Pretentious Board Games

I have been working on TLDR more and more. The rules are getting closer to being complete, but they haven't yet arrived there. I also played The Dwarf King for the first time yesterday, and Rock Paper Wizard today. Of the two I liked The Dwarf King more. I am a bit of a Bruno Faidutti fan. The Dwarf King is an interesting take on a Trick taking game. I like the changing rules, and the special cards. They often add an interesting twist to the game. Rock Paper Wizard was a really simple game that can be explained quickly. I didn't love it,  but with how fast it went,  the game does definitely have a place. The "take that" without player elimination ends up being fun. I hope that we play it many times when other people are voting for Bang :)

We played TLDR at the board game design group meeting last night. It was a solo game against three motherships. By the time that the guy ended the game, he had a robot that could defeat nearly any mothership that could exist. It was fun to watch how he built his robot (he had way more healing than I would have expected any robot to ever need, but he made serious use of it, as he also had a ton of damage providing parts). The game took about two and a half hours, but he beat the first mothership at about two hours. He said that he had had a fun time, and that the game seemed well balanced, but he did have a few ideas: Make a draft for a one player game (with starting cards). (Not sure if I will do this before the end of the contest) Figure out how to get trade working in a one player game. (Not sure if I will do this before the end of the contest) Make foes that move at different speeds? (Not sure if I will do this before the end of the contest) The ability to repair cities mig...

Last night I played a game of Terran League of Defense Robots with Alison for our date night. We turned up the difficulty and included two Motherships in the game, and I found it to be a very satisfying victory. We are getting quite good at that game. We added in ideas from last playtest, and found them to mostly work well. Here are what we changed, and what we thought about it: The minions are now integrated into the foe cards - They are on play abilities that add a "Minion" cube to the tile. Minions fight as a block, and deal (and require) damage equal to their count. They take any damage type as full damage (even generic). This felt pretty good. The minions were hard to fight, but not overpowering. The real game will want minion tokens that are like coins with a pow symbol on them. The mothership's minions and her escort's minions combined to make a stack of 14 minions. That is practically unkillable. We decided that the mothership should summon minionless ...

I have been splitting my time between Grab the Loot, and The Perfect Moment right now. I showed both of them at the BGDG meeting last Tuesday, and got some good feedback. I have implemented nearly all of the feedback that I got from the week before, and I also implemented most of the stuff from this last week. The game is working really well right now. The guys at work prefer it to published games on most days. Adding to the Captain's greed is really working out well. I think that the next change that I make is going to be the ability to have hidden treasure(s), and also the ability to look at some of the greed cards that were removed from the game. Perhaps I will add in a sixth player (because more players is always fun, and the game seems to scale well). I need to however re-balance the amount of loot you start with with different player counts. The captain having 8 loot at the beginning is too many with 2-3 players, and too few for 5 players. Perhaps the captain gets 2 tre...

On Tuesday I went to the Layton BGDG meeting a bit early and played a few games before the meeting started. I got some good feedback, and thought that I would record it here. Deception: The game should be bigger. When you lose armies, you should gain things to offset the loss of armies (abilities?) Secret goals? More players? - attack the people near you only Grab the Loot: Calculate scores differently - add greed cards into everyone's loot to simplify it. Make a game over card to add to the bottom of the greed deck. Add to the rules the "do everything that you can" rule, so that when an ability is impossible, you still get to use it Double sided greeds that are rotatable Record scores to see if they are too swingy, and recalculate to make them tighter Slots should not be the same Make players have a secret treasure (or greed) that other players do not know about. Spend your loot for abilities. Spend treasure to flip up a card? Break the scoring t...

I just played Akrotiri for the second time, and I think that I should write a review of it. Akrotiri: 2 players, about 30 minutes This game combines multiple mechanics: tile laying, pick up and deliver, and secret goals. During the game you are playing as ancient Greek explorers who are trying to discover the locations of forgotten temples based on clues that you were given in ancient maps. I first played the game right after it came out, and told myself that my wife would enjoy it. I never saw it in a store, so I never got it until a recent BGG math trade. The game starts with a large tile (the island of Thera) being placed in the center, and everyone receiving starting maps and goals. The maps are cards that give you requirements for building temples (I will explain more about that later - it is the coolest part of the game to me). Goals are things like "Score 2 points for each of your Temples that are on an island with a volcano", or "Score 2 points for each...

We played "Grab the Loot!" at the BGDG tonight. The feedback I received was excellent. Since I just redesigned it from the ground up, I was really expecting big changes to come from this playtest, and I got what I was expecting. Here are my notes - and what I think about them right now: "Swap with another player" fix verbiage - Swap with the captain, swap with a player, and trade with a player are all possible actions. There should be three verbs, not two. There are not strategic decisions (all are tactical) - This one hurt, however I took it graciously and considered it as a call to increase the strategic decisions that are available in the game. Taken that way, it gives me something to work with, and I will do it. Treasure scarcity is not felt - I can easily fix this by making fewer treasures. Swapping between players should be more common - This is also an easy fix, and a great idea. Player interaction is king in this type of game. Later revealed gree...