It's been a busy month or so. Since I last posted, I've attended two different online conventions, done a lot of work (and playtesting!) on Nebula, and started learning the Board Game Arena platform.
Virtual Gaming Con 2020
At the end of June was the first Virtual Gaming Con, organized by a combination of The Dice Tower and BoardGameGeek. I want to say that this is the first virtual gaming convention that I enjoyed. (My first one was technically the PAX Online convention, but somehow that one kind of fell flat.) The focus of this convention was to recreate the feel of a Dice Tower convention, with both organized and open taming, panels and presentations, and a main hall with big events. While there were some aspects that could've used some polish (figuring out when the major events were happening and how to join them took too much effort), overall I think the convention was well organized and quite enjoyable. Clocking in at five days (the length of the corresponding physical convention) I think it felt a little too long, but I'm glad I attended anyway. I got to play several games, a few of them new to me, and I also managed to sneak one playtest of Nebula in there. It was also nice to be able to step away from the convention for a couple of hours, eat and rest and spend time with family, and then hop back in like nothing had changed. And while there was a $10 price tag, I think it was well worth it. Looking forward to the next one!
Protospiel Online July 2020
Contrast this with the first Protospiel Online convention, which happened during the second half of July. This convention was organized by the Protospiel Indy crew, and was done specifically for the purpose of having game creators come together, playtest, and give feedback on each others' creations. This convention was sponsored by several different game creators and publishers and featured a good amount of dedicated playtesters and board game media types mixed in. It was an enjoyable convention, well organized and run, with ample opportunity to have my game tested and test a huge number of designs that I hadn't seen before. (I ended up getting to playtests of Nebula; I could've gotten more but I had all the information I needed so there was little point.) Finding something to test was a simple matter of joining the correct voice channel, and finding playtesters involved posting the game's 'info card' to a text channel, easy to do. There was also the ability to post sell sheets and pitch games to publishers, and there were a few 'coffee talks' featuring prominent industry types having a discussion on various topics. The convention was a long weekend (Friday-Sunday) and I felt that that was the correct length; by the end of Sunday I was exhausted and ready to do something else. Probably the only bad part of the convention was the price tag; it cost $50 to register as a designer, which left me wondering what all that money was needed for. If I end up not attending the next one of these, it will likely be entirely because of the cost. (Especially since I can get the same playtesting, though maybe not as concentrated, from the regional online playtest groups that I'm a part of.)
Nebula: Playtest & Feedback
I've gotten in several playtests of Nebula over the past month, and I'd like to think that the mechaincs are starting to settle down. The split of the Artifact tiles into Upgrade tiles and Goal tiles was well worth it. The structure of the upgrades is working well, and including one upgrade on the timer track as sort of an introduction to the mechanic works very well. The upgrade tiles themselves have some balance issues, but I'm slowly weeding out the ones that don't work and balancing the rest.
My current problem is the Goal tiles. My original idea was to have the goals be public, but with the ability to 'claim' a goal to make it private. Each goal had a unique endgame scoring calculation (such as 1 VP per step on a track or 3VP for each finished crawlspace). This was intended to create a sort of race between the players to get the best goal, as the players must fill in certain portions of their board to do a claim. It kind of worked, but ultimately claiming a goal created the negative feeling of taking something away from others rather than achieving an accomplishment. So in my latest iteration of the tiles, I have changed them to each have different claim conditions ('have 6 steps on your yellow track' or 'make a chain connecting the two sides of your ship'), with static VP values for each goal and a special rule that the first player to claim a goal gets bonus VP. I'm not convinced this structure is the correct one, but after a couple of playtests it does appear to be an improvement over the previous mechanic.
Board Game Arena
One of the things I was introduced to during the Virtual Gaming Con was Board Game Arena. This is another gaming platform that has been around a while and that I have heard of, but never really felt the need to research. The graphics on BGA are much more primitive than Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia, but BGA has the extra feature of rules enforcement; the game specifically instructs you on what actions you may take and forbids anything that the rules would not normally allow.
I am currently researching how difficult it would be to port Manaforge over to this platform. I've registered for a developer account on BGA and started working through their tutorials. While the specific languages and technologies they use are very common, the fact that entire platform is based on web technologies like PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript means that I have a little bit of stuff to learn before I can feel truly comfortable with porting my game over. (I have done some web development in the past but it's definitely not my specialty.) I am however excited about the prospect of porting my game over to a new platform so that it can be exposed to more people.
The Future
My current to-do list looks something like this:
- Finish developing Nebula: Pull & Write and publish it. This includes getting artwork, having a professional graphic designer make it look good, setting up a marketing campaign, launching a Kickstarter, and having it manufactured and shipped. Hopefully by next year.
- Get back to developing Sky Pirates. That game was coming along pretty well but I sort of lost interest in it; I need to reignite that particular flame.
- Get back to designing the Manaforge expansion. I've had one idea (given to me by another designer) bouncing around in the back of my head for a while and I think it might be time soon to let it out of its cage and have it run around.
- Make another attempt at designing Suicidal Cabbages. I could never get it to be truly fun but someone else suggested a change to the type of game (from timing and hand management to push your luck) that sounds like it could work.
- Get back to creating the Mystic Tiger Games branded felt component bowls. I'd like to find a way to construct them more easily and maybe come up with a reliable way to sell them.
- Take another stab at creating an 'art deck' for Manaforge; a standard deck of 54 playing cards that have the artwork from Manaforge on them. There's too much awesome artwork in that game to just let it go unused.
- Design Mystic Tiger pins; small decorative pins with my company logo on them that I can give out as swag to help push brand recognition.
Dunno when I'll get to all of that. :)
Virtual Gaming Con 2020
At the end of June was the first Virtual Gaming Con, organized by a combination of The Dice Tower and BoardGameGeek. I want to say that this is the first virtual gaming convention that I enjoyed. (My first one was technically the PAX Online convention, but somehow that one kind of fell flat.) The focus of this convention was to recreate the feel of a Dice Tower convention, with both organized and open taming, panels and presentations, and a main hall with big events. While there were some aspects that could've used some polish (figuring out when the major events were happening and how to join them took too much effort), overall I think the convention was well organized and quite enjoyable. Clocking in at five days (the length of the corresponding physical convention) I think it felt a little too long, but I'm glad I attended anyway. I got to play several games, a few of them new to me, and I also managed to sneak one playtest of Nebula in there. It was also nice to be able to step away from the convention for a couple of hours, eat and rest and spend time with family, and then hop back in like nothing had changed. And while there was a $10 price tag, I think it was well worth it. Looking forward to the next one!
Protospiel Online July 2020
Contrast this with the first Protospiel Online convention, which happened during the second half of July. This convention was organized by the Protospiel Indy crew, and was done specifically for the purpose of having game creators come together, playtest, and give feedback on each others' creations. This convention was sponsored by several different game creators and publishers and featured a good amount of dedicated playtesters and board game media types mixed in. It was an enjoyable convention, well organized and run, with ample opportunity to have my game tested and test a huge number of designs that I hadn't seen before. (I ended up getting to playtests of Nebula; I could've gotten more but I had all the information I needed so there was little point.) Finding something to test was a simple matter of joining the correct voice channel, and finding playtesters involved posting the game's 'info card' to a text channel, easy to do. There was also the ability to post sell sheets and pitch games to publishers, and there were a few 'coffee talks' featuring prominent industry types having a discussion on various topics. The convention was a long weekend (Friday-Sunday) and I felt that that was the correct length; by the end of Sunday I was exhausted and ready to do something else. Probably the only bad part of the convention was the price tag; it cost $50 to register as a designer, which left me wondering what all that money was needed for. If I end up not attending the next one of these, it will likely be entirely because of the cost. (Especially since I can get the same playtesting, though maybe not as concentrated, from the regional online playtest groups that I'm a part of.)
Nebula: Playtest & Feedback
I've gotten in several playtests of Nebula over the past month, and I'd like to think that the mechaincs are starting to settle down. The split of the Artifact tiles into Upgrade tiles and Goal tiles was well worth it. The structure of the upgrades is working well, and including one upgrade on the timer track as sort of an introduction to the mechanic works very well. The upgrade tiles themselves have some balance issues, but I'm slowly weeding out the ones that don't work and balancing the rest.
My current problem is the Goal tiles. My original idea was to have the goals be public, but with the ability to 'claim' a goal to make it private. Each goal had a unique endgame scoring calculation (such as 1 VP per step on a track or 3VP for each finished crawlspace). This was intended to create a sort of race between the players to get the best goal, as the players must fill in certain portions of their board to do a claim. It kind of worked, but ultimately claiming a goal created the negative feeling of taking something away from others rather than achieving an accomplishment. So in my latest iteration of the tiles, I have changed them to each have different claim conditions ('have 6 steps on your yellow track' or 'make a chain connecting the two sides of your ship'), with static VP values for each goal and a special rule that the first player to claim a goal gets bonus VP. I'm not convinced this structure is the correct one, but after a couple of playtests it does appear to be an improvement over the previous mechanic.
Board Game Arena
One of the things I was introduced to during the Virtual Gaming Con was Board Game Arena. This is another gaming platform that has been around a while and that I have heard of, but never really felt the need to research. The graphics on BGA are much more primitive than Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia, but BGA has the extra feature of rules enforcement; the game specifically instructs you on what actions you may take and forbids anything that the rules would not normally allow.
I am currently researching how difficult it would be to port Manaforge over to this platform. I've registered for a developer account on BGA and started working through their tutorials. While the specific languages and technologies they use are very common, the fact that entire platform is based on web technologies like PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript means that I have a little bit of stuff to learn before I can feel truly comfortable with porting my game over. (I have done some web development in the past but it's definitely not my specialty.) I am however excited about the prospect of porting my game over to a new platform so that it can be exposed to more people.
The Future
My current to-do list looks something like this:
- Finish developing Nebula: Pull & Write and publish it. This includes getting artwork, having a professional graphic designer make it look good, setting up a marketing campaign, launching a Kickstarter, and having it manufactured and shipped. Hopefully by next year.
- Get back to developing Sky Pirates. That game was coming along pretty well but I sort of lost interest in it; I need to reignite that particular flame.
- Get back to designing the Manaforge expansion. I've had one idea (given to me by another designer) bouncing around in the back of my head for a while and I think it might be time soon to let it out of its cage and have it run around.
- Make another attempt at designing Suicidal Cabbages. I could never get it to be truly fun but someone else suggested a change to the type of game (from timing and hand management to push your luck) that sounds like it could work.
- Get back to creating the Mystic Tiger Games branded felt component bowls. I'd like to find a way to construct them more easily and maybe come up with a reliable way to sell them.
- Take another stab at creating an 'art deck' for Manaforge; a standard deck of 54 playing cards that have the artwork from Manaforge on them. There's too much awesome artwork in that game to just let it go unused.
- Design Mystic Tiger pins; small decorative pins with my company logo on them that I can give out as swag to help push brand recognition.
Dunno when I'll get to all of that. :)
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