I was listening to a TabletopBellhop podcast the other day, and one of the listeners asked what book or literary world would make a great board game. This is my pitch for a game based on one of my favorite science fiction novels.
Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction story where the Firemen are actually burning books and trying to eradicate the written word, while a handful of people are risking everything to try to preserve them. Players each are assigned a book and have to run around collecting chapters while the firemen are removing the books. Sometimes the firemen are getting close and you have to pick a chapter from a book other than yours. If the fireman catches you you lose one or more of your own chapters and are forced to replace them with whatever is at hand. Once you acquire enough chapters, you become the book. The story you tell from the bits and pieces you have acquired could be quite funny. For example, you can be “Oliver Twist”. Your story might take an interesting turn in chapter five because that chapter came from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and finally, end with Oliver replacing his Canoot’n valve because the final chapter came from “Reader Digest Home Plumbing Repairs”. Once the last book is read, the player with the most complete book will be declared the winner.
Ray Bradbury might not be impressed with the light hearted approach to such a serious topic, but the game might be quite fun to play.
What if the “World Space Organization” (WSO) decided to clean up all the space junk floating around our planet. This would be great for communications and research but not so good for all those spy satellites that aren’t officially there. This could make for a great cat and mouse game, full of hidden movement, secret objectives and subterfuge.
The WSO will start mapping out the skies to locate all the space junk, but the spy organizations will try to keep the locations of their spy satellites secret. It will be a race to collect as much “Intel” as possible before the WSO detects the spy satellite. Do the spy organizations “Orgs” reveal their satellite’s position, effectively shutting them down, or do they risk gaining more “Intel” and possibly losing it all if they are discovered? Do the “Orgs” overtly try to control where the “WSO” searches, which might provide information on their own positions, or do they try to throw one of the competing “Orgs” to the wolves by revealing their position. It’s Spy vs. Spy on a global scale.
This game sounds like too much fun. Somebody should really make this.
Finally, I was able to incorporate some interesting decisions into the Arachnid game with version #10. Before this, the game was predictable, repetitive and things weren’t happening fast enough. The game and the theme promised loads of fun, but it just didn’t deliver. The players needed to make more interesting decisions and the players always wanted to do more. The new shifting action tableau solves both those problems.
Players get a hand of action cards and place them onto a constantly shifting action tableau which works like a conveyor. Each time a card is added to the left, the tableau shifts to the right and the last card is taken back into the hand. The cards themselves have three different, or modified, actions which trigger based on the card position in the tableau. As the cards progress down the tableau, the costs of the actions tend to increase, and, in some cases, the actions change.
The player can perform any or all of the actions available on the tableau as long as they can pay the associated costs. Instead of a card action, a player could place a movement token on the card to move a spider, or a consume token on a card to eat the bugs on their web. On the next turn, the skipped actions will shift to become more expensive.
The player is faced with some interesting decisions. The timing of when to introduce actions into the tableau and the necessity of sacrificing actions to consume bugs and move their spiders, makes for some interesting tactical planning. Performing multiple actions effectively is fun and changing your tactics because of another player’s interactions is maddening. (But still fun.)
The game flows much faster and is full of some tense moments. I’m just tweaking things now to get the bug economy working right and make the game flow smoother. Version #10 is ready for some real testing. Fingers crossed!
In the previous version, I decided to eliminate as many constraints as I could and let go of the reins. As the playtest started, I eagerly anticipated the game moving along like a run-away stage-coach at break-neck speeds……but I think the horse may have fallen asleep. The most insightful comment was “The best part of the game was the teach”. In other words, the game was full of promise, but just didn’t deliver on any of them. I had to call it quits early again because the game just wasn’t progressing. The economy was also dysfunctional, one player just couldn’t get things rolling because of an early expenditure of energy to buy an action card, and another player experienced an over-abundance near the end. Much of the excess gains were just wasted, but in spite of this, the players, still, couldn’t do what they really wanted. The energy track and maintenance costs were simply not working.
I know there are some fun bits in this game, but the players just haven’t been able to get to them. It’s time to take a serious look at the economy of the game.
The second problem, of excess resources, is easy to fix. A slight rule change regarding the incorporation of the bug hexes into a player’s web and a different distribution should correct this problem. These tiles will also be double sided so that their function will be more clear. The broken economy, however, is another story. I’ve often heard the expression “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings” as it pertains to game design. I decided to take out what I originally thought was the most crucial part of this game. The Energy track, along with the maintenance costs are being eliminated.
There will still be some type of economy, but it won’t be an explicit energy track because the maintenance costs are unnecessary and punitive. Players can incur costs many other ways, like opportunity costs when they have to decide between one action or another, or spending resources or actions to gain new abilities. I will be reworking the action card mechanics in order to embed these costs in a less direct way. This might be a bit tricky but I’m sure it can be done.
Another thing that came up in this playtest, as well as the prior one, was the ability of spiders to move onto the opponent’s webs. I originally didn’t allow it, but I really can’t see why this shouldn’t be allowed. This can open up many strategic possibilities, and the opportunity cost of being on an opponent’s web, rather than expanding your own web, will help counter-balance this tactic. I don’t know why I didn’t allow this sooner.
It’s time to move on to version #9. Hopefully the next game will make it all the way to the end. We’ll see what happens with the next major play-test.
I fixed it “real good”, the last play-test was a disaster. I felt sorry for the play-testers who suffered through this last version of this game. I made a few last minute changes which streamlined the rules, but the precariously balanced energy economy took a turn for the worst. One player, just couldn’t get his engine (his Web) going well enough to accomplish anything. The other player slipped into a state of economic decline which was impossible to climb out of. I had to call it quits early to relieve them of their suffering. That was just one of the problems.
Aside from the broken economy, one of the underlying premises of the game was simply wrong. The game was intended to induce great economic swings, pushing a player between feast and famine which triggered certain automatic events, resulting in even more changes to the economic state . This boomerang effect rarely happened, and when the players actually wanted feast or famine, it was very hard to accomplish intentionally. This resulted in a boring game where players were often financially struggling, and would occasionally get beat up by the game. The few rewards the game gave out seemed random and the players didn’t have enough decisions which drove the game forward. Looking back, this was just a bad idea. What was I thinking?
If you were very familiar with the subtle economics of the game and played it a certain way, it could be fun. In real life, however, the game would likely end up in the trash can or be pitched off a roof long before anybody mastered the games many quirks. It’s time to dump the see-saw, semi-automatic, and often abusive economic system. Players just want to build webs and do what spiders do.
One thematic disconnect which the play-testers didn’t really complain about, but I had issues with was the baiting of the webs. Spiders aren’t fishing, they don’t put bait out to attract bugs. They go where the bugs are and try to snare them in their webs. The new version resolves this, and eliminates the awkward and fiddly mechanism of placing out bait tiles as well. The bug-hit areas are now distributed around the board, and the spiders have to expand their webs to to surround them. These special areas constantly accumulate bugs, enticing the spiders to compete over them.
One play-tester was not happy with the energy economy in any form. He was expecting more of a tile-laying puzzle, which is implied by the use of spider webs in the game. I think he might have been dissuaded more by the perceived scarcity of energy than the economy itself. Perceived scarcity, consumes much of a player’s cognitive bandwidth and can cause players to subconsciously fixate on the scarce item. This can result in overlooked opportunities, poor decisions and feeling that you don’t have enough player agency. Giving everyone more opportunities to overcome periodic scarcity and providing more potential abundance should overcome the extreme scarcity issues. This is addressed in the latest version.
As far as the game having an economic element goes, I believe that this accurately portrays a spiders life. Spinning a web, patiently waiting for bugs, and trying to capture enough food to make it another day is basically an exercise in energy economics. In times of abundance spiders will procreate. In times of famine, they conserve energy and try to make it to the next meal. It’s tough being a spider.
One feature that I’ve been wanting to implement is the greater use of different spider personas. Players can now decide which spider they will be at the beginning of the game and add additional spiders to their web with unique abilities. Asymmetry is always a nice feature to have in a game.
In this latest version (8d) I have eliminated the tight economic constraints, eliminated some of the awkward mechanics, and given the players more choices which drive the game forward. In other words, I’ve let go of the reins. Hopefully the game will stay on track and not end up in a heap on the side of the road. Fingers crossed.
Feel free to check out the latest virtual prototype in Tabletop Simulator. If it works out, I will start working on a proper set of rules. Drop me a line if you want me to guide you through it or play a game with you.
Comments are always welcome, whether it’s a shout-out, a compliment on my ingenious insights, or a even a crack about me being completely bonkers. I would love to hear any feedback.
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