Pretentious Board Games

I have been spending a lot of time in gimp preparing the dancing robots cards to look good for my printing. I have the following to show for my efforts: They seem to be getting closer to correct, but I still am working on them a bit. Also, I am considering entering cook the books into this contest. I just need to retheme it as an Oliver Twist game.

Last night we played a game of creative accounting which could have gone better. The biggest problem was having six children with us when we were going over the rules. One good thing that came out of the game was the fact that accountant and auditor look enough alike to cause confusion when distracted. I have updated the names of the roles to bean counter and mole accordingly. Also I will make cards with color to help the game move along more quickly. Another thing that happened yesterday during  work was our first games of Avalon with Lancelot. He changes the game. I am not sure if it is for good or ill, but he definitely changes it.

Over the past few days we have been playing some more "creative accounting". I still haven't gotten in a three player game, but we have played a fair amount of two and four to six player games. It seems like the cut off for two companies might want to be at six players. That decision hasn't been made yet for sure, but it seems like a good place. With two players it is mostly a game about second guessing your opponent, and it ends up playing similar to paper scissor rock (sigh). Cook the books > play it safe > audit. With four players the game is pretty hard for the auditor. It is possible that I should make the scoring different (something like the more book cookers that are caught on an audit the more points the auditor gains). If I do that then perhaps the book cooking should be scored the same. (The game would have a whole new scoring system, but the remainder of the game would stay the same) I entered SaltCon's Prototype alley. I am still trying ...

We have been playing games of the game that I came up with at 1AM a few days ago (which is currently being called both 'Cook the Books' and 'Creative Accountants') fairly often recently. It is interesting to have everyone at work really interested in a game that I created. Usually my co-workers don't all like games that I made because I like to insert a lot of math into games, and this one is pretty math light. There have been a lot of changes over the three days that we have been playing it. Some of the changes include: Removing Company B for small numbers of players (We are not yet sure where the cut off lies, but with 6 players 1 company is still an interesting game) Changing it so that there is always 1 accountant for small numbers of players (and always two accountants for large numbers.) The rules are a little out of date, but they can be found  here  (I plan to update them, but have not at the time that I post this). Also: I have been getting ready...

I woke up again at 1 AM. There was no dream this time - just a game. A co-worker threw out ideas for a game a few weeks ago and I was mulling them around in my head for a while (while I was not working very much on anything else). The current rules follow: Cook the Books: Two companies try to cook their books to improve their perceived values and attract investors. Auditors try to catch them at it. 2-12 players Job cards (unless noted, job cards are played face down): All job cards have a company. Half of them are company A and the other half are company B Auditor: You can play any card including audit cards. You win if you catch either company cooking the books twice. Accountant: You can play any card except for audit cards. You win if your company cooks the books without getting caught three times. (In case of a tie, you have to cook the books once more than the other company did.) Hippie Accountant: You are an Accountant, however no-one suspects you of secretly being an...