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.

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.

So 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.

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.

At 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.

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...

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....