More Automatown and getting ready for SaltCon
Alison and I played Automatown with many of the discussed changes last night. We liked some of them, and others we did not.
The game ended up ending in 6 rounds, and it took about 80 minutes. The later rounds were longer than the first few rounds. We also were being distracted by kids, so perhaps we could have gone faster.
Alison ended up with 7 workers and 9 points while I had 9 workers and 28 points (more about that later).
Having fewer types of resources was very good. It made the economy less confusing, and setup and cleanup much faster. The mats worked well, and during the game, we thought of more things to put on them - (the three starting workers can be added here, as well as a reminder of what level is what in terms of dots.)
Here is the mat that we played with:
We started with 3 scrap, which was not enough given that we were also playing with the rule that made upgrades cost a scrap. In fact, that rule made us strapped for scrap the whole game. We decided that more things should give out scrap and that perhaps the base scrap grab should also give 2 scrap.
Other than feeling scrap poor, we really liked the increased difficulty in getting high-quality parts. It made level 4 parts feel much harder to get, so they were an achievement.
I probably have to rebalance the Automa to make the high-level ones better because of this change, but I liked it a lot, so I will totally do the required work for that.
I noticed that with making there be only three types of resources, I accidentally made a few of the automa have identical costs. I will correct that shortly.
There was one part of the game that was a complete fiasco, however. The ending.
We used a new scoring mechanic which allowed the goal cards to be collected at the end of any turn by anyone that met the requirements and had more of the relevant icons than anyone else did. This was a problem because Alison and I were neck to neck the whole game, but she got 2 goal cards in the turn before the last, and the ones that popped up on the last turn were easy for me to complete (and I was able to complete two more automa in the last turn, so I also completed the other two visible goals at the same time). I ended up gaining enough points to win by a landslide. She could have completed the goals as well, but I had more icons than she did, so I stole them all.
What felt like a close game ended up as a massacre, and that wasn't a fun way to end it.
In light of this, I feel that scoring points needs to cost something - it can't just happen. We are going to try this new scoring method next time:
Score points as an action (as it used to be)
In order to score points, you tap the relevant automa (that is plural automa, btw), but you do not have to place any workers.
Thus the person that is scoring loses the use of some automa for one turn and also loses an action (and potentially a good placement spot) but we don't have to worry about lack of contention on the placement spots.
Hopefully, that addresses Seth's concern about too few workers in the placement spots but also keeps the scoring from growing to absurd levels.
It should also slow down players when they start to score, which will serve as a catch-up mechanism of sorts and should allow players that are behind to grab better placement slots hopefully.
In other news: I am neck-deep in the SaltCon Math trade, and I am also in the middle of preparing pitches for SaltCon. I have a few good games right now, so I am going to talk to some publishers and see what they think about them. The Madness Place, Grab the Loot, Infamous!, and Terran League of Defense Robots are all feeling like they work well enough that a publisher could develop them a little bit, and then publish them.
I have also continued thinking about that asymmetric game - the one where players play cooperatively, but each player is playing an entirely different game. The foes follow one ruleset, but each player fights the foes with a different mechanic. I have a list of mechanics that I am going to use, and I have thought crafted how many of them will work. All I need to do now is finish this semester at school so that I have enough time to actually make it.
Here are my current notes for the game:
Mad scientist students defend their mad scientist university from invaders.
Each student plays the game by completely different rules, but each is trying to protect the university from being overrun.
Opponents come from a deck of cards and are themed based on multiple add-in decks of cards, (fire deck, ice deck, etc) for each player you add one deck to the base deck (sort of like legendary, so there are perhaps 20 cards + 10/player)
in the opponent deck. The base deck is weak foes that require random icons to defeat or damage, but the add-in decks are more powerful and show up in groups.
The players each have tarot sized base cards, and they can upgrade them to other cards (but they must stay in the realm of cards that pertain to them.)
for instance, the robot builder guy's base card is the chassis of his robot, but he could upgrade to a better chassis, but not to a monster body, or a death ray.
Player themes/playstyles:
The game ended up ending in 6 rounds, and it took about 80 minutes. The later rounds were longer than the first few rounds. We also were being distracted by kids, so perhaps we could have gone faster.
Alison ended up with 7 workers and 9 points while I had 9 workers and 28 points (more about that later).
Having fewer types of resources was very good. It made the economy less confusing, and setup and cleanup much faster. The mats worked well, and during the game, we thought of more things to put on them - (the three starting workers can be added here, as well as a reminder of what level is what in terms of dots.)
Here is the mat that we played with:
We started with 3 scrap, which was not enough given that we were also playing with the rule that made upgrades cost a scrap. In fact, that rule made us strapped for scrap the whole game. We decided that more things should give out scrap and that perhaps the base scrap grab should also give 2 scrap.
Other than feeling scrap poor, we really liked the increased difficulty in getting high-quality parts. It made level 4 parts feel much harder to get, so they were an achievement.
I probably have to rebalance the Automa to make the high-level ones better because of this change, but I liked it a lot, so I will totally do the required work for that.
I noticed that with making there be only three types of resources, I accidentally made a few of the automa have identical costs. I will correct that shortly.
There was one part of the game that was a complete fiasco, however. The ending.
We used a new scoring mechanic which allowed the goal cards to be collected at the end of any turn by anyone that met the requirements and had more of the relevant icons than anyone else did. This was a problem because Alison and I were neck to neck the whole game, but she got 2 goal cards in the turn before the last, and the ones that popped up on the last turn were easy for me to complete (and I was able to complete two more automa in the last turn, so I also completed the other two visible goals at the same time). I ended up gaining enough points to win by a landslide. She could have completed the goals as well, but I had more icons than she did, so I stole them all.
What felt like a close game ended up as a massacre, and that wasn't a fun way to end it.
In light of this, I feel that scoring points needs to cost something - it can't just happen. We are going to try this new scoring method next time:
Score points as an action (as it used to be)
In order to score points, you tap the relevant automa (that is plural automa, btw), but you do not have to place any workers.
Thus the person that is scoring loses the use of some automa for one turn and also loses an action (and potentially a good placement spot) but we don't have to worry about lack of contention on the placement spots.
Hopefully, that addresses Seth's concern about too few workers in the placement spots but also keeps the scoring from growing to absurd levels.
It should also slow down players when they start to score, which will serve as a catch-up mechanism of sorts and should allow players that are behind to grab better placement slots hopefully.
In other news: I am neck-deep in the SaltCon Math trade, and I am also in the middle of preparing pitches for SaltCon. I have a few good games right now, so I am going to talk to some publishers and see what they think about them. The Madness Place, Grab the Loot, Infamous!, and Terran League of Defense Robots are all feeling like they work well enough that a publisher could develop them a little bit, and then publish them.
I have also continued thinking about that asymmetric game - the one where players play cooperatively, but each player is playing an entirely different game. The foes follow one ruleset, but each player fights the foes with a different mechanic. I have a list of mechanics that I am going to use, and I have thought crafted how many of them will work. All I need to do now is finish this semester at school so that I have enough time to actually make it.
Here are my current notes for the game:
Mad scientist students defend their mad scientist university from invaders.
Each student plays the game by completely different rules, but each is trying to protect the university from being overrun.
Opponents come from a deck of cards and are themed based on multiple add-in decks of cards, (fire deck, ice deck, etc) for each player you add one deck to the base deck (sort of like legendary, so there are perhaps 20 cards + 10/player)
in the opponent deck. The base deck is weak foes that require random icons to defeat or damage, but the add-in decks are more powerful and show up in groups.
The players each have tarot sized base cards, and they can upgrade them to other cards (but they must stay in the realm of cards that pertain to them.)
for instance, the robot builder guy's base card is the chassis of his robot, but he could upgrade to a better chassis, but not to a monster body, or a death ray.
Player themes/playstyles:
- Robots/knapsack problem card picking (Dancing robots style)
- Monsters / Deck builder
- Deathray / Mancala
- Time travel/drafting + set collecting Phase 10
- Self-modification (invisible man, Mr hyde) / hand-building
- Biological warfare/area control
- Doomsday device/pattern building
- Deep thinker(Chaos theory guy) / dice pool building with push your luck elements
- Mind control, social manipulation / Worker placement
- Zombie master/tableau building
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