Various news...
Manaforge
So, I'm still trying to figure this silly expansion out. Seems like very time I have a 'great' idea, I put it in front of other people and it just falls apart. Here's where I stand...
Result 5.5: Dropped. I took a hard look at the artifact system I wanted to do, and decided that that wasn't the right direction, both mechanically and thematically. I have a particular piece of the game's world that I want to explore, and I should get back to that particular root.
Iteration 6: Okay, let's try this. Rather than making the entire expansion as one big piece, let's try a piece at a time. The idea of 'customer' cards is working reasonably well mechanically, so I'll focus on that. Fleshed out the customers. Each round, some number of customers is dealt out alongside the board; this number decreases over the course of the game. (I was doing 4 for Dawn, 3 for Noon, and 2 for Dusk.) Customers have a 'recruit' cost that you have to pay to move them to your store, where they sit for the rest of the game. At the end of the game, each customer 'buys' one or more cards from your store pile, paying you in prestige points. Some customers have restrictions, such as 'must have at least 2 fire cards in your workshop' or 'may not have any wind cards', where if you don't meet that then the customer won't buy anything from you. Customers are flushed every round just like the item cards; grab them or they walk away.
Result 6: Not bad. The customers didn't have a huge impact in the final scores; I think their point values are too low. But they did flow the way I wanted; they force the players to divide their resources between taking them or doing other stuff, which is what I want. The players should have to choose their path instead of being able to do everything.
Iteration 6.1: Minor test run. Tweaked the customer point values to be more significant, along with tweaks to their cost and how many item cards they will buy. Searching for a good balance.
Result 6.1: Okay, this looks pretty good. I was only able to test this solo, so it's not really a good indicator of how it will fare in a real game, but just running through the motions myself it seemed to flow the way I intended. Choosing to go after the points from a customer instead of powering some other aspect of my engine is exactly the sort of trade-off I was looking for.
Iteration 6.5: Okay, with the customers in a good place, I tried building the rest of the expansion. Here, I'm circling back around to my original 'Dark Magic' expansion, with one key difference. Before, dark magic was supposed to have ways to mess up your opponents. I don't want direct attacks in my game. So, for this iteration, I'm aiming for the 'dark side of the force' concept; dark magic is powerful and tempting, but also ultimately harms you more the deeper you steep yourself in it. Players start the game with ten 'hit point' markers. I added a dark market, with corrupted item cards that are deliberately overpowered but drain your hit points when you build them. I also added a single black die that gets rolled each turn, where players may sacrifice one of their hit points to gain the effect on the die *without* it counting towards your four-dice-per-turn limit. Right now, remaining hit points are worth a small number of prestige at the end of the game, but I intend for that to change.
Result 6.5: Huh, not what I was expecting. The black die went over relatively well; it's kind of easy to overlook but if you do use it it's a very nice boost to your resources when you need it. The dark market cards worked well enough; having eight items to choose from instead of six is kind of option overload, but the effects are nice and strong (too strong, in fact... nerf needed) and so the cards have their own temptation. Plus there were a couple of turns where the items on the main board were meh so having alternates was highly desirable. The hit points thing is the right idea but the wrong polarity; I need to flip them back around to be something like 'corruption' that goes up instead of a resource that goes down. Fixable. The disappointment was the customer cards; I thought I had these relatively nailed but it seems like the balance is off. One player ignored customers entirely and got trampled by other players scoring endgame points. Another player complained that the customers were too expensive. (That's the point tho... that might just be that player being vocal.) And the third player picked up exactly the right combination of customers and ran away with the score. Not sure... I think there's something here but the balance is off. I want to keep these ideas but I will need to flip a couple of switches and see what happens.
Other News
Other than hammering away on Manaforge, it's been pretty quiet. There's been a lot of other personal stuff going on lately so I haven't had a ton of free time.
One big piece of news (for me, anyway) is that my inventory transfer appears to be complete! I have moved my remaining stock of Manaforge copies (less than four hundred copies) from GamesQuest in the UK to Quartermaster Logistics. This is good for me for a few reasons: I don't have to deal with international transaction crud when I'm paying for services, the games are very close by so I can drive to pick some up when I need instead of placing costly shipping orders, and having the games out of the UK sidesteps any potential future hiccups with Brexit and trade deals and all of the other political uncertainty going on right now. It's a minor thing, everything considered, but it puts me in a better position.
Sky Pirates is kind of stalled right now; I haven't had the time to give it the attention it deserves. The game is in very good shape. I have identified a few tweaks I need to make, but those are more wording and rules consistency bits then any mechanical changes. Just idly looking around to see if anyone is interested in publishing it; not sure if I want to push it myself right now.
And that's it for now! I'm going to try to make another post soon; I have some thoughts I need to get out of my head regarding a particular game design topic. Plus I hope to have more to report about Dark Magic attempt #2 soon.
Manaforge
So, I'm still trying to figure this silly expansion out. Seems like very time I have a 'great' idea, I put it in front of other people and it just falls apart. Here's where I stand...
Result 5.5: Dropped. I took a hard look at the artifact system I wanted to do, and decided that that wasn't the right direction, both mechanically and thematically. I have a particular piece of the game's world that I want to explore, and I should get back to that particular root.
Iteration 6: Okay, let's try this. Rather than making the entire expansion as one big piece, let's try a piece at a time. The idea of 'customer' cards is working reasonably well mechanically, so I'll focus on that. Fleshed out the customers. Each round, some number of customers is dealt out alongside the board; this number decreases over the course of the game. (I was doing 4 for Dawn, 3 for Noon, and 2 for Dusk.) Customers have a 'recruit' cost that you have to pay to move them to your store, where they sit for the rest of the game. At the end of the game, each customer 'buys' one or more cards from your store pile, paying you in prestige points. Some customers have restrictions, such as 'must have at least 2 fire cards in your workshop' or 'may not have any wind cards', where if you don't meet that then the customer won't buy anything from you. Customers are flushed every round just like the item cards; grab them or they walk away.
Result 6: Not bad. The customers didn't have a huge impact in the final scores; I think their point values are too low. But they did flow the way I wanted; they force the players to divide their resources between taking them or doing other stuff, which is what I want. The players should have to choose their path instead of being able to do everything.
Iteration 6.1: Minor test run. Tweaked the customer point values to be more significant, along with tweaks to their cost and how many item cards they will buy. Searching for a good balance.
Result 6.1: Okay, this looks pretty good. I was only able to test this solo, so it's not really a good indicator of how it will fare in a real game, but just running through the motions myself it seemed to flow the way I intended. Choosing to go after the points from a customer instead of powering some other aspect of my engine is exactly the sort of trade-off I was looking for.
Iteration 6.5: Okay, with the customers in a good place, I tried building the rest of the expansion. Here, I'm circling back around to my original 'Dark Magic' expansion, with one key difference. Before, dark magic was supposed to have ways to mess up your opponents. I don't want direct attacks in my game. So, for this iteration, I'm aiming for the 'dark side of the force' concept; dark magic is powerful and tempting, but also ultimately harms you more the deeper you steep yourself in it. Players start the game with ten 'hit point' markers. I added a dark market, with corrupted item cards that are deliberately overpowered but drain your hit points when you build them. I also added a single black die that gets rolled each turn, where players may sacrifice one of their hit points to gain the effect on the die *without* it counting towards your four-dice-per-turn limit. Right now, remaining hit points are worth a small number of prestige at the end of the game, but I intend for that to change.
Result 6.5: Huh, not what I was expecting. The black die went over relatively well; it's kind of easy to overlook but if you do use it it's a very nice boost to your resources when you need it. The dark market cards worked well enough; having eight items to choose from instead of six is kind of option overload, but the effects are nice and strong (too strong, in fact... nerf needed) and so the cards have their own temptation. Plus there were a couple of turns where the items on the main board were meh so having alternates was highly desirable. The hit points thing is the right idea but the wrong polarity; I need to flip them back around to be something like 'corruption' that goes up instead of a resource that goes down. Fixable. The disappointment was the customer cards; I thought I had these relatively nailed but it seems like the balance is off. One player ignored customers entirely and got trampled by other players scoring endgame points. Another player complained that the customers were too expensive. (That's the point tho... that might just be that player being vocal.) And the third player picked up exactly the right combination of customers and ran away with the score. Not sure... I think there's something here but the balance is off. I want to keep these ideas but I will need to flip a couple of switches and see what happens.
Other News
Other than hammering away on Manaforge, it's been pretty quiet. There's been a lot of other personal stuff going on lately so I haven't had a ton of free time.
One big piece of news (for me, anyway) is that my inventory transfer appears to be complete! I have moved my remaining stock of Manaforge copies (less than four hundred copies) from GamesQuest in the UK to Quartermaster Logistics. This is good for me for a few reasons: I don't have to deal with international transaction crud when I'm paying for services, the games are very close by so I can drive to pick some up when I need instead of placing costly shipping orders, and having the games out of the UK sidesteps any potential future hiccups with Brexit and trade deals and all of the other political uncertainty going on right now. It's a minor thing, everything considered, but it puts me in a better position.
Sky Pirates is kind of stalled right now; I haven't had the time to give it the attention it deserves. The game is in very good shape. I have identified a few tweaks I need to make, but those are more wording and rules consistency bits then any mechanical changes. Just idly looking around to see if anyone is interested in publishing it; not sure if I want to push it myself right now.
And that's it for now! I'm going to try to make another post soon; I have some thoughts I need to get out of my head regarding a particular game design topic. Plus I hope to have more to report about Dark Magic attempt #2 soon.
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