Happy Monday! Let’s do the time warp today.
My first Gamer’s Game was purchased at Chicago institution, Cat & Mouse Games. Looking back, I think I was vaguely aware that Games had gotten Exciting, and I looked up where to find a store that would sell these Exciting New Games. I think for me I ruled out Marbles and then it came down to C&M and Dice Dojo - the Dojo had a difficult-to-navigate website, whereas C&M felt within striking distance, so Cat & Mouse it was. I walked in and my head exploded. I’d probably played a copy of Catan, maybe Fluxx, back in college, but apparently I was watching an entire renaissance happen in real time.
I remember walking past the new arrivals (which were right by the front door back then, and this was at the now defunct original Bucktown location) and being captivated by a re-skinned version of a game I’d admired from afar in my youth: Netrunner. Now it wore a shiny new blue and grey box, and had appended the prefix Android to the title.
Amid the other brightly coloured boxes, my eye also alighted upon a few that were strangely shaped and sized, in striking black and white: Cheapass Games, I read. I certainly liked the price tags: the backs of the boxes informed me that Cheapass titles were all priced down to just the necessary components, and assumed you had dice, or paper money, or a few pawns, which the publisher had elected to leave out in order to keep prices low.
On I went through the shop, which had board games, card games, dice, accessories, all the things I’d looked longingly over as a youth at the small-town equivalents in my hometown - Legends, Hobby World, Hilltop Gifts. There were also puzzles, party favours, craft projects and child-safe toys, and perhaps uniquely out of all such similar establishments in Chicago, a comprehensive selection of extremely high-end yo-yos.
Finally, in the back corner, I found what would end up being my favourite section down the years. One tall narrow shelf with boxes of all sorts. The shop was always well-organized, but this section was a sort of catch-all. It had the weird imports, all the Cheapass titles, the Innovation family of games, Seiji Kanai and the earliest microgames, Shadi Torbey and my first exposure to solo games, the climbing and shedding card games, the rare Kickstarter game that the owner, Linda, would allow, out-of-print small-run games, discontinued expandable games. A rarities and oddities corner, but priced to move rather than to sit on a shelf gathering dust. Almost everything there was $25 or under. Over the years I’d buy quite a few of the titles there, some multiple times. But after walking wide-eyed through the store and poring over the back corner, the first game I walked home with was Condottiere. It started the journey that led me here, a journey that saw me work for a while at the store, design a few games of my own, enter in and do alright on a few contests, and now, write a blog that no one reads. Ah, youth.
So in honour of that first game, today I’ll muck about with a mechanic based on one from Condottiere: inspired by the Bishop token, I present, the Faction Titans.
Faction Titans
The map has a grid of spaces that the players may move their individual pawns through, and which the players may, given sufficient influence placed and actions taken, claim as their own. Moving through the maps are the Faction Titans; during a player’s turn, they may spend cards of a Faction’s colour to try and wrest control of a Faction; in essence, if a player bids more than the current highest bid for a Faction, they may move that Faction’s Titan on the map, covering up spaces, revealing spaces, and blocking paths.
I think this is a fun twist on variable boards: A fairly set (or not! Love card spreads as play spaces) board, but changing from turn to turn based on the movement of these large, implacable forces that you can grind rep to try and influence. In my head, they work best if they cover multiple spaces, so that even in a large map, the playing space is actually just the paths and seams that open and close as the titans dance around. Heh. Unlike most of my designs, this feels like it could lend itself to some very chromey figuriney stuff.
Anyway, gotta run, I’ve got friends over for dinner and I must walk Peggy and get tidying. Til next time!
My first Gamer’s Game was purchased at Chicago institution, Cat & Mouse Games. Looking back, I think I was vaguely aware that Games had gotten Exciting, and I looked up where to find a store that would sell these Exciting New Games. I think for me I ruled out Marbles and then it came down to C&M and Dice Dojo - the Dojo had a difficult-to-navigate website, whereas C&M felt within striking distance, so Cat & Mouse it was. I walked in and my head exploded. I’d probably played a copy of Catan, maybe Fluxx, back in college, but apparently I was watching an entire renaissance happen in real time.
I remember walking past the new arrivals (which were right by the front door back then, and this was at the now defunct original Bucktown location) and being captivated by a re-skinned version of a game I’d admired from afar in my youth: Netrunner. Now it wore a shiny new blue and grey box, and had appended the prefix Android to the title.
Amid the other brightly coloured boxes, my eye also alighted upon a few that were strangely shaped and sized, in striking black and white: Cheapass Games, I read. I certainly liked the price tags: the backs of the boxes informed me that Cheapass titles were all priced down to just the necessary components, and assumed you had dice, or paper money, or a few pawns, which the publisher had elected to leave out in order to keep prices low.
On I went through the shop, which had board games, card games, dice, accessories, all the things I’d looked longingly over as a youth at the small-town equivalents in my hometown - Legends, Hobby World, Hilltop Gifts. There were also puzzles, party favours, craft projects and child-safe toys, and perhaps uniquely out of all such similar establishments in Chicago, a comprehensive selection of extremely high-end yo-yos.
Finally, in the back corner, I found what would end up being my favourite section down the years. One tall narrow shelf with boxes of all sorts. The shop was always well-organized, but this section was a sort of catch-all. It had the weird imports, all the Cheapass titles, the Innovation family of games, Seiji Kanai and the earliest microgames, Shadi Torbey and my first exposure to solo games, the climbing and shedding card games, the rare Kickstarter game that the owner, Linda, would allow, out-of-print small-run games, discontinued expandable games. A rarities and oddities corner, but priced to move rather than to sit on a shelf gathering dust. Almost everything there was $25 or under. Over the years I’d buy quite a few of the titles there, some multiple times. But after walking wide-eyed through the store and poring over the back corner, the first game I walked home with was Condottiere. It started the journey that led me here, a journey that saw me work for a while at the store, design a few games of my own, enter in and do alright on a few contests, and now, write a blog that no one reads. Ah, youth.
So in honour of that first game, today I’ll muck about with a mechanic based on one from Condottiere: inspired by the Bishop token, I present, the Faction Titans.
Faction Titans
The map has a grid of spaces that the players may move their individual pawns through, and which the players may, given sufficient influence placed and actions taken, claim as their own. Moving through the maps are the Faction Titans; during a player’s turn, they may spend cards of a Faction’s colour to try and wrest control of a Faction; in essence, if a player bids more than the current highest bid for a Faction, they may move that Faction’s Titan on the map, covering up spaces, revealing spaces, and blocking paths.
I think this is a fun twist on variable boards: A fairly set (or not! Love card spreads as play spaces) board, but changing from turn to turn based on the movement of these large, implacable forces that you can grind rep to try and influence. In my head, they work best if they cover multiple spaces, so that even in a large map, the playing space is actually just the paths and seams that open and close as the titans dance around. Heh. Unlike most of my designs, this feels like it could lend itself to some very chromey figuriney stuff.
Anyway, gotta run, I’ve got friends over for dinner and I must walk Peggy and get tidying. Til next time!
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