DGE: Here we go again...

I ran another playtest of DGE today with a different group.  Went well overall, people enjoyed the core gameplay, but there was one comment in particular that filled me with dread - consider changing the name.

I get the reasoning for it - Dwarven Guild of Engineers sounds, at least to some players, like it should be a medium or heavy strategy game, and it very much is not that (my synopsis for the group also wasn't clear enough about what the game would actually be, which didn't do me any favors).  It's one thing if it's just me breaking this out when my friends come over, but if I want to reach a wider audience, which I do, then it needs to be as easy as possible for them to know what they are getting into right from the start.  So now I'm in the same position I was with The Grand Expedition/Explorers of Legend give or take a year ago.  Even more so actually, since I actually like this title instead of just "meh, I guess it'll work" and then getting used to it.

So I need a new title now.  And a new elevator pitch for the game.

And maybe also to just lose the Goblin deck already, because I think after hearing enough different people tell me they didn't think it added much to the gameplay it's time for me to really take that into consideration.  Even with as many iterations as that deck has gone through.

Let's see how long it takes me to figure this one out...

DGE - specializations update

In the last post I discussed an idea for a new feature, specializations.  It's taken me some time to come up with enough options that I was happy with, and that felt at least sorta-kinda balanced in terms of how many Base and Mod cards would fit with them (without me creating more specifically for that purpose, which is on the agenda for later).  Today I did a rough test, just going through a few rounds on my own with four different "players" to see how often the specializations would be relevant and how they might affect gameplay strategy.

In terms of frequency, each of the four "players" got to use their specialization at least once - that is, they had the right card available and I could think of a way to make it fit with the Patron card for that round.  The ones that had slightly fewer relevant cards in the deck actually got to use their specializations a little bit more often during this test run, which tells me that even if the numbers aren't perfectly even they're close enough for it to be fair, based on numbers alone.

In terms of strategy, it had a similar impact to materials - if I saw that a hand did have a card that fit with their specialization, I would really try to find a way to use it, but if I couldn't then I would just use a different card and it would be okay.  If I saw a much better invention in my hand without leaning on my specialization then I wouldn't worry about it.  But focusing on the specialization sometimes pushed me to come up with entertainingly bizarre ideas that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise, and which would have potentially earned my vote if they had come up in a real game.

There was one thing I didn't enjoy so much though, which was that any time I didn't have a card that would fit with the specialization it felt disappointing, more so than not having a card with the right material.  I think it's because materials are random and change every round, but specialization is constant (you draw a card at the beginning of the game and keep it the whole time), so every time you draw new cards you're thinking about whether or not they fit with the specialization.  And each time they don't, it's a little annoying.  Granted, this was just me doing a solo test, so maybe other players wouldn't feel the same way about it.  Maybe even I wouldn't when I'm actually playing with other human beings.  In any case, I started thinking about a potential solution for this.  I've toyed with the idea of a drafting mechanic in the past, and this seems like a good argument to come back to that.  But then that's even more new mechanics that I'm adding to the game, and I'm not sure if I want to do that.  At least not right now.  Maybe in an expansion.  So now I'm thinking that specializations might be reserved for an expansion as well.  But then it also feels like maybe it's a little too presumptuous for me to be saying "these features will go in an expansion" when I'm still trying to get any publisher interested in the base game.

Ugh.  Dunno right now.  We'll see if I can make a real decision one way or another anytime in the near future.

Dwarven Guild of Engineers - a new feature

In the previous post I mentioned some comments that I got in the DGE live stream.  I've been pondering how to add more meat to the game, and while I haven't yet come up with anything new for "opportunities to mess with other players," I did think of a new feature that I want to test out - specializations.  Each player gets a card at the beginning of the game that says what they are especially good at, such as weapons or automated movement or small items, and they get a bonus point any time their invention fits that criterion, independent of how well it fits with the Patron's request that round (and stackable with the bonus for matching materials).  This gives players another way to strategize if they don't like their chances with the Patron, or just want a leg up on the competition.

I like the idea, but the challenge now is coming up with enough specializations for interesting variety and making sure that they are all relatively balanced with each other.  I'm spending some time on that this weekend, and we'll see how long it takes me to get a real answer that I'm satisfied with.  This might also give me some direction in coming up with new Base and Mod cards, so I can try to boost specializations that don't fit with as many of the current cards.

5/28/23 - various updates

One of the design groups I'm in, Indie Game Lab, runs occasional live streams of games designed by the group members (which then get archived on YouTube).  They haven't done one in a while, but yesterday we brought it back with Dwarven Guild of Engineers.  It was fun, though scheduling issues meant we only had three players, so not as fun as it could have been with a larger group.  And I got some feedback on more things I can improve in my game that I thought was already pretty polished up.  They're not wrong though; I probably could find some sillier Bases and Modifiers, and I could probably find more opportunities for players to mess around with each others' inventions (this wasn't feedback that I got before but it really resonated with the other players yesterday, and I'm sure I could at least put something in as an optional rule).  So I've got that to ponder for a little while.  And they did say they'd like to do another episode of DGE in a month or so once I've updated it, so that's cool.

Update - the DGE video is here

In other news, I've been working on adding more content to Neon Knights - test players so far have suggested that example stunts and aspects would be helpful, and now that I've passed the threshold of "good enough for some basic alpha playtesting" I also want to put in more example adversaries and magic items (especially if I'm going to feel justified in charging actual money for this and not just pay-what-you-want).  I don't think I have a specific target for how much I want in there, although doubling what I had before would be a good start at least.  Most likely it'll be a few months of "this song title or lyric is awesome, how have I not turned into something for the game yet?"  Which, for instance, is why the most recent cartridge I added was Ride the Sky, which starts out just giving you super-jumping but can be unlocked to grant full flight and air control powers.

DGE - anonymous voting

In my post about Cardboard Edison feedback, I mentioned the recommendation to make voting anonymous, and I started spitballing ideas for how to do that.  Despite my earlier reservations, I went ahead and ordered some blank dials to experiment with.  This past weekend I finally got to test out the new system, and it went great!

Here's how it works - at the start of the game, each player gets a number (it's arbitrary, you just pick somebody to be 1 and go around the table from there).  When voting for inventions, turn the dial to the number of the player whose invention you are voting for, then place it face down in the middle of the table.  Once everyone has voted, the dials get turned over and you can see right away who got what.  When you move on to the next round, pass the dials around so everyone has one again; they're identical, so it doesn't matter which one belonged to which player before.

One of the things I always noticed when I played DGE in the past was that if other people cast their votes while I was still thinking about it, it often felt like that was nudging me to go one way or another.  Using the dials completely eliminated this, and I loved that.

----------------

In other news, I'm still figuring out how to change the movement system for Under a Violet Moon.  I think I have the general idea of what I want it to look like now, but I haven't put the cards together yet to test it.  Hopefully I'll have that before too much longer.

DGE: Cardboard Edison feedback, and next steps

 Well I got cut in round 1, which is more or less what I expected.  I still think I have a pretty great game but that doesn't mean I can't find a way to make it even better.  Here are the major points of the feedback I got, and what I think I might do with it:

• Voting should be secret - yeah, I don't disagree, this would undoubtedly improve the game.  I just need to think of a way to implement it that isn't too cumbersome.  First thing that occurs to me as I'm writing this is for every player to have a dial that they turn to the number of the player they're voting for, then put them face down in the middle of the table so it's not obvious who voted for who.  That does sound like fun (and bonus if the dials are shaped like gears, or something else dwarfy), but it also sounds like complex components that will increase manufacturing cost and thus make this a harder sell to publishers.  I'll have to see what else I can come up with.
• Goblin cards - some judges liked this, others didn't.  Every playtest has started with just the basics and then adding in Goblins after a couple of rounds, and no one has told me they thought this detracted from the game, so I'm inclined to keep them.
• This core mechanic has been done to death over the past 15-20 years, it needs something to really stand out - yep, accurate statement.  That said, some comments also pointed out features that they thought did separate this game from similar ones - combining two cards to match the request instead of just playing one, bonus points for matching materials, optional rules to change up gameplay.  So I guess what I need to do with this is a way to make those aspects of the game more prominent.  I'm not sure if that's about the game itself or about how I present it though.
  as a side note, this is reminding me of one test game where a player argued that someone else's pitch was bad because of potential side effects of their invention, to which I responded "this is the Guild of Engineers, that's a problem for the Guild of Marketers" - I suppose this is that bit of hubris come back to bite me now
• Fantasy theme is a bad fit - I don't get this one.  I understand that it's not for everyone, but at the same time it's also a very popular theme in general.  Maybe this is about defining the target audience?  Like if it's being presented as a "party game" then they want to market it to the same people who buy Apples to Apples or Pictionary, and those are largely not the same people buying Gloomhaven or Lords of Waterdeep?  Besides liking fantasy in general, I also particularly like it for this game because it gives players the freedom to make things up to explain their inventions.  For example, if the prompt is "build something to keep behemoth worms out of my land," you can say whatever you want about behemoth worms.  A different theme that's closer to reality is also going to take away some of that flexibility, which will definitely detract from the game.  That said, I could also see this working with something like "you are all apprentices to Leonardo da Vinci," so there's still precedent for having crazy nonsense.
  

Dwarven Guild of Engineers: Lessons from PAX Unplugged

 I don't know how the pros do a whole convention - I spent one day at PAX Unplugged, only half of which was in "designer" mode and the other half as general audience, and felt completely wiped out after that.  Maybe I'm just old and out of shape (which is a stereotype that definitely does not apply to game industry professionals, right?).

But if you're here at all, it's presumably to read about games, not to read my personal kvetching.  So yeah, I did spend half the day in the Unpub room where I got to test out DGE with a bunch of different groups, 3-6 players at a time.  People were clearly enjoying it, and I got a request for a Spanish translation (publishers take note, that's international demand for this game!).  Some of the highlights for me were using a steam powered accordion to make you a better fighter (because it's a cardio workout), using a reverberating brick to convince humans that you can turn straw into old (because nothing does the job like brain damage), and many enjoyable arguments about an invention following the exact phrasing of the patron's request and any consequences outside of that being irrelevant.

In terms of game feedback, one suggestion that came up early on, and which I implemented for the rest of the day, was that whoever won the last round should go first to reveal and explain their invention in the current round.  I don't know how important it actually is, though an argument could be made for slight advantages based on whether you speak before or after everyone else, but in any case it worked well enough and no one objected to it.  Besides that, there were two things that people brought up most frequently and which I will definitely be working into the game.  One was to put colors or icons or something on the front of the cards to make it easier to remember which deck they are from (I quickly saw the value of this after multiple rounds of organizing the discard piles and then shuffling them back into the right deck for the next game), and to add some kind of rule to let players change out some or all of their cards if they don't like anything in their hand.  I gave it some thought over the course of the day and eventually came up with: before playing an invention, you may discard all of your Base and Mod cards.  Draw the first Base and Mod cards from their respective decks and automatically play that as your invention.  At the end of the round, draw three of each so you have a full hand like normal.  I didn't think of it in time to actually test it out, but I did mention the idea at the end of the last game that I ran, and one of the players described it as "when you forgot to work on the project and suddenly realize it's due tomorrow," which I love.  So that's definitely going into the next iteration of the game.

I also talked with a couple of publishers and got as far as "they acknowledge my existence," which is a step in the right direction for me.  No exciting news yet, but who knows what the next 2d12 months might bring?

Convention planning, and a bit of other stuff

 Design work has largely been paused lately, but I'm still around.  I'm going to be demoing Dwarven Guild of Engineers in the Unpub room at PAX Unplugged next month, so most of my energy lately has been focused on promotional materials for that - a flyer describing several of my games, plus a demo video for DGE specifically (I think it's a simple enough game, but some people like to see videos, and some publishers specifically request them).

Video is at https://youtu.be/XTVPZou0NSY if you want to watch it, by the way.

Besides that, I've been thinking on-and-off about The Sum of Its Parts.  Haven't gotten very far with it, but I'm pretty much settled on the basic task resolution mechanic, and thinking that I should adapt the Carta system (as seen in a bunch of games on itch.io) for exploration.  Maybe even take it a step further and go fully GM-less, though I'm not sold on that yet.  Maybe GM-optional.

That's it for the moment.  I'm not sure if I'll have much more in the next month, but we'll see what happens.

DGE is now available online

Play for free in your browser - https://screentop.gg/@DrMindermast/DGE

Get it on Tabletop Simulator - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2875684618

DGE prototype and first playtests

I've never built a physical prototype before, but I spent most of Friday evening printing and cutting out cards, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome:

 

Yesterday and this afternoon I tested it out with two different groups - 3 players the first time, 4 players the second time (with a fifth joining in mid-game).  More fun the second time around, probably because of the larger group and definitely because that group got more into the improv/roleplaying aspect of the game (i.e. spinning wild b.s. explanations for why alcoholic armor will make you a better fighter, or a thundering accordion will help you win the gods' favor).

What I've learned so far is that the core of the game is easy to pick up and works as intended, but the scoring is too fiddly in a way that doesn't match the tone of the game.  Mentally juggling "preferred material" and "malfunction material" was more work than I expected.  I'm not 100% sure yet what I'm going to do about this, but right now I'm thinking maybe to drop "preferred" and just have the random "malfunction" penalty.  If I go more extreme, which is a possibility, I might get rid of scoring altogether, just have players hold onto the cards they won like in similar games, and give materials a different effect like maybe drawing different numbers of cards for the next round (whether you keep them all or choose one and return the rest is still up in the air).  Current rule is that you only have 3 Base and 3 Mods, which is definitely constraining when you're trying to figure out how to make that fit a specific request that probably has nothing to do with your items, but that's also where the bs-ing comes in.  And that's clearly the strong point of the game.  Time for more pondering, and hopefully a better iteration by the time I finish making virtual copies.
 

DGE rule sheet complete

 Last week I told you about Dwarven Guild of Engineers, and now I've got the first draft of the rules complete and available for reading.  Note that that's just the rules, not the cards.  Next thing I need to do is refresh myself on how to use Nandeck and then actually make four decks worth of cards, and then I can get everything up on Screentop and TTS.  At least I do know what's going in them to begin with (and it should be easy enough to add more if I come up with them).

New game: Dwarven Guild of Engineers

 I needed something to occupy my brain while I was mowing the lawn this morning, and what I wound up was figuring out the first-draft version of the scoring system or one of the games I mentioned back in this post.  And with that, it's now developed enough that I can talk about the game in some detail.  So, because I don't have enough other projects to juggle, I will now present to you The Dwarven Guild of Engineers.

DGE is a card-matching game sort of like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, but with a little more meat on the bones.  Each round, a "Patron" card is drawn with a request, such as "make my mines more efficient" or "help me to travel underwater."  Each player has a hand with a mix of "Base" cards (such as "helmet," "drill," or "flagon") and "Modification" cards (such as "flaming," "photosynthetic," or "with extra cushioning"), and plays one card of each type to make an invention.  Once everyone has played their cards, all players vote on which invention best fits the patron's request, with the limit that no player may vote for their own invention.  So the invention to help with mining might be a Flaming Drill, or maybe a Steam-Powered Hammer, or a Backpack With Extra Cushioning (though that last one might need the player to explain their reasoning a bit).

Now here's where it gets a little more fiddly.  These dwarves can invent all kinds of things, but that doesn't say anything about how well they actually work.  To represent this without getting heavy on character stats or anything, each Patron, Base, and Modification card will have a color on it.  If either of the cards you play matches the patron's color, you get bonus points, even if you didn't win the vote (although winning the vote is still worth more points, even without matching colors).  If both cards have the desired color the bonus increases.  However, after voting the group must also roll the Malfunction Die, which will pick a color that gives penalties if it's on either of your cards (again, bigger penalty if both cards have it).  If the patron and malfunction colors match, then there is no bonus for patron color and the malfunction penalty gets even worse.  Continue until you feel like ending the game, and whoever has the most points wins.

One last wrinkle that I've thought up for this game is "Goblin" cards.  This is a resource each player has to mess with the other players and/or the scoring system while everyone is still working on their inventions.  I haven't come up with too many of these yet, but the kinds of effects I'm thinking of are things like "force another player to trade one card with you" or "reroll the Malfunction die."

Current status - I've got the basic outline you see here, ideas for about 50 Base cards, 35 Modifications, and 15 Patrons, and a handful of Goblins.  I don't know what my target numbers are but I definitely want more cards for each deck, and I need to settle on specifics of how many cards you get and when you draw new ones (seems obvious enough for Base and Mod, but for Goblins I'm really not sure yet).