive mode. This, however, introduced a whole set of new problems specific to co-op games. Certain bits of the game were fun but the game lacked an overall purpose and cohesive theme. I was at a loss for words when a game developer asked what the hook was. Just being a spider wasn’t enough and the game was going nowhere fast unless I could pull it all together. I finally came up with a juicy theme and a “Raison D’Etre” for the game, with a little help from my wife who likes to vacuum up spiders and bugs.

Arachnid is about a group of spiders living in a nuclear missile silo. Through being exposed to radiation, they have gained intelligence and are working together to expand their web and gather the keys to the “Red Beacon” (Launch Button). This will bring on Armageddon and the new age of Arachnid. Meanwhile, there are a number of “Critters” constantly invading the web in ever increasing numbers. An ominous whirring is getting louder and louder as well, which is Molly the cleaning lady vacuuming up the dust and cob-webs in the silo. Will the spiders gather the keys and hit the launch button before molly sucks up the spiders in a in a horrible “Hoover-geddon”? You’ll have to try the game and see for yourself.

The spiders must perform various spider actions like building the web, reinforcing it to capture food, gathering the food and fending off the “Critters”. This was originally done with cards placed on an action conveyor, which is explained in an earlier post. This puzzle didn’t mesh well with the action on the main board and severely detracted from the theme. It also failed miserably with 4 players. It had to be discarded from this game and replaced with something more streamlined so players can concentrate on the gameplay on the main board. There were a few conditions that had to be satisfied with this new mechanism:

  • It had to be streamlined and simple
  • It had to be expandable and flexible
  • Players had to have well defined roles
  • Player roles needed to be customizable
  • Players needed a clear direction to avoid confusion
  • It would be great if simultaneous play were possible.

I decided on a shared action pool. Players each have their own colored actions which are played on their own cards. There were also some shared tokens and shared actions which provided some flexibility. Players can also purchase more action tokens or action cards which enhance their abilities. The pool has a default order of actions which can be overridden when necessary by the players when certain actions have to be played in a specific order. This may sound a little wishy washy but it actually worked. In fact, the last playtest resulted in the players playing simultaneously in the second half of the game. It happened naturally and it appears that the game may even go faster with more players that with just two. I have no idea how to write rules for this player behavior which seemed to organically come about during gameplay. I hope it wasn’t just a fluke, and that this chaotic behavior will remain a big part of my game. Only time and more playtesting will tell.

A cool Mechanism in Search for a Game

2022-03-30 / / 1 Comment
Arachnid version 17 Cooperative

This is a super cool card based, action selection mechanism. Cards are selected by players (or drawn from a deck) and placed on a conveyor. They each represent a action that a player can perform by placing their pawn on them. Each card represents an action with three different variations which increase in strength from left to right. The position on the conveyor will determine which specific action variant can be activated, as indicated by the arrows above the card. After an action is performed by a player, the card is removed from the conveyor, the remaining cards slide down to fill the empty spots, and new cards are added to the conveyor.

In the version shown above, there is an alternate action indicated by the circle in the centre of the card, which can be chosen instead of the main card action. The topmost positions can be activated but they will require two player tokens as well as additional resources in the top-most space.

In a Cooperative game, this makes for an interesting puzzle where the cards get cheaper to use and gain in power as they stay on the conveyor. Players can plan ahead by placing cards they might need on a later turn, but may have to pay a high price or perform a weaker action if they have to use the cards earlier than expected. I’ve also tried a simpler version of this in a competitive game which worked but didn’t quite fit with the game. Below is an image of the single player board.

Arachnid version 12 Player Board

Unfortunately, this mechanism just didn’t work with the Arachnid game. The main game is a tile laying and tactical skirmish game but the card conveyor impedes the game play more than it challenges the players. The two different puzzles just don’t seem to mesh. I had to remove this mechanism and replace it with an action point system with upgradable and expandable action spaces. This simple action efficiency system should help the game flow much smoother.

The mechanism isn’t lost forever because it is way too cool to throw away. I’m sure I can use this in a future game where it might fit just right. If you know of a game where a system like this is used, or you would like to use this in your own game, I would love to hear more about it. Comments are welcome.

Can spiders get along

2022-02-07 / / 2 Comments
Arachnid v16 – Cooperative Mode

Arachnid has received a major overhaul in this latest version, #16. It is now a cooperative game and the shifting action track is back, better and stronger than it ever was. The first public play-test went fairly well and all the pieces seem to have come together. It’s been a long road so far, and there is definitely a lot of testing and refining to be done, but it looks like the game is now on the right track. The following is a brief description of the game in it’s current state.

Arachnid v16 Cooperative

Theme

You are part of a colony of spiders, struggling to survive in a harsh “Bug eat Bug” world. Build your web, grow your colony and enhance your skills as you fight the elements and fend off attackers. The battles with invaders culminate with you eating your attackers after they are vanquished. Can you and your fellow spiders survive long enough to claim victory over several waves of invading insects?

Game Description

Arachnid is a cooperative game for 2-4 players. Each player is a spider, and starts out with a hand of action cards. This hand of cards will evolve over time as the player’s unique roll in the colony becomes more clear.

The play area is a hex grid, where  players place tiles to show the web as it is spun. This shared web is the spider’s home, which they expand and reinforce to catch their prey. Bugs occasionally fly by, becoming trapped, and eventually, food. These Bugs are also used to acquire new skills, and breed more spiders to enhance the colony.

Players plan their strategy by laying out cards, face up, on an action track. This represents the possible actions the players might take. Players then choose which actions to take on a given turn by placing a token on the card of their choice, activating it. The chosen actions are resolved and the activated cards are removed from the track. The remaining cards are shifted downward and new cards are added to the beginning of the track. This action track is constantly shifting and the cards can gain more power or become less costly to use as they advance down the track. Players must anticipate events like bug attacks and storms, while deciding between leaving cards on the track to gain strength or using them to perform actions.

Each turn, a new event token is drawn from a bag. Events can range from bugs flying into the web, a storm, or an attack from a dangerous invader. Storms wipe out webs that aren’t properly reinforced, and clear off consumed bugs, so more can be captured. Storms also trigger replenishing of the event bag, which adds more powerful invaders to threaten the web.

How to win.

The life of a spider’s web is limited. The source of food is constantly diminishing, until it is no longer possible for the colony to thrive. The spider colony must build the web quickly and efficiently, to better cope with the ever increasing threat of weather and invading bugs. If the colony survives with no injured members as the last bugs are caught, then they are victorious. The spiders are now ready to start all over, with a new web in a new location.

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.