Pretentious Board Games

 I have a brief respite from my masters program, and decided to make a game for the 18 card RPG contest that Button Shy is putting on. The game needs a better name, but it is currently entitled "G-rated movie role-playing game". It is a rules light game where the players basically generate a classic musical animated kids movie, and then play the characters from it. The rules are here . We have played one session so far, and the game is quite playable. I made Jason - a reluctant barbarian hero that would prefer to geek out over magical people and creatures, and Alison played Conina - a braggart warrior girl that was turned into a bunny. She ended up as my sidekick, because I have to go on a man-quest and kill something (though I am not sure what), and she said that if I could turn her into a human again she would help me to kill something impressive. The villains that we are facing are Mrs. Earwig - an evil witch that who is always annoyed because people mispronounce her name ...

 Last night I just played a first 2 player game of an idea that I have been thinking of for a long time. The idea is sound, but it is going to be a huge amount of work getting it cleaned up, and building all of the factions. The idea is to make a multiplayer cooperative asymmetric game. More specifically, there will be a bunch of opponents that are coming in toward a shared "end zone", and all of the players have to defend the end zone in their own way. Each person uses their own mechanics to do so, so one player might be playing a deck building game while another is playing a dice chucker, but at the end of the day they can work together to try and repel the invaders.  The benefit of such a game is that it allows people that like disparate styles of play to be able to play together at the same game with a common goal. My son can throw down his dice while I can try and engineer a solution to a difficult knapsack problem and my wife can play her engine builder, and we are all ...

I have been working on an 18 card legacy game in response to Button Shy's currently running 18 card legacy game contest. I have played through the campaign a few times, and it seems pretty difficult, but still certainly doable. The theme is a time traveler that is fed up with trying to make the past better, and decides instead to set everything back to how it was before time travel caused so many problems. I have finally completed a first version of my rule document for this game here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12kcYgJuT4rJ_alwTjt7XEYqBvB5JInf2FcKjvSLMYLA/edit?usp=sharing PnP is included in that document as well. It is 3 pages (18 cards, and 3 stickers). I will update here as I try and finish the game up before the contest ends.

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 m...

Robin and Lyle form the guild played Automatown with me last night. We used the new goal cards that I just made. Here is how I modified the game: I removed all points from automa, and gave them up to 3 symbols - bullets, hands, and top hats. they can be tapped either for their ability, or to generate a symbol, but you have to place a worker on them to generate a symbol. This automa generates either a hand or a tophat: As an action you can place as many workers as you want on an equal number of automa, and then spend the generated symbols to complete a goal. Goals have from 1 to 4 symbols, and are just worth points. (considering adding abilities to some goals). This goal requires two bullets and a hand. Here is a copy of the notes I made during the game, and a brain dump of thoughts afterward. Most of the notes are comments from the other designers, so they don't necessarily match my thoughts: Recycling station: change to generic level 2 cube symbol. (this would be sim...

Playtested infamous at the board game design guild again last night. here are my notes (and my thoughts about them now): Draw from the bottom of the deck? (no!) Can you add more than 1 material for a build? 2? (2 would be worth trying) Can you spend minions to build or tinker? (no) Gadgets cannot trigger minions - make sure to specify this strong in the rules (ok) add icons to ability names to remind you what type of card the ability is on (I'll give it a try) start with 2 minions? (that would have to be an alternate rule - the basic game needs to be simpler, not more complex!) revivification matrix - always ability is too powerful (move it to a more expensive chassis?) rename hypnotist to mortician? revivificationist? (undertaker, grave digger, enbalmer, but what action would they perform? resuscitate? reanimate? revivify?) (put names on each card of what its action is called?) Baghdad capacitor's "At the start of your turn" ability hits too often - make...

I have been working on Infamous!, and have made some serious progress. The game seems to work better right now, it has actual art, and it allows for some crazy crap to happen. I am still not really sure about the balance of the game, but with more playtesting, I hope that that will come. Here are some sample cards: Here are some sample card backs: I am currently using a combination of art that I purchased from that recent humble bundle and my own work. I figure any publisher will replace all of the art, so I don't have to spend much effort on it - just enough to attract playtesters. Here are notes from my last playtest: Helper-bot is too powerful for a 2 cost card. Remove bonus for most minions of each type: +3 for most minions overall is fine. 2+infamy minions as a minion cap is a good balance point. Consider a max on carapace fertilizer? Is Transmutation too powerful? remove auto-crammer's discard ability. Possible replacements? a card that allows you to...