I’ve been using these last few days of holiday time to work on a new game, Canardo’s Dungeon. In the spirit of my pal Gil Hova‘s 4P, I’m hoping to play test this game four times in the month of January. I’ve got layout done for most of the cards and I should be able to print it tomorrow. My first play test will be this Tuesday at Board Games and Beer, if I can get enough interest. I’ll update here with progress throughout the month!
Earlier in the week I got an unsolicited job offer from a great game company and today, a famous game designer contacted me about an unpublished game of mine. Feeling pretty good about life right now. I must be doing something right.
death, revisited
On Monday, I posted about a breakthrough I had over a nagging issue in LXIX: The Year of Four Emperors. I tested the changes with some folks at Madison Board Games & Beer Tuesday night and I’m very pleased by the results. I’m play testing again tonight with a designer buddy and a couple of heavy strategy game lovers. We’ll see how that goes!
The cards were always numbered 1 through 9 in six suits. Each time you played a card, before executing an action, you advanced the date marker on the calendar track a number of days equal to the number on the card played. The calendar had three spaces that granted bonus actions if you hit their number exactly. That has been part of the card design and play mechanism since the very beginning. The problem was, it was easy to forget to advance the calendar, especially if you weren’t going to get a bonus anyway.
The problem was, it was easy to forget to advance the calendar, especially if you weren’t going to get a bonus anyway.
I’ve always felt the bonus actions were interesting, even if they weren’t an integral part of the game. They added an extra decision point during play: do you play card A for it’s effect or card B for a possibly-lesser effect, but hit a bonus action space? Additionally, the bonus actions can help make up for a less-than-ideal hand of cards.
I’ve taken the numbers off the current cards, leaving me with a 54 card deck in 6 suits with 9 cards in each suit. Within each suit there are 3 ranks of cards, with 3 cards appearing in each rank.
I added 9 icons to the deck, evenly distributed, such that each icon appears once per suit and an even number of times within each rank across all suits.
In play, when you match an icon you previously played, you get a bonus. The icons are distributed such that a match must be in a different suit and is 2/3 likely to be a different rank. You need not pay attention to what the previous player played, and if you forget it, it doesn’t affect anyone else. It enhances the effects of the bonus actions on “bad” hands, too, as you can only get the bonus if you’re playing cards in multiple suits. You’re no longer rewarded for playing in your strongest suit, as could happen with the calendar system.
I really think this is the solution I’ve been looking for.
death of an inelegant darling.
I think I’ve found a means to finally do away with my most inelegant darling, the troublesome calendar track in LXIX: The Year of Four Emperors, while still providing for a bonus action system. I think it’ll be something players can safely ignore, but will still benefit those who need it most, which is really what the bonus actions were intended to do. I’m eager to play test it this week at Board Games & Beer!
A tweet from Nat Levan reminded me of a trick I picked up from working on prototypes at different computers.
Whenever I download a custom typeface for a prototype, I always put a copy of the font file in the game’s folder on my hard drive. Later, when I copy the folder to a thumb drive to work on a different computer, I’ll have that type available to install on whatever device I’m using.
play without fear 