Velocimancer Games

Today's post is a short one, which is fitting as it commemorates an achievement of no great note, beside personal pride.  Today I wrote up a little more on my BGG thread about Project Smatter, outlining the boards.  Recently, I've been obsessing over whether the boards should adhere to multiples / exponentials of three or two, trying to thematically link the layouts of the boards to overarching numerical motif blah blah blah.  Writing stuff down in the BGG thread, I had contrasting information.  Whatever.  Nail down the basics, talk about some possibilities, but not for too long, because nailing down the basics means you have enough of a foundation to start playing. And after writing it up, with pictures and bolding, that's what I did: I just started playing.  I got out the pieces, I set up the boards, and I started playing myself.  I got confused, so I got out a turn marker.  I got stuck in a back-and-forth, so I restarted with one of my po...

What? Two posting days in a row? Is he back, folks? Is he back? Well, we'll see. I wanted to coalesce some thoughts I've had for a two-player semi-abstract game.  Its working title is Project Smatter, as it involves cyberpunk and chess elements.  Well, chess-ish. That's the thing.  The game as I will envision it will push how we envision abstract games, while also utilizing different mechanics from the oldest games of the genre.  I especially want to play with: Pieces that change into other pieces. Different capturing types: Jumping, a la Checkers Taking, a la Chess Hammer-and-anvil / surrounding, a la games of the Tafl family. An unusual board Right now, it's a 2-player game where each side starts with 8 pieces, all of the basic type - sPawn (Can move 3 spaces, hammer-and-anvil style conversion, turns enemy pieces into friendly sPawn).  Ideally, sPawn can be (optionally) upgraded under certain conditions to become cRooks (Can move 2 spaces, jump t...

As promised, I am come out of hiding.  And today, so soon after my last post (the wonderfully poorly-received Sweet Game), I have yet another complete(ish but largely untested) fast little game design for you! Here's For King and Country, a game to be played between two players, using the standard 52-card poker deck.  I designed it for the Dice Hate Me Loves Cards contest, not realizing that they were looking for games that used custom decks.  As my game used existing 52-card decks, it was not an eligible entry. I'm still pleased by the game, however.  It's a quick, rough thing, but I like the 'spread' mechanic, and it's also an homage of sort to Sid Sackson, and some of my other favourite designers. Anyhow, if anyone's interested, the game can be found here .  It includes the rules and scoring for For King and Country, and also for the 2+ player variant, For Love or Money. Slan!

Bit of a stretch, eh? Well, my last post came two days before being laid off from my cushy 9-5 job.  I immediately had to change gears and start looking for a job.  I've since been working multiple jobs to cover rent, bills, loans, etc.  BLAH BLAH SOB STORY, I've been getting by alright, and I've also been as busy with theatre stuff as ever (perhaps even more so) so in general, I haven't had time at a desk to sit and update this.  But I've certainly still been turning the gears; in fact, my primary place of employment right now is the fabulous Cat n Mouse Game Store, here in Chicago.  I was incredibly lucky to get the job, especially so soon after being laid off, and it's meant a great grounding in all things to do with games, puzzles and toys.  Unfortunately, it's not a desk job, and I spend my time actually working in the store rather than whiling away on the computer (couldn't anyway, the computer's a bit of a relic). So anyway, I've been co...

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...