2014 Prezcon - Part 2

Let's see...where was I...oh, that's right...up way too late playing Game of Thrones.  Thursday morning I had to be up by 9:00 for my demo of Lords of Waterdeep.  I had a few people come by - 3 or 4 - not quite as many as showed up for the demo last year.  Waterdeep has been out for a year and a half now, and is quite popular...most euro enthusiasts have probably played it by now.

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

After my demo, I headed straight for a heat of Pillars of the Earth, again being GM'd by my buddy Paul Owen.  I was in a 3 player game with Mark Beckman and another gentleman who's name escapes me.  I'm very much a novice at Pillars, and I know that Mark is an excellent euro game player, But I played a very good game...right until the last turn.  Truth be told, I thought the game was coming down to me or Mark, and I had discounted our 3rd player...and so did Mark.  In the penultimate turn, I used a pawn to take the first player for the last turn, setting myself up to hopefully take the glassblower...which would have given me a lot of points.  Unfortunately, the glass blower ended up on the board, vice in the area where he could be bought immediately.  As I drew pawns from the bag, I of course drew Mark's pawn first.  He hemmed and hawed, but ultimately decided to go for the defensive move of paying to get the glassblower (blocking me from getting it).  I drew about half the rest of the pawns before I realized, that as the player drawing the pawns, it had been my right to take one "mulligan" and redraw.  We discussed it at the table, if I could go back, and brought in Paul who ruled (correctly, IMO) that I had forgotten it...so tough luck.  In the end that likely cost me the game...but to my and Mark's surprise our 3rd opponent came out of nowhere to claim the victory.  Which is a lesson in never underestimating anyone.

At noon, I got in a heat of Carcassonne, and managed to win.  For whatever reason, I've been doing well at Carcassonne the last few years at Prezcon - 2nd overall 2 years ago, and 3rd last year.  With my win, I was on my way to the semi-finals again. Directly after that, I played in a heat of Stone Age, where I was promptly trounced by a Stone Age afficianado named Rodney.  I made the mistake of not collecting very many cards - I was in the lead, and then promptly got lapped when the card points were counted.

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

Next up, at 3:00 was a heat of Chicago Express.  I'm not a huge fan of stock market type games...and despite it's train theme, that's really what Chicago Express is.  However, I find this game growing on me.  In fact, I like it more and more every time I play.  My heat didn't go so well - we had a 3 player game, one lady was brand new to the game...but the other fellow was clearly a veteran player.  I did learn a hard lesson, as I took 2 of the shares for the red railroad, he took the remaining 1 share, and just as I had the red railroad approaching Chicago, he veered it off in a different direction.  The veteran won by a significant amount.  I would also like to give kudos to Lee Sensabaugh, the GM -


who in my opinion is one of the friendliest GMs - or person, in general - at Prezcon. 

We had time late that afternoon to get our gang (Brian, Tom, myself, Paul and the Senzig clan) together in open gaming and get in a game of Viva Java. We had to cut short due to some pressing tournaments coming up, but I was likely on the way to victory, thanks to playing the "going rogue" card, and investing in other players brews.  Halfway through the game, we did have designer T.C. Petty III show up!

The South Island!

Next up was one of the highlights for me - my old favorite Conquest of Paradise, once again GM'd by designer Kevin McPartland.  This year, Kevin decided to mix it up by adding in almost all the optional rules, plus the expansion random event cards.  I was excited about this, as I was ready for things to be changed up a bit.  In my first game, as Raiatea, I discovered New Zealand early on - which, with the optional rules gave me both the north and south island.  However, the player playing Samoa used the random event of Fijian Raid to completely decimate his Tongan neighbor, paving the way for him to move in for the kill.  He was able to ride that to victory. 

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

After Conquest, our "gang" got together for some late night gaming, bringing out Space Cadets: Dice Duel, and following with a favorite from last year, Bang!  Dice Duel was a blast, although I was surprised we didn't go more attention from others in the room.  It was somewhat awkward with uneven players, but we made it work.  With Bang!, I threw in one of the expansions, and that only served to confuse things - some of the cards were odd, and the new characters didn't seem that balanced - Mike Sr. had a guy that could hold 10 cards, for example.  The one drawback to Bang! is that it can drag a little long, and with player elimination, that can be no fun...in the end, we called it quits with Tom's sherriff and Mike Sr.'s outlaw in a virtual standoff.

The mornings always seem to come early at Prezcon, and Friday was no exception - even though the first thing on my docket was the 10:00 heat of Lords of Waterdeep.   I had about 20ish folks show up for the first heat, and I managed to play this year as well.  I was determined to keep it to 4 player games this year, and in my first heat I think I only had to go to 5 with one game.  I only had one group go long, but they were able to find me over at the 2nd heat of Conquest of Paradise. 

Friday afternoon and evening ended up being a Conquest of Paradise marathon.  In the 2nd heat, I was once again Raiatea.  In an interesting twist, New Zealand was discovered directly between Raiatea and Hiva.  The Hiva player and I decided on a truce - he would take the North Island, I would take the South.  I also made a run for sweet potatoes, though I was unsuccessful.  My memory is failing me here a little...as everything from that day is a bit jumbled together, but I did not win, and then Kevin had to decide on how to run the semis/final game. 

The final was scheduled at 4:00, but Kevin wanted to run 2 semis starting at 3:00, as he had 5 individual heat winners, and would fill in with 3 2nd place finishers - of which I was one.  In one moment that made me ornery, one young player that was a heat winner complained because that would conflict with a heat of Leaping Lemmings.  Kevin was hemming and hawing, especially since
not all the winners showed up.  The young fellow went so far as to get the tournament director, Justin, to come over and arbitrate (at which point Justin said "Kevin is one of our best GM's...whatever he decides goes").  In the end, Kevin ran the two semis, and I made it in. 

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

In our semi, I was with Brian, and Steve Bondra, and another fellow.  I had a decent game, but again finished 2nd to Steve.  As it turns out, in the other semi, Steve Cameron ran away with the victory in such a dominating fashion that both I and Brian (our 3rd place finisher) made it to the finals.

The final game started out terribly for me.  I found no islands for the first 3 turns.  That was drawing various remarks of pity from the other players...and they were completely discounting me.  I should mention that I was Hiva, and Brian was playing Raiatea.  At one point he essentially offered me a small island as a way to appease me and stop military aggression.  It sort of worked, as I then went on a tear and found a bunch of islands in a row.  I also successfully discovered sweet potatoes.  I was gearing up to land colonists on 4 islands at once, for an 8 point jump, when Steve Bondra declared victory.  As Samoa, he found a bunch of islands and was able to isolate himself.  One more turn, and I think I would have been able to make a run at it - but isn't that always the way of things?  I was still able to squeak out a 3rd place finish.  In general, I liked playing with the advanced rules, though Malaria never came into play, and Sweet Potatoes are had to get to.  New Zealand factored in several of my games, and the random events change the strategy significantly, in my mind.  The rule is that the player in last place gets to draw and implement the random events - this leads to a tactic of intentionally lagging behind.  In the finals, I was drawing the majority of the time, but I never got any of the "super" cards.  Twice Steve Cameron managed to lag behind me, and he got two cards that would have helped me significantly.  Oh well...lesson learned for WBC....

After almost 8 hours of Conquest of Paradise, it was off to open gaming.  Some other familiar faces were showing up, including Ben Rosset, Nick Ferris and Josh Tempkin.  I got in a game of Coup with Ben, Nick and several other fellows, and managed to pull off the win.  Although I still don't think I caught Ben lying.  After that, Ben, Nick, Josh and Brian were gracious enough to give Santa's Workshop a try.  They only ended up getting through about half a game, but I got quite a bit of good feedback.  I loved Unpub, but with 3 game designers playing, I think I got more valuable feedback during that playtest than during Unpub.  This led to significant changes, which I will detail in an upcoming blog post.  After closing that up, Brian, Tom and I sat down with Ben to playtest his Homebrewers - the "prequel" to Brewcrafters.  I think Ben has another solid idea here, although it's certainly in a more "rough" stage than when I playtested either Brewcrafters or Brewcrafters:The Travel Card Game.  Combining dice rolling, negotiation, and card management, I look forward to playing the next iteration the next time I see Ben. 

Well that was enough for that night, and that's enough for this blog entry.  Next up in Part 3, I'll wrap up with Saturday and Sunday, and some overall thoughts about Prezcon 2014.

Unpub 4 - Day 2

Well, Day 2 of Unpub 4 started with even less sleep than the previous day.  When we got to the site, we were treated a pancake breakfast and a panel discussion with a group of publishers - I won't try to name them all here because inevitably I'll forget someone...

After the panel, I headed over to try Nate Levan's New Bedford - I'd heard some good word of mouth about this game and wanted to give it a try.  I'll give a further review below when I comment on all the games I played - but I'm certainly glad I did play it. 

Santa's Workshop Day 2

I should mention that towards the end of the con on Saturday night - around 9:00 or so, I had a young lady named Tierna stop by my table and eye up my game.  When I asked if she was interested, she nodded yes, and I gave her a quick explanation.  Since it was getting a bit late, I promised her a game on Sunday.  After playing New Bedford, I found Tierna at Daniel Solis' table, and she agreed to come over when she finished up.  Not only did she come over, she brought her sister Becca and her dad Mike with her, and we got in a 4 player game of Santa's Workshop.  Tierna was 10 years old, and I was eager to see how she did, as I originally conceived of the game as a more "family game".  It took us about 1:15 to finish, and I got some good feedback.  Tierna did ok - she jumped out in the lead, but faltered towards the end.  I think the full game may be a bit much for the under 12 crowd.  Becca, who I'm guessing was about 16 or so, had an interesting quote at the end.  She told that when they decided to come to the con, she marked every game in the program on a 1 to 5 scale.  She had my game marked as a "1", which meant she had no interest - and she only played because her sister begged her to.  She then stated that she really enjoyed it, and had no idea that it would be such a fun game.  This, of course, only served to back up Game Salute's point that the theme might drive away "serious" gamers.

After some more time at other games, I saw two folks eyeing up my table and hurried back to see if they were interested in player.  I recognized the woman as long time owner of "Our Game Table", Kathy Stroh.  I convinced Bill and Kathy to sit down for a 3 player game.  We finished our game in under an hour, and again I received valuable feedback.  We found a couple of cards that needed tweaking, and Kathy opined that she thought the game play was a little too deep for the theme.  Hmmm...familiar territory here. 

That was it for SW for the weekend - a grand total of 4 playtests.  Between the playtests and the Game Salute session, I got great feedback.  So, where do I stand with Santa's Workshop now?  I feel like I have a bit of a mixed bag.  I got nothing but positive feedback from playtesters.  My aggregate scores on from my feedback forms were as follows: 

Game Length:  3/5
Learning Ease: 4/5
Decisions: 4/5
Downtime: 4/5
Interactivity: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Fun: 4/5

My lowest grades on individual feedback forms were a 2/5 on game length and 2/5 on interactivity.  The game length doesn't surprise me, as I know the game is too long.  I should also mention that my scores may be skewed a little high as I got one sheet that was all 5/5 (thanks, Tierna!) .  But all in all, I think I got good scores for my first ever game, with only 3 playtests ever coming into the con.

In terms of mechanics, I need to tighten up the game for play length.  I originally wanted a game that could hold 6 players just because I don't think there are a lot that do that well.  Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to scale back.  I think I'm going to cap it at 4 players.  Perhaps if some other tweaks bring game length down, I'll revisit that.  But the other reason to go to 4 players is that makes it easy to limit # of spaces per # of players -> n-1, it's that easy.  When you get to 5 and 6 players, only taking one space per room away isn't enough, and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to make that transition from n-1 to n-2.  And it seems like it should differ per room, which is complicated.  The other play length decision to make is to cap the game at 9 turns.  I originally wanted 12 turns for the "12 Days of Christmas" theme - but that's just too long...and I'll talk about theme in a minute.  As far as other mechanics...there are some coal cards that need tweaking, I need to simplify the "magic mirror" card, and I need to play with the Reindeer track - tweak the scoring, and perhaps add some more theme to that somehow.

So...now's the big question...what about the theme?  Game Salute didn't really think the theme would work.  Several comments and feedback I got seemed to reinforce that - "I wasn't expecting such a deep game with this theme", etc.  However, some folks seemed to think with the right artwork and box presentation, that might be able to be overcome.  I think I'm going to stick with the general theme for now, but with a bit of tweak.  Instead of building gifts leading up to Christmas Eve, I think I'm going to set the game at the South Pole, with the teams of elves competing to see who gets called up to the "Big Leagues" of the North Pole.  I did have a little issue, theme-wise with wondering if Santa would really let the elves get away with shenanigans as they were actually building toys for children.  By making the game be about a "boot camp" of sorts, I can get away with that.  I can possibly also work in more theme with the reindeer - such as teaching them to fly or somesuch.  I think this could lead to more "edgy" artwork as well - maybe Santa painted as a sort of drill instructor or somesuch, and some sort of tagline "Before they made it to the North Pole, they had to claw their way up from the South".  Ok...that's terrible.  But you get the idea.  I talked to Chris Kirkman and Darrell Louder about giving it a try at Prezcon - I'm interested to hear what they say.  Maybe get it in front of some publishers at Cons later this year and get more feedback.  If theme is a continuing issue, then I bite the bullet and try to retheme it later this year.  Maybe competing toy factories, or something like that.  I just don't want it to lose any of it's charm.  So...to be continued, I guess. 

Other Games I Played

I have this terrible nagging feeling that I'm forgetting a game I played, but I'll press on.  In Part 1 of my recap, I talked about Ben Rosset's Brew Crafters Card Game, so I won't repeat that here.  The first game I played at Unpub was Ohalo by Andrew Lenox and Jason Kotarski.  Jason is the designer of Great Heartland Hauling Company, which I talked about here and here.  Ohalo (named after the archaeological site) is a card game, with the unique mechanic that to start each game turn, you take the resource cards and kind of throw them up and let them land in a pile - some face up, some face down.  You, as a hunter-gatherer, have a few different action you can take.  You can gather various fruits & mushrooms - which entails trying to slide together resources of the same type using one finger and not disturbing the rest of the pile.  You can hunt for various animals - the more of which you gather, the better your score.  You can collect wood...which is then used to build various buildings - those which allow you to store resources for points, or do actions more efficiently, etc.  We only got to play about a half a game, because I had to demo SW, but I must say, I really enjoyed it.  The sliding of the cards in the pile was my favorite part - and a very fun mechanic.

Ohalo - I managed to move some berries around the entire edge of the pile!

Next I'll talk about another Jason Kotarski game, Sunset Shuffle.  This is a dice rolling game that consists of 6 turns.  On each turn, that turn # is wild.  In other words, on turn 1, all 1's are wild, etc.  Three more card are flipped up, which will number between 1-6, and your job is to put pairs of dice on each number card (the dice matching that number).  The catch is, the first two people to place dice get a "lifeguard" die, which they have to roll as well, which does things like block their numbers, although it can be passed on.  This was a fun frantic dice rolling frenzy, and all through the con, if I heard lots of shouting and yelling(in a good way), it tended to be coming from that table.  I like the lifeguard die mechanic, although with such a fast and furious game, it can be hard to tell who placed dice first.  Maybe a lifeguard die on each card, and the first person to place on a specific card gets that die.

Brew Crafters The Card Game was not the only Ben Rossett creation I tried at Unpub.  On Sunday I sat down for a game of Building the British Royal Navy.  In this game, you are bidding on contracts from the British Navy to build their warships.  This game is all about bidding and auctions - which I understand is a departure from how the game first started out.  In addition to bidding on the warships themselves, you have to bid on materials, and then the services of the subcontractors to build the hull and armaments.  Ben had the game limited to 10 bidding chits per player, all at pre-defined values.  By the third epoch, in our 4 player game, we were finding the services of the sub-contractors to be in high demand - too much so, in fact.  We were also a little frustrated with the specific values on our limited tokens.  I think we gave Ben some valuable feedback - we talked about still limiting the number of bidding chits, but letting the players decide how much each was worth.  I think there's a gem of a game in here - I like the theme, and I like the idea of a game that is exclusively auctions.  But, it's a bit raw now - but that's what Unpub is for, and I expect next time I have a chance to play it, Ben will have made substantial improvements.

I mentioned New Bedford at the top of this blog, and this was one I heard some rave reviews about.  I was happy to discover that designer Nate Levan is a fellow Hokie - Aerospace Engineering, even.  Go Hokies!  New Bedford is a game about building a coastal town around the whaling industry.  Starting with a town base and docks, you send your two workers out to collect resources, build new buildings and launch your whaling vessel to hunt.  Each building that is built will provide new actions, but to use them you must pay the building owner.  For the whaling, how far out to sea you launch depends on how much food you pack on board.  Each turn your whaling vessel draws closer to shore, and you draw chits from a bag.  They will be one of three different types of whale, or open ocean.  When you get back to port, you pay to have the whales processes - either $1, $2 or $3 depending on the whale type, with the more expensive being worth more VPs (I know Wright Whales are the cheapest, and Sperm Whales are the most expensive, but I'm blanking on the "middle" whale).  The game lasts 12 turns, and the player with the most VPs wins (you can also get VPs from money and certain buildings).  Our 3 player game lasted less than an hour, and that felt like about the right amount of time - maybe a little too quick!  This is a very polished game, and it was easy to see why it was getting some buzz.  I had very little in the way of suggestions - I thought maybe it would be neat to have more than 20 buildings in the game, and you could just draw 20 randomly at the start to get some variability - Nate was way ahead of me, already having more buildings in development.  We talked about some of the chits drawn from the bag having "events" such as storms - I think that would be a nice addition, if not overdone.  We talked a little about getting players access to a 3rd worker - but my fellow players were more interested in that than I was.  So...a very impressive game, one that I feel is essentially "done", and I wouldn't be surprised to see it on store shelves this time next year.

Final Thoughts

So, my first Unpub...with my first game...how was the overall experience?  In a word - fantastic.  The convention is clearly outgrowing it's roots.  Next year it will be at a different location (as yet undisclosed), and Darrell tells me it will be more like a "traditional" con - the con in the hotel where everyone is staying, vendors, more traditional con hours, etc.  I'm really looking forward to seeing where he takes it.

I mentioned in Part 1 that there was some raffles.  Darrell had a ton of games to raffle off, dontated by companies that weren't even there in person, such as Stronghold Games.  (I'm guessing more and more publishers will start showing up in person in the future.).  Anyone who playtested a game could get a raffle ticket for each feedback form they turned in.  Randy gave me his as he left on Saturday.  I kept just missing by a few numbers.  Paul won twice!  There were lots of good games, and I admit I was a little jealous of the winners.  Then right before we left on Sunday, Darrell called for a kid to come to the stage.  As it happened, Tierna, who playtested for me went up.  Darrell asked her for a number between 1 and 52 (the number of designers registered).  She picked "36", and Darrell calls out "Is Keith Ferguson here?"  I proceeded to the stage, thinking I had just won a game.  But no...I was getting a different prize...the first official (and free) registered Game Designer for Unpub 5!  Wow!  I was still a little down after my Game Salute feedback, and I have to say, this really made my day!  It definitely motivated me to come back next year with something even better.  Maybe it will be a re-worked Santa's Workshop, maybe something different (I've had a flash of inspiration on a new game in the last day or two).  Either way, I'll be happy to be there - one of the things I haven't really touched on is how nice it was to meet a bunch of fellow designers (I'm not sure I can really call myself that yet...).  It's a great, friendly, supportive atmosphere, and I definitely look forward to meeting those that I missed this time, and playing more of their games!

Unpub 4 - Day 1

Well, as was mentioned in my last post, I spent this past weekend in Delaware at the Unpub 4 convention.  The short version is - what a fantastic event, I loved going, I'll be back next year (more on that in a bit) - but I came out of it with mixed feelings for my game, Santa's Workshop. One big regret is that I brought my camera...and proceeded to take very little pictures.  So, I apologize for the scarcity of pictures in this post.

I drove up with my friend Paul Owen, and after checking into our hotel, we headed over to the local pizza joint for the Unpub "designers dinner".  This was basically a meet and greet and a chance to network with some folks, with a raffle thrown in (idiot that I am, I lost my raffle tickets within 5 minutes of getting them and had to beg for more).  I sat with Nathaniel Levan and his wife Anna and got to know them a little bit (although we didn't figure out until the next day that Nate and I are both Hokies).

After the dinner, we headed back to the hotel, expecting to get in some gaming with various folks.  Although at some point, we heard someone talking about their "sell sheet" - which is basically a 1 page sheet that highlights your game with a basic description and pertinent information (game length, # of players, things like that).  Basically, an ad for your game.  Paul and I looked at each other - neither of us had thought to make up one of those.  So we spent an hour or so in the hotel room furiously throwing something together...and then found that the hotel only had black and white printers.  Oh well, better than nothing, I guess.  After that we did head to the lobby for some gaming, and ran into Ben Rossett, who gave us his Brew Crafters Card Game prototype to try out.  Paul and I played a 2 player game and found the game easy to pick up, and interesting to play.  The gist of it is that you can play each card in one of two ways - as an ingredient in a recipe, or face up in front of you as a piece of equipment or worker that will allow you to brew future recipes more efficiently or for more points.  I ended up playing 10 cards face up in front of me, though in the end Paul beat me by 2 points.  We then played a 3 player game with Ben, and I claimed victory by focusing on brewing Special Reserves.  Inspired by the Dice Hate Me 54 Card Challenge, Ben created this game with only 54 cards, 8 of which were recipe and scoring cards.  My biggest concern in the end was having enough cards to support 4 players.  There may be a few other tweaks, but otherwise I think it's a solid card game.

After not enough sleep, on Saturday morning we headed over to the convention to get set up.  My family has a log cabin advent calendar, which I brought along and decorated with elf meeples in order to try and attract some attention.  That may have been more trouble than it was worth to haul along, but it did get some comments.  In any case, my first actual playtest of Santa's Workshop at Unpub ended up being with my friend Randy, who's a regular at our Tuesday night game nights at Game Parlor.  He had played a few weeks ago when I brought it to GP, and had really liked it.  When he learned about Unpub, he convinced his friends Kurt & Elizabeth to join him there for the day.  We played a 4 player version of SW, and everyone seemed to like it.  I got some feedback on a few minor things like the wording of a few cards.  We talked a bit about the # of players, and how best to restrict the number of spaces in the rooms.  We also only played a 9-turn game, as opposed the 12-turn games I originally envisioned (themed to the "12 Days of Christmas").

I spent some time playing some other designers games (I think I'll detail those in a separate blog post), before getting a group of players together for a 5-player test that afternoon.  I had Anna Rutledge, Andrew, Duane, Rob and Josh (other than lack of pictures, I also really failed on writing everyone's full name down - and getting cards from everyone).  Their 5 player game took about 2 hours, with Duane winning in the end after building and scoring the swing set.  This group used the coal cards the most out of any group that played all weekend.  Everyone seemed to like the game, and I got a lot of good feedback.  Game time was definitely an issue (2 hours, and again we only played a 9 turn game).  There was the interesting suggestion to perhaps have some of the coal cards be used for positive player interaction (instead of just "screw your neighbor" cards).  Anna in particular had a quote that resonated with me later - she said something to the effect of "I wasn't expecting much from this game, but it turned out to be really good."

Shortly after that playtest, I was scheduled to give a 10 minute pitch to Game Salute.  Paul had gone in earlier, so I knew a little of what to expect - about 3 minutes to describe the game, 3 minutes or so for questions from them, and then 3 or 4 minutes of feedback.  I brought just the game board, a player tableau, and some sample gift and coal cards.  I was a little nervous, but I think I did a pretty good job in getting through most of the rules and play style of the game in 3 minutes or so.  The rest of the "interview" took me a little by surprise, as they almost exclusively focused on the theme I had chosen.  In a nutshell, their concern is that with such a "light" theme as Santa's Elves building gifts, a family might buy this game expecting something that very young kids could play, and be shocked when they got home and found a more complex game.  That is, if they bought it in the first place, because with all my pieces and such, the game would probably retail in the typical $40-$50 euro game price range.  On the flip side, they thought gamers - who would likely enjoy the complexity - wouldn't pick it from the shelf because they would think it was a light family game.  On the positive side, they did say they liked a couple of the mechanics of the game, and I should perhaps think about re-theming it.

So, I was understandably a little disappointed coming out of the sales pitch.  My first reaction was to think that they were wrong, and there was room for a game that could satisfy both families and gamers.  (I have plans to include rules for more family-friendly play).  But I couldn't help but think that Anna's reaction to the game only backed up their point - she didn't think there would be much to the game, and was pleasantly surprised when it was deeper than she anticipated. 

That was it for playtesting SW for the day.  I played some other games(more on that later), and then
 we headed back to the hotel for some more late night gaming that night.  Paul and I got in a few 2-player games -
Mr. Jack Pocket and 1955:The War of Espionage.  Mr. Jack Pocket has become one of my favorite games to play on my tablet or phone, and I wanted to introduce Paul to it.  I've not played the original Mr. Jack, though Paul has, and he said it had a similar deduction feel, if much different mechanics.  As for 1955, Paul brought it because he don't get a chance to play it at home much.  This is a sort of "tug of war" game as you try to gain influence in various countries.  I thought it was a mildly interesting game, with some interesting card play, but ultimately too long for the type of game it is.  I had picked up Gravwell at the Unpub vendor, after hearing a bunch of rave reviews.  Ben Rossett joined us, and explained the game, as well as a 4th player who's name is escaping me (must. write. down. names.)  It is indeed a very elegant game, with easy to learn rules, and a depth of complexity that has you trying to get in the head of the other players at the table.  For me, I think it may be a victim of it's hype - I very much liked it, but I'm not sure I would rave about it as much as others have.  At the very least, it serves as a good reminder that an excellent game need not be Agricola-like in complexity.  Lastly, we got in a couple of 5-player games of Coup with myself, Paul, Ben, Matthew O'Malley, and Doug (Who's last name I can't find for the life of me).  This was my first time at Coup - I don't know if I like it better than The Resistance, but it is a very fun game.  And I think Ben Rossett is lying when he says he never lies during the game.


Next up- Day 2...a few more playtests of SW, and my overall thoughts on Unpub...

The First Revision(s)

I mentioned last post that I had my first playtest of Santa's Workshop, and I took a bunch of notes.  Well, I continued to write down thoughts at the they occurred to me during the week, and for the last several days I've been working on implementing some changes.  So, Santa's Workshop 2.0 is underway... or maybe it should be v1.1...nah, I think the first changes count as "major".

My notes since the 1st playtest...need to type them up!

The old board

One of the things I learned is that graphic design is really important.  On my first board, I had the coal mine (and it's cards) right next to the mail room.  When we took a card from the mailroom...almost every time, we flipped a card from the coal deck to fill in, instead of from the mail deck.  So, change #1 for the board, was to move those two decks of cards far apart from each other.  This change actually took up some space, so I went from four 8.5x11" pieces of paper to six.  (Actually, since PowerPoint puts 1/2" borders all the way around, when trimmed, they're 7.5x10".  Which reminds me...I have to figure out a better way to do this than in PowerPoint).  I also made some changes to the Reindeer scoring track, and how the Training Room works, and reflected that on the board.  Lastly, I wanted a better quality board.  My first attempt, I literally just scotch taped my four sheets of paper together.  The scotch tape didn't take to folding too well.  So...I decided to make an honest to goodness board.  I purchased some thick (0.05") chipboard, and some book binding tape, and hinged together six chipboards, and then taped my six sheets of paper on top using double sided tape.  It's not professional quality - not by a longshot - but it's a vast improvement.  (Word to the wise - make sure you plan out your hinges in advance!)

The New board

It even folds properly!

Another thing I tackled was making the language on the Coal Cards (which allow you to "cast spells" to help yourself or hinder your opponents) less ambiguous.  It was not at all clear when some of the cards should be played.  And cards that should be played in similar circumstances were sometimes worded differently "Play when in the Wood Shop" and "Play when producing wood", for example - so I went through and tried to make everything clear.  There will also be a section in the rules where I detail each card, because I think some of them are tricky enough to need more explanation than can fit on the card.

Speaking of the rulebook - my previous rulebook was 2.5 pages of essentially just reminders to myself.  I've now written an honest to goodness first draft of an actual rule book.  I think it's at 7 pages now...but I need to add the Coal Card descriptions.

Hows that for a 1st player marker?

The most recent thing I've been working on is overhauling the scoring mechanic for actually creating gifts.  The idea behind making the gifts is that they would be constructed from 3 main materials - fabric, wood and metal.  Now, I've borrowed an idea from the game Colosseum.  In that game, you are staging shows in Imperial Rome, and various shows have required elements - however you can choose to be skimpy on your show (and earn less VP) by not using all the required elements.  In Santa's Workshop, I have a mechanic that allow the player to use plastic in place of some of the materials.  I want there to be a decision that the player has to make - make the toy our of quality material, and score more, or use plastic, finish faster and start working on more toys.  In our playtest, no one ever opted to use plastic.  And we all went for toys with lots of metal parts.  That's because I was basing the score on worth of material - Fabric=1, Wood=2, Metal=3.

The turn marker...and friends

I felt that I needed a new scoring formula, and Tom and Becky had some suggestions.  I've now reworked the scoring formula - I've bumped up the base 3 materials by 1 pt each, and made plastic worth 1 pts (after all, even plastic toys bring joy to children).  I've also added a scoring element for the number of different materials used (to reflect the amount of effort that goes into gathering the materials), and the amount of time it takes to assemble the gift will affect the score.  So, now I have an honest to goodness formula that I'm using.  I don't know that it's perfect, and I'm sure I'll tweak it, but I feel that I have a good basis for it now.

Working the spreadsheet....

I will also be reworking the gifts in terms of the materials needed to make them.  Like many games, my scoring track wraps around the board edge, and goes from 0-100.  I had been keeping the scores fairly low on my gifts previous, in the 2-12 range mostly.  But that meant I didn't have a lot of flexibility to play with the amount of material that it took to build a toy.  I was trying to keep the scores around a 100 or less, and sure enough in our playtest, Tom won with 101 points.  In order to get more flexibility on the components, I think scores are going to go up, which means scores will be well above 100, maybe above 200.  And you know what - that's fine.  I'll just add in a couple of "+100" markers for each player.

Alright...that's enough for now.  Time to get back to working on formulas and graphic design....

The First Playtest!

How's it look?  (note...NOT MY GAME!)

I have yet to talk about my board game design on this blog, mainly because I've taken my sweet time in getting around to working on it.  I've had the idea for the theme for well over a year, and in fits and spurts I'd written several pages of notes on game play, but I'd procrastinated on actually getting around and working on it!  As a married father of 2 young children, I'll blame the usual suspects - wife, kids, house work, etc.  What I really needed was a bit of a kick in the pants.  But let me back up a bit...why did I decide to throw my hat into the game design ring?  After all, it seems that at every convention, half the people there are talking about designing their own game.  And from listening to various podcasts, and hearing publishers, it's obvious that they're getting no shortage of submissions.  Add in the Kickstarter phenomenon, and I get the feeling that the market may even be a little glutted (or maybe a LOT glutted). 

So why jump in the fray?  Well, I'll blame my good friend Paul Owen a little bit.  Paul was fortunate enough to get his first game, Trains, Planes & Automobiles published in 2011.  Since I'm often hanging out with Paul at the two main board gaming conventions I attend, Prezcon and WBC, I started seeing some of the "inner circle" as Paul would socialize with other designers, throw ideas back and forth and even playtest some new games.  The enthusiasm and creativity amongst this group was contagious, and I decided that I'd like to give it a shot.  As the dad of two younger children (currently aged 6 & 9), my first inclination was to create a game that they could enjoy - but also that adults would like.  At some point, I hit upon the idea of having the players control teams of elves as they build presents in Santa's Workshop - and I tentatively titled the game just that - Santa's Workshop.  As I mentioned, I would scribble down notes to myself now and then, and eventually had a bunch of papers tacked to the corkboard by my desk.  But I was procrastinating on actually putting something together.

Earlier this year, I had the vague thought of having something ready to go by the next Unpub convention.  Again, I had heard Paul talk about his experiences at Unpub 3, and I thought that would be a great place to get good feedback.  But I hemmed and hawed, and summer turned into fall.  For some reason, I thought Unpub was in the Spring...but a few weeks ago I discovered that it was happening in the middle of January.  Cursing myself for procrastinating, I asked Paul how "finished" a game should be, and he indicated that many of the games there were roughly in the middle of the design process, still needing a few tweaks, but well on their way to completion.  I was a little dejected at this, because I didn't think I would have anything even "halfway" done by January.  I reached out on Twitter to the guys running Unpub, and the response I got from T.C. Petty III was that "notebook paper is fine...it's probably good if you've at least played it a time or two".  With that in mind, I decided I wanted to go for it, and not regret that I had to wait another year for the next full Unpub convention...and I promptly found that they had sold out their tables.  Convention director Darrell Louder gave me a ray of hope when he said that they were looking to add a few more tables.

Not the view from our seats

With that in mind, I set to the task of getting some kind of working prototype by the weekend of November 16-17.  My wife and I were traveling to Blacksburg, and my good friend Tom was going to be there, and I thought that would be a great chance for a first playtest.  So, over the course of a week or so, I put together a rough board, printed a bunch of cards, and ordered a bunch of meeples and wooden cubes.  By the time came to leave on Friday, I had a prototype!  Now, while in Blacksburg, I got the word that Darrell was opening 5 more tables, going on sale at 5:00 Saturday night.  I was at the Virginia Tech - Maryland game...and it went into overtime...causing me to stress that I wouldn't be at a computer at the 5:00 starting time.  Fortunately, the game only went one overtime - unfortunately, the Hokies lost :(.  However, we made it back to our lodgings in plenty of time.  When the time came to register, I promptly flailed as I forgot my Paypal password, and had to figure that out...by the time I did, and tried to register, I got a "sold out" response, and my heart sunk.  Contacting Darrell via Twitter, he assured me that I had indeed registered - and apparently somewhere in the flail, I had actually registered twice.  He kindly refunded me the 2nd registration fee, and refrained from mocking me.  So, after all that, I was in for Unpub!  But...did I have anything worth bringing? 

I didn't think to take a picture until we were done!

After a quick dinner, I sat down with Becky and Tom and broke out Santa's Workshop.  A quick explanation of the rules, and we were off.  The game is essentially worker placement, as you use your elves to gather resources to build gifts.  There are a few other things the elves can do, such as feed the reindeer, and dig for coal (after all, there are the naughty kids to "deliver" to).  Although I'm a fan of euro games, sometimes I can find them wanting for player interaction.  I had long had the idea of having cards that would give players benefits, or allow them to hinder other players. However, in the week or so leading up to the playtest, I had the idea to add some "counter" cards to allow players to counter the cards of opponents.  I envisioned something along the lines of "Wiz-War", with players casting spells at other players, who in turn might deflect them back at the originator, or even other players...all while doing your worker placement actions as well.

A little closer view

As expected, the questions about rules came fast and furious...some I was prepared to answer, others not so much.  By the end of the game, I'd taken a page and a half of notes - and jotted down a bunch more on the trip home on Sunday.  I learned the importance of not having vague wording on my cards.  I got a lot of good feedback, and some interesting suggestions for rules changes.  I have a lot of ideas on how to fix some things...and some of those ideas conflict with each other...  I'm planning on getting in more playtesting prior to Unpub...but I'm at least comfortable that I have something that I won't embarrass myself with there.  Will this eventually catch a publishers eye?  I don't know...but I'm excited to finally be doing something with my idea, and I look forward to seeing what will happen!