It's been a relatively quiet couple of weeks here. Here's what's new:
Freight Shipping
Manaforge has started its freight shipping phase. The batch of games has been loaded onto a boat and has set sail for the U.K.! I've received a rough estimate of mid-November for when the games will be arriving at port. Once at port, it will be a few days to clear customs, a few days to travel over ground from the port to the warehouse, and a few days to unpack and take inventory.
I wish I could say the games will ship out to backers after that, but there is a glitch. It takes time and manpower to package the games up for individual shipping, and I will be competing with both other game companies and the rest of the holiday season packages for attention from the packing crew. So as much as I want to guarantee that backers will have their games for Christmas, I cannot. I will however be unhappy if the games do not start shipping sometime in December. My initial shipping goal was November and, while I'm pretty sure they won't go out by then, at least missing by just one month isn't bad for my first Kickstarter project. I just don't want to miss by more than that, especially because it's the holidays; perfect time to sit around the table and play board games! :)
I'll let everyone know once I get more info, but that's where I stand right now.
My Next Game
So, with the downtime of waiting for Manaforge to reach the European shores, I've been putting some of my energy into developing Suicidal Cabbages. I've been a little lax on this front; seems like life has other things in mind for me right now. But I'm putting in a few hours here and there as I can.
For those of you who have playtested Suicidal Cabbages before, especially if you haven't played in within the past month or so, know that the game has gotten a pretty significant overhaul. For starters, here is a rough list of what I began my design with:
- As opposed to Manaforge, which I designed mechanics-first and added the theme onto later, with Suicidal Cabbages I started with the theme and tried to come up with mechanics that matched it. I particularly want a quick, light card game that fits with the tongue-in-cheek silly vibe of the theme, cabbages shredding themselves into coleslaw.
- I came up with two mechanics that seem to fit what I'm going for:
(1) There need to be 'tool' cards that deal damage to you, representing how much you've shredded yourself. Damage is recorded by moving a marker along a score track.
(2) There need to be 'ingredient' cards that make up your coleslaw recipe. These work set-collection style, with each ingredient fitting into two of the six possible recipes, and you get bonus points for collecting ingredients of the same recipe.
- These two mechanics, tools and ingredients, represent the core of the game. Everything else might change, but I'm going to try as hard as possible to keep those two pieces in some way.
- Most cards require you to discard other cards from your hand when you play them. The stronger the card, the more you have to discard.
- You draw cards each turn based on how much health you have left. The closer you get to the end, the fewer cards you draw.
- Tool cards have 'timers'. When you play a tool, you play it facing a certain direction, representing the number of 'ticks' (rounds) until it's effects trigger. Each round you rotate the card 90 degrees, representing it ticking down. When it hits zero, the tool damages you and is then discarded.
- As a player, one of the decisions in playing the game is deciding which aspect to focus on. Go heavy tools and shred yourself quickly, go heavy ingredients and rack up the recipe bonus, or try for a balance between the two?
- I have a third type of card, called 'actions'. These are the take-that cards that disrupt your opponents' plans. Slow down your opponents' tools, make their ingredients spoil, steal cards from their hands.
With some of the recent playtests and designer feedback, I've made these changes:
- Previously, each player would take their turn separately. With up to six players, this was way too slow. The game is now draft-style, a la Sushi Go or 7 Wonders. Each player gets a hand of cards, plays one face down, hands the remaining cards to the player to their left, and then flips up the card they played, resolving the effects simultaneously. Good for keeping the game moving quickly.
- With this new draft format, the game is now divided up into two rounds, tentatively called 'lunch' and 'dinner'. When one player hits the halfway point on the damage track, the game switches rounds; players discard their hands, sweep played cards off into a lunch pile, and start the dinner round with a fresh tableau. Players may choose a different recipe for each meal (round), giving an out if the ingredients just weren't going your way the first time.
- Any tools left un-triggered on the board when the round ends get a 'fizzle' effect instead, sort of a consolation prize. I want to try to improve on this, make the fizzle effects more unique, make them something the players might specifically try for.
- Since playing a card carries more weight now (no more card discard costs), 'action' cards needed to be more appealing. So now, they give straight victory points in addition to their effect. Also, in the interest of game speed, a lot of the effects have been redone to either affect only you, or to affect the entire board. Quick calculations.
- I've had a lot of games go 'out of sync', where one player will become distracted and will skip their turn or play twice or something like that. Someone suggested keeping triggered tools on the board, so that you know exactly how many cards each player has played (they should all be the same) and who is missing something. I'm incorporating that idea in.
- The original ingredient scoring was supposed to be triangular (1 3 6 10 15) on the number of unique ingredients in your set. I'm changing that to a flat bonus (+2 each) and seeing how that plays.
- I'm tinkering with the idea of having players keep leftover cards after the lunch round, making a huge hand to pick from for dinner. Dunno yet if this is a good idea.
Whew. Lots of ideas, not all of them good. I haven't found the 'fun' in this game yet, but I'm getting the feeling that each change gets me a little bit closer. Here's hoping I unlock something soon.
Who wants coleslaw? :)
Freight Shipping
Manaforge has started its freight shipping phase. The batch of games has been loaded onto a boat and has set sail for the U.K.! I've received a rough estimate of mid-November for when the games will be arriving at port. Once at port, it will be a few days to clear customs, a few days to travel over ground from the port to the warehouse, and a few days to unpack and take inventory.
I wish I could say the games will ship out to backers after that, but there is a glitch. It takes time and manpower to package the games up for individual shipping, and I will be competing with both other game companies and the rest of the holiday season packages for attention from the packing crew. So as much as I want to guarantee that backers will have their games for Christmas, I cannot. I will however be unhappy if the games do not start shipping sometime in December. My initial shipping goal was November and, while I'm pretty sure they won't go out by then, at least missing by just one month isn't bad for my first Kickstarter project. I just don't want to miss by more than that, especially because it's the holidays; perfect time to sit around the table and play board games! :)
I'll let everyone know once I get more info, but that's where I stand right now.
My Next Game
So, with the downtime of waiting for Manaforge to reach the European shores, I've been putting some of my energy into developing Suicidal Cabbages. I've been a little lax on this front; seems like life has other things in mind for me right now. But I'm putting in a few hours here and there as I can.
For those of you who have playtested Suicidal Cabbages before, especially if you haven't played in within the past month or so, know that the game has gotten a pretty significant overhaul. For starters, here is a rough list of what I began my design with:
- As opposed to Manaforge, which I designed mechanics-first and added the theme onto later, with Suicidal Cabbages I started with the theme and tried to come up with mechanics that matched it. I particularly want a quick, light card game that fits with the tongue-in-cheek silly vibe of the theme, cabbages shredding themselves into coleslaw.
- I came up with two mechanics that seem to fit what I'm going for:
(1) There need to be 'tool' cards that deal damage to you, representing how much you've shredded yourself. Damage is recorded by moving a marker along a score track.
(2) There need to be 'ingredient' cards that make up your coleslaw recipe. These work set-collection style, with each ingredient fitting into two of the six possible recipes, and you get bonus points for collecting ingredients of the same recipe.
- These two mechanics, tools and ingredients, represent the core of the game. Everything else might change, but I'm going to try as hard as possible to keep those two pieces in some way.
- Most cards require you to discard other cards from your hand when you play them. The stronger the card, the more you have to discard.
- You draw cards each turn based on how much health you have left. The closer you get to the end, the fewer cards you draw.
- Tool cards have 'timers'. When you play a tool, you play it facing a certain direction, representing the number of 'ticks' (rounds) until it's effects trigger. Each round you rotate the card 90 degrees, representing it ticking down. When it hits zero, the tool damages you and is then discarded.
- As a player, one of the decisions in playing the game is deciding which aspect to focus on. Go heavy tools and shred yourself quickly, go heavy ingredients and rack up the recipe bonus, or try for a balance between the two?
- I have a third type of card, called 'actions'. These are the take-that cards that disrupt your opponents' plans. Slow down your opponents' tools, make their ingredients spoil, steal cards from their hands.
With some of the recent playtests and designer feedback, I've made these changes:
- Previously, each player would take their turn separately. With up to six players, this was way too slow. The game is now draft-style, a la Sushi Go or 7 Wonders. Each player gets a hand of cards, plays one face down, hands the remaining cards to the player to their left, and then flips up the card they played, resolving the effects simultaneously. Good for keeping the game moving quickly.
- With this new draft format, the game is now divided up into two rounds, tentatively called 'lunch' and 'dinner'. When one player hits the halfway point on the damage track, the game switches rounds; players discard their hands, sweep played cards off into a lunch pile, and start the dinner round with a fresh tableau. Players may choose a different recipe for each meal (round), giving an out if the ingredients just weren't going your way the first time.
- Any tools left un-triggered on the board when the round ends get a 'fizzle' effect instead, sort of a consolation prize. I want to try to improve on this, make the fizzle effects more unique, make them something the players might specifically try for.
- Since playing a card carries more weight now (no more card discard costs), 'action' cards needed to be more appealing. So now, they give straight victory points in addition to their effect. Also, in the interest of game speed, a lot of the effects have been redone to either affect only you, or to affect the entire board. Quick calculations.
- I've had a lot of games go 'out of sync', where one player will become distracted and will skip their turn or play twice or something like that. Someone suggested keeping triggered tools on the board, so that you know exactly how many cards each player has played (they should all be the same) and who is missing something. I'm incorporating that idea in.
- The original ingredient scoring was supposed to be triangular (1 3 6 10 15) on the number of unique ingredients in your set. I'm changing that to a flat bonus (+2 each) and seeing how that plays.
- I'm tinkering with the idea of having players keep leftover cards after the lunch round, making a huge hand to pick from for dinner. Dunno yet if this is a good idea.
Whew. Lots of ideas, not all of them good. I haven't found the 'fun' in this game yet, but I'm getting the feeling that each change gets me a little bit closer. Here's hoping I unlock something soon.
Who wants coleslaw? :)
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