Playtesting Makes Perfect (Donisi)

After a bit of a break from Donisi, the last few weeks have seen Aaron and I getting back to the grindstone. Aaron is doing his part, working on card and character art (see one pictured here) as well as a teaser trailer that will be coming out soon (keep your eyes open for that!). My main job has been the same as it has been for most of the last few months: playtest, playtest, and playtest. Here's a little rundown of my process lately.

Play through a mission with only one character. See how it feels. Too hard? Too easy? Do certain parts of the mission seem too hard or too easy? If something feels off, I'll make an adjustment. The adjustments I go to first are (1) number of enemies spawned and (2) location of spawn points. I'm not going to be changing the maps much at this point and the cards are pretty set, so this is the best place to do the tweaking. With this current mission, I actually tried completely changing the types of enemies that you'd face. It was a fail, so I went back to my original plan and tweaked the story instead.

We Made a Game! (Dungeon Bounty)

It's been hard to hold off on posting this one until it was absolutely ready, but the coolest thing about the last few weeks has been that Aaron (my co-designer) and I made a game! We, like many people out there, have been spending a lot of time at home lately. We've both been missing game night and while I've been working hard to make Clank! Legacy still work with my game group, I was aching for an easier way to do it.

So, Dungeon Bounty was born! Using a standard deck of cards and our PDF, you can delve through the dungeons alone or with one other player. In the co-op or versus mode, each player needs their own deck of cards and you can play it in person, sitting side by side or six feet apart, or via your favourite video conferencing program.

This Just Got Real (Donisi)

Well, this board game thing just got real. March 20-22 is GobFest in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (North America, Earth...too much?), our local board game convention. I haven't attended in the past, but I have been to their sister convention in Calgary, FallCon. It was a blast! One of my favourite parts was playing the prototype games. It was even cooler to see a few of the game I played there roll their way to a successful Kickstarter.

Well, it's our turn! We're bringing a prototype (not 100% done, mind you) to GobFest. We're hoping to get a lot of great feedback and some people excited about our upcoming game, Donisi (haven't heard anything about it? Check out my posts about designing the game here). What we learn there we'll take with us into putting together our complete prototype for EPOC, Edmonton's Prototype Convention (May 22-24). This will be our most polished prototype and hopefully the last big kick at the can before we get it ready for publishing.

Wow. Exciting times! If you're in Edmonton during March or May, we hope to see you there!

Scenario One is Done (Donisi)

Last night Aaron came over and we played through a full game of our first scenario and I think it's done! Everything seems pretty balanced - the layout, the placement of objectives, the enemy spawn points and spawning numbers. Obviously we'll tweak whatever needs to be done after playtesters get onto it, but I think I'm ready to move onto scenario two and get it built and tested.

To celebrate, Aaron is letting me post some of his artwork for the game. He is an extremely creative guy, but this is first time doing anything like this and I am so thoroughly impressed with him! We're not exactly sure what direction the artwork will take, if it'll all be done by him or by someone else, but I love what he's done so far. Since the theme of the game is all about manipulating the threads of memories in the world around you, his art style reflects that. Everything is shadowy, in motion, and ethereal. So, without further ado!

An impaler (one of the first enemies you face) overlooking the city.

Perfect in Our Imperfection (Donisi)

Just because I haven't posted much about my own board game lately does not mean that nothing has been going on. I did a "third printing" of my game with all the card updates we've made over the last few months (and am cutting out a mini "fourth print" for about 10 cards). Aaron is coming over tomorrow night and we're going to play and brainstorm. My mother-in-law (who is a writer) is going to go through our story with me over Christmas break to tighten up the plot and clarify any confusing parts.

The vast majority of my time, however, has been spent on playtesting. You can see the text here between Aaron and I the other day. This game is my baby. I've been working on it in some semblance for the last two years. If this we're going to make a run at this game and produce it, I want it to be the best that it can be. If there is a second printing in six months that fixes a bunch of errata and errors, that's a problem to me. Obviously the game won't be perfect and if there are mistakes that we can fix later on with a second edition, I want to do that. It is not my desire, though, to just push this game out as soon as it is just about ready. I want it to really be ready when it hits Kickstarter or gets picked up by a publisher or however it gets out there. 

Back to the Drawing Board

Thursday night we had a grand old time doing our first three player playtest of our game, which, is tentatively named Donisi. Donisi is Latin for "vibrations" and describes the threads of memories that players draw from to build their decks. At point the game was called The Enders, but the story has changed enough from there that we made a switch recently. My firefighter and board game nerd neighbour came over to try out the game with Aaron and I and we learned (at least) four important lessons.

Lesson Number One - Aaron is an amazing artist
Poor Aaron has only had me buttering his biscuits lately about his artwork, but on Thursday he got to hear it from someone else. Don't get me wrong, I've tried to make it very clear to Aaron how amazing his work is, but he doesn't always believe me. When Brad, my neighbour, saw Aaron's stuff, he was so impressed. He was even more impressed when he found out this is the first time he's done anything like this. Aaron, you rock. Whether we have your final artwork in the game or not, it's been an amazing inspiration and grounding point as we've built this game together.

An example of Aaron's work - the stone shifter (a work in progress).

Solo-ser

Aaron having our game on Tabletop Simulator makes it really easy to jump in and play a quick game to see how things are going. I did this last night. A few observations from my disappointing loss last night:

• I feel pretty proud of the uniqueness and variety of the cards. This time I went a mystic/magic/arcane focus and one of the first cards I picked up were the Levitating Boots. They allowed me to give a -1 to all enemy melee attacks. This saved my life a few times when I was surrounded by giant Rat Warriors. I also acquired the Charm of Absorption which allowed me to get an extra point of XP for each enemy defeated. On the round where I scorched 5 enemies, that gave me 10 total XP. That made for a fun little shopping spree!
• The game, at least this first mission, is pretty balanced. This first mission is a little easier than the follow up ones, but it's still very possible to lose (as I made apparent this game). There are certain ebbs and flows to the game. Things start to seem easy on round 9 when you've built up a nice deck, but then round 10 comes and the enemies hit the next threat level and all of a sudden you're swarmed by new spawns.
• Gnome Hunters don't care if you're levitating. I was able to fend off the assassins and warriors pretty easily, but when four hunters pulled a card that gave them a +1 attack if I was within two spaces, well, my 6 health level and 0 block cards couldn't handle that.

Should be having a meeting with that mysterious publisher this week. Will keep you posted!

Sucktember? Sweetember?

"They have a cave troll!"

This September has been, unfortunately, the hardest school year start up to date. I’ve got twenty-nine wonderful grade fours to teach, but quite a few are below grade level in math and English. Our new provincial government is also out to get teachers, so there’s a lot of extra tension around the school. And to top things off, my poor baby girl is in grade one now and has dealt with two bullying issues and a week of ear infections. There has not been much time for board gaming.

New School Year Update

A new school year and I've got 29 eager 9 and 10 year-olds to guide and teach each day. They seem like a pretty nice bunch so far! Right now is the first real break I've had between teaching, planning, and working with my student teacher. I wanted to update you on a few things that I had mentioned during and before the summer.

You know I've been working on my board game? Well, I pitched the game to a board game company and they want to give it a try! my co-designer and I have been working on uploading everything to Tabletop Simulator (let's be honest, it's been all Aaron - I've just playtested it). It's up and working but we're trying to smooth it out a little bit still. Hopefully in the next week or two we'll show them the game. Even if nothing comes from it, we'll get some great feedback from an experienced and successful designer and producer. Very exciting! I'll keep you posted.

Second Printing...

Not much to report today. Put a few more boards on the fence, ordered some rocks, marked a whole whack of math quizzes. June is in the air! My artist/co-designer and I are finally getting together next week to play and plan. I've had a lot going on in my head and the last few days I actually had a little bit of time to tweak the cards and do a second printing of them. I'm hoping to have a few more pictures and a few more ideas to write about in the next few weeks. The summer especially should be a great time for getting work done.

Getting my craft on.

I'm Spawn It!

School and tutoring are heating up lately (literally - my portable classroom was 31 degrees yesterday) and I'm also trying to hammer out some landscaping, so gaming has been taking a backseat. Even though I haven't had much hands on time playing games or designing my own, I have been doing a lot of thinking, stewing, pondering, and listening to podcasts. I've especially been enjoying the podcasts from Every Night is Game Night with a focus on game design. I'm halfway through an interview with Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games (Scythe, Viticulture) entitled "What I Wish I Would Have Known before I Got into Game Design." Wow, that's a mouthful, but very informative (thank you The Board Game Design Lab podcast for putting this on a couple years ago).

Made it out in time!

I finally got a few playthroughs of the first mission/adventure/scenario of my game the last couple of days. Here are the thoughts running through my mind right now.

(1) I want to make my "magic" system really make sense with the game mechanics. What kind of system would need you to start out weak and build up your deck each time? In what world does that make sense?

(2) Should the enemies activate after each hero's turn? Or after all the heroes have gone? What has the most balance? Which way allows for the fewest boring enemy card flips in a row? So far I've been doing it after all the heroes, but I wonder if it would work better after each (kind of like Gears of War).

(3) On that note, I'm working on the spawn cards right now. Similar to Zombicide, the level of monsters spawned ramp up as the game progressed (although it's based on a round timer, not on experience gained). Just trying to find the right amount of cards for the deck (a little one? A small one?). I was thinking dice, but that's TOO random. So do I just do 6 different cards so it's not as random and you know what's coming?

I think that's all my brain can hold for right now. I'm hoping to meet with my co-designer and artist next week and hopefully we'll get a little further. Summer should be a good time to get cracking on this game as well! My friend was asking me how long until this game would be ready and I figured 18-24 months. 9-12 to finish making it, 9-12 for playtesting and tweaking. I'm really not sure though, but, it's fun!

Theme in Board Games

One of the ways I try stay stay in shape and also save money is bike to work. It's not a bad trek, only about a 15 minute ride. I try to make the most use of that time and usually listen to podcasts from my favourite authors and pastors. The last few weeks, however, when I've needed a break from something deep and introspective, I've found a few board game podcasts that I really enjoy. Being a solo gamer, my favourite two are Solosaurus and ENGN (Every Night is Game Night). You can easily find them on any podcast app.

On April 12, the host of ENGN (Jason) was joined by Paul Grogan (Gaming Rules on YouTube) and Marc Davis (Thoughful Gamer blog) for a very interesting discussion about theme in games. This was one of the most informative and thought-provoking podcasts I've ever listened to. Sure, board games may not be life changing (although they might be...), but this was a really good podcast, especially for someone who is a player, reviewer, and designer.

The Thrust of the Matter

March has been a busy month and April is going to be moreso between birthdays (mine!), speech competitions, and basketball tournaments. But, right here at the beginning of the month, I was able to sit down with my game co-designer, Aaron, and play with our game. We have the first mission basically complete, just need to finish some balancing and still working on the XP system.

We Made a Game!

Ok, so it's not done yet, but last night we played a whole mission complete with cards, characters, a board, lots of bad guys, and a victory on our part! 

You can see in the picture that I'm using a hex-board with Zombicide: Black Plague pieces fo the characters and tokens. You have to imagine that the Walkers are lynx assassins, the Fatties are ratmen warriors, and the Runners are some kind of ranged character.

The game is a deckbuilder but you build from three different decks (for now): strength, agility, and magic. Having multiple cards from these decks gives you bonuses when those cards are played together. Also, as you buy more cards from a deck, you unlock higher level tiers and more powerful cards of that deck. Your currency in the game is your experience - defeating enemies grants you experience that you spend to purchase new cards. Cards control your movement, attacks, and blocks. 

Board Game Designer?

I've had plenty of experience playing board games over the last two years, but lately I've been dabbling in board game creating as well.  A few friends and I have been working on a few game ideas but nothing really solid.  I knew that when I made I game I wanted to make one that I would like.  So that game needs to (A) be a deckbuilder, (B) be an action/adventure game and (C) have a board to travel around on.

I've actually been working on one idea in particular over the last 9 months and am getting a pretty good handle on it.  I've got starting characters, starting cards, a whole bunch of upgrade cards, enemies and their cards, and a whole bunch of ideas.  But you know what I'm finding?  This is HARD work.  Hard BRAIN work.  My brain hasn't worked this hard in a while.  I don't want to give away too much of the game (in case on of you tries to steal my idea *insert shifty eyes here*), but it is indeed an action/adventure deckbuilder with a board.

Someday I'm hoping to have a solid prototype and maybe even kickstart it.  For now, I'm (mostly) enjoying the process.