Minsterpool comes home

So, the results are in. Minsterpool comes in 3rd place of the GCOM Game Design Competition, scoring 12 points out of a possible 15. 1st and 2nd place went to games that were being demo'ed by the designers, so Minsterpool winds up being the highest scored game that was presented by a 2nd party.

One of the nice things is that I got a lot more feedback than I was expecting (with apparently more to come when the game actually show up back at home). Plus, numerous suggestions on making the game better. So, my hat's are off to the GCOM people!

Looks like I'll be re-writing up a new set of rules soon based on these suggestions. It appears that the major flaw in the game was the way I implemented the turn order, which is basically: the player with the highest score goes first, and then everyone takes their turn going arund the table. Since the player who goes first is at a disadvantage, this helps even the game a bit by quietly slowly down the leader. However, this really winds up screwing the player who sits directly to the left of him (the person who goes second).

So, in the next pass, I'll be doing a bidding system for turn order. You want the advantage to go last, you better pay for it!

Of second concern, is the ability to play two cards on a turn, which puts you at a severe disadvantage in most circumstances.Which in reality, isn't that many circustances at all. One of the suggested fixes for this, and it's a good one, is to have some cards do double duty. This would get rid of the whole "play two card" option, which would clean that part of the rules a lot.

Off the Checklist

And so, instead of getting back into Leviathan which I sorely need to do, I’m still busy cleaning up some other items off my design list.

Item number one of my “Things to Do List” is finished and shipped. Minsterpool is off to GCOM contest. Recently, I got an email detailing some information about the contest, indicating when each of the games will be played, and a short description of each game (there are 10).

Of interest is that one of the names of the designers sounded familiar. A quick google search for “Andrew Parks” did, indeed, pop up a BoardGameGeek entry for him, with a few published games. I’m assuming he’s also demonstrating his game as it does not have an official “demonstrator” tag attached to it.

Item two was tweaking PocketCiv a little bit. There’s a two-fold reason for this.

One, from a game design standpoint, There’s been enough comments on the game about it’s ability to beat up players in the early Eras. So I’ve tweaked and scaled a few of the Events down a bit early on.

The second issue is more of a marketing kind of thing. By updating the game, it gives me a really good excuse to keep the game “fresh” on BoardGameGeek, by bringing it up to the top of a forum list for a day or two. Like most things that go unheard, games on the Geek that don’t get much attention pretty much die a silent death. Conversely, every time PocketCiv gets a mention on a forum, it gets two or three more ratings. So, instead of just a blantant ad for the game, updating it periodically gives me a reason to re-introduce it.

Occasional updates also indicate a certain level of “customer support” I’m willing to give, as opposed to just letting complaints and comments rot away into the ether. I hoping that this should make the geeks who are on the fence about the game have a little more interest in trying it out.

And as item 2.5, I’m also experimenting with additional scenarios with PocketCiv based on a few comments. Also, I can’t say that I’m not influenced at least a little bit by my recent Nintendo DS games I’ve been playing.

I’ll probably go in depth a little more on this project at some point. But in general, it works like this: unlike the first 10 scenarios, which were just a random collection of various setups and goals, this next set will follow a story line, building a mythology as the scenarios are played out. This is pretty much following the videogame model, where every little mode plays similarly, but advances an overall story. This makes the game somewhat more compelling, as the “story mode” pushes you along in the world. Unraveling hints about a greater world, and gives it a little “just one more page” addiction. Notably, this is a moderately small experiment for a board game format (even though I believe it has to have been done before; probably at the very least HeroQuest did something similar). And so, as the story progresses, new rules are added and abilities are learned.

And, oh yeah, I’m adding magic to the mix using some new mechanics. So while I could just easily make the Advance Tree larger, or add a few new resource types (the easiest way to expand the rules), I am actively expanding the world instead, and trying out a different way to drive a solitaire game.

Fun stuff to play with. Until I get annoyed.

If you can't beat them with ideas...

..beat them with packaging!!

While I have no idea about how many other games, or what type, or really anything about my competition in the GCOM design competition, I know one thing, my game is going to win the non-existent "Best Packaged Game" award.

Just click on the image off to the side to note the fine, American homemade craftmasmanship! Each element of the game sits in it's own compartment. The box is designed to make each category of component easily grabbed, yet, nothing shifts during "closed box carry mode." A wonder of engineering I tell you! And while I've given up the foamcore for component development, foamcore, due to it's rigidness, still works wonders for gamebox compartments.

I would also like to make a note that Keen Footwear shoe boxes make excellent choices for prototype game boxes (or storage boxes in general). They are very sturdy and are all one-piece construction with a nice little fliptop, as opposed to two seperate pieces. Plus their shoes are pretty good. However, their website pretty much is a fairly unusable piece of Flash-tastic garbage, as it always loses sync with your mouse location when selecting shoes. Strangely enough, this behavior continues every time they update their site, so it's not just a one-time thing.

Anyway, why all the fuss? Well, I think it adds a little professionalism to the package. A lot of people seem to huff and puff over Cheapass Games production values. A little "ooooh and ahhhh" over production values never hurts; especially in a contest. If I can get a few people excited about playing a game just based on the packaging, that's a few pluses in my book right there. And they haven't even played the game yet. If I can score a few points over the guy who wrote his rules on a napkin, all the better. Also, since my game is being assigned a person to demo the game (who, rightfully so, has no emotional baggage assigned to the game), I want my demo guy to be proud of what he is demo-ing, selling to the other poor demo schleps who just got a pile of poorly cut cardboard.

Well, that all sounds kind of mean. Hopefully, the other prototypes are a little better than that.

Additionally, since I'm going to get the game back, and if it tests well at the contest, this will be my production submission prototype. It's like dressing up a little nicer when going on a job interview; first impressions make more differences than people care to state. And while a guy with a suit who knows nothing won't get the job, if it comes down between a guy with a suit and a slob who both have equal knowledge, the suit will most likely get the job. Or at least the one who seems to bathe regularily.

Not Back in the Swing of Things

After my almost-a-full-month-away-from-my-desk, I'd like to try and get my head back around to finishing up Leviathan, but that's not going to happen for a little while. I submitted Minsterpool to the GCOM Game Design Contest, which passed the first round (a cursory read over the rules), and so I'm working on a prototype to ship out to them. Additionally, I had wanted to go back and rework some PocketCiv stuff based on the trickles of information coming in through boardgamegeek.

I had attempted to submit Minsterpool to Hippodice earlier, but apparently that email got lost somewhere in the ether, as I didn't hear anything back from them (which they traditionally do respond back either an "yea" or "nea"). So, I guess this will be a good trial run for later this year. It's probably my tightest game, "tight" being a strange term in that I'm not really sure what the definition of tight is. The game plays very cleanly (well, at least in my online playtesting of it), is pretty simple, and is not language-dependent.

Somewhere down the line, I'd like to expand upon it; but not in the usual expansion way. Right now, the game is solely about gaining influence over the various court members. And that's it, points for control. I envision a much larger purpose for this. I imagine an add-on game where controlling each court member actually let's you play out those court members on another board; and that's where you score your points. So Minsterpool is just one basic mechanic in the scheme of a bigger game that will play out. But that's for later at this point.

As I'm working on this prototype for the contest, one of the more interesting things I've discovered is that getting things printed out at Office Max on their color laser printer produces really nice results which don't smear under the use of sticky, wet fingers. Normally, I print stuff off my home inkjet, and then have to laminate it, so this has relieved me on a step. Also, I decided to try out using some Bienfang Master Illustration Board as a backing for the "boards" instead of my usual foamcore. And results are impressive. Now, I might have to shell out the extra 10 bucks to get my game back from the contest since this proto is coming along so nicely. Guess I'll be dumping the foamcore method from now on.