Yes yes my posts are infrequent. No one reads these anyway, so it's fine.
D.I.E. Interceptor is in a good place. Might look at making a nice board/bag for it, with the grid, spaces for the Powerup dice, and reminders of the different moves.
Cowl and Mask is still where it has been for some time. I feel like the power-level tweaking I did based on my brother's suggestions, along with the addition of betting, has it at a place where I'm happy with it. It might see some more playtesting, might not. It's not as though I have a financial need for the game to go anywhere. Might look into a budget for some art assets, although I'm decently happy with the Daniel Solis icons I'm currently using. It's just kind of shelved right now.
Birch Crown is still too fiddly. I think it needs a whole night of playtesting, with me making sharpie changes on the fly, in order for me to get it to a real clicky place.
Exploding Snap needs a slight tweak but the recipients of that game seem pretty happy about it.
I should note that the Word docs I used to make all of these games are kaput. I should really learn InDesign. And I should back up my personal docs folder on my work computer.
I continue to be inspired to make notes for Runtime Error. I should make a prototype for that, just to see the first kinks emerge.
But today's post is about a different game! In 2010, Daniel Solis held the Thousand Year Game Design Contest. How fitting that my entry will be 6 years past the deadline; I'm certainly taking the long view.
In actuality, the contest (which was held before I even followed Solis' work) did somewhat inspire the design currently kicking around my head. A design intended to be elegant, non-language dependent, yet easily taught in an oral tradition. And Solis' design philosophies that push the idea of what a game area can look like also helped inspire what I'm currently calling either Legions or Oases.
Components:
- A supply of round, flat, stackable chips, in three colours: White, Black, and Green
- A circle with twelve wells and eleven beads
- A surface
And that's it. To start, players stand in the center of the area in which they wish to play, and drop ten green chips onto the ground. Any chips that are overlapping should be picked up, then dropped again, until there are no chips overlapping.
Then, players alternate choosing green chips for their opponent to start on, placing three of the opposing player's chips in a stack on one green chip. The field should then have three stacks of black chips on top of a green chip, three stacks of white chips on top of a green chip, and four unoccupied green chips left.
Place one bead in each of the wells at twelve o'clock, one o'clock, and two o'clock on the circle. The start player takes all but the clockwise most bead from the circle.
On a player's turn, they may spend as many beads as they like (placing a bead in the first empty well clockwise of a filled well on the circle) to take an action. An action can be either:
- the stacking or de-stacking of any pile of their own chips, or
- turning a stack of five of their own chips into a green chip with one of their own chips on top
Once a player has spent as many beads as they care to, they pass play to their opponent, who takes all but the clockwise most bead from the circle and takes their own turn.
NOTE: Whenever a bead is placed in the well at six o'clock, all occupied green chips gain a new chip of the occupier's colour. Whenever a bead is placed in the well at twelve o'clock, a new bead is taken from the supply and placed on the well at one o'clock.
Chips of a player's colour may be stacked as long as they are touching one another. A stack may be de-stacked in any shape, in any direction, as long as they are all touching at least one other chip. Any chip, or group of chips that is touching, loses a chip at the end of a player's turn unless there is an unbroken chain of touching chips connecting it to an green chip occupied by that player's colour.
If a player's de-stacked chip is touching two of an opposing player's chips, that chip is removed from the game at the end of that action.
The object of the game is therefore to build up stacks of one's own colour, and spread across the space, creating new green chips or occupying existing ones until the other player's chips are overwhelmed and eradicated.
Player's chips are called Legions. The green chips are called Oases.
So yeah, curious to see which name I should go with. But I like the idea. Glad I was able to write it down.
That's all for now!
D.I.E. Interceptor is in a good place. Might look at making a nice board/bag for it, with the grid, spaces for the Powerup dice, and reminders of the different moves.
Cowl and Mask is still where it has been for some time. I feel like the power-level tweaking I did based on my brother's suggestions, along with the addition of betting, has it at a place where I'm happy with it. It might see some more playtesting, might not. It's not as though I have a financial need for the game to go anywhere. Might look into a budget for some art assets, although I'm decently happy with the Daniel Solis icons I'm currently using. It's just kind of shelved right now.
Birch Crown is still too fiddly. I think it needs a whole night of playtesting, with me making sharpie changes on the fly, in order for me to get it to a real clicky place.
Exploding Snap needs a slight tweak but the recipients of that game seem pretty happy about it.
I should note that the Word docs I used to make all of these games are kaput. I should really learn InDesign. And I should back up my personal docs folder on my work computer.
I continue to be inspired to make notes for Runtime Error. I should make a prototype for that, just to see the first kinks emerge.
But today's post is about a different game! In 2010, Daniel Solis held the Thousand Year Game Design Contest. How fitting that my entry will be 6 years past the deadline; I'm certainly taking the long view.
In actuality, the contest (which was held before I even followed Solis' work) did somewhat inspire the design currently kicking around my head. A design intended to be elegant, non-language dependent, yet easily taught in an oral tradition. And Solis' design philosophies that push the idea of what a game area can look like also helped inspire what I'm currently calling either Legions or Oases.
Components:
- A supply of round, flat, stackable chips, in three colours: White, Black, and Green
- A circle with twelve wells and eleven beads
- A surface
And that's it. To start, players stand in the center of the area in which they wish to play, and drop ten green chips onto the ground. Any chips that are overlapping should be picked up, then dropped again, until there are no chips overlapping.
Then, players alternate choosing green chips for their opponent to start on, placing three of the opposing player's chips in a stack on one green chip. The field should then have three stacks of black chips on top of a green chip, three stacks of white chips on top of a green chip, and four unoccupied green chips left.
Place one bead in each of the wells at twelve o'clock, one o'clock, and two o'clock on the circle. The start player takes all but the clockwise most bead from the circle.
On a player's turn, they may spend as many beads as they like (placing a bead in the first empty well clockwise of a filled well on the circle) to take an action. An action can be either:
- the stacking or de-stacking of any pile of their own chips, or
- turning a stack of five of their own chips into a green chip with one of their own chips on top
Once a player has spent as many beads as they care to, they pass play to their opponent, who takes all but the clockwise most bead from the circle and takes their own turn.
NOTE: Whenever a bead is placed in the well at six o'clock, all occupied green chips gain a new chip of the occupier's colour. Whenever a bead is placed in the well at twelve o'clock, a new bead is taken from the supply and placed on the well at one o'clock.
Chips of a player's colour may be stacked as long as they are touching one another. A stack may be de-stacked in any shape, in any direction, as long as they are all touching at least one other chip. Any chip, or group of chips that is touching, loses a chip at the end of a player's turn unless there is an unbroken chain of touching chips connecting it to an green chip occupied by that player's colour.
If a player's de-stacked chip is touching two of an opposing player's chips, that chip is removed from the game at the end of that action.
The object of the game is therefore to build up stacks of one's own colour, and spread across the space, creating new green chips or occupying existing ones until the other player's chips are overwhelmed and eradicated.
Player's chips are called Legions. The green chips are called Oases.
So yeah, curious to see which name I should go with. But I like the idea. Glad I was able to write it down.
That's all for now!
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