Ho man, I get to do so little game design these days. The busy summer, my theatre, auditioning, hockey, weddings, homeowner diy stuff (yes yes some real champagne problems in there) it has been a taxing… uh… indeterminate length of time. I’ve been tired for as long as I can remember. I never did get anything together for that September design challenge, though I did plenty of useful scribbling, and it did scratch the itch a little. I just haven’t been able to keep up a weekly post for this blog like I’d prefer, or fill notebooks with idea atop idea. The world has such big problems, and this is such a small thing, but I still feel that tiny absence. You know?
I find myself thinking mostly of my likeliest designs. Amberlodge always calls out to me, like a comfortable, thinky world, just a dream away. Runtime Error & Frameshift Mutation could truly be the kind of game I most like to play (which is, of course, very different from good or popular). And of course, the game that’s most likely to happen, Fantasy GM Squared - it’d be good to get more tests in, but the folks I’m designing it with have other games in the hopper, and it’s hard to coordinate time together to work on updates and tinkering. All in all though, these games feel like they’re going to take a long time, but will always be worth working on.
Anywhoodle, how’s about a Mechanic Monday? I’ve posted about this a little on Twitter, but here’s a card trick I’m happy about working into Amberlodge. It’s a classically Fin mechanic: multi-use cards, large probability pools from few factors, motherfucking ICONS. Please enjoy:
The Calendar Deck
In AMBERLODGE, each of the twelve months brings with it certain events, opportunities, and challenges. The winter months are generally good for tapping your maple and walnut orchards, but a warm February can disrupt your plans: the summer months may bring opportunities to earn a little cash doing some side jobs, or an exhibition opportunity for your goods. Blight could befall your trees, requiring care to contain, or you could receive an unexpected letter. It all comes down to the icons on each row of each Calendar card. Every Caelndar card has a row for each month (January through December). For the first card played each year, the icons on the top (January) row apply; when the second card is played that year, the icons on the second-from-the-top (February) row apply; and so forth. When all twelve cards have been played and all twelve months resolved, the deck is shuffled and a new year starts with a new card played for its January effects. This creates good years and bad years, challenging months and months filled with opportunity. Players will eventually get a sense for what contingencies they should prepare for and against, and will find that their optimized plans must be flexible enough to adapt to unpredictable changes in circumstance.
If I’ve done my napkin calculation correctly, that’s 479 million possible ways a year could go. In reality it’ll be much lower than that, as within each month I’ll only have 4-6 possible options (aka Good February, Okay February, Poor February, Poor February + Frost, Okay February + Work Opportunity). I haven’t settled on whether there are more than the twelve calendar cards needed, or if there’s even more variance by adding cards that don’t get played. I kind of like the idea of “A Good Month” and “A Bad Month” cards, where each line is of equal quality. I’m also not entirely sure that each effect can be summed up by an icon. Here are some of the things I want to come up on a Calendar card:
- Sugar Maple Trees produce sap
- Black Walnut Trees produce sap
- Honey Bee Hives produce nectar
- An unexpected letter from your Old Man
- Walnut Blight: Lose three Tapped Walnut Trees; lose 1 fewer tree for each Action spent
- The Vangs need some help at the warehouse; gain $50 per Action spent (max four Actions)
- Honey Craze: Shortages increase Honey’s market demand by 2
- Used Machinery: Draw a random Equipment card - you may purchase it for half-price. If you do not, return it to the deck and shuffle
- Freight Strike: You cannot ship any product this month
And so on and so forth. Looooots of possible events, and like I said, they may not all work as icons. Perhaps the most common ones will get their own icons, and then the rarer ones will get an even[#] icon that corresponds to an entry in a little booklet, SeaFall style (lol never thought I’d use anything from that one). Nothing’s nailed down yet… including currency, yeesh I need to figure out a token system at least.
When I get home tonight, I’m going to complete my Project List for Amberlodge in my notebook. I’ve broken the design into sections (Calendar Deck| Recipes + Market Demand | Action System - etc) and for each section I’m writing out all the tasks that need to happen to get to an alpha prototype. I’m gonna do it! Gonna build this thing. Hopefully this means of project management helps me break apart and achieve a more complex prototype. We’ll see! Anyway, til next time folks.
I find myself thinking mostly of my likeliest designs. Amberlodge always calls out to me, like a comfortable, thinky world, just a dream away. Runtime Error & Frameshift Mutation could truly be the kind of game I most like to play (which is, of course, very different from good or popular). And of course, the game that’s most likely to happen, Fantasy GM Squared - it’d be good to get more tests in, but the folks I’m designing it with have other games in the hopper, and it’s hard to coordinate time together to work on updates and tinkering. All in all though, these games feel like they’re going to take a long time, but will always be worth working on.
Anywhoodle, how’s about a Mechanic Monday? I’ve posted about this a little on Twitter, but here’s a card trick I’m happy about working into Amberlodge. It’s a classically Fin mechanic: multi-use cards, large probability pools from few factors, motherfucking ICONS. Please enjoy:
The Calendar Deck
In AMBERLODGE, each of the twelve months brings with it certain events, opportunities, and challenges. The winter months are generally good for tapping your maple and walnut orchards, but a warm February can disrupt your plans: the summer months may bring opportunities to earn a little cash doing some side jobs, or an exhibition opportunity for your goods. Blight could befall your trees, requiring care to contain, or you could receive an unexpected letter. It all comes down to the icons on each row of each Calendar card. Every Caelndar card has a row for each month (January through December). For the first card played each year, the icons on the top (January) row apply; when the second card is played that year, the icons on the second-from-the-top (February) row apply; and so forth. When all twelve cards have been played and all twelve months resolved, the deck is shuffled and a new year starts with a new card played for its January effects. This creates good years and bad years, challenging months and months filled with opportunity. Players will eventually get a sense for what contingencies they should prepare for and against, and will find that their optimized plans must be flexible enough to adapt to unpredictable changes in circumstance.
If I’ve done my napkin calculation correctly, that’s 479 million possible ways a year could go. In reality it’ll be much lower than that, as within each month I’ll only have 4-6 possible options (aka Good February, Okay February, Poor February, Poor February + Frost, Okay February + Work Opportunity). I haven’t settled on whether there are more than the twelve calendar cards needed, or if there’s even more variance by adding cards that don’t get played. I kind of like the idea of “A Good Month” and “A Bad Month” cards, where each line is of equal quality. I’m also not entirely sure that each effect can be summed up by an icon. Here are some of the things I want to come up on a Calendar card:
- Sugar Maple Trees produce sap
- Black Walnut Trees produce sap
- Honey Bee Hives produce nectar
- An unexpected letter from your Old Man
- Walnut Blight: Lose three Tapped Walnut Trees; lose 1 fewer tree for each Action spent
- The Vangs need some help at the warehouse; gain $50 per Action spent (max four Actions)
- Honey Craze: Shortages increase Honey’s market demand by 2
- Used Machinery: Draw a random Equipment card - you may purchase it for half-price. If you do not, return it to the deck and shuffle
- Freight Strike: You cannot ship any product this month
And so on and so forth. Looooots of possible events, and like I said, they may not all work as icons. Perhaps the most common ones will get their own icons, and then the rarer ones will get an even[#] icon that corresponds to an entry in a little booklet, SeaFall style (lol never thought I’d use anything from that one). Nothing’s nailed down yet… including currency, yeesh I need to figure out a token system at least.
When I get home tonight, I’m going to complete my Project List for Amberlodge in my notebook. I’ve broken the design into sections (Calendar Deck| Recipes + Market Demand | Action System - etc) and for each section I’m writing out all the tasks that need to happen to get to an alpha prototype. I’m gonna do it! Gonna build this thing. Hopefully this means of project management helps me break apart and achieve a more complex prototype. We’ll see! Anyway, til next time folks.
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