Pretentious Board Games

I played Grab the Loot at work with the changes that Daniel and I talked about, and then the next night at the Board Game Design Guild without them. They definitely need some balancing, and I am not sure if they make the options less interesting, but I am going to work on fixing them up. My notes from the game at work were as follows: more money gain - things cheaper - top one is free most of the time.  add a few more greeds for 2 players Captain should give 2 coins.  I have implemented the first and last, and I am not sure if I am going to make the second one happen. I need another playtest before I continue with the new changes. I also made a new mat for The Madness Place taking into the feedback that I received from Daniel. Here it is in all it's glory: I also made some start cards for TMP - cards which guarantee that you start with a level 2 device, and a time card, so that removes a little bit of the fiddlyness of the setup, and balances the possibility o...

So, now I am ready to figure out how to incorporate the feedback of yesterday:  Madness Place: I have already removed the discard a meeple for a energy, and add an energy to the output. I have already lowered the number of free actions to 2: access device, and balance. I have made the person that steals a device pay an energy to the person that they stole from. This should make stealing still a deterrent to building awesome devices, but not as powerful as it used to be. Storing resources is now energy cost free, however it does cost a turn. I also have to figure how the scoring is off. Daniel said that he felt that it was off, but didn't elaborate.  Either way, these should not be horrible changes to make, and I should be able to test them fairly soon. I think that the changes to Grab the loot will be as follows: First changes (try these immediately, keep the ones that I like) Split the different finishes into setup choices: nice captain that doesn't shoot ...

I met up with Daniel Peterson from Mayday Games tonight to show him some of my games. We ended up playing two games before we finished. He liked some things about them, and provided a lot of helpful feedback. To get it down before I forget it, here is a brain dump: First we played Grab the Loot. It didn't really play well with two players. I need to play games to balance it at that point. Grab the Loot: Coins should be used as a cost and should prevent you from taking better actions. Grab a coin as a generic space. The being forced to move your meeple to a different card makes for interesting decisions I just had an idea to block the row as well as column. The randomness of the finish is not well beloved. Cards should come out faster. Talked about revealing new card each turn. I think perhaps each round could rectify the problem also. Modifying greed was very cool Exponential should stop at some point. Focus on the cutthroat element of the game if that is what ...

I had the guild look at Grab the Loot again. We played with 4 players, and had a good feedback session afterward. Here are my notes: Not enough treasures changed hands - I need to up that! Have a player that gives an extra blocker/worker? Use a cube for the extra guy Player that steals more? More swaps to fix the treasures changing hands problem Double your lowest item value as a player ability? When cards fill up, discard them What happened to the card that removed one person's meeple and gives one coin to that person? Are coins too powerful? Perhaps 4 is a better scorepoint? Cards that pay a coin to gain 2 items, or the reverse All in all, I am ready to make some changes. I will likely have new PNP files ready in a day or two. I have also made a lot of progress on playtesthub. It has the ability to add games, look at games, and mark games for playtesting. You just now need to be able to actually playtest them and give feedback.

Not too long ago I made a survey about what people were having a hard time with when it came to designing great games. I have collected the results, and decided to make a website that connects playtesters to game designers. The biggest things that people complained of was not having enough time, not having enough playtesting, and preparing to submit games to publishers or put games up on kickstarter. This website should directly help solve the second problem, and if I make it correctly, it should also address the first and third problem as well. Designers will have to spend "points" to get their game to sort to the top of the list of games to playtest, and the only way that points can be gained is by playtesting other designers games and providing feedback. Once you have points, you can apply them to your own game, or you can sell them in a marketplace to designers. Thus people that just want to get their game playtested without helping other people out can pay for that...