Dolomball - the first test

Now that Dolomball is the new shiny, I got it far enough for the first solo test today.  With the current rules it took two rounds until the first time someone got a ball from where they start, and six rounds until the first time someone scored a goal.  That was about as far as I took it, because I'm tired and I was starting to get a headache from tracking three "players'" simultaneous moves, but it was enough to point specific situations that I need to prepare for (i.e. write rules for).  I also got a sense of the rhythm of the game - it felt slow at the start, with players just moving up toward the middle of the field where the balls start, but the excitement picked up quickly once they got there.  Probably okay to stick with the movement speeds I have now, but I'll see how it goes after some more tests.  Hopefully involving other players besides myself.

Next steps - fill in the gaps that I caught today, then work out one-time special moves and how/when you get to activate them

Further in the future I might do something with giving each team a special play they can make, but I need to get a better feel for the overall gameplay first.

Ooh, this one comes with existing IP...

My daughter plays basketball, and at her last few games I've been pondering the possibilities of a sport with multiple balls in play at the same time.  Now, I'm not a sports person at all, so it's very possible that such a thing already exists and I have no idea.  But no matter.  I've been pondering, and because I'm me, I've been pondering it in the form of a tabletop game.

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One of my favorite Fate-based RPGs is a sci-fi game called Bulldogs!  There are a lot of cool things about that game, one of which is the really interesting alien species available to players.  One of those species is the Dolomé, who are tall, tough tripods.  I've always thought they were cool.

Illustration by Jaime Posadas and/or Kurt Komoda, from the Bulldogs! rulebook, ©2016 by Galileo Games

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Over the past week or so, these two unrelated thoughts have collided, and this evening I've put together a rough sketch of the rules for Dolomball.  And also of the playing field/game board.  It's a triangular field where three teams play in each game, with three balls in play throughout the game.  To try to capture the feel of a chaotic sport, my initial idea for game mechanics is that players roll three dice at a time, set them in order, and then resolve simultaneously - everyone's first die takes effect at the same time, then everyone's second die, then everyone's third die.  Score points by throwing a ball into either of the other team's goals.  Use "fumble" and "intercept" cards to mess with other teams' throws.

Oh, and there are bumpers in the middle of the field, for extra meshugas.

I still need to work out the rules for throwing a ball, and for colliding with another player, but I'm happy with this as a starting point.

And I need to thank the fine folks at Gallileo Games for giving me permission to write my game around an element from their game.  Hopefully they don't regret that by the time I have a finished product.

Werewolves - for real this time

Alright, redid the map and got the go-ahead from at least one Londoner, so here's what we're looking at:

Next step is to figure out which territories give what bonuses, now that it's completely different from what I had planned before, and then make virtual versions of all the components so I can get it set up on Screentop and/or TTS.  Playable version in the next 3-4 months, hopefully?

Werewolves - attempted map

I've been spending time here and there researching neighborhoods of London (okay, skimming Wikipedia and WikiTravel) to get an idea of what their resource values should be in Werewolves of London, and this morning I finally finished the first draft of the game map.  And promptly met with comments from at least one local who suggested that I should set it up differently than I had.  I will probably do that, although I want to make sure I can still fit in all the song references.  So it'll be some more work before I have a map I'm going to share here, but I still wanted to post something today so I'm at least not giving the impression of neglecting the game, or the blog.

Violet Moon - new video

Last summer I posted a video for Under a Violet Moon, as part of my submission for a competition.  With another six months of feedback and a much prettier game board, I've posted a new video in preparation for the next competition coming up.  This one also does a much better job of actually explaining how the game works, so that should help.

Violet Moon - minor updates

Main thing to mention today is that I finally updated the Screentop version of the game to match with the most recent rule update.  Besides that, most of my attention today (and for the next week, especially when I have time off work coming up) is on making a better video than I had before so I can submit it to Cardboard Edison.  Not much in the way of new designing or revising, but it's still stuff that needs to be done.  And it doesn't involve so much caring about fonts like when I'm making a sell sheet or a convention flier.

PAX Unplugged 2023

Yesterday was my one day that I was able to go to PAX (advantage to being local is that there's no pressure to make the most of my time if I have to travel anyway).  First half of the day for me was, once again, playtesting in the Unpub room.  Wonderful feature, very much appreciated as a designer, also one of my favorite bits the year that I went as just a random person without my own game to test.  I was running Under a Violet Moon, mainly focusing on fixing the balance between the two sides.  Tried a couple different tweaks, might have over-corrected (Faeries won almost every single game yesterday), still working on that.  I did prove pretty thoroughly that I do not have the home field advantage I thought I might for being the designer of the game.  Despite all that, for the most part people really got into it, and I got a few comments on the mechanics being unique.  Most folks just played one game and then moved on, but there was one pair of players that wanted to give it a second try right away since there was no one else waiting at that moment, and they were both definitely getting a better grasp on the strategy in the second playthrough.

One negative that I picked up on, which I only picked up now that I had a chance to sit through multiple consecutive playthroughs, is that the advanced movement cards felt less and less useful over the course of the day.  There were occasionally moments where someone had just the right one to put them in a good position, but it didn't feel like they were adding that much value.  I'll come back to this in a moment.

The other big event for me yesterday was that I had pitch meetings with two publishers for Violet Moon.  I've never gotten past the initial email before when I've submitted a game to publishers, so this was incredibly exciting.  Unfortunately they both ended with "this is a really interesting game but it's not right for our brand."  One of those was polite but brief, but the other one was very enthusiastic about how much he did enjoy the game.  The way the pitch went, I talked for a minute, then he asked if we could play, then he stopped in the middle of the game to give me some feedback, then he wanted to dive back in and finish the game before he gave me his conclusions.  So I'm taking that as a partial win at least - I didn't get the result I was hoping for, but getting that kind of encouragement from a publisher is a big enough deal for me that I can run with it.  Of the feedback that he gave me, what resonated the most was about the advanced move cards.  He agreed with my earlier observation that they didn't feel as valuable as they should have, with the added observation that having that big deck to draw from set the wrong balance between strategy and luck.  He suggested that there should instead be separate, more limited sets for Faeries and Villagers that play to their respective strategies - namely, that Villagers benefit from moving more people to the middle ring and from separating people who are clumped together in one space, while Faeries benefit from moving more people out of the middle ring and from keeping them more clumped together.  I think this is a great idea, and while I still need to fiddle around with exactly how I'm going to implement it, this is going to be the next big revision.  Hopefully I have it put together and tested before too long, and if it works then I can get back to my slightly-less-Sisyphean pitching...