Velocimancer Games

 Alright, where we at? I’ve just gotten back from a five-day-vacay, and while I didn’t physically work on any of my designs, I did think and talk about them a lot and made some progress.  I guess I’ll just do a roundup of some of those? Mash it together with a progress report? So let’s start with the neglected design of the year, BURN.  I was reminded that the mechanics for this one truly are the most elegant and original out of any of my designs.  In explaining the system (and the inspiration of Spy Games), I got the very helpful suggestion that I may want to offer the Handler player a little more thematic agency, by giving them specific cards/actions they can play that affect the closing of the borders.  So what I’m currently picturing is a set (randomly dealt at the outset?) of one-time-use favours that cost both points to play AND intensify the heat on one or more neighbouring nations, hastening the close of the border(s).  Some of them can even decrease tension to open a border ba

Alright let’s pre-write a Mechanic Monday to build up a buffer.  Hello Future! It’s Fin, from the Past.  I have no idea yet about the Dread Scarabs, and have unthinkingly invested all my money into Hope Bonds.  What an idyllic time! Today I just want to brainstorm about Drafting Order as a rubber band mechanic.  Obviously this is relevant to Fantasy GM Squared, but this more popped into my head since the NHL Draft Lottery just happened.  The NHL is an interesting case because it had an expansion team (and subsequent expansion draft, prior to the expansion team getting third-best odds for the regular draft’s lottery) join the league two seasons ago, and will have another one joining the League next season (or the season after that? Maybe? Everything’s all messed up, playoffs should not be happening right now, this is all bad).  And apparently, the protocols in place to put the new teams on an even footing have changed from year to year, sometimes reverting back to previous versions. Got

Today I thought I’d look more closely at one of the things I gleaned from my recent build-as-I-go playtest of Amberlodge.  Specifically, the input parameters for Processor cards, and how I need to tailor those to the outputs of the Producer cards.  My confirmation bias had me looking at the cards and continually returning a faulty confirmation of bad logic. The big picture takeaway is that because I was thinking about the resource conversion chain from the standpoint of Ratios, I forgot that you need to divide out the common factors to get the least common denominator, because concentrating a solution (9Water1Sugar) only removes excess (Water), it doesn’t add the target resource (Sugar).  And, consequently, that I need to tailor the input requirements of the Processors, because I’d set them up based on that faulty logic.  A fermentation card that accepts water with a higher sugar concentration shouldn’t be set up to accept 10 units of a solution to which sugar has somehow been added (8

Well, I’ve got a lot of Kamen Rider energy brewing in my head but it’s not ready to coalesce into playwriting just yet (ANY TIME THO BRAIN), so how about I do a little checkin on The DOLLY Extraction for a TTRPG Tuesday? How about it? How? I dunno, truly. So much as I wanted to deliver a finished product all on my lonesome, the cold hard truth of this is that I’m trying to write for an RPG that I’ve helped edit but haven’t ever actually played myself or even seen played.  I can picture and plot out ideal player/gm experiences and come up with some interesting mechanics, but I may have run into a wall, one that is partially just - you know, pandemic doom fatigue jesus christ I’m so tired and I’ve drawn out all my rituals and habits for so fucking long and for WHAT - and partially a ceiling on how far ideas and guesswork can take me without playtesting, a schedule of deadlines, and client directives/feedback.  That was a big part of me losing steam during my work on the misbegotten John

A short post today as it’s been a long-ass week and I’ve got a packed schedule for tomorrow so I’m trying to conserve energy.  EDIT: I didn’t get this written in time, and now it’s somehow Sunday again.  Hooray for Time, #1 Bastard Extraordinaire. I did indeed attempt what I set out to do in my last post: I sat down (on the floor!) with my iPad hanging off a chair above me, all my utterly un-matching example components before me, and last month’s playlist in my ears, and I talked to myself and played, building as I went, for a couple of turns, which took about 40 minutes, though my attempt to record myself only captured about 23 minutes of that, because iPad stupid.  It was weird, it felt foolish, and it was still kind of fun, and definitely useful in terms of showing me where the gaps between presumption and reality were.  Some key takeaways: Four actions per turn does not feel like a lot, particularly if you have to spend an action to move things, which feels profoundly unsexy. On th