Honeypot Production Immanent

Dec 192006

The tubes are in.

The first official board game from Gizmet Gameworks is poised to hit the shelf. Well, the virtual shelf, anyway. After a long period of design and playtesting, the game that has been through more name changes than [insert relevant Hollywood serial divorcee here] is ready to go. I cemented in a couple of rules that made it through final testing, and I declared Honeypot “done” about a month or so ago. Now, all there was to do was make the damn thing, and get it into the hands of the waiting, game-hungry public.

Since this is my first game for sale, I’m leery about sinking thousands of dollars into a good-sized run – I don’t have that kind of money on hand to drop on a project that may or may not sail. So, I decided to limit myself to five hundred or so units at first. I drew up an extensive list of manufacturers, did research, got recommendations from other published developers, made spreadsheets, figured budgets, and finally wound up with a fairly cheap bid from a US-based manufacturer. Cheap at first look, at least – the price of just under nine bucks a unit (which is not bad for such a small run) did not take into account additional costs for setup, shipping, or actually using good parts. All told, my most inexpensive option was still around twenty bucks a pop, which was much too rich for my blood. Despair was on the horizon – I could figure out some way to do this, or sit around waiting for the fickle finger of a publisher to point my way.

As luck would have it, I found a way. Not as simple as getting someone in a factory in Parts Unknown to fill boxes with boxes and drop them on my doorstep, but within a much more realistic budget. I drew up a plan, did some more research, and started ordering parts to print up and assemble myself.

The basic components for Honeypot are the board and forty double-sided hex tokens, a rule sheet, and a box. Not too complicated, hm? Well, getting hex counters made with any kind of quality is first a pain in the ass, and secondly a pain in the money. So, I took it upon myself to port my token art to a new platform – 1″ white labels, stuck on either side of a 1 1/4″ wooden disc. Labor-intensive, to be sure, but not rocket science, so I can produce about two dozen games worth of game tokens in the course of a DVD – more, if I put Battlestar in the disc changer. These came out beautifully, especially after discovering that a totally decent color laser printer could be had for a very reasonable sum – an investment that will pay itself off many times over in the coming while or so.

Next was the board. I found a great source for cheap blank 18″ square folding game boards, but that would involve more printing and cutting and pasting and getting boxes that fit and packing those boxes in other boxes for shipping and storage and all sorts of other grief that I didn’t feel like dealing with. However, a solution was at hand! Inspired by the good folks at Pair-Of-Dice games, I realized that the Honeypot board would fit beautifully printed on a bandanna. I did a bit more research, and a bit of emailing – the same story as usual, cheap stuff required orders of several thousand. Fortunately, by widening my search, I located a local screen printer who could provide exactly what I needed at the price I needed, with a turnaround of less than a week. Brilliant. Board art updated, resized, and made ready for screen printing, and sent off – I went over to check out a proof print today, and it looks awesome. The first order will be ready tomorrow. Woo!

Honeypot board proof

So, that just leaves packaging. I have a foldable and stuffable game board, a large handful of nice game pieces, and rules that fit on one side of a letter-sized page. I know what must be done. I whip up some cover art to go on the other side of the page (with logotype help from co-flywheeler Emerson), and begin my final edit of the rules (with much-appreciated input from Mischa, Dan, and the rest of our resident designers). This will be printed up double-sided on my swanky new color laser, and inserted into a clear plastic mailing tube, along with the lovely new cloth boards and candy-like “hex” tokens, and capped with yellow (or special edition red!) vinyl caps. Voila! A game that is attractive, economical, and pleasant to fondle.

Honeypot package

As mentioned above, I just received moments ago two large cardboard boxes that contain my shipping tubes. The boards will be delivered here tomorrow afternoon, and at that point, the only thing standing between Honeypot and the clamoring masses are five minutes assembly time and twenty bucks. (Once I get the product page on gizmet.com built, anyway…) The initial run is only about a hundred and fifty pieces, so I can get a good sense of what demand might be like. The killer part of this production method is that I can have parts for any number of games ready to go in a week or so, now, so a surge of orders can be handled with ease – one might even go so far as to call the process “agile”, if one were so inclined.

If anyone has a case of morbid curiosity about any part of the research or production processes, my esteemed suppliers, or anything else regarding the game, feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment here. I’m looking forward to holding the first totally complete Honeypot package in my hand tomorrow, and I’m looking even more forward to everyone else holding one of their own. We ship!

Code Name: Pyramid 3

Nov 092006

This is something I came up with last night. No play testing and I don’t even have the pieces needed to play. This is very rough. 

It is a two player game that uses 2 sets of tree house pieces. That’s 30 pyramids in 5 different colors and 3 different sizes. 

Setup: Take all of the large and medium pyramids and randomly place them into a 4×5 grid. Then both players take turns placing the remaining small pyramids on top of the large and medium ones of different colors. 

Play: Players take turns moving a single pyramid one space on the grid. A player may immediately move the same pyramid once more if it landed on a larger pyramid of the same color. At no time can there ever be more than three pyramids stacked. A player may only move a pyramid a maximum of two spaces during his turn.  

 Goal: To get sets of three pyramids that are stacked from largest on top to smallest on bottom. This scores 1 point if it the stack is made up of 3 colors, 2 points if made up of 2 colors, and 3 points if made up of 1 color. Once a player has formed a triple stack he must immediately remove it from the table and place it in front of him. The empty space on the board may be moved into by other pyramids. 

 Game ends when one player has 5 points. 

TDC- Cosmic Iced Rum

Nov 082006

Here’s my mostly unplaytested game for the Treehouse Design Challenge. I call it Cosmic Iced Rum, taking inspiration from Cosmic Encounter, Guillotine, and Rummy.
Cosmic Iced Rum

For two players and one stash, plays in less than ten minutes.

  1. Shuffle a stash of treehouse pieces (five colors, three sizes each), and create a single-file line. Use the tube to clearly mark one end of the row as the end of the line. All pieces will be drawn from the start of the line.
  2. Roll for powers, using the standard Treehouse die:
    • Aim: Reorient a pyramid. Force left or right placement on the other player
    • Dig: Draw from end of line.
    • Hop: Pull n+1th piece, depending on size (second for small, third for medium, fourth for large).
    • Tip: Precog defense, shift target one to left or right.
    • Swap: Swap end pieces with freshly pulled pyramid.
    • Wild: Your choice. Only if you roll Wild can two players have the same power.
  3. Play phase one, loading:
    • On your turn, draw the pyramid at the start of the line. It goes to the line you’re building in front you you, either on the left or the right.
    • When you place a pyramid in your line, you may aim it either at yourself or at your opponent, indicating the target of your power.
    • When you use a power, you must take a flat pyramid and make it upright.
  4. Play phase two, fighting:
    • Any remaining flat pyramids now fire, starting with the start of the line.
    • Shooting an upright pyramid causes to to be removed.
    • Shooting a defensive pyramid causes it to become offensive.
    • Shooting an offensive pyramid causes it to become upright.
    • When you use a power, you must take a flat pyramid and make it upright.
  5. Scoring: When all pyramids in both player’s lines are upright, a player gets five points for two like colors next to each other, and three points for two like sizes next to each other. A single pyramid may score twice: once for a match on the left, once for a match on the right.

There’s definitely a game in here somewhere, but it needs some TLC.

Treehouse Design Challenge - Games!

Nov 072006

Time’s up!

Okay, flywheelers, post your games – make a new post if you want, or just add comments here. Here’s mine:
Transfer

Two to five players, with one tree of icehouse piece each (small, medium, large pyramid), and one die for the game.

Set up with pyramids in radial lines, large in middle, small on outside – so for two, it looks like: S M L . L M S – a player wins when they can create a .LMS line in one of the other arms.

Put the die in the center, with the 1 facing up. Pick a player to start, and run clockwise. On each turn, the player turns the die to an adjacent face and moves one piece that many spots. A “spot” is either where a pyramid currently is, or the empty “spot” at the end of the line. Empty spots close up after movement. If the player moved the die to a number that was higher, they may “cap” an opponent’s pyramid with a pyramid of the same or smaller size – capped pyramids may not move. A player may cap their own pyramids similarly at any time. If the player moved the die to a number that was lower, they must move a pyramid of theirs that is capping another if possible. If a player moves a piece off the end of a line, past the empty spot, the pyramid is tipped, and the player must take a turn to right it. A pyramid may not be moved past a tipped pyramid. If a player is unable to make a legal move, their turn is skipped.

(Cleanup, editing, and photos pending…)

Treehouse Design Challenge

Oct 232006

Long time no post. Time to fix that. Speaking of…

I met up with Mischa and the Nicks at Epoch this evening for some gamey activity. There was much talk about roleplaying and fondling of books, but we wound up spending most of our time playing three games – Category 5, Zendo, and Treehouse. Two of these games were a lot of fun.

If you’re not familiar with Zendo, you should be. The basic mechanic is this: one player takes the role of the “zen master”, and devises a rule to describe whether or not a particular configuration of Icehouse pieces (called a “koan” in the game) has the “Buddha nature” or not. He then sets up an example of one which does, and one which does not, and the players try to figure out what the rule is. For example, a simple rule might be, “A koan has the Buddha nature if all the pieces are the same size”. The zen master then sets up one that demonstrates that rule (say, three small pieces all pointing at each other) and one which does not (like a small pyramid stacked on top of a large one). The players then take turns building koans out of Icehouse pyramids, and either asking “master?”, in which case the zen master tells them whether their koan matches the rule or not, or “mondo”, after which each player puts forth a guess as to the correctness of the koan or not. Each player who chooses correctly wins a guessing stone, which may be used to make a guess about what the actual rule is – if they figure out the rule, they win the round, and become the zen master for the next round. The game sounds deceptively simple, and it kind of is, but the play is fairly deep, and requires a good deal of thought, both on the players’ parts, and for the zen master to pick a rule which will be challenging and fun to figure out, but not too hard or too easy. I highly recommend checking out Kory’s account of the design history of the game – it’s a great read, and gives a good amount of insight into the process.

This was the first fun game.

We also played several rounds of Category 5 (also known as “6 nimmt”), designed by the esteemed Wolfgang Kramer. This is another deceptively simple game with fairly deep play. The game consists of a deck of one hundred and four cards, numbered from 1 to 104, each of which are worth a certain number of points. (Most are worth one, some worth two, three, or five, and one worth seven.) The goal is to take the least amount of points possible, and games are generally played to seventy-five points – there are several variants, but we didn’t try any last night. The way points are scored is this: each player is dealt ten cards, and four cards are laid out face-up for starters. On every turn, each player chooses one card to play, and the cards are revealed simultaneously. There are some simple rules to determine which cards then go where – basically, starting with the lowest card, you either place your card on the end of a row if your card is greater than the value of the last card on that row, but less than the cards on the ends of the other rows. If the row that you place your card on already has five cards, you take those cards (and score the points that they are worth), and restart a new row with your card. Also, if your card is lower than the end cards on all the rows, you must choose one row to score, again starting a new row with the card that you played. Ten rounds are played, one for each card in the players’ hands, and points are tallied at the end. Sounds very simple, plays very quickly, and, as it turns out, has an amazing amount of strategy and tension for the amount of apparent randomness in the setup. This is a game that non-gamers can pick up very easily, but that still has enough meat to it that experienced gamers will still enjoy it greatly. It kind of reminds me of No Thanks! in that way, and may be my current most favoritest pick-up game outside of Jungle Speed.

This was the second fun game.

So, it looks like poor little Treehouse is left out. I really like the idea behind the game – it’s a little like Fluxx – but every time I play it, there’s a lukewarm reaction, and I usually never wind up playing it with the same set of people twice. So, what went wrong? Take a look at the rules – like the other two games, it seems simple enough, and it reads as if there’s a good amount of interaction between players and a wide range of stuff that can happen during gameplay. But in actual play, none of that comes out. The actions that you can perform on your setup are too random – the game doesn’t last long enough for the randomness to diffuse across the potential outcomes, or across the players. The rule that you must perform an action on your pieces if you can severely limits the number of interesting choices that the players can make – and whatever choices they can make are usually blotted out by the chunky randomness of the other players’ actions. I’ve never played a game of Treehouse where it felt that the winner won by skill – it’s always felt like it was just a matter of time that the player’s setup or the house changed to the right place where they matched, like a spinner coming to rest on a random number. Thankfully, a game of Treehouse lasts about five or ten minutes, and after a game or two, we usually move on.
Treehouse does not seem to exhibit what I’ve been calling “deep play” here. The choices available to the player are minimal, and the effects of those choices are minimized by random elements or other player choices. There is no tension in the game – we might not know who’s going to win until the last second, but nobody ever seems to care, either. There is a very limited range of action, and the possibilities that come out during game play feel like they are exhausted rather quickly. There rarely feels like there’s a reason to play it again, because it doesn’t give the players that feeling like they could maybe win this time, if they just did this or that differently, or that they may have won, but only because they outsmarted their opponents. I’m sure that my gaming companions could add to this list, and I hope they do so.

However! I would still recommend that you buy Treehouse, for two very good reasons. First, the tubes of stashes that make up the game set are an excellent and affordable source of Icehouse pieces, which can be used to play a whole boatload of different games, some of which are really, really fun. I’ll probably be picking up another four or five stashes myself in the near future.

Second, I hereby issue the first Flywheel Design Challenge! Mischa and I were discussing the shortcomings of Treehouse after playing last night, and decided that there’s a good game in there somewhere, and we should try to pull it out. So, Flywheelers, here it is: take a Treehouse set (five differently colored stacks of three Icehouse pieces each – small, medium, and large – and a six-sided die) and create a game using only those pieces. It should be easy to explain to a random person in a coffee joint, and you should be able to play it with two to four people on a small table. Try to limit game play time to, say, fifteen minutes to a half hour. You have two weeks to comply – I will collect submissions and post the results here.

Go!

Trilogy Theme

Aug 312006

Now that I’ve described the structure of the system, I’ll talk about the theme of the trilogy. The concept that I decided upon is that of alien contact and visitation. My hope is to simulate (as much as a board game can) the decisions and feelings surrounding this topic. There aren’t a lot of “book” science fiction games out there. When I say “book”, I mean science fiction in the classic sense. It’s exploring behavior through non-existant scenarios. Doom: The Board Game would fall under “movie” sci-fi where the setting, weapons, and characters are unreal, but it doesn’t really explore any ideas. Anyways, here’s the rundown:

Trilogy Theme Overview

Game 1 – Players use resources to collect and decipher space signals.

Game 2 – Players control governments and organizations to prepare the world for an alien visit.

Game 3 – The aliens visit our planet.

This is a rough outline, but I think that each one of them will have their own feel. Since each game will have its own focus, I will be allowed to explore mechanics in depth. For example, if this were just one game, I’m sure “decipher space signals” would be just one card. In this series, it will be an entire game!

Next Up: Where to Start?

Trilogy Project

Aug 302006

I’ve had this crazy idea in the back of my mind for a long time, but until now have I actually decided to take a stab at it. I am planning on designing a trilogy of games. We’ve all seen trilogies in books, movies, and video games, but not so much in board games. In the board game world, we have expansions (Seafarers of Catan), spin-offs (Blue Moon City), conversions (Travel Blokus), and let’s-sell-you-the-game-you-already-own (Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition). However, nothing is what I would call a true sequel or a trilogy. (Note: I hear that there is a game being developed called Cartagena II that will follow where Cartagena left off. They may have beaten me to the punch, but that still remains to be seen how that game actually plays.)

My definition of board game series (in my case, trilogy) requires the following:

1. All games in the series will have an effect on one or more games played later in the series.

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. My current plan is to have the final state of Game 1 to determine the setup of Game 2.

2. All games in the series can be played by themselves.

This is related to the previous rule. Separating the games apart from the overall series experience is important. Each game should stand on its own merits.

3. All games in the series are connected through a story.

This requirement is to strengthen the connection between the games. The story is what separates my definition from game series like the GIPF project.

4. All games in the series require the same range of players.

The same group of players should be able to experience the whole series from start to finish. This will make it more challenging to design, but it will make the players much more open to committing the time to play the series.

I plan on documented my way through this whole project. I know I will have a lot to learn. Designing a single game is no small task, so designing three of them that connect is going to be a challenge. Stay tuned for next time when I tell you about the theme of my trilogy…

King Fish

Jul 272006

This is my entry for the monthly Boardgame Designer’s Forum contest. The description, entries, and winners can be found here. I placed third!

King Fish

2-5 Players

Components:

1 x Standard Deck of Cards
1 x Scoring Pad and Pencil

Overview:

Players are competing to catch the most fish in a tournament. The game will be played with one round for each player. Players will take turns being the dealer.

Setup for the Round:

1. Shuffle the deck.
2. Deal 6 cards to each player.
3. Deal 3 cards face-up (fish) into a group (pond). Create 3 ponds in this manner.

Playing a Round:

The round will consist of up multpile fishing excursions. During each excursion, players’ hand sizes will get smaller and smaller denoting their fatigue throughout the day. The round will end when all of the ponds are empty or at the end of an excursion when the deck has less cards than players. During each excursion do the following:

Choose a Pond

• Each excursion, starting with the dealer and going clockwise around the table, that player will choose one pond that all players will fish in.
• Each fish has a number and a suit. The number represents its distance from the boat. It suit represents the bait that will catch it.

Choose a Fishing Line

• Starting with the dealer and going clockwise around the table, each player plays one card face-up in front of him.
• This is his fishing line, and only the number is used. The number represents the distance your line will be thrown out. The higher the number, the more fish you will have in range but be careful because the lower numbered lines will reel in first and may take your fish!
• From lowest to highest, the numbers are: A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K.
• King Fish Rule: The only way to catch a J,Q, or K fish is to use a line with a J, Q, or K. The order doesn’t matter. Example: A Queen Line can catch a King Fish.

Choose the Bait

• Starting with the dealer and going clockwise around the table, each player plays one card face-down in front of him.
• This is his bait, and only the suit is used. The suit represents which fish you are able to catch.

Reel ‘Em In

• Starting with the player with the smallest line card and going higher, each player turns over their bait.
• As a player’s bait is turned over, that player chooses one fish in the pond whose suit matches his bait AND whose number is less than his line. He keeps that fish card as a “trick”.
• If more than one player have the same line number, the highest bait number is used to determine who chooses first.

Back to the Tackle Box

• From the deck, turn over one card for each player. Starting with the dealer and going clockwise around the table, each player chooses one card to keep. If there are less cards than players, end the round instead.

Scoring:

• Each fish is worth one point.
• Each J, Q, or K fish is worth two points.

Vices and Virtues

Jul 272006

This is Chris’ game that we playtested on Tuesday.

Overview

We only tested the basic functionality of the game so a full review of it cannot be made. What we did test was the basic acquisition, moral influence, and movement of the characters. The game consists of a board with buildings and streets. In each building, there are characters that have three moral traits. These traits are one of seven which are either in the good or evil state. The object of the game is to change the characters so that more of them are matching your hidden alignment.

Critique

We were given two actions each turn. These actions could be used to move one space, recruit a character, or turn a character. That is fairly simple, but the real problem for me was the board evaluation. With those actions, you must first see what is possible for you to do. You have to look at the traits on your characters, the traits on the buildings, the traits of those who you want to turn, the good/evil alignment for those traits, and to see if anybody else owns those characters. There is a lot of looking around. Once you enumerate all of those possibilities, you must come up with some heuristic to determine your move. Right now, the game has these mini-goals: don’t leave your people in the street, turn people to your alignment, and recruit. If you can do those things on your turn, then you’re in good shape.

Right now, there is not a lot of bang for the buck. Either lower the buck (complexity), or increase the bang (interesting choices). That is just my initial impression of it based on the incomplete game.

I do have some ideas to reduce complexity without totally stripping the game down to nothing. Mark Kreitler (who may be rejoining us in a few months) once told me that you shouldn’t force complex realistic mechanics in your game if you can get away with just the essence of it. Right now, your game has a very literal translation of moral converting. Characters have multiple vices and virtues, just like real life. Characters with a bad trait can convert another one, just like real life. Like-traited characters can be recruited (made friends with), just like real life. My idea is that the game retains the good/evil conversions, but maybe not with the movement, “owned” character, or tons of traits. An example of this idea can be found in games like Othello where you convert based on location to opposite pieces. That is a very basic example, but the point it that the goals you want to achieve with this theme can be approached in a different manner.

As it stands right now, you have a lot of challenges ahead, and I’m glad you decided to proceed in steps to test out the viability of different aspects of your game. It’s good to have a strong framework to build the rest of your game on.

Fluffy Bunny Tea Party

Jul 272006

This is a game that Marc brought that broke new barriers in game design… or something.

Overview

This is a card game with two decks. One deck is full of tea party treats which have points on them. Points are bad. The other deck is full of action cards, like serve a treat from the row of three face-up treat cards, or “hop” to switch places with another player. On your turn you can play a card and either draw a card or sip your tea (remove a tea token from your supply of four). The game ends when the action deck is depleted or one player is finished with their tea.

That sounds simple enough, right? Well, imagine doing this “in character.” We’re talking fluffy bunnies here. Also, politeness is a rule in this game. When a player serves you a point-filled treat, you must gracefully accept like a college hazing. If you fail to be polite or forget to refill the treat tray, another player can force another treat onto your plate.

This game was so hilarious and we all had a great time playing. No doubt Marc will post his video soon.

Critique

The game itself is pretty good. I like the fact that you have to “push” the treats on other rather than playing them from hand. That prevents players from getting really powerful hands with high point treats. The trading, hopping, and frolicking all work fairly well, too.

The tea drinking mechanic was neat, but it seems like we have too much tea. None of the players were able to finish off their tea. Also, the benefit of drinking the tea is minimal. You would only drink it to try to end the game, but that is a difficult task that will take many turns. On top of that, you skip drawing a card. I think it needs to be tweaked a bit, but I do like the essence of what it is trying to do.

I wonder about the target audience for this game. You mentioned that this was for kids and old British ladies. Is it also intended for us gamers to play? If so, I wonder if Pretty Pretty Princess or similar games would have the same humorous effect.

In the end, you challenged my understanding of incorporating humor in games. Good Job!

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