Velocimancer Games

So I didn't have Cultivate Contest-Ready by the deadline. I've been putting off posting that here, since I posted it in the contest thread, and then the entry thread.  It was the right call, as I had developed serious doubts about how far I'd taken Project Chestnut, and how quickly.  I rushed out a prototype and called it Components Ready, without having exhaustively (or even adequately) playtested it at all.  My buddy John Horton  has been working on a Flash mockup of Cultivate based off the rules - so much was missing, so much was poorly thought-out.  I'm looking back on this blog where I thought that the 8x8 board was restricting.  What? Right now it feels too big.  Which leads to examining whether Chestnut was really the right lane of development to go with... All of which leads me back to the conclusion that I should have stuck by my guns as far as the parallel development process is concerned.  Entering the Contest was a great idea, and in...

A month of silence... I was probably busily prototyping, right? Well... no. Life got in the way, as it is wont to do.  In addition to pouring my focus into my primary passion, acting/theatre, it's been a productive writing time for me; I'm working on some pokemon fan fiction (still your vocal admiration and hold your applause) for a nerd comedy event I'm working in October, and I'm revisiting and expanding the first play I ever wrote (and finished), a long one-act from five or six years ago. All of which meant that for the last month, I had to focus on top priorities, and banned myself from BGG.  I've spent the last few days readjusting to allowing myself to read/write about gaming again, and catchin' up on my subscriptions.  And look at that, a crucial month of game development in the BGG 2013 Solitaire PnP Contest is gone.  I've got just a couple of weeks left to put together a contest-worthy entry. Woof. Well, I have two options here.  I cou...

It's been a bit one-note round these parts lately, no? With Cultivate as my first serious attempt to complete a game and submit it for a design contest (albeit only a BGG one), I've been focused primarily on the umbrella design of the game.  While my mind and hand have wandered between Prototypes, I've had my eye on the prize; to the neglect of Clear Black Sky, The Plan, and the fun little idea that popped onto the page during a Cultivate doodle session: Rail Against The Machine.  The spark for that idea came from a BGG thread about under-utilized themes, wherein, of course, many folks chimed in playfully with combinations of the usual tropes.  I felt a desire to really make the behemoth snowball generic design they all nibbled at the edges of: A zombie train deckbuilding game with worker placement and hidden roles.  In space. And so Rail Against The Machine began to percolate. But percolate is all it has done, as I've tried to focus on Cultivate.  Today I tri...

I continue to work on the Cultivate Project.  I have two prototypes very nearly made; depending on how the rest of the afternoon goes, I might have Projects Blackberry and Chestnut completely printed out. My trouble is that I've never really been a PnPer.  I've never gotten into the craft side of things.  I'm much more a doodler.  And this project, with its current mechanics, has components and rotation, and physical play; it's fiddly, in short.  I do think I have a good game on my hands though. Trouble is, I have no way to find out until I print and cut the damn things out. Hell, I think the main reason I drafted up the Chestnut prototype was to put off building the Blackberry one. Well... Onwards, anyhow.

So! While Project Honeycomb looks like a frontrunner in viability for this contest entry, I thought I'd give a little love to Project Chestnut and Project Buckeye; Buckeye especially utilizes a dartboard, an odd inspiration for a playspace, much less a solo heady-type game. Some notes. Project Chestnut - 8x8 board, 63 possible spaces (duh). - 4 starting "stems", randomly selected out of 8 possible stems? - Number all tiles evenly 1-8 so that you can pull tiles to "roll" a d8 in order to determine coordinates for new shoots? Back and Front of Leaf Tile for Project Chestnut - (Rounded) Diamonds or Squares? I kind of like the idea of the chessboard being turned on its point, so that all the pieces are diamonds instead of squares.  I can't explain why, but it feels to me like they're more organic, even if they're just the same shape from a different angle. Project Buckeye - So Project Buckeye can't easily utilize the rotating piece t...

So, as I mentioned, I'm going to try something a little different with Cultivate.  In the spirit of true Prototyping, I'm going to work on parallel development, around the different possible board types (although I may end up finding yet more types of board/playspace).  I'll start by noting what possibilities stick out to me Project Honeycomb Project Blackberry Project Chestnut Project Buckeye Project Snowdrop

So I'm taking a break from focusing on The Plan, as I am working on my first real entry into a design contest.  I did have an interesting but weak prototype entry in the Postcard Game contest on BGG, but neither my entry nor that contest ever really got off the ground.  I'm formally entered into the Solitaire PnP Design Contest 2013 though, and we'll see how it goes.  The working title of the game is Cultivate , although I'm considering doing an alliterative - B theme and calling it Beginner's Basil Bonsai.