Print n Play - Prototype

This is a prototype I made over the weekend to get a feel for the size of the tiles I want to use for my game.

I'm pretty happy with this size. Ultimately I am going to make 11 of these and laser engrave the tops of them. The tops will have different designs depending on different class, Nearl's body part, and decoy tiles. I will take those 11, glue them to a sheet of masonite, and cast the engraved tiles in a big silicone sheet mold. After that I'm going to make two different color resin sets of 11 tiles. To make them feel nicer I am going to put tiny weights in each of them. After the resin pours I will paint the engravings for some subtle flavaaaa.

Print n Play - Theme and Concept Statement

Nearl was decapitated. The prophecies told that one day his separated body and head would have to be joined back together so he could be reanimated and show the people how to transcend. That day is today.  Since Nearl was been decapitated his head and body had been split between two rival factions. Each faction is going to battle the other to get the other half of Nearl so their faction will be the one to transcend.

Take charge of one faction and fight for your future. You command two platoons of three units. In each platoon you have one secret unit; one of Nearl’s body parts, and a decoy. The other two units in each platoon are customized by you.  The units in each platoon must stick together to maneuver, trick, attack, and hopefully capture the enemy’s half of Nearl. You must be careful though, if the enemy capture’s your half of Nearl, you lose and do not get to transcend.

I can’t decide on an exact theme. It is either some medieval, pagan, peasant-filled, fantasy world with zombies, OR these other-worldly, primitive, quasi-amorphous, simple, alien, creature things.

Concept statements are tricky. Best I came up with all weekend: Annihilate. Reanimate. Emancipate.

Here is a theme that was put to good use to unify a product. It is an anniversary release of a tv show on [adult swim]. The show is, roughly, about three 8-year-olds and the home movies they make trying to follow one of their artistic visions.  The way they packaged and boxed the whole anniversary set reinforces the theme of the show.

Proops

My easy props are shields. I guess our theme is 15th century Arabic influenced for the most part. So I looked up some 15th century Ottoman Empire business. I modeled like 14 different shields and that was the problem. It took a loooong time for me to put the textures together for three shields.

I'm not even completely happy with the textures I got done. I need to mess with the normals a little bit then fix the specularity. AND tweak a couple of things on some of the models.

I guess it also didn't help I started modeling some of my medium props...

These are just an experiment for now. Going to mess around with putting bones in and weighting the fabric of the awnings then usings the PhysX's cloth simulation engine in UDK to make some cuhrazy stuff.

...AFTER I'm satisfied with all of my shield business.

Print n Play - Playtest Forms

Here are my some of my playtest forms. One is slightly more constructive than the other...

I got some good feedback so far but the game still needs a little bit of tweaking. Since my feedback was basically the game was a little on the boring side I added some movement mechanics that could add a little more strategy to the game and I added some wild cards that can negatively affect the person drawing.

Something I would like to implement, which is what I originally started out with for this game was to have 3 platoons per side instead of two. I think this would add a lot more to the game, but for the sake of the 30 minute time limit I think it needs to be kept at 2 platoons for each player. I would still like to try having 3 platoons. Who knows, maybe it would move even faster.

Another mechanic I added in a gameplay variation section of the rules was merging platoons. If you decide to play this way you can merge your two platoons and switch pieces between them. This is something else that could add a level of difficulty to the game.

Print n Play - New Game

My brainstorming idea got scrapped. I kept a couple of elements I liked and moved on to a new idea... Which also got scrapped. I felt both of the games had a little too much to manage for a game that was supposed to be played in 30 minutes. The games were complex, but not in a good, challenging way. More in an annoying, I have way too much stuff to focus on, boring kind of way.

Late last night I came up with another idea  that pulls some mechanics from the first two games but is completely different. I wanted to keep the customization aspect in the game.

Two player, turn-based game. Each player has two platoons consisting of three tiles. Each platoon has one secret tile and two other custom class tiles. each platoon must stick together with its three members  and move its way to capture the correct enemy secret tile (one is a decoy). There is a die roll combat mechanic for adjoining enemy tiles. Defeat the correct secret tile in combat and win the game. There is a wild card mechanic and different movement patterns for each class. There is also some lore about finding the decapitated head for the body so they can be rejoined and reanimated.

Game in progress:

Set Dress

Started to set dress my grey box level using everybody's modular kits. It's soupa fun to try and figure out how to make everything work together with everyone's kits. It's a rough start but you can see where I'm going with it all.

 

Pretty much what I have near completion. 

 Annnnd what I have left to do. The level is cut off around the middle bridge but it's still a lot of background to throw together. I think I'll be able to get enough mileage out of the stuff we have to make everything look nice. It would be pretty rad if we could use the other class' stuff...

Modular Kit

 Here is most of the final stuff I built in Maya for that dang ole modular kit. Let's see what we have.

A door, some trim for that door, and some double trouble windows.

Some different pieces of roof trim accompanied by a corner piece so it can all fit together.

 I went through a few different wall ideas before ending with this one.

Wood trims! I think I like the way these turned out the best out of everything else.  They were the most fun to model and texture. I think my preference towards these has to do with making the subtle, organic shape changes in the model, which I did with the door trim also but I still like these more.

 

 I'm not sure what happened with the pixelation problem on the edges of all my models in the pictures. Not sure if it is a monitor issue, or it's always like that and I just never noticed. Whatever it is, I apologize.

Print n Play - Brainstorming

I was having a bit of trouble getting started with an idea for a game. Instead of focusing so quickly on a specific game with a solid theme and mechanics, I decided to just start writing things down. To begin I just started writing things down I liked about other print and play, and board games I have played.  The list included things like: strategy, die roll combat, resource gathering, evolving playable space, customization of your pieces (attacking force/fleet/army), two player, turn based, eliminate the opposing force to win.
     Two players will be competing to destroy the enemy's base heart.There are resources that must be gathered for each player to perform certain functions. There are five different classes that may be in play. Each player starts with a gatherer and an attacker piece. The gatherers collects one resource at a time and returns them to base, which will be kept track of by each player (possible tokens). The attackers, well, attack.  Three different types of classes can be chosen to be put into play. A +1 attacker, a +1 defense, and a ranged attack unit.
     Setup: The players take a starting gatherer and attacker piece and place them in their own base heart.
     Sequence of Play: At the beginning of each turn a player may decide to spend resources to spawn new units in their base heart. After the spawning phase there is the movement and combat phase.
          [Movement] - The player will roll a 12-sided die.  The player may choose to move any unit any number of times as long as the total moved spaces is less than or equal to the number rolled. Example: I rolled a 7. I can choose to move one unit 7 spaces. Or I could choose to move two units 1 space and another unit 5 spaces, which would equal a total of 7 moves. One unit 3 spaces and another unit 4 spaces, etc. Any piece can move forward, backward, and side-to-side (this could change depending on board layout, grid space shape, etc.)
          [Combat] - To engage in combat, the attacking unit must be in a space adjacent to the defending piece and spend 1 resource. Only exception is the ranged attack, if a player should choose to spawn one. Ranged attackers must be 2 or 1 grid spaces away from defender. The attacker rolls the die first. The defender must roll a number higher than the attackers to survive. Tie goes to the defender. If the attacker wins, the defender piece is taken off the board. If the defender wins nothing happens. The attacker may choose to attack as many times as they want in a turn as long as they keep spending resources for each attack.  There are bonuses given to certain spawnable pieces. The +1 attack unit gets +1 to their die roll. The +1 defense unit gets +1 to their die roll. The gatherer's may not indulge in battle.
          [Attacking the Heart] - Player rolls the die against the heart's HP. Each unit may only attack the heart once per turn.  The +1 attack unit's bonus is kept while attacking the heart. Players keep track of their heart's HP on a piece of paper. Starting HP 200(?). Attacker rolls an 8, the heart's HP is reduced by eight. Attacking units must be in a space immediately surrounding the heart, except for ranged attackers which must be, at the most, 3(?) spaces away from the heart.

That is the very rough structure of the game. I have many other ideas that could be possible implementations to the game. Most of these are 'what ifs...'

What if gatherers can engage in combat, or be engaged upon? Could you steal a gatherer's resource before they reach the base?
What if each class had different movement attributes?
What if you could spawn a defense barrier around your base heart?
What if there is one limited path in the beginning going to the center resource pit and you have a terraformer that can make new, unique paths to other resource pits?
What if you could only move on paths created by the terraformer?
How much should the starting base heart HP be?
How much should it cost to spawn a unit? Could each unit cost a different amount? Could the special classes cost more to spawn?
How much should it cost to engage in combat?
What if there were fate cards? (more/ less movement, defend/attack in combat more/less, carry more resource, resource transfer between player, added resource, etc.).
What if there were strategic terrain blockages?
What if the grid spaces were hexagonal instead of square?
What if there wasn't a customization of an army? Would that make the game more or less strategic?
What if the gatherers didn't have to bring the resources back to base? What if the gaining of resources was instant?
What if you could destroy paths?
What if, assuming there are terraformers, it costs a resource to change the environment and make a path? Could terraformers move anywhere? Or can they only build paths adjacent to present paths?
What if random grid spaces had secrets under them, activated only when landed upon?
What if you had to complete a mini-game (small puzzle or string of actions) before attacking the enemy heart?
What if one side was defending a base heart and the other player was attacking the base heart? A different class system would have to be set up.
What is my theme? Light vs Dark? Evil vs More Evil? Orcs, goblins, wizards, trolls, imps, pirates, zombies? Can I come up with a theme that is not so generic? ... apparently not right now.
What if it was a fight for the center rather than opponent's base? Race to capture three resource points?

I really like the idea of army customization and the evolving playable space. If I decided to have the terraformers in the game, they would be a starting piece along with attack and gatherer piece. I think after getting a rough idea for the game I would say it is a combination of the games Dungeon Keeper, Starcraft, and that print and play game I deconstructed, Space Dogfight. I have an idea for the theme based loosely on a previous game jam I did and it goes something like this: The game takes place in a lava lair. In this lava lair a dragon used to guard piles of treasure. One day the dragon disappeared and two warring factions caught wind. They go to fight each other to claim the lair and treasure as their own.  As played out as the theme is, there are parts about it I like.  Mainly the lava. I think this would be a good base for the terraformers. These two factions are fighting in this big lava lair. Each team must use their terrformers to turn the lava into walkable paths to reach resource pits and the enemy heart.  I feel like the evolving playable space is one of the more unique aspects of this game. I would like to explore more options with terraforming to create strategic paths and attack points.
     I want this game to stress the strategy of building an army to fit each game.  You must customize you fleet of minions to counter your opponents army.
A very quick layout of the starting board if terraformers are implemented. New paths can be built in any grid space.

A lot of different ideas. Need some feedback before I move on.

Print n Play - Deconstruction

Space Dogfight

Goal of the Game:

     Nothing to do with Michael Vick. The goal of Space Dogfight is to either eliminate the enemy fleet or have the most points once each player has moved their whole fleet into the enemy base. 

Core Mechanic:

     Spend action counters to move your ships and attack enemy ships.

Space of the Game:

     The game is played on an eight by ten grid board. The grid board provides a two-dimensional space that is discrete with clear boundaries. It only matters that a grid space is being occupied, not the exact placement inside each grid.

Objects, Attributes, and States: 

Spaceship Counters - 

     There are four different types of spaceship counters. Each has its own set of attributes designated by the Spaceship Table. The attributes each ship has are movement, attack, defense, and points. For the sake of brevity I will assign each ship a letter (A,B,C,D). There are the same amount of each ship type, colored in red and blue for each side, that each player may choose from when customizing their fleet (A=4, B=3, C=2, D=2). The ships can only move forward and sideways any amount of spaces up to its designated movement number.  For example, ship A has a movement number of three. If chosen to move, ship A can move forward or sideways one, two, or three grid spaces (B=2, C=3, D=3).  

     For a ship to attack, the attacking player must be adjacent (not diagonal) to the defending ship and role a six-sided die and role a number that is less than or equal to the attacking ship's attack number to get a potential hit on the defending ship. If I wanted to attack with ship A and I was positioned to do so I would have to roll a three or less to get a potential hit(B=4, C=3, D=4). If the attacker has one or more friendly ships adjacent to the defending ship the attack number is raised by one for this attack only.

     If a potential hit occurs, the defending ship must role the die to see if it will dodge the attack or be hit and taken out of the game. Ship A has a defense number of one. So if ship A is being attacked you must roll a one to dodge the attack and survive since the lowest number on a six-sided die is one (B=1, C=3, D=4).

     Each ship has a number of points it is worth. When customizing your fleet in the beginning of the game you must construct a fleet with a total worth of eighty points. If the game ends by each player moving its fleet to the enemy base the player with the most amount of points, based on which and how many of each ship are in the enemy base, wins. Ship A is worth ten points (B=15, C=20, D=25).

Action Counters - 

     There are four different types of action counters: AP, Defense, Move Asteroid, and Blank. Each player may have up to five action counters in their hand at a time. All action counters that are not being held by a player are kept in a cup waiting to be drawn randomly. Each turn a player can choose to discard their held action counters. If they don't choose to attack or move the player may randomly draw up to three action counters, as long as they do not exceed their five in-hand limit.

     AP counters are spent on movement and combat. Once they are spent they are placed back in the cup. If a player decides to move a ship they must spend one AP counter. If the decide to attack they must spend two AP counters. If a defending ship survives an attack, the attacking player may decide to immediately attack again for the cost of one AP counter.  They may move or attack any number of times in a turn as long as they have AP counters to spend.

     There are two different Defense counters.  There is a +1 and +2 defense counter. If a player is defending against an attack and they have a defense counter in their hand they may choose to use the counter to up their designated defense number by the appropriate number. If ship A has a starting defense number and the player decides to use its +2 defense counter, ship A has a defense number of 3 for the current attack. After the attack the defense counter is discarded and the original defense number is restored to that particular ship A.

     If a player draws a Move Asteroid counter it must be played immediately.  An asteroid on the board will be randomly selected by a roll of the die. Another die roll will then randomly determine which direction the asteroid will move. The asteroid may move any direction except diagonally and may not move into a space with another asteroid.  If the asteroid is moved into the same space a spaceship is occupying, that space ship is eliminated from the board and the rest of the game.  The Move Asteroid counter is discarded back into the cup after it is drawn and the asteroid is moved.

Asteroid Counters - 

     There are three asteroid counters that are placed randomly in three out of six spots on the map depending on a die roll. The asteroid counters occupy one grid space and are only moved, randomly, when a player draws the Move Asteroid counter.

Blank Counters - 

     Blank Counters may be used for any action counter.

Operative Actions:

     Customize and place fleet

     Move a spaceship counter

     Draw/ discard action counters

     Roll die

Resultant Actions:

     There are many options when customizing and placing your fleet at the beginning of each game.  You can choose to have a lot of weak pawn-like ships, a couple of strong ships, and everything in between.  Formulating a strategy and building your fleet around that strategy will result in many different types of games.

     Depending on which counters are drawn and discarded, a player will choose to move or attack.  Each player can move their ships strategically to influence the other player in many ways.  Using ships and the placement of asteroids players can position themselves to block, defend, attack, create paths, lure and corner enemies.

     You can strategically hold onto or discard action counters. For instance, you could hold onto a defense counter to increase your odds of winning a decisive battle.

     Rolling the die provides a balanced chance mechanic into the game. The die rolls can determine the outcome of a battle or wreak havoc on ships via asteroids.

Skills Players Learn: 

     Players will learn mostly mental and social skills. Players will learn mental skills by forming strategies when building their fleet and implementing those strategies on the battlefield.  Players will also have to outwit their opponents strategies.  Weighing options about movement, combat, drawing and discarding counters, chance of asteroid hits will develop mental skills.  Players will have to try and read their opponents strategies and try to figure out what counters they have which will help develop social skills.

Most of the rules were explained in my deconstruct. Here's some clarity on some important parts of the game. Space Dogfight is a two-player turn based game.  Separate the red and blue spaceships by color and give the players on set each.  Each player will then secretly customize a fleet equaling 80 points, placing unused spaceships face down off the board (they will not be used the rest of the game). Place the asteroids. Alternate placing fleets, ship by ship, in appropriate starting zones. The sequence of play consists of two actions: [1] Discard action counters, then either [2a] Draw Action counters or [2b] Spend AP counters. Alternate turns until goal is reached.
For a more straightforward, streamlined version of the rules visit Space Dogfight's website.

Print n Play - Exploration

Here are reviews of a couple PnP games I played.

Micropul

A simple to learn, but fun and strategic puzzle game where you harvest micropuls and catalysts.

Complexity of Design - Extremely simple.

Quality of Art - Very simple. The simplicity works pretty well though. Being a game about harvesting energy cores and matter and junk, I feel like they could have kept the simple theme but jazzed it up a bit.

Quality of Game Design - The game design is great. The game is simple to understand and start playing. It is obvious almost right away that this game can be played either casually or extremely strategically and competitively.

Set Up - The set up is easy. Cut out a few pieces and you're ready to play.

This game was great.  It took one read through of the rules and we were ready to play. The simplicity was the best part of the game for me.  I was worried at first because it seemed almost too simple, but once we started playing I could see how you could get really involved in the strategy behind the game.  The goal is to collect the most tiles possible by using the least tiles possible.  The game starts with one tile being placed on the table and the players building off of that with their own tiles.  You can only connect matching micropuls. In doing so you try to activate the catalysts which let you draw more tiles. You also have three stones you can use to group micropuls. At the end of the game the player with the most amount of points wins. You get points for every micropul in a group and every tile you have. Apart from a few other special circumstances that is the game. Here is a shot from the end of a game.

I dominated this round thanks to my huge group of black micropuls in the center of the board.

Another thing I liked about this game was the fact that, in the game world, you are supposed to snapping these tiles together to create energy. It seemed cooler than just laying the tiles down to occupy a space. 

 I feel like I've played a game similar to this but I can't remember what it was. The mechanics seem familiar....

Castle Builders

A competitive two player game to see who can build the best towers for the king that likes towers.

Complexity of Design - Very simple.
Quality of Art - The art is pretty nice. It is a little cheesy but it fits the theme nicely. The game board is a stylized blueprint of a medieval city and towers. The counters you play with have a cheesy brick texture on them but it fits the theme so it's not so bad.
Quality of Game Design - The game design is pretty good. It is a very simple game to understand and start playing. There is a balance of strategy and luck that seems to weigh more on the luck side, which I did not enjoy all that much.  The rules don't specify a couple of mechanics in the game that made the first play feel stupid.
Set Up - The set up is just as simple as Micropul. A small board and some tiles to cut out and you are set.

Castle Builders was fun for one out of the three times we played it.  The first time we played was broken because of a misunderstanding of the rules, the second time was fun, and the third time was boring.  I think the problem with this game is there is a good simplicity factor but nothing behind that to give the game any worth.  There is some strategy behind the game but a lot of it is luck. The luck factor is what made it interesting the second time around. One person is about to win, then BAM, a lucky special counter is drawn and turns the whole game around.  In the second game, when that happened, it was pretty fun, but during the whole third game we were just thinking about how none of our moves really mattered because someone was going to draw the special counter and turn everything around. There is no re playability because you are just going through the motions until someone pulls that lucky draw and dominates.

The goal of the game is to have one of your building counters at the top of the tower so you can acquire the designated amount of points. When all of the spaces are full the game is over. Each player has twenty two counters total and holds a hand of two counters at a time. When a counter is placed on the board another is chosen randomly.

There are a good range of different types of counters, but I think they messed up the quantities of each counter.  There are far too many special counters.

Originally there are three stop counters, two remove counters, and one remove and continue counter.  To try and make the game more interesting we played a round with only one of each special counter. It required a little more strategy because you could only use your remove counter once, but it was still pretty boring. Here is a boring picture, of a boring end, to a boring Castle Builders round.

All in all I think I liked the simplicity of these games the most.  To me that is what the print and play games should be. The simpler the better. There were some games with like eight pages of rules and tons of stuff to cut out that turned me off immediately.  Maybe it was the nature of the assignment (playing a bunch of different games) but I was definitely drawn to the simpler games.  Micropul was a simple game to play and understand but complex in terms of strategy.  The game had something else behind its simplicity that I really enjoyed.  Castle Builders on the other hand was simple but boring.  If this were BK, and I could have it my way, I would mix the art style of Castle Builders with Micropul and be extremely happy.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10660/micropul
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39029/castle-builders