Friday, December 21, 2012

Progress Update 1

So I've decided that Fridays are progress update days.

Game of Gamliness

It's not the actual title of the game, I just can't for the life of me think of a real name yet. It's just the code name for now, I guess. This project got put on hold while I do easier projects... which ended up being not as easy in the end. Meh. I just want to release SOMETHING, and then push for bigger games when I have a couple titles under my belt.

My Little Dungeon

The contest game. It's mostly just missing art, at this point. The monster cards need some fleshing out, and the rules need to be actually written, but it's very close to being done. I put it on hiatus for a bit because I don't really like doing the art that much. Now I'm back to working on....

Ducats and Danger

So I renamed Dungeons of Gold to Ducats and Danger, making it alliterative to fit the theme. So I've got all 50 of the monsters named (much harder than you'd think...), a good chunk of monster stats done, most of the loot named, a decent number of the character cards done, even prototype cards cut and written out. Once I finish the loot, I'm going to force out at least two classes and two races to playtest. Hopefully before the year ends?

Monday, December 17, 2012

Wiz War

Ugh. This game. This game.

So, a long time ago, I played Wiz War. The 1983 version, but I don't remember which edition. It was a silly game where each player was a wizard wandering through a maze, collecting treasures, casting spells, and trying to mess with the other players. The mechanics were a bit clunky, but it added to the charm. The spells worked together in a variety of ways, and silly things happened every game.

All of the spells were cards that you drew from a deck. Some of the cards were just numbers. You could use these numbers to move further, and some spells needed to use a number to deal damage (like deal X damage or something). Wiz War was out of print for quite some time, and I liked the general feel of it, so I decided to make a similar game with different mechanics.

So the theme was the same; you're a wizard, there's a maze, you collect treasures, you cast spells, you mess with the other guy. The maze was done quite a bit differently. In Wiz War, the game was made of a few 5x5 boards randomly put together, usually making a 10x10 grid. In my game, it was random tiles that made a 10x10 grid. Some cards could push entire rows or columns of the maze around, similar to the Ravensburger Labyrinth series.

The wizards weren't just generic wizards; each wizard was its own character with their own unique spells or abilities. The abilities weren't that game-changing. They were mostly just thrown in for a bit of extra flavor for each character. Your character choices mostly mattered for which spells you can use.

In Wiz War, everyone draws spells from the same deck. In my game, everyone builds their own deck, like Magic the Gathering, or other CCGs/LCGs (mine being an LCG). Each card had a certain element associated with it (like fire, for example), and each character could only have certain elements in their deck. There were some generic cards that anyone could put in their deck, along with the few unique abilities for each character.

A major difference to how the cards played is that most spells needed a number, and every card had a number. The 'better' cards had lower (less powerful) numbers, and the less useful or more situational cards were the ones with the high numbers. All movement required a number card to be played. Because of this, the pacing of the game is much faster, and you burn through your deck quickly.

.... but then in comes Wiz War 8th Edition in 2012, published by Fantasy Flight. And... wait... what's that? What is that? Right there... at the bottom of the card there.... Is that seriously an energy number on the card? Ugh. This game.

So, yep. I scrapped my game. While there are some major changes to it, that alone just makes it way too similar to 8th edition, and there's no way I'm going to try and make a game that similar to something FF released this year.

And I know that only some cards in 8th edition have energy values on them, it's still a key element to my game which was supposed to be unique. Now instead of 'Hey, you know that old Wiz War game that hasn't seen the light of day in a decade? Here's something really similar!', it's become 'Hey, you know that game Fantasy Flight released this year...?'

Meh. One day. Maybe.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Why I Hate Minis

Okay, don't get me wrong. I like miniatures. Who doesn't? They're pretty little flavor to add to your game. When I played D&D, I'd ooh and ahh when that guy brought out his minis collection. They definitely added something nice to the game.

But minis are superfluous. They're bulk. They're cost... and I hate my games being expensive, heavy and big. So a while ago, my friend got Zombicide on Kickstarter. He paid a whopping $100 for the game because it came with 114 minis! And that was with the Kickstarter discount... the game went up for retail for $90, with only 71 minis. And you know what? The game wasn't even that good...

Whatever happened to cardboard cutouts on little plastic stands? Heck, what happened to pawns outside of Eurogames? Sure, cardboard people don't look as nice as a plastic 3d guy, but they're way cheaper and take up way less space in that box. And you know that bigger box? Yeah, it costs more to ship. That's more money they cost.

Let's take a look at the classic Clue. No.... let's take a look at Clue Mater Detective (Cluedo and Super Cluedo for non-Americans). The board and pawns look a lot nicer in that version... yes, pawns. You could see a picture of your character, but you otherwise were just a pawn colored by your character's name (Sgt. Grey, Colonel Mustard, Miss Peach, etc.). What was wrong with that? Would the game really have benefited by adding detailed 3d minis to it? Would it have been worth the extra $10-15 for it? Oh, they actually did release a version with minis? Oh, come on....

I think we've come to this awful time where board games stopped being a niche, and have become mainstream via bitlust. Much like how video gaming has devolved into companies holding your hand through another modern military shooter, board game companies are trying to get you to buy their game on little plastic bits alone. Hey, you like zombies right? Have a hundred little plastic grey ones. Aren't they cute?

Now I know the Eurogaming market is still mostly little wooden cube and meeples, but their games often lack in theme or depth. You're not going to get a Eurogame about slaughtering a horde of zombies, represented by various colored cubes, any time soon. That's not to say that I don't like Eurogames, but I like theme and depth in games that most Eurogames don't touch. Ameritrash is all style and no substance, and Eurotrash is all substance with no style (or player interaction).

Why can't we have games that are dripping with theme, mechanics so smooth they'd shame a watchmaker, and don't come with an extra $20 of unecessary plastic!?

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Ability Progression

This is another mechanic that an old game of mine had that I eventually scrapped. It didn't work with what the game eventually became, but I really want to incorporate it into something eventually. It came from the same game as my Ability Refresh article, but this one could work for tabletop or video game. I'm actually going to reference that article a few times, so you should probably read it first.

So the idea is that abilities themselves level up and get better, and you can pick different upgrades as it progresses. Probably the best way to explain it would be to just jump into an example. Let's take the classic Magic Missile from the Dungeons and Dragons games. As your wizard levels up, the spell gets better. Magic Missile will increase in damage and the number of targets you can attack.

So instead, let's say that you pick how Magic Missile will improve as it levels up. You can pick from more damage or more targets. At max level, you can end up with a big shotgun blast of tiny projectiles, or a bazooka of a spell that just does one powerful shot, or anything in between.

The way I had it set up was that some upgrades could be chosen at any level, some could be chosen every even level, some every fifth, and some only at the max of ten. You only had one chance to get the lvl ten upgrade, but two chances to get the lvl five... but what if there are two level five choices, or you're able to get it twice? With the way it's set up, at levels 1/3/7/9 you can only pick from the choices that are available at any level. At level 10, you can chose any upgrade at all. (Alternatively, you could make max level 12, and have upgrades every 1/2/3/4/6/12 levels or something)

So let's go back to Magic Missile, and throw in my Ability Refresh system with it. I want this skill to be something that, with practice, you can use over and over. So let's put an extra refresh die for every level. I don't want people to have that many damage/target upgrades, so we'll put that on 2. I want something to conflict with the refresh choice, so let's add in an option to increase the accuracy (or reduce saving throw or whatever). So at this point we have:

Every Level: (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10)
  • +1 Refresh Number
  • +1 Accuracy
Evey Even Level: (2/4/6/8/10)
  • +1 Targets
  • Extra Damage

Well we don't have any 5 or 10 upgrade, but those aren't always needed. At this point, we have a skill that feels a lot like Magic Missile, but is customizable. Still, you could throw in some debuffs for the 5 and 10 upgrades. The 5 upgrades could easily just be the same as the 2s, so you have six chances to get them instead of five.

The problem I had with this system was that it was a bit too engaging. It's too much for one-shot games, unless you're playing a skirmish game or something. In the tabletop world, it pretty much only lends itself to RPGs, which would most likely limit the availability of the game (way too many options for new players). This might be more doable in a video game of sorts....

Monday, December 10, 2012

My Little Dungeon

So on Friday, The Game Crafter announced a game design contest. The theme is map building. Basically, it has to have a map, and the map has to be modular. Even if the map is only pre-built scenarios, like in Descent, it counts. The game could be about map building, or it could just be a short process at the beginning of the game.

http://i.imgur.com/4RK3r.jpgSo I went with My Little Dungeon, an ironically cute title. The game is 2-4 players. You play as little octboxes (10mm), and you have three friendly cube (8mm) spirits that follow you around. Your main form of attack is to play cards that let your cubes momentarily transform to have some ability, like to shoot, teleport, charge an enemy, explode, etc. You fight little black cubes (8mm), go through a random dungeon made of 8x8 rooms (mostly 6x6 playable area), and fight the final boss to get the MacGuffin and get out.


http://i.imgur.com/dCIxs.jpg
The main characters are kinda cutesey, but the enemies are much more.... morbid. Each room of the dungeon has a random set of monsters in it. Each round has three phases: Travel, player combat, monster combat. In the travel phase, if you're in a room with no monsters in it, you can move to any adjacent room. If you reveal a new room, that room has monsters in it. On the player combat phase, you can move yourself and each your cubits, and each of you gets one attack. You can move three spaces, but your cubits can normally only move one. Both you and your cubits normally only have an attack strength of one, but can play cards to increase the power of your cubits (not yourself). In the monster combat phase, the first player controls the monsters.

http://i.imgur.com/4wGjQ.jpgAt the beginning of your turn, you draw cards up to your hand limit. Your hand limit is two, plus one for every cubit still alive (max of five). Attacks are done by the the attacker and the defender both drawing cards from the combat deck equal to their strength. The cards have different numbers on them. You add the numbers up, and that's your attack/defense power. The one with the higher power wins, with the attacker winning ties. All the creatures and cubits die in one hit, but players are invincible (you slow them down by attacking their cubits).

The final boss is either going to be a minotaurish creature that tries to knock your cubits into the lava surrounding the outside of the room, or a bridge you have to run across while a tentacled beast is trying to grab you/your cubits. In the basic game, whoever beats the boss wins. In the 'advanced' rules, once the MacGuffin is obtained, whoever has the MacGuffin always has the first player token, all remaining monsters instantly die, and you can't explore empty rooms. If you can manage to hit another player (not their cubit), you can steal the MacGuffin from them. The player to get to the starting point with the MacGuffin wins.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Games Are Restrictive

So I was listening to the latest podcast of Ludology, with guest Eric Zimmerman, author of Rules of Play. The episode was about emergent gameplay, and I definitely recommend a listen. One thing they touched on was that games are basically just restrictions. I'd like to delve into that with a bit more depth.

The reason why games make restrictions is because the restrictions create an unusual challenge to overcome. A sack race, for example, is a race (a normal challenge) with an extra restriction (a novel challenge). A lot of the fun of the game is the silliness of the extra restriction, and people's goofy attempts to overcome this new challenge.

Now why are challenges fun? I've read a few things here and there (I'm way too lazy to Google the papers) about how overcoming challenges creates a very strong emotional responses in people. People love overcoming challenges. It's hardwired into our brains. We want to feel accomplished.
 
Let's take another game most people are familiar with: Scrabble. So the basic idea of the game is that players take turns writing words found in an (usually) English dictionary. There's no real challenge in that, as most adults could do that for an hour and still be coming up with words. This game would not be much fun, as it lacks any sense of challenge. Now let's add the rule that each letter has to fit in a 1/2" square, and words can only go top to bottom or left to right. This by itself would be a silly superfluous rule, as it provides no challenge on its own... but if the availability of the 1/2" squares is limited, you now have a bit of a puzzle.

Now add in a bit of freedom that words can share as many letters with other words as needed, and you give players a mechanic to explore. This gives the player more interesting ways to complete this little puzzle of theirs. But now add in the restriction that words have to share at least one letter with another word (first word being exempt, of course). So now we have a simple little creative puzzle. At this point, we actually have a game.

But let's add a few more restrictions. Simple ones. Not only is the availability of space a restriction, but not the availability of letters. Let's restrict the number of letters that players have available to them each turn to seven. The game is still simple, but it offers up a more interesting challenge because of the few rules (restrictions) the game has.

You could even go further into the emergent aspect of the podcast. Bigger and more difficult words are more 'fun'. People will naturally try to challenge themselves to get the more interesting words out on the board. So, why not make a rule that rewards people for doing this? Less common letters award more points than common letters. This rule isn't so much a restriction as it is a reflection of the emergence of gameplay. Anyone who's played enough word games, like Scrabble or Boggle, will be familiar with the concept of 'good words'. Somebody at the table makes a word, and the other players say 'Oooh, that's a good one!'. Boggle doesn't directly award extra points for more difficult letters, but such a rule would make a lot more book keeping to do at once, and more difficult words generally get awarded by less players getting the same word (you score points in Boggle by making words that other players have not).

So basic rules of games are there to create restriction. Extra rules can be added to reward players for doing fun things, or possibly to emphasize the theme of the game. But, at the core of things, games are a challenge to overcome. Later on I'll have to do an article about what I call 'artificial difficulty'....

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Ability Refresh

So a few years ago, I was playing 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons with some friends. In the game, characters get abilities they can use as much as they like, abilities they can only use once per conflict (need ten minutes of uninterrupted rest to regain use of it), and abilities that can only be used once a day (need eight hours of rest).

So my fellow heroes and I were going through a cave squishing some beetles (giant hostile beetles), when our GM rolls a D6, getting a 6, and declares that the beetle's fire breath ability has been regained. Whuh? He shows me the entry in the monster manual, and how a lot of the monsters in the book have abilities that refresh when certain numbers are rolled. That's actually kind of cool... so... why don't the heroes have that?

So I tinkered around with a game that did something very similar with the heroes. The game eventually turned into something else entirely, with the refresh thing thrown out.

The basic idea is that all your combat abilities are expended on use. Maybe the different abilities could be written on cards which you flip over. Every turn you roll a die, and you can refresh one ability that has that number on it. Some abilities might have more than one number on it.

If you're able to use more than one ability per turn, you can quickly end up with very few skills left to use by the end of the game. If you categorize the numbers in certain ways like all primary attacks refresh on 1, secondary attacks have 2s, debuffs have 3s, buffs are 4s, etc. then it encourages players to have and use a wide variety of abilities so their refresh every turn isn't 'wasted'.

Later on I tinkered with a similar idea, but instead all the abilities use one of three resources. These are represented by a stack of poker chips (or something similar), and when you expend them to use a skill, you put the chip into a cup or opaque bag or something. Every turn, you draw a random chip from the bag.

The refresh system has a similar feel to the one in D&D 4e; you start the day/adventure being able to do a lot, and end up needing to rest by the end. Some abilities can be used a whole lot, and other skills can only be used a few times. While my way takes a bit more book keeping, it's a more engaging (in my opinion) and feels less contrived.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Spoiled Princess

So the idea for this game came to me in a dream. Yes, I dream about video games...

Anyway, the idea is that you're a knight escorting the princess's caravan, when it's suddenly attacked by a dragon. You escape with the princess, and you two are the only survivors. Now you have to escort her back to the castle... but the problem is that she's so damn spoiled.

So it plays a bit like an action Roguelike, but your character can't die. You lose if the princess dies. You have to escort her around while fighting off various baddies like wolves, spiders, bandits, monsters, etc. If she dies, it's game over. New princess.

In my dream, you had to feed her between levels, and give her gifts to make her happy. This is where the spoiled part comes in. She doesn't like certain (most) foods, but will starve if she doesn't eat. If you force her to eat it, she'll be unhappy, but at least she'll be fed. You might find a nice trinket or something along the way, and you can give it to her to make her happy... maybe. I also dreamt about other females coming in and out of the adventure, which would make the princess jealous. Not sure how that would work...

So during the game, the princess would follow you at a distance determined by her happiness. If she's really grumpy at you, she's not going to want to stay close, which is going to make her more difficult to defend. Some monsters (like spiders) are particularly scary to princesses, and might make her run away in fright.

Your shield can block just about anything. I'm thinking a dragon's breath, and you have to stand between the princess and the dragon, blocking the flames with your shield. Maybe block a charging boar? If you get hit, you're momentarily stunned, which (again) makes the princess harder to protect, so blocking isn't just used for her. Holding your shield up makes you walk slower.

I was thinking your main attack would be your sword (of course) which attacks in a small arc in front of you. If you block an enemy's attack, they're stunned for a moment and are open to attack. Was also thinking of a charge attack where you run in place for a second, and then move really fast in a straight line with your sword out. This can be used to damage enemies, or to just catch up with the brat...

And there can be various mechanics that can make her happiness go up and down. Maybe you can sling her over your shoulder and run, but you'll be unable to attack effectively, you'll move a lot slower, and she won't be too happy about it. Maybe she'll point out the occasional and obviously dangerous path (skull and crossbones sign perhaps?), and you can make her happy by stupidly taking her advice. She also might like a certain type of food that just happens to be hard to obtain...

Friday, November 30, 2012

Player Interaction 2 - Semi-Co-Op

Last time, I talked about player interaction as a struggle. This time, I'll talk about it being cooperative... kind of. You're directly competing with each other, but the bulk of player interaction is mutually helping each other. This is done in the form of trading.

Let's take a favorite of mine, Bohnanza. This is a card game where you plant beans to try and make a profit. You have very limited space in which to plant, and you have to plant the next card in your hand. You're not allowed to rearrange your hand, and chances are the next card in queue is going to force you to sell one of your farm plots prematurely. None of this depends on other players so far. Nobody can do anything to your plots of land, nobody can manipulate your hand in any way, and you're not competing over land space.

The player interaction in Bohnanza comes from trading. On my next turn, I'll be forced to plant my wax bean, which will ruin what I have planted already. My opponent, on the other hand, happens to be growing wax beans. And maybe he has a stink bean I want, but isn't going to do him any good. On your turn, you can trade any card in your hand, and any cards traded that turn must be planted. This quickly gets into everyone helping each other, but not too much. Sure, I don't need this cocoa bean, but you having the cocoa bean is way more beneficial to you than the chili bean you're trying to trade would be for me. How about you sweeten the deal a little?

If you don't cooperate in Bohnanza, you'll lose. On the other hand, if you help your fellow players too much, you'll also lose. This is where the player interaction, and fun, comes from. You're not at a constant struggle with everyone fighting over beans and farmland. You're just simple farmers trading beans back and forth... and the trading isn't always nice. I mentioned last time about foiling plans, which can definitely be done in Bohnanza. My room mate will sometimes refuse to take your bean for free, just because he'd rather you be ruined by it than him get a slight benefit from it.

Another game with a similar trading mechanic is The Settlers of Catan. You need resources to build things on the map, but you'll often end up short of certain resources throughout the game. Players who trade with others will usually beat the players who don't. Now trading isn't as built into the game as it is in Bohnanza, and there is some other player interaction in the game, it still ends up being an important part. And, much like Bohnanza, you might refuse to trade because you just don't want to see that player succeeding...

So while some games can create tension with direct conflict, other games can create tension with mutual handshaking... and then arm crossing and head shaking. Maybe some evil grinning.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Why deck builders are fun

Deck building games have been rather popular lately. It all started in 2008 with Dominion, which quickly became very popular. Lots of games have come out since then with similar mechanics, trying to cash in on the success of Dominion. But why are deck building games actually fun?

For those who don't know, deck building is a mechanic where each player starts out with their own (usaually very small) deck of cards. Players will attempt to get new and better cards throughout the game, which are typically added to the discard pile. Once they run out of cards to draw, the discard pile is shuffled and the deck starts over, now with (hopefully) better cards.

1: Customizaion
Well, first off,  this mechanic lends itself to a lot of variety. Dominion, and many others, employ a drafting system for gaining cards. You can see exactly which cards are available, letting you plan ahead. Do I get card X this game, or should I change things up and get card Y? Even in games where you can see exactly which cards are available, the cards to chose from are typically different every game. This gives these games a lot of replayability, with the attitude of 'never the same game twice.'

Plus, customization appeals to people. This is my deck. Most popular roleplaying games try to employ this idea too, giving players a myriad of options to make their characters feel more personal to them. You tend to get more attached and more invested in choices that you've made.

2: Progression
I once had a friend tell me that he's a sucker for any game with a level progression. "If I can level up in a game, I'm happy." A similar idea is used in MMOs, giving player small and gradual rewards as they invest hours (months) into the game. They can see and feel their characters getting better.

Deck building games are somewhat similar in the sense that you can definitely see your deck progress. Remember that gold I bought a few turns ago? Well now it's in my hand, and I have more money this turn than ever before! Not only do you get to mold your deck how you want, but you get to play it as it changes. You get to feel it gradually getting stronger and stronger.

3: Payout
So in Dominion, you can only play one action card per turn. Most of the cards that are available to buy are action cards, so cards that let you play extra actions on your turn can be valuable. Because of this, new players are often attracted to the Village card. This lets them draw another card immediately, and they get to play two more actions. This card basically plays for free, because it regains the card and action spent when you played it, but also gives you an extra action to use that turn. So not only are actions important, but this card plays for free, so new players will often try to buy as many of these as you can. Honestly, this isn't a good tactic but....

... the payout is pretty nice. When I was new, I did similar combos. Pulling off an 8-card Village chain can feel very satisfying (despite being pretty much pointless). You build your engine (deck) to do cool things, and you've just now done this cool thing. It doesn't matter if that cool thing was pointless and lead nowhere, it felt awesome!

When you obtain your cards, you're not always sure if you're going to be able to do exactly what you want to do with them later. But, if you do, it's very satisfying, despite how little utility it might have in the end.

 ----------

So these are a few things that deck building games can tap on, that a lot of other games aren't able to. In Monopoly, you may be progressing in wealth, but you don't really feel like anything is really yours. You just buy as much property as you can, for the most part. You may feel great when another player lands on your hotel, but you didn't set up a trap for them to fall into... they just happened to roll and land on it.

The appeal of deck building games can be pretty strong, especially with the blowout success of Dominion. Lots of designers would love to make a fraction of its sales. The deck building market is rather saturated, and not all of them are that fun. Still, it's a fun and creative mechanic, and I'm thankful for Donald X. Vaccarino for making it popular.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Player Interaction

So when we sit down at the table with our friends and we pull out a game to play, what is the main goal here? What is the appeal of it? Why don't I just go back to the couch and pop in a video game? Well the biggest reason is to get that interaction with other people. But a lot of popular games seem to miss this point...

Let's take Dominion, for example. This game is very popular, the mechanics are solid, there's a lot of strategy, and it is competitive with other players. The problem is that the only thing you're really competing over is the limited number of cards on the table, and usually just one card that is in every game. Ignoring attack cards (which many games won't have anyway), the only player interaction in nearly every game of Dominion is just fighting over the limited number of Province cards on the table. In fact, there are even cards that will easily let you win without holding a majority of the Provinces, which can lower the player interaction even more. Dominion is commonly criticized as being a 'multiplayer solitaire' game, and rightfully so.

While I do think that Dominion can be fun, and the strategy can be very deep (despite not knowing what cards are going to be in each game), the lack of player interaction kills me. My room mate and I were playing an online version of it with all the cards, and nearly every game was played completely ignoring what the other was doing. I'd usually be watching something while waiting for my turn. Aside from attack cards and him buying provinces, what he did had zero impact on my game.

Now let's take Puzzle Strike next. It plays quite a bit like Dominion, and honestly shared more similarities with it than most other deck building games. But instead of the win condition being usually 'whoever has the most provinces once they're all gone', you're trying to survive a constant onslaught of player attacks. This makes the game a lot more tense. What the other players do greatly matters. I generally enjoy a game of Puzzle Strike more than I enjoy a game of Dominion because I feel like I'm actually playing with my friends, and not next to them. We're constantly struggling with each other, not just seeing who can make the best Lego engine.

Another example in the deck building genre is Quarriors. This game uses dice instead of cards, but it still falls into the same genre. Now this game involves a lot more luck on your turn (rolling the dice), and most of the decisions are just what things to buy on your turn, but there's still some player interaction. On your turn, any creatures you summon will attack everyone else's creatures automatically. Any creatures that survive a whole turn will score you points. This can kind of feel like autopilot sometimes, but it can still be tense, and what happens on everyone else's turn does matter. The drama comes from your smirking grin as you get a great roll and are able to summon three creatures to the field, and then your shaking fist as your opponent rolls the perfect combination to wipe them all out. Your plans were foiled yet again, thanks to the wonders of player interaction.

Player interaction is important. To me, at least. Not every game I play has to feel like a constant game of Tug-o-War, but I need to feel like the other people at the table are making a difference.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Dungeons of Gold

A simple idea for a deck building game. Classic fantasy setting. Players start with a certain amount of money in their deck, and maybe a few abilities and/or basic items. The game begins in town where people use their money (trash, not discard) to buy items for their deck (auction, maybe?). Then they go into the dungeon and use their items/abilities to defeat monsters to collect loot and treasure.

But treasure is cards, and they're useless in the fight. If you have a ton of money, your deck will be severely slowed down, but the winner of the game is whoever has the most money in the end. This way the player in the lead is slowed down, giving the other players a chance to catch up. This would also work as a balancing for people who possibly got a better set of items in town, as they might acquire treasure faster, and get slowed down before the other players.

And maybe a few times throughout the dungeon, players go back to town. Or possibly find a wandering merchant. Perhaps a few events on the cards that would give the players a chance to waste some money from their hands. At the end of the game, any items purchased are worth less than what they were purchased for (like 1/2, or maybe even 0).

The monsters and events in the dungeon would work very similarly to Munchkin. Draw a monster, everyone tries to defeat the monster, then gain treasures listed on the card if its defeated. You can only attack monsters with the cards in your hand, so even some of the easiest monsters can be a challenge for adventurers carrying heavy sacks of gold....