Info about publishing analog games

In my freshman class this semester we're making games - analog games. That means board games, card games, dice games, dominoes...No computers, no keyboards, no programming. That comes next year.

The board game industry in this country is small. But it's there. Here's a great blog post from Jackson Pope on Boardgame News about getting your game published. He owns Reiver Games. Notice he points out the importance of clear well-written rules and having a prototype for hte publisher to test out. Be sure you've play tested the heck out of your game before sending it in.

Image by lavenderstreak via Flickr

Here's an article from Wired about the guy who created Settlers of Catan as a hobby. Board games are much more popular in Germany and the rest of Europe than they are in the States. And here's the webpage for the game.

My game idea for Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

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Image via Wikipedia

Since the students in the critical analysis class ha to make a board or card game, I decided to try my hand at it too. My effort will be an example of the process students might go thru to create their own game and if I have to look for a new job, it will be good to have some games in my own portfolio.

Image by Express Monorail via Flickr

I read Cory Doctorow's sci-fi novel Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom. He writes the very popular BoingBoing blog I just got back from a trip to Disney World over Spring Break 2009, and it was fun to read about all the places at the Magic Kingdom that I had just visited. I've been going to DisneyWorld since I was in high school, so I could seriously identify with the main character's (Julius) desire to live in DisneyWorld. The group he works with protects and maintains the Haunted Mansion ride, which is one of my favorites. . There's a lot of discussion of protecting the past and maintaining the traditions of the Disney legacy. Many parts of Disney currently don't seem to have that same respect for legacy now (a whole new rant, not for this blog)

Here's my process. I wrote down all the main characters, listed plot elements, and then started doodling around with ideas. I made notes, sketched boards, drew arrows, thought about cards and dice and spinners and markers, and different game play mechanics. And I came up with a number of ideas. I tell my studnets the first idea is usually not the best so I want to generate a bunch to show them that it is possible and that the ideas really do get better. Now that I have some ideas, I'm going to go do a little research on Cory and on the Haunted Mansion to see if there are any bits of history that I want to work into the game.

characters:

• 3 main characters Julius, Lil, and Dan - they're in romantic relattionships, they're friends, and they're co-workers so there are lots of situations to put them in in the game
• other characters - Lil's parents (who've been deadheading for a hundred years or so),
• Debra (knew Lil's parents, creates new exhibits at disneyworld, Lil's rival for power in the park)
• Tim a programmer who works with Debra
• Kim and the other newbies brought in to work on the Haunted Mansion by Julius

plot elements

• deadheading, choosing to die, end of death
• clones, brain backups, backup reloaded into clone if you die, long life
• maintain rides, enhance rides at WDW
• work at WDW - cast members, design merchandise, deisgn/enhance rides, be member of the ad hocracy
• whuffie - reputation points as the currency, high whuffie gets you access to teh scarce stuff, low whuffie can't get the elevator to stop for you, whuffie related to how other people think about you, with more whuffie you can control more territory or make changes to rides
• there's the Bitchun Society that encourages people to do the brain dump and use the clones to live forever - not sure if the society itself has any character-capability
  

game ideas - goals, relationships, random thoughts

• could deadhead to skip a turn but what would be the effect on the player (lose whuffie, lose something, not get paid if someone owes him rent)
• what makes whuffie go up adn down - gotta have whuffie as sort of the game currency since it's a big part of the book
• one possible game goal - to become a cast member, to move up from cast member to belong to the ad hoc, to leading the ad hoc - does it take certain amount of whuffie to move up, whuffie in combo with something else like skills or followers
• another possible goal - make exhibits better - more thru put, more audience appreciation, more revenue from mechandise sales - allof these would also increase whuffie
• another goal - collect whuffie, collect followers, collect internet fans, collect ride maintenance skills, collect territory
• in eurogame style whuffie could be around the outside of the board or could be pile of chips

roles you could play as

• ad hoc leader - only they can play the exhibit change card and only 1 per turn (so have to rotate who goes first maybe?)
• play as basic cast member who wants to get into an ad hoc, work shifts each round to earn whuffie
• play as griefer/hacker who can cause all your whuffie to go back into the pile (maybe costs the griefer some whuffie too) and maybe they gain a skill card or maybe they get to take one of yours
• play as Kim and the internet fans - add whuffie to the ad hoc

things that could go wrong

• you get killed while testing new ride
• you get killed by an assassin
• your brain electronics fail and you have to go offline
• your girl friend dumps you for your best friend
• your best friend shows up whuffie-less and has decided to kill himself (and not be cloned)

game idea 1

• could be 2 kinds of cards - skill and action cards, chips for whuffie
• take so much whuffie and specific skills to attempt ride upgrade
• roll dice to see how successful the upgrade is = how much whuffie and rank change - so that's random but cards are strategic
• could ahve a board where if the upgrade is successful you claim territory
• need ways to take someone's territory - more whuffie and lower chance of success with the dice
• board could look like Magic Kingdom - maybe have to have a ride claimed in each land to win or maybe rides worth different amounts of points - first need certain point level to win so player has to decide whether to go for the big point rides or several smaller rides
• need markers to show ownership
• deck of action cards - could give whuffie, could give ya permission to attempt an upgrade - what other actions, take a skill card from someone else, might have a rule that says you can only have 5 skill cards at a time (5 is arbitrary number) and you have to throw away any extras
• maybe whuffie is a pile of chips that everyone can see
• skill cards are secret - maybe a set that you have to collect, maybe a set for different kinds of exhibits - so there might be 3 or 4 cards that you need ot collect for the take over of a small ride (paiting, merchandise creation, crowd control...)
• have to have the set of skill cards and enough whuffie and a permission action card to do the project upgrade
• might have them draw 5 skill cards to start and throw back 2
• not sure who you're playing as - julius, new cast member, the adhoc?
• get a certain amount of whuffie each round
• claim territory you're going to work to own - see who gets done first
• maybe have to bid whuffie and someone (?banker?) gives skills/territory to highest bidder

Image via Wikipedia

idea 2 - could do something with the Haunted Mansion redo angle - maybe the game takes place inside the mansion, board is the ride (except everyone on it in parallel, not serially), parts/scenes of the ride = levels, need to do something different at each stage of the game, move marker along board path

idea 3 - could build a new ride - like Carcassone - pieces are ride elements - can put in specific order - get whuffie for successfully joining 2 pieces, take work to claim the territory for your ad hoc, can only have some number of spare pieces in your hand for future moves, need some other way to get whuffie, need way to take territory from others, game over when allt he pieces placed

some links and ideas about Haunted Mansion - need graphics, story elements, conflict
there really are fan shrines to the ride - http://www.doombuggies.com/ is one of them
Here's a video walk thru of the ride - in the story world you'd use something like that to reduce the ride time and increase thru put
the Haunted Mansion wiki page - wikipedia


the carts the customers ride in are called doom buggies. there's a haunted mansion at all the parks. On the plans before park opened but it wasn't one of the original rides at disneyland. original designs based on antebellum mansions. they have graveyards - including a pet cemetary.

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Building Prototypes for Analog Games

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Boardgame News has a good post this week about bhilding prototypes of boardgames. It doesn't go into game mechanics or creating ideas. Instead it looks at the importance of having lots of bits and pieces around to work with - cards, money, markers, dice. The author talks about using existing cards (playing cards, Magic the Gathering cards) and pasting new game stuff on the card front - the cards all have uniform card backs. He keeps around old games that he doesn't want to play anymore and uses the money, cards, small wooden pieces. I guess you could even use the board - just cover it with a new graphic. He even has a home laminator.

It's a timely article because the students in my critical analysis of games class (2nd semester of the freshman year of our game design major) are finishing up creating games with the Icehouyse game system pyramids. After spring break they start work on creating a board game. This article suggests stuff I need to collect for this semester and the future. I saw tons of gorgeous paper at AC Moore. They even have die cutters with premade dies that I need to look at - we could make cool specialty/themed shapes with it.


URL: http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/dale_yu_everything_you_need_to_know_about_prototypes_but_were_afraid_to_ask/

See an earlier post about our playtesting the pyramid games. I will post about playtesting the board games at the end of the semester and have some more ideas about what we should be colecting.

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I may have a game buying addiction

IImage by kgregson via Flickr bought some more game for the game design program - mostly card games because they have some interesting gameplay mechanics and rules. And remember I've said you can make a game about anything - check out these topics - zombies, sushi, sammich making, bean farming, school politics, medieval politics.... And I bought most of them locally (in Binghamton) at Jupiter Games. Here's a link to their website and to a yelp page with a map. The store has game nights on Friday that would be worth going to. They regularly attract about 30 players. They have a big collection of games open to play. And people seemed open to teaching games to newbies (for folks from Intro to Games & Society - they have Race to the Galaxy and know how to play it! And like playing it!!!)

Image from Coloretto via WikipediaHere's what I bought over break.

• Wasabi (card game - make sushi by Joshua Cappel and Adam Gertzbein)
  
• Bohnanza (card game about bean farming by Uwe Rosenberg)
  
• Coloretto (card game by Michael Schacht)
  
• Ticket to Ride (dice expansion)
  
• Citadels (card game about medieval cities, nobles and intrigue - by Bruno Faidutti)
  
• Grave Robbers from Outer Space (card game based on b-movies)
  
• Lunch Money (card game - girl grade school students beat each other up for ...)
  
• No Thanks (card game where you want to get the lowest number of points - by Thorsten Gimmler)
  
• Zap Bam Pow (card game)
  
• Road Race (dice game (we may just use the dice in other games but we'll try this one first)
  
• Phase 10 (card game)
  
• Frog Juice (card game about spells and concotions)
  
• Slamwich (card game)
  
• Monkeyes on the moon (card game, strategy about developing the monkey civilization by Jim Doherty)
  
• MMMM...Brains (dice game by Reiner Knizia)
  
• Pink Godzilla Dev Kit (cards

Image via Wikipedia

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We played board games again in class today

My goal was to play games or watch videos every Friday in the Intro to Games & Society. Out of 9 weeks tho we have only managed 3 play days. We had a movie, a guest speaker, an exam review. Can't figure out where the other weeks went.

Anyway - we started our 2nd round of game play. Each group got assigned a new game to learn. Hopefully as we go thru more games groups will begin to share tips about how to play.

So far Apples to Apples seems to be the game most people know already and so have the most fun playing. Carcassone and Ticket to Ride are totally unknown but the groups pick them up pretty quickly and manage to get almost all the way thru a game the very first day. Race for the Galaxy is kicking our butts - the phases are confusing and the symbols on the cards often undecipherable.

BoardGames in Intro to Games & Society

Image via WikipediaToday we played board and card games in the Introduction to Games & Society class. I divided the students up into 10 groups of 3. Each group was assigned a game to play. We'll play each game for 2 weeks and then rotate to a new game. I gave each student a booklet with copies of the rules for 12 games. Hopefully over the semester we can get most of those 12 played by at least half the class.

The goal is to experience a lot of different game mechanics, different styles of writing rules and balancing the games. Game designers need to be mroe aware of how people learn to play how much people hate to read the rules, and how they try to compare new games with what they know already. They'll also see games from different publishers, different game creators, even different countries. We have some party games. We have some Euro games. Hopefully after they play a few games they will start to see similarities and we can discuss why the differences exist.

This is part of a bigger assignment where they have to learn games, teach them to other people and compare the games. So playing, teaching, writing, researching, and thinking.

Here's the game we played today: Carcassone, Ticket to Ride (board) Ticket to Ride (card), Amazing Space Venture, Colossal Arena, Apples to Apples, Nuclear Escalation, and Race for the Galaxy. 2 groups went together to play Apples to Apples and 2 others to play Nuclear Escalation - both of those games support larger groups. I'd seen all of these played at the Boardgame Championships in Lancaster, PA during the summer 2008, but I'm not expert at any of them.

They weren't all equally liked at least at first exposure. Race for the Galaxy is hard to get started playing. Amazing Space Venture has a lot of pieces which can be intimidating for new users.

Here are some pictures. We're all sprawled on the floor. We found tables for the 2 large groups. The noise level wasn't too bad fortunately.

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