Current Projects

Working Name: Asteroid Miner

Design Goals: fast play, aiming for 15-20 minutes per game
                        family/social game
                        no player elimination

Design Features: no randomization
                            all actions are pre-planned by laying, face down, the action you will take
                            variable difficulty set by the number of moves ahead a player must plan

Description:
     In Asteroid Miner each player takes the role of a mining pods' pilot, racing through an asteroid field trying to outmaneuver each other and collect the most minerals. Players hold identical hands of action cards allowing them to, among other actions, accelerate, turn, and strafe. Each player creates an action deck of the actions they will perform as the game progresses, and with each turn players show the top card of their deck, take the action, and place a new action card at the bottom of their deck. Game difficulty is controlled by the size of each player's action deck; higher difficulty correlating to more cards in the deck. Minerals are collected by moving into a space occupied by a mineral cluster while facing the cluster, with each mineral cluster collected providing the player victory points. Mining pods that ram an object while facing it are damaged and lose a victory point, but the tough mining pods can handle collisions against any other side without damage - encouraging a full contact race!


Working Name: Blast of War

Design Goals: tabletop skirmish game
                        driven by scenarios and objectives rather than player elimination
                        campaign system
                        multi (3+) player

Design Features: momentum rule rewards a player for commanding the action of a battle
                            finite resource "will" enables player engagement throughout all phases of the turn
                            critical strike and wound mechanics leave every unit vulnerable to a lucky strike

Description:
     Blast of War invites players to join in heart-pounding skirmish action. Players that have gained momentum hold a significant advantage over other players and can push their units to do more each turn. Each faction starts the game with a pool of Will that represents their forces resolve to see the fight through, will can be spent to enable reactions, mitigate failed morale tests, and more - but Will is also lost over time, with each turn leaving the players forces less resolved to carry out the fight. As the battle rages on the forces slowly tire out until the battle comes to a natural conclusion, with forces that have been pushed harder tiring out faster.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blast of War: Movement

In typical wargames there is no player input outside of the movement phase and no chance within the movement phase - you move your pieces a predetermined amount and the positioning of those pieces then dictates the probability of success in resulting combat. I believe I've mentioned this earlier, but I'll say it again: that's not a bad thing! In fact, it matches very closely to the commander's point of view of battles throughout history - they have maps in front of them, send out orders to units to hold, maneuver, or attack, try to understand the disposition and intent of the enemy forces, and wait for updates about units in combat. But I don't like it for a skirmish game, or any game that isn't attempting to be a military simulation really. I want player involvement throughout the game, a game caulk full of meaningful decisions that players can agonize over. In Blast of War players have a choice with each movement action - allow units to walk at a set pace,...
Read more

Blast of War: Victory Conditions

One of my design goals for Blast of War is to avoid allowing total victory, the total elimination of your opponent, to be the most common method of victory. Assuming all goes well the "will" mechanic I am using will provide a manipulable upper bound to game length that will encourage players to attempt to achieve objective that provide victory points at the end of the game. My current problem is how to create those objectives in a way that rewards intelligent play, can create an organic narrative to the battles - even pick-up games, and makes total victory a risky strategy. As this blog is more a design notebook for me and less intended for general viewing (which is good, as I'd be very disappointed with the number of visitors otherwise) I'm going to discuss the types of victory conditions I've seen in tabletop games then roll over to rambling about ideas that might help meet my design goals for BoW. Narrative Scenarios I am a huge fan of narrative scenarios...
Read more

QUAD - Four Stat Operational Level Rules

As a kid who grew up playing Battle Masters, Star Fleet Battles and SPI/Avalon Hill hex map games I learned to appreciate the value of hexes to simplify movement and terrain rules. Have you ever heard someone argue line-of-sight rules in a game using a hex map? I thought not - nor will you run into "front of base" vs. "center of base" measuring silliness. Now that my nephews are playing and loving Battle Masters I've been toying with improving the game by, you know, having the players need to make decisions! With that in mind here is a simple set of rules I cooked up - remember it is intended as a gateway game that still includes player decisions. QUAD Setup Units have four stats - Quality, Unit Speed (I admit this one is a naming stretch), Attack, and Defense. Each player requires a deck of regular playing cards and a few D6. Players begin by identifying each unit with a number card (10's represent my heavy cavalry, etc.) and taking 3 of that card a...
Read more