Pretentious Board Games

I finished up a version of Grab the Loot, and played it at BGDG and at work. It went fairly well, but I am still not really happy with it. I will probably do more work on it before I try playing it with people again. At the same time I have been playing Terraforming Mars, and Near and Far at work. Both have been really fun. I have also been working on a new version of Jurassic Universe because my kids keep wanting to play it with me. They love making the ecosystems, and figuring out what will eat what. Rea is very good at building "working" ecosystems (working according to game rules, not necessarily according to real world ecosystem rules.) I have printed a new version with a few changes, and am ready to test it again. Here are the changes that I made: Making more omnivores combining an animal and a producer on each card (top and bottom) adding back in the science deck (and space scientists to allow you to use it) adding back in planets with rules I have also ...

I submitted Grab the Loot! to DV Giochi this week. I was originally preparing the game for Mayday games, but as I got to know Daniel better, I am not so sure it will fit with the direction that Mayday is going. Grab the Loot! definitely seems like something DV Giochi would like. I haven't yet finished up with Age of Vikings, however I have been making good strides in Jurassic Universe. My wife and I played a game and talked through some major changes last night. I think it should balance the game nicely. I have also been using math to make the number of cards more correct, and have been toying with re-adding the tech deck. Micronesia is currently on the back burner, I have been devoting its time to a Chronicles of Amber game currently in a really early stage. The game started when I listened to a podcast by Jason Tagmire , which reminded me of a "hell ride" from the Amber universe. The game is not really appropriate for Button Shy games, so Jason probably didn't h...

The gorilla game is moving along. Rea likes it, so we have played a few games (without a traitor, however). We also played two games at work, and it was well received. The players liked the traitor mechanic. The bad guy might be too powerful, because he won handily, but I can always modify the setup in order to weaken him. Two players were QA, and as such, they came up with all sorts of interesting interpretations of the rules. I need to specifically say that you cannot lay the gorilla down flat on the table when you are loading it up with other animals. They also showed the need to come up with a timer to stop someone from taking way too long setting up their turn. They would certainly play the game again, and I am definitely going to continue working on it. I have also been preparing Age of Vikings for submission to a publisher. I finally have a copy of it assembled again. My last copy was consumed in the Iludo game design competition. When the game won 2nd place, one of the st...

Friday we played another game of TLDR at lunch, and we did much better. We still haven't finished a game yet, but I suppose that the game is a fairly long one, so it makes sense. I also came up with a new modification to The Age of Vikings - Chieftain meeples. Instead of gaining threat, players add chieftain meeples to their islands, and those meeples reduce the defense of the islands that they are on. Once another player conquers the island the meeples are removed, or the player may spend an action to remove the meeples. This removes and replaces the 'Threat' mechanic completely. I look forward to trying it out and seeing if it works. Finally, I have been working more and more on Jurassic Galaxy, and I am getting close to making up a prototype and testing it out again. I currently have planet tiles, tech cards, plant cards, animal cards, and contracts. The animals are not completely finished, but it is coming along.

Yesterday we played Terran League of Defense Robots at work for the first time. It went really badly. One player thought it would be funny to play all of the hardest foes that he was dealt, so the players lost pretty quickly. Despite this, three of the players expressed interest in playing again. The easy mothership Multiple of them seemed to understand how to build a robot and most of them wanted to try to fight off the alien threat. The mothership that they drew (which was played on the second turn by the turncoat player) was the easiest mothership possible, so they still had a chance when it came out, but they quickly lost as more and more killer aliens appeared. I didn't learn nearly anything at all from the playtest that could help the game, so it was almost a complete loss for me. The only two take homes were the fact that I need to balance the motherships against each other, and that I need to stress the necessity of cooperation to the playtesters when I intr...

I have have been able to play 3 more games of Jurassic Space since I last posted here. The game is progressing along nicely, although it still needs a lot of work. I am about to start doing more research so that I can make the plant growth smoother (right now you plant large monocultures of plants, but really I want to have a way that you can build ' guilds ' of plants, and then just have them grow all together.) I also intend to replace the map of the solar-system with a randomized map. In other news, I have been getting a good amount of orders for twist counters at my storefront website (linked in the upper right). I am working on making smaller counters for people that are interested in smaller counters, and also making the dual counters smaller (because most people will use them as a score tracker in my opinion, and so they will only need to print 10 numbers on each to reach 100)

My new game is currently called "Jurassic Space". It is a concern balancing drafting game where you build an ecosystem on a space habitat and then transport it to a planet that wants the resources. I have been working on it for two weeks. Friday I played my first game of it, and since then I have played two more (one was a 3 player game, and it works with three players). Here are some cards: And the map: I need to write down my rules so that I can record how it changes during the creation process. I hope to play a game of it at the Sandy board game design group meetup (if we have the time). We are meeting tomorrow. For anyone who is interested, the group is here .

After talking with my coworkers about the new Jurassic World movie I had a dream about a new game. It is 'Jurassic Universe'. Basically the players try to build themepark space habitations that have balanced ecosystems (full of dinosaurs obviously, since the people all like seeing dinosaurs) and attract lots of tourists. I am not quite sure of the winning condition, but I think that the game could be fun to make. Probably I am going to be drawing some space dinosaurs soon. Also, I am making a Kickstarter campaign for the twist counters that I have been 3d printing recently (pictured to the right). I hope to launch it this week, so hopefully that goes well. I will post here when the campaign goes live to keep you all  updated.