The erudite Bryan Winter, owner of my FLGS I’m Board! Games & Family Fun was on The Joy Cardin Show yesterday talking board games, The Settlers of Catan, and the active Madison game design scene.
Among the local game connections, he talks about Out of the Box Publishing, local designer Ed Marriott‘s hot new game Scoville, Thunderworks Games‘ clever abstract game Bullfrogs and he even name drops yours truly.
Listen to the Fun With Winter Board Games episode of The Joy Cardin Show on WPR!
On Saturday night I plied four friends with awesome homemade pan pizza in hopes of getting them to play test Dungeon of Doom. The pizza worked its magic and the play test was a smashing successes! All four ladies had a great time while playing and it inspired a stream of comments and suggestions in the postmortem I could barely keep up with. Excited, energized play testers are a wonderful thing!
Getting my ducks in a row.
After the previous play test, I made a few changes to the prototype. I simplified the scoring by rounding the gold values on Monsters to even hundreds. To improve the odds of a successful Delve, I reduced the frequency of Canardo symbols in the deck. Additionally, I took the Magic Item cards out of the main deck and added ‘item draw’ symbols; now, when a player takes a card with the symbol, she draws a card from the Magic Items deck. I figured these updates would give me plenty of data to analyze before the final 4P play test. Race and Class cards, which allow players to break the rules in small but meaningful ways, would need to wait until those rules were rock solid.
On the night of the play test.
This play test started out, as mine often do, with me fumbling my way through the explanation, hoping I remembered everything. By the time we got through the first round, though, my players had grokked the system and we were off to a rollicking start.
Dungeon of Doom has some bluffing and press your luck elements and a very silly theme which combine to generate tension, laughter and a lot of groan-inducing puns. We were on fire last night with groaners so epic I had to write some of them down so I could incorporate them into the game later on. I’d share them here, but that would spoil the fun!
After the game, we talked about what worked and what didn’t, what they wanted to see more of and how the game play compared to previous versions of the system. More frequent access to Magic Items was big on everyone’s list, and I agree. The new system functioned, but I hadn’t added nearly enough of the ‘item draw’ symbols for it to actually work as intended and very few Magic Items entered the game.
There was one element that managed to surprise both my players and me.
There are a couple of Epic Monsters in the deck that disrupt the Delve when they appear. The first one they turned up took them completely by surprise; I’d sort of neglected to mention them when I explained the game. I could tell they were annoyed.
In the postmortem, their enthusiasm for them took me by surprise. At first, they explained, they didn’t like the Epic baddies interrupting their carefully planned Delves, but after they had a chance to reflect on it, they demanded more and various Epic Monsters! The wild unpredictability of them shot an extra thrill through the game that they really enjoyed.
What’s next?
I need to increase the frequency of the ‘item draw’ symbols. I’ll double it to start with, maybe triple, and I definitely need more Magic Items. Lots of possibilities here.
I’ll bring in a few more Epic Monsters. My play testers had some great suggestions for new Epic baddies and I’ve got some cool ideas of my own. I’m excited to get a few more in the game, but I will have to make sure they don’t become too disruptive.
Lastly, I need to finish writing and test the Race and Class cards. Simple, easy to understand and easy to use powers are called for here.
I’ve got at least one more, possibly two more play tests coming up this week, which I’ll post about here. And then? Then I’ll have won 4P.
4P Progress
I squeezed in a play test of Canardo’s Dungeon at the cabin last weekend, marking the second of four expected play tests for a successful 4P. I played with three players, the minimum I would have considered adequate for play, and it worked surprisingly well. There is, perhaps, less tension in the bidding phase with three, but it’s remarkably solid.
I’ve found some areas to concentrate on with the next play test; I’ve already adjusted gold values and reduced the frequency of Canardo’s appearances on the cards, but I’ve got new resolution mechanisms to test for item distribution and looting. Once I’ve got the core mechanisms polished, I’ll add in character race and class cards that allow the players to break the rules in unique ways. Fun!
A Name Change
Speaking of Canardo’s Dungeon, I’m changing the name to “Canardo’s Dungeon of Doom” or just “Dungeon of Doom” for now.
Publishing Updates
I heard from Frank at R&R Games, the company who picked up one of my games at the Gathering last year. The artist is set to begin work on the game this week. Huzzah!
I heard from the publisher currently evaluating another of my games. I sent them a proposal in December and they liked it enough to request the rules. Today, based on the strength of those rules, they requested a prototype for further evaluation. Progress!
Unexpected Email
Over a year ago, I sent a proposal via boardgamegeek to a game designer I’ve never met for a collaboration on a dream project involving a game he’d previously worked on. I had no idea whether he was an active user or if he’d even get the message. Months went by and I didn’t hear back, so I shelved the idea and mostly forgot about it.
Last weekend, he finally replied. “Of course I’d love to work with you on [this dream project]”, he wrote, and gave me his email address. Thrill!
I’m buzzing with excitement!
One of the highlights of this weekend was a viewing of one of my favorite films, GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI. It was new to most of the other guys and they were totally blown away by it.
The 1999 film, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, is about Ghost Dog, an emotionally damaged outcast living on the fringe of normal society; a broken boy grown into a man, who has made sense of his senseless world by adopting the ancient code of the samurai. A 300 year old book, The Way of the Samurai, is his manual for living with the ever-present threat of violence and death, his comfort in his acute isolation and loneliness, and ultimately, his road map to self-destruction.
I find Forest Whitaker’s touching performance as the titular hit man deeply moving. He brings a profound, sweet sadness to the role that elevates the absurdly implausible premise.
If you ever empathized with The Star Wars Kid, this movie is for you.
play without fear 