Category: Game Design

End Phase One - Game Design Update

3/3/2023

Since the previous update, we played The Black Cauldron again, switching roles, and implementing all of those changes we made note of before. This time, even with a few disruptions from the children, we had a seamlessly flowing game that was very close to either of us potentially being the victor, and all within one hour!

I think it's safe to say that the mechanics work. The interactions are more meaningful, the progression (while definitely NOT a meta-progression game) feels intuitive, and (THANK GOODNESS) we've eliminated all of the start-and-stop setup so each Deck unlocks with everything it needs already pre-loaded before the start of the game; all that the players need to do is shuffle Hen Wen into the newly unlocked Deck and then keep the game going.

Previously it felt like a lot of killing time and waiting. Now, each player can focus on whatever it is they want to achieve WHEN they feel ready to. The Horned King can begin his search for the Black Cauldron in the first turn if he wants to, or Taran can race ahead to try to beat him too it (wouldn't recommend that, myself, but the fact is HE COULD!)

We have more ways of cards moving in and out of play, and more strategy as to what and WHEN a player may choose to Equip a card. Before hand the Horned King could just sit on the cards Taran needed and make the game endless if Taran sat on the Black Cauldron in a complete stalemate. But with two ways of utilizing your Deception, it makes growing your Cunning even more powerful, and the cards hidden away in your hand aren't safe at all!

Things feel more balanced. Decisions feel more meaningful. And now time is of the essence as both players race to gather everything they need to win.

It wasn't the game I initially set-out to make, but it's a far more worthy game than the disjointed mess it would have been if I tried to beat it into a mechanic-type. So cross off Meta-Progression from my design resume. Whatever THIS is, it's the game I was meant to make.

Next steps are:
- updating the rulebook
- updating the card text and printing replacement cards
- maybe even loading up a Tabletop Simulator version

It's not necessary, but I do want to still try to make this a 1 player game that flows just as well as 2. I have some thoughts about how to do it, but I want to lock-in this 2 player version first. After that, I enter the adventure of re-skinning it in a way that still feels purposely designed. I have some ideas for that, too!

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The Horned King Rises Again! - Game Design Update

2/25/2023

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In my last post I mentioned my doubts about this Black Cauldron game doing what I needed it to do. Well shortly after publishing the post and wondering if I would just scrap the whole thing, I scribbled down a small game board. This game will NOT be scrapped, though the Meta-Progression probably is.

It sounds a bit silly, and trust me, it even feels a bit silly to me when I think about it, but the simple act of putting the card decks I already made and placing them on the board suddenly opened up a lot more opportunities to explore different possibilities. Rather than keeping these "Chapter Decks" out of sight until the current Chapter concludes, I now have the ability to Activate the next Chapter by shuffling Hen Wen in at random, rather than always being in a concluding end of the deck. Hen Wen still initiates the opening of the next Chapter, but now players can go forward CHOOSING which decks to draw from, with each having their own advantages and disadvantages.

I have also replicated the source material a little bit more closely by recreated the Morva Cauldrons, the seemingly infinite number of black cauldrons that make it near impossible to find the one actual magic Black Cauldron. Unlike the film, where only Taran and his friends learn about the location of the Cauldron through the Fair Folk, I have given the Horned King a fair shot at finding the Cauldron should he choose to engage in the near-impossible task of sorting through a deck of black cauldrons. In this way, the Horned King could dedicate his actions to digging for the Cauldron BEFORE the Chapter 4 deck has even been Activated, which could give him the advantage over Taran who needs the Chapter 4 deck to find and equip the Sacrifice card - after all, true to the source material, even if Taran has the Cauldron, he can't do anything with it until the Sacrifice is made.

So I just finished playtesting it with the new board, and I am happy to report that my anxiety about the repetitive direction my original design was taking was squashed! Rather than waiting to move on to a Chapter, we are able to push ahead and double-back as needed, both players can race to achieve the game goal or target different decks to complete different objectives along the way. We did still have to readjust a few things as we went; obviously the decks I made were meant for the original game setup, and a lot of the mechanics we adjusted to the first time now needed to be adjusted back to fit the new format.

Even after playing, we did some discussing about things, component-wise, that this new version of the game would need, since, as I am sure you can see in the picture above, there are a LOT of cards to keep track of as you go! So I whipped up a couple of makeshift player trackers (on scrap paper because that's what prototypes at this stage look like!), and we'll try it out again on another day with the new changes and see if it feels smoother.

So far we have been switching back and forth each time we play, one person as Taran, the other as the Horned King, that way we get both perspectives about how each character is balanced against the other. We only played through this one once, mostly because up until now we've only played through 1 or 2 Chapters. Add some frequent disruptions from children and some game adjusting along the way, and I think this play-through took us about 2 hours. We'll see how it goes with the new changes from the start, and while I can't predict that the children will be less disruptive the next time, at least we shouldn't need to start, stop and reset a turn quite so often if all goes well.

Fingers crossed that I have a winner here. Not for the Game Crafter contest, obviously. Not only am I abandoning any thought of making it Meta-Progressive, but this design is 100% based on copyrighted materials that I have ZERO license for (yet!).

If it works, my next steps are figuring out that solo player possibility (no idea if it even is possible anymore, but only one way to find out!), and then exploring re-masking options if the Black Cauldron element is unobtainable.

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The Slightly Darkish Cauldron - Game Design Update

2/18/2023

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So I've plugged away up to what I think is the final Chapter (or Round) of the Meta-Progression game inspired by The Black Cauldron. We've had some fairly successful playtesting of the first few Chapters, but now that I've reached that final climax, the revealing of the Black Cauldron, I'm becoming more aware of this design's faults. It's not a style that I am particularly drawn to, and now it just feels like several rounds of sameness.

I'll keep playing with it to see if it's coming across as off as I predict, and maybe it will help highlight some areas to fix up. We've already been discussing options to re-mask it, and part of me feels that not being so closely connected to an established plotline might give me more wriggle room. But I think if I want a game style like this to work for me, I need to make some significant modifications to what progressions actually happen in each round. I want it to feel like you're campaigning towards something that gets more epic as you go.

So not a very hopeful update, unfortunately. I'm not admitting defeat just yet, but am well aware that if this doesn't meet my standards for the game table, that it won't get the final polish to stay there.

Things are still rolling nicely for Mamas, and I have delayed Flip Yer Kilts far longer than I would have liked, though it is still on my goal for the month to get that rulebook set. A little over a week left. Plenty of time!

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2 Years and So Much Has Changed

2/3/2023

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Since my last post, I've lost a parent to cancer, given birth to a baby girl, quit my teaching job, took up witchcraft (no, seriously), and have admitted temporary defeat in most of my writing endeavors (which I hope to change, but one project at a time), and have gone full force in table top game design.

I was previously posting about the release of my first game publication, Outlander: The Series - the Boardgame. It was a project I thoroughly enjoyed making, and even more so, felt like I was contributing to helping my hubs along with his business. What we've discovered is that this is something I'm good at, and compared to novel writing, I'm quick. The downside being that I have created numerous games that I've handed off and, thanks to my lovely Dory brain, have next-to-no recollection of. So I have to be quick and I have to be focused.

This past year I've been taking the lessons learned from my Outlander journey and putting that into my new projects. And while I have no intention of going into competition with hubs, or taking on another self-pub branch myself, I am looking to see myself less of an idea supplier and more of a creator.

So instead of creating a wall of ideas to collect dust, I am using this new-found opportunity of being home to push forward as far as I can. And so, I present to you MY work-in-progress prototype:

This is Mamas: A Regency Gossip Game. Currently unpublished, but I hope to change that within the year or so.

Backstory

This idea began as all of my ideas do: "What if?"

And so was while throwing myself into the Bridgerton tv drama sensation that a conversation sparked: Wouldn't it be funny if someone took this idea of the debutant match-making cattle-auction and turned into some sort of property game where you were trying to invest in selling-off your sons and daughters to the "right" people?

Well, I didn't make Bridgerton Monopoly (sad face), so that idea is still up for grabs should you want to cash in on that and whoever owns Monopoly trademark (teehee, monopoly on Monopoly).

It did take me about a year to get the linch-pin to the idea that was brewing. Without reason or warning, I realized that centerpiece the whole affair was the Mama. The Mamas of the Ton control the social world and will stop at nothing to boost their children, or at least that's what every Regency-based book and film has ever taught me since Jane Austen (It is a truth universally acknowledged!). And so I had my raison-d'etre, to pit a ton of Ton mamas against each other! What fun would that be?!?! Snide gossip! Throwing a young person's social status through the moral paper-shredder just because they came in with the wrong shoes! Well, the idea was golden and a game was whipped up!

That's not to say that I got everything right on the first try, adjustments are always being made.

Phase One

I had the idea, social slander, and I had the objectives, get your favourites matched and beat the other Mamas. So next I had to get my objectives to link up in a way that made sense on the tabletop - not only sense, but had to be a fun and memorable experience to boot!

This introduced the idea of votes, gaining points for your social gambling. Then I had to think of all of the ways we could disrupt another Mama from obtaining their goals. And so the rather large collection of the Social Deck began, adding Anytime cards to change-up the Gossip and Goals.

The trickiest part in Phase One was timing. How do we keep the game snappy but interesting?

Well this silly thing ended up being the next linch-pin into the mix. Originally I had two different trackers, one for turns and one for rounds... needless to say, that was A LOT! And completely unnecessary.

The more we played the more we were able to refine just what a turn should look like. It actually turned the Anytime cards into ANYTIME cards instead of just a generic Action card. So rather than dictating how many cards total a person could play per turn, we let the chaos evolve for itself. And it was MARVELOUS!

Players were still restricted to playing 1 Gossip card, but now could mix and rearrange the Lords and Ladies, could steal and undo actions from their opponents, and as long as they had the cards to do it, they could stir up all sorts of trouble! Or, alternatively, fix-up the trouble someone else caused them!

This was a lengthy course of trial and error playtests, always looking for balance.

Phase Two

Opinions. Liking trying to edit your own work in anything, your brain overrides things it doesn't like. From typos to sequences, using your own brain for too long is a BAD idea. So we brought Mamas out to a few people at a time. Their feedback was vital. And it challenged me to think about how to combine something that they wanted with what I wanted the game to be.

A word of advice, NEVER cater 100% to all of the feedback, your project will never get made because it will never be perfect. It will also no longer be the game you wanted to make. Yet, NEVER dismiss feedback. People may not always know what they want, and so their suggestions are not always the exact solution, but will point you towards a potential problem in your design.

And thus I had to face my next BIG obstacle. The winning conditions. At the time, the mechanics places only 1 Lord and Lady on the Dance Floor at a time. I knew that I didn't want it to be inevitable that everyone would be able to successfully match-make their Couples, but what I had done was make it so unlikely that even having a Couple goal card was near redundant.

How to fix this? I didn't want to remove the vote casting. I didn't want all of us aiming for the same goals. So we tried it with 3 Lords and Ladies. It increased the odds, made you more selective in which Gossip you played and who you played it on, and it meant that you could probably gain control over at least one Couple without controlling ALL Couples.

Now that we solved that, I had to make sure that the mechanics and sequences kept up.

Phase Three

Connecting the dots!

Now that I had 3 Couples, there was so many more ways to interrupt the Dance Floor. And what about the timings? How many turns could you have? How long did the Round last? How many Rounds did you play?!?!

So the targeted playtests continued. And what I discovered is that when you use 3 couples at a time, your Lords and Ladies thin out much more quickly. This was good, because now I didn't have to come up with an arbitrary reason for the game to end, it would take care of itself. There just won't be enough couples to continue on for more rounds. It was perfect!

So that eliminated my second tracker (thank goodness!), and then left me the question of what to do with the turns. Originally my Clock hand moved after EVERY turn and the Round ended at the 12. And then I had to account for adjustments depending on how many players were at the table -- I wanted the game to be snappy, but still fair. With how the game was currently running, the answer was simple (the answer is always simple once you've discovered it): Use the Clock as the First Player marker (eliminates another component), and when the turn sequence gets back to that Player, they move the Clock hand. One Round, One Clock Movement.

I know, I know, why didn't I just do that in the first place?!?! IT'S A PROCESS!!! At least I got there in the end.

Phase Four

I'm hesitant to say that the game is now complete, but it IS as close to complete as it has ever been. I still need to play through with all sorts of player combinations, just to make sure that I haven't overlooked something that slows the game down or shifts the balance.

But luckily I know that I have something that works and works as I intended. Everyone who has played has walked away with tears in their eyes, belly-laughing from the down-right dirty insinuations tossed at these fictional caricatures of gentry. It's fun. It's memorable. And it's mine, from start to finish!

Needless to say, I'm starting 2023 off with my game face on!

And, yes, my next one is following close behind! I don't know how many slightly off-colour card games I'm going to spew out, but no one's going to stop me just yet!

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End Phase One - Game Design Update

The Horned King Rises Again! - Game Design Update

The Slightly Darkish Cauldron - Game Design Update

2 Years and So Much Has Changed

Backstory

Phase One

Phase Two

Phase Three

Phase Four

Author

Categories

Archives

End Phase One - Game Design Update

The Horned King Rises Again! - Game Design Update

The Slightly Darkish Cauldron - Game Design Update

2 Years and So Much Has Changed

​Backstory

​Phase One

​Phase Two

Phase Three

​Phase Four

Author

Categories

Archives

Backstory

Phase One

Phase Two

Phase Four