Tag: Game Development

A Glimmer of Hope

2021-04-01 / / 0 Comments
Fight Night in Canada V9a (Temporarily Broken)

The first playtest of Fight Night Version #9 went off the rails. The hurriedly put together graphics were hard to follow, there was no clear player direction, and the mechanism’s in general were a little clunky and slow. The teach was horrible (My Bad) and one of the mechanisms was broken so bad we couldn’t finish the game. Ouch!

There is, however, a glimmer of hope. I witnessed the first emergent strategy in any of my games. The players were also immersed in their roles in the game, not through any story or art in the game, but by their behavior alone. It would have to be the behavior, because the art in the prototype is so cheesy. This is a sign that there is something intriguing buried under this current mess of a game. Yeah!

The first steps are to fix the broken mechanisms, then deal with the graphic issues, and finally guide the players a little better. This version of the game will be a test bed for determining player behaviors and looking for patterns.

Once I have more information, I can start looking at simplifying the game while adding more opportunities for unique player actions. This will come later in version #10. “Stay tuned to this station for further updates.”

Special thanks to the play-testers for their time and their valuable insights.

Where’s the Beef?

2021-03-28 / / 0 Comments

Looking at my latest iteration of “Fight Night in Canada”, I keep picturing that lady in the old hamburger commercial yelling “Where’s the Fun”. It’s in the game somewhere buried under a pile of pasted on mechanisms and ill fitting fixes. It’s time for some drastic measures, time to “Kill my Darlings”.

Lets’s start at the beginning. I came up with a really cool system of resolution conflict, combining dice and a type of area majority/worker placement. I had to find out from some local game experts if this has ever been done before, as well as show off my my new toy. “Fight Night in Canada” was born. I made a quick prototype and showed it to Moe and Sean (Of TabletopBellhop Fame).

Fight Night in Canada version 1a

It turned out that this is likely a new idea and it could be fun, so I decided to pursue it. After man play-tests and redesigns, I found myself at version #7, an over-complicated, sometimes fun, but way too complicated mess.

Fight Night in Canada version #7

I thought I had nailed it on version #2f, when I wrote the full rules with illustrations, but certain issues kept rearing their ugly heads, and no matter how many ways I tried to rework the attack dice. I just couldn’t give the players enough interesting choices without introducing too much complexity. After all, this game was nothing more than a simple two player “dice chucker”; a 45 minute teach was not acceptable for a 20 minute game. My last attempt (version#8) to streamline this mess helped a bit, but not enough. It’s time to take some drastic measures.

I looked at what worked well and put everything else, including the attack dice which were part the original foundation of the game on the chopping block. In design circles, this is known as “Killing Your Darlings”, a brutal but sometimes necessary part of a game design. I am keeping the defense dice but I’m “Chucking” the attack dice and any other component which is not working or creating complexity. Version #9, here we come!

I will post the new version as soon as it is completed so you can judge for yourself whether or not I was successful.

Stuck in the Middle with “La Famiglia”

2021-03-27 / / 0 Comments
Latest version 5a of La Famiglia

The play-testing last version of “La Famiglia” went well, but something interesting came up. We were trying to decide exactly which market I was trying to appeal to, and it turned out to be nobody. It’s like that song “Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am…..Stuck in the middle with you….”.

It was much too complicated to appeal to the mass market crowd that plays games like Euchre and Uno, but it didn’t have enough depth for a Hobby Gamer to sink their teeth into. It is very likely to languish in that No-Sale limbo that designers and retailers dread. My choices were to simplify it to the point where it might appeal to the mass market, or ramp up the complexity and player decisions enough to appeal to hobby gamer. I’m afraid I can’t have my cake and eat it too……Or can I ?

I decided to do both. I added more interesting decisions by giving some of the cards special abilities. I also tweaked the “Situation” deck a bit to make it more interesting. This might be enough for the hobby gamer to enjoy.

As far as the mass market gamer goes, the game will be introduced in stages. The base rules will not include the special card abilities. It might be interesting enough for a casual gameer. If the players wish, they can incorporate the special abilities of the cards. If they want to push it to the limit, they can use the situation deck. I’m hoping this multi-layer approach will work. Only time and more play-testing will tell.