Last night Ian and I had a discussion about tension in games. We wanted to figure out how to add more tension to a game, but first we need to define what exactly tension was. We decided to break it down.
First, we picked out some games that we felt had tension. I brought up Ticket [...]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I was feeling a little concerned about my game prototype Stellar Underworld. This feeling came from some of the feedback from the guys from Oklahoma, and from a botched playtest with some “improved” rules based on that feedback. All of that, and I feel pressure to get this game ready for the Protocon design contest.Well, [...]
There are two main states of game development:
Exhilaration – You have a list of some issues in your game that need to be addressed. You’ve come up with a solution to one of the problems on paper. You think it is so elegant and will solve all of your problems. You, sir, are a genius! [...]
Today I received some feedback from Mike and the guys at the Royal Steamwork Society about Stellar Underworld. Here are some of the main points I pulled from it:
Rules Clarifications
Can contraband assets be delivered in multiples?
Yes. This will have to be explicitly stated in the rulebook. Contraband assets are different from other assets in that [...]
Ian’s Unnamed Space Game Playtest
Ian, Jon, and I played a newer version of Ian’s unnamed space game. This game is your basic 4X game: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Actually, the “explore” aspect isn’t really there because the board is pretty much open information from the beginning. So, I guess it’s a 3X game. Anyways, [...]
Math Can Be Annoying
In Lost Cities you have this wonderful scoring event that happens at the end of the game. There is nothing better after a fun game than taking a math test. It helps to have a pencil and paper handy to calculate your mess of a score. You have to sort through bases [...]
Dan and I met Tuesday night for play testing. We each brought a new game design to the table. Dan had a dice game based on the video game Rampart. We each had a Castle and had a stack of gold placed inside. We were able to build up the walls to our Castles, place [...]
Last night Ian, Jon, and I met.
Chit-Chat
We started a bit differently by chatting about games on the couch. We talked about our games being published, and all of the details that go along with that.
Ian told us about his newest game idea involving dice, Chun-Li, and fireballs. We were very taken with the idea [...]
Back in the earlier Internet days, about a dozen ago (that’s 1996-97-ish, for those of you who are either math-addled or from the future), I had fancied myself a bit of a web game developer. I had a website with couple medium-sized multiplayer online games, your standard strategic exploration and combat and tech tree stuff, [...]
Over the weekend, I realized an important aspect of suits in game design. They restrict options and therefore increase tension.
Imagine a game of Lost Cities where all of the cards were of the same suit and they could be played on any expedition. Now instead of a 20% chance of drawing the suit you need, [...]