Archive for Game Previews
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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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On March 5, 2012, designer Antoine Bauza posted a note on his blog about the forthcoming 7 Wonders: Cities expansion: "Le développement est quasiment terminé mais prend (comme souvent) un peu plus de temps qu’initialement prévu. Des playtests à gogo, du micro-réglage et des discussions passionnées sur des mini-points de détail." (Roughly, the game's development is taking longer than originally planned – with playtests galore, numerous micro-adjustments, and many heated discussions – but is nearly finished.)
Thanks to the kind Belgo-Mexicans at Repos Production, I've been able to play an advance copy of 7 Wonders: Cities a few times and thought I'd provide an overview of what's included in the box and how it works. (Note: This is not a paid preview for a Kickstarter production. It's not a paid preview at all.)
To start with, Cities is not similar to 7 Wonders: Leaders. That expansion added a new "Age 0" to the game, with players drafting a quartet of leader cards that ideally gave them something of a strategy to carry out over the course of the game: focus on military, science, etc.; build sets of this or that; maintain military dominance; and so on.
Cities instead provides a new color of cards – black – with nine black cards for each of the game's three Ages. At the start of each Age, you randomly choose a number of Cities cards equal to the number of players and shuffle those cards into that Age's deck. Thus, each player starts an Age with eight cards in hand (instead of seven), and players will build/sell/wonderize seven cards during an Age (instead of six). So as with Leaders, Cities tweaks the basic play of 7 Wonders without making the game substantially longer. (Cities also includes four new guild cards for Age III, and these cards are mixed with the other guilds and added to the Age III deck like normal.)
What do the cards in Cities do? I won't go into much detail because as Bauza notes, the cards are still being tweaked and changed. (TricTrac.net posted a video overview of Cities on January 31, for example, and the cards in my playtest copy don't match those precisely; what's more, some cards have been tweaked since then. Every push in one direction brings a reciprocal push in another direction or two.) In general, though, Cities matches the original 7 Wonders mix in that some cards comprise a cycle across the ages – think of the military cards providing 1, 2 or 3 strength across the Ages – while other cards stand on their own. Card cycles in Cities are:
-----• Diplomacy – Each Age includes a card worth X VPs that bears a diplomat symbol. When you play a diplomat, you step out of the conflict for that Age, with your neighbors attacking one another instead of you. If you would have won the conflict, too bad – no points for you! Don't play the diplomat in this situation.
-----• Spies – Each Age includes a spy that lets you copy one science symbol from a neighbor at the end of the game. If you have multiple spies, they must copy symbols from different cards, although they can copy the same symbol. They can be ridiculously powerful if your neighbors allow them to be. In one game, I scored 58 VPs from science – completing Babylon, with the science guild and two spies, along with other science cards to have six of one symbol and two each of the others.
-----• Points and Punishment – Each Age includes a card worth X VPs that forces each other player to discard X coins. For each coin that a player cannot or chooses not to discard, that player receives a punishment token, which dings the player for VPs at the end of the game. The tricky aspect of these cards – along with several other cards that force players to discard money based on, say, how many wonder levels they've completed – is that since Cities cards are added to the decks randomly, you never know how many of them are in the game. How much do you need to hold on to your coins? How many more times will you be hit? You have an "extra" card each Age, so do you just throw that away for money to recover your stash or do you keep your money in the first place so that you can buy resources to build that card?
-----• Artifacts – Each Age includes a card worth VPs, and these cards – as with many other in Cities – have money as part of their cost. Thus, the punishment cards squeeze you when it comes to being able to build these as it doesn't matter how much you produce if you have no money on hand.
-----• Mercenary Military – Each Age includes a military card that provides one more shield than you'd normally find in that Age, but the cards cost money – nothing but money.
In addition to these cycles, each Age has a few standalone cards: one that lets you copy the "leveling-up" abilities of your neighbors, for example, and another that allows you each turn to double one resource that you produce. The Black Market, on the other hand, lets you buy one resource that you can't produce each turn for one coin.
The two wonders included in Cities tie into the cards, with one wonder requiring its owner to pay money to build one or more levels and the other providing one or more diplomat symbols as the levels rise. You're going to be a pacifist, and you're going to like it! What's also interesting about these wonders is they provide brick or stone, which means you can now have games in which two players – possibly neighbors! – produce the same starting resource, which leads to more fights for resources in order to save your precious funds.
While Cities can be played independently from Leaders, Cities includes five leader cards that can be shuffled into the leaders deck should be using both expansions. As you might be able to guess, these cards do things like provide extra points for black cards, money when you play black cards, and a diplomat symbol. In one game I had both the Olympus building (the middle level of which lets you build one card for free each Age) and the leader card that lets you build one black card for free each Age – good times!
As I mentioned earlier, you never know which cards from Cities will be included in each game, but with more players, more of the cards are included, which leads to more punishment, more chances for spying, and so on. Thus, the dynamics of game play with Cities mirrors that of the base game in that the feel of the game varies with more or fewer players, just as it varies based on the wonders in play. The same but different – that's Cities in a nutshell.
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Steve Wood
United States
Virginia
Gunship: First Strike! On Kickstarter until March 31st! Buy now or pay MUCH more later!
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It's taken twenty long years to get Gunship: First Strike! from the drafting table to the gaming table. This is the story of how my initial concept evolved over many years to turn into something quite different. It's also a story of why you should never give up. I hope that you guys can take something from it.
Gunship: First Strike! started out in 1991 when I was 19 years old as a project to help me deal with a bad break-up. Total immersion in an artistic project is great medicine. The first attempt was called Space Mania and had a system based on the great board game, Block Mania. Any of you who have played that game will see a lot of similarities between the Blocks and the ship below this paragraph. In 1991 there was NO computer-aided design software for guys like me. I'm not saying that it didn't exist, but I certainly did not have it and I had no graphics training in any event. My first boards and cards were all painstakingly hand-drawn and colored in with pencils. I had to create templates with chip board in order to create uniform elements. It took forever – and this was all based on the hope that Games Workshop would even WANT a new board game based on one of its titles that had not been in production for several years, created by a teenager that no one had ever heard of. But it gave me something to do, some hope that one day I would have the skills and experience needed to create my own game.
The game was playtested here and there, forgotten about when the next girlfriend came around, dragged back out during periods of boredom (or break-ups). The years went by, I grew into my 20s, got my first apartment, worked as a waiter here and there. Sometimes I would get inspired and work on it for a few weeks or months, sometimes the board you see here would sit on my drafting table and collect dust. We are in the mid-1990s now: still no major computer help, no massive Internet, and NO BGG.
In 1996 I moved into a more stable environment, moved from the constant party atmosphere of the apartment into a townhouse with my soon-to-be wife. During this time I was able to spend more time working on the game (now titled Battlecruiser Blitz) and had gotten better at drawing and design – as you can hopefully see in the picture at right – but it was still grueling work.
At this point, Kinko's became available and I would make copies there after my long restaurant shifts, usually around 2 or 3 in the morning. I copied things, cut them out with scissors, and glued them onto the board one at a time. I think at one point there was a spill and I had to start all over again. Heck, I am sure that as picky as I am, I probably started all over again several times. A computer would have been great, but the Internet was just getting started, and we were newly married and couldn't afford one – and even if we did have a computer, how was I going to get training? I had no choice but to keep drawing, keep coloring, and keep slogging it out.
But I was getting a little older and starting to realize that this game had way too many pieces (tons of cardboard chits and markers), very complicated rules, and a combat and movement system based entirely on someone else's game. There was no Google or practical way to get in touch with Games Workshop in England to obtain permission. I didn't even know how to ASK permission. I was a young man in his mid-20s with no CLUE what licensing meant or how a business worked. I'm glad that I never pursued this as I would have been shot down in flames, but I still showed the game to anyone who would listen. I worked on new mechanisms and thought of new cards and ways of doing things. This game was never going to go anywhere – but a few years later I got my first break...
In 1999, my game was not doing anything big, but it made a great piece for my artistic portfolio. I decided that waiting tables was not the way to work my way into graphic design, so I started walking into sign and print shops to start a new career. I was turned away several times due to lack of software experience, but when I showed the game to this one place, I was lucky enough to get a chance from a man who ran the smallest sign shop in town. I still owe him a huge debt of gratitude for changing my life, and he is still a friend. Steve M. trained me how to use the graphics software CorelDRAW and I was on my way.
After a few months of learning the basic functions, I created what you see to the left. Yes, it is 8-bit in appearance, the colors are too bright, and it has other flaws – but NOW I had a computer to help me. If you look closely, you will see the little escape pods that years later would become the logo for Escape Pod Games!
Instead of taking hours to draw something that did not work out in playtesting, I could delete it in seconds, try again, and reprint in no time. Although the pic here still says Battlecruiser Blitz, the game had been scaled WAY down to two smaller ships with new objectives and was now called Red Alert! (I would still use that name today if it were not the property of the Star Trek franchise and related games.)
I was happy with my new design tools, but Red Alert was awful. I had to abandon all of the systems that I had borrowed from Block Mania a decade earlier. I had some good ideas, but I was basically starting from scratch and had little time for playtesting. I was working full-time, a lot of friends were getting married and getting jobs – doesn't that just KILL gaming? – and the project sort of went away for a few years again. Instead I started making accessories for Axis and Allies, designing some cards and decals that did pretty good for a while.
But I did not want to spend the rest of my life designing stuff for other people's games – not to mention the risk of a cease-and-desist letter when Avalon Hill suddenly starting making the game again after nearly twenty years. Thus, the space game would reemerge yet again...
At this point we are in the early 2000s. (The exact years start to get hazy for me.) My design skills are getting better as I work as a graphic designer for Steve M.'s brother Ethan (who is still my boss to this day).
As you can see in the pic at right, the old ship is now surrounded by interior spaces. I had decided that the cardboard chit system for the crew, etc. was just too dated and boring, so I was playing around with plastic pieces and trying to create a whole new interior combat system. It was starting to take shape, but once again it was just missing something.
During this period I was really starting to get frustrated. I had been at this for a really long time, yet was getting absolutely nowhere. I had no friends left to do much playtesting, but I had this strong desire to publish a game. I had promised my wife time and time again that THIS was the version that was going to make it, but I was never satisfied. It was starting to get embarrassing. People would ask, "Whatever happened to that game you were going to make?" and all I could say in return was that it was still not ready.
But this version, still called Red Alert, introduced me to some concepts that could work; I just needed more time and more pieces to the puzzle.
Two or three more years passed. I was making a good living, and my wife and I got our first new cars. I started channeling my creativity and sign shop skills into creating carbon fiber parts for the car show crowd. I dumped $10,000 into turning my car into a show car. Once again, I was doing something with someone else's invention. Was I just going to enhance the work of others, or was I going to come up with something of my own? Something that could be truly great? I did not know it, but I was almost there.
The ship at left does not look like a breakthrough, does it? But one day I was bored at work and started playing around with the game again. What if I abandoned the whole concept and started from scratch again, BUT could find a way to keep all of the weapons and some of the best game mechanisms?
This game needed a complete overhaul, and I had nothing to lose. It was then that I decided to create a top view and use cards to keep track of damage – but it didn't stop there. By adding cards to the board, we could create customization. You could pick which weapons you wanted and simply play them on the board – easy and inexpensive. Hey, we can do a shield card, and when you took a hit of damage, you'd have to discard a shield. That's much more fun than tokens – and who doesn't like cards?
Cards could be played from your hand onto the board and show different levels of damage so that the ship would start to look damaged. Oh, we could have Upgrade cards for the generators, etc. and let people build their own ships based on the type of "battle personality" that they have. Isn't the coolest thing about the Millenium Falcon the fact that Han Solo has built and upgraded the thing to his own specs from all kinds of parts?
The ideas started to flow like crazy. All of the mechanisms, all of the rules, all of the weapons, and equipment, and crew – they all came back to me...as cards.
Take a good look and you can see that this ship has a familiar shape. Yep, I took the shape of the previous side-view version, made a copy, mirrored it, and welded them together. A piece of the old became the foundation for the new. In fact, lots of pieces from all of the old versions were coming back and fitting into this new game like missing pieces from an old puzzle. I had found new hope: My design skills were improving each year, and I had a new advantage that I never had before – a neighbor who was ready and willing to conduct daily playtesting. Things were starting to gel!
(Hey, I know it's a long story, but we're getting to the good part! Go ahead and grab a sandwich or something. We'll still be here!)
Chris Saladyga and I had met in my driveway talking about some neighborly thing or another. Turned out we were both gaming geeks, and we started getting together for the occasional game of D&D with his friend Barry Jurek. Chris, Barry and I formed the nucleus of Escape Pod Games after I brought the game over one day to try it out.
Ideas were debated, tested, changed and perfected; the game grew and evolved at a rapid pace. A campaign system was developed to keep us from getting bored with the constant playtesting. Having a couple of like-minded guys to talk about this stuff with had a great effect. My design skills were getting better and better, but it was still not good enough to sell to the general public. That was okay, though, as we knew that we were on to something.
I started handing out fliers for open playtesting at the FLGS, and eventually I had regular playtesting with several groups of people. Everyone loved it. I had a great flow of ideas going, and I got opinions from every type of gamer. I'm not going to reveal what the game was titled at the time because it is a great name that we intend to use later and it also gives away a few things – but let me say that Gunship: First Strike! and its expansions are just the prequels for it (for reasons to be explained below).
Steve Mehr joined me around this time and became my most loyal and enthusiastic teammate. Steve and I played this game a LOT. Finally, after a year or so of this, we decided that we were probably close to moving toward production. We researched companies to print the various components (using my contacts in the sign and printing industry) and got pricing together. Just two problems: The artwork was not good enough, despite what my friends and family said, and the economy hit the brick wall of the mid-2000s. I was not going to be able to borrow any more money against my house, and Kickstarter didn't even exist.
I finally had a great game but no way to do anything about it. No one would consider doing fewer than 5,000 copies at ten bucks each. We had a great game with poor artwork and needed $50,000 in a bad economy. I shelved the project for what I thought was the last time. Maybe one day I would hit the lottery and dig it up, but it did not look promising – yet we are almost to the happy ending.
The game had been shelved for a couple of years or so, and I was facing tough times in my personal life. My wife had cancer and was undergoing treatment for around a year. Chemotherapy makes people sleep a lot while their body recovers, and I found myself with a lot of alone time on my hands. This, and the frustration and terror of almost losing my wife, required me to find an escape. I decided to mess around with the game a bit, if only to pass the time and take my mind off things. I wanted to go back in time and create a prequel for the game, as I thought that going at it from an entirely new angle might prove to be an interesting diversion. I was writing rules and designing again, and I felt alive for the first time in years. By now, I was more than familiar with BGG, and I figured I would take a look around the Board Game Design Forum to see whether I could find any new resources, etc. This is when I hit the jackpot.
By looking at two or three random threads, I found that not only had print-on-demand board game printing made huge leaps, but there was this cool new thing called Kickstarter where people could get funded. All I needed to do now was figure out how to handle my artwork and maybe we could have a go at this.
I did some research for a sci-fi artist and stumbled upon Luca Oleastri. In February of 2011, I sent him an email to see whether he was interested in working with me and requested pricing, attaching a copy of what I had already come up with.
What I got back a few days later was the single most important element of the whole project. Luca took my design and created what was the most beautiful sight I had seen since I started this thing. (See pic at left.) And he didn't even charge me for it! Ever since that day I have had an artist to work with that absolutely nails everything I ask for. He gives me a great price and has also become a great friend. Several months later, we had all of the artwork we could ever need to create a professional game. The box and rulebook were the last two details.(Writing the rulebook was the hardest part of the whole adventure.) After twenty years, the game was finally ready! An awesome website was launched (with the help of another BGG member who has become one of my newest and best friends), and the word continues to spread.
And here is the final Gunship as seen in our prototype from China (another company we never would have found without seeing a banner ad on BGG).
I have enjoyed the nostalgia of sitting here and going back over the years to put this together for you. I know that I can be long-winded and that maybe you were not expecting my whole autobiography, but this is how our game was created. As you can see, it has been a very long time in coming.
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With that history out of the way, let's look at how the game plays. Gunship is a tactical space combat game, but it is more than that. It is an entire new SYSTEM with big plans for the future. (Whether or not it HAS a future will be decided by you in the coming days!)
Gunship has no galactic map, no political intrigue, and no resources. Gunship is a BRAWL. You and your opponent custom-build powerful attack vessels and square off in close combat. There are no hexes to count as for the most part, your target is always in range – and so are YOU!
Each of you has your Gunship, a Fighter Squadron, and an Assault Carrier to use as a base. The objective is to destroy the other guy's Carrier. Game play is fast and furious. The Carriers fire long-range shots at each other while you engage your Fighters in dogfights and try to catch the enemy Gunship unescorted for a quick strafing run. The Fighters can't hurt the Carriers – unless you are using the optional kamikaze rules! – but the Gunships are MADE for it. Swoop in for an attack run on the opposing Carrier and nail it with a torpedo – or maybe drop a wingful of thruster bombs for maximum damage. Of course, you'll never do either of these if you don't first survive a deadly barrage of defense cannon fire!
The true stars of the game are the Gunships themselves. At the start of each game, you get to build your Gunship to your own specs using our innovative system of customization. In addition to your standard torpedo launcher, you have four weapon slots, which can be filled with blaster cannons, ion cannons, or thruster bombs. Each weapon has its own unique "personality" and effects. Different combinations allow for different tactics, and you can land inside your own Carrier at any time to switch them up. Keep in mind that while you're safely in your Carrier, the other guy will be taking full advantage of your absence!
One of the coolest features of our game is the damage tracking system. We came up with a really interesting and visual way of doing this Your Gunship starts the game shiny and new, but this won't last long! The Red Gunship below is loaded for making a run at the enemy Carrier:
Below is what it may look like when it returns! This Gunship has had a wing shot off, as well as one of its blaster cannons. Its power generator has been hit, meaning it is now at -1 action. With only one engine and ionization sparking all over the ship, it's a good idea to limp back to the Carrier for some much-needed repairs! Note that you get to actually watch your ship get dented and shot up. Your Gunship board is your tactical status report that lets you know what condition you're in and which weapons are available for attacks.
Consider Gunship: First Strike! to be your "basic training" for the long war ahead. Additional upgrades and new weapons will be launched soon to offer literally hundreds of possible Gunship types for any mission! We're planning new scenarios where you can break orbit and send your Gunships and Fighters down to the surface to engage Tanks and Infantry. Bigger (and meaner) capital ships are just a hyperspace jump away from the action. We plan to fully support our system for years to come if we can get the core game off the ground. I've had plenty of time to get this right, and we have tons of fully-playtested toys to send straight to the assembly lines!
Here are some of the cards that can be used by your Gunship:
Gunship uses cards, boards and dice together in an innovative and exciting way. Some of you may think dice + cards = luckfest, and while there IS a certain random quality (just like real combat), there is also room for quite a bit of strategy and tactics. First, you need to decide what kind of Gunship to build. You have to make sure that you keep the Fighters involved in the right way. There's damage control to manage: Should you raise a shield, or do you need to get that blaster cannon back online? Do you have time to make one last "pit stop" in the Carrier, or should you take your shieldless and battered ship in for one last attack run that might win the game? Plan your turns well because each one counts. Most games are won or lost by a mere handful of hit points!
From the hand of cards that can be played a number of different ways, to the tense decisions that you are sometimes forced to make, Gunship offers a dynamic and (more importantly) FUN space battle experience! If this isn't enough detail, you can head to the Escape Pod Games website for the complete rulebook. If you're more the visual type, here is a quick video of our playtest copy from the publisher, so you have an idea of how it all fits together. (Note: These are NOT the real components!)
Gunship comes with everything that you see here. There's plenty of room in the plastic tray insert for more cards, tokens, etc., and we plan to fill them to overflowing in the coming months!
I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of you and discussing Gunship during the last several months. I honestly feel that I could not have gotten this far without BGG, and I would be honored to be able to finally bring this game to you and create a new sci-fi universe for you guys to fight in. I know that a lot of you are ready and willing to back us, and your support is deeply appreciated. We have some great promos planned that you can have a sneak peek of on the Kickstarter page of our website. The banner ads going up next week will be your signal to attack! I hope that we can get this great game launched, and that some day this year I will have the fortune of bombing your Carriers at a con or two.
Thanks for reading!
Steve Wood
Escape Pod Games
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Byron Collins
United States
Suffolk
Virginia
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Box art by Marc von Martial
...Migs tossed his cigarette...and crawled to the room's other window. Below him, on the small Italian house's first floor, the squad's BAR began hammering at their assailants. On his knees now, Migs peered over the window's sill. The squad's firing position looked over a small traffic circle. At least that's what they called them in Jersey. A fountain – as dry as Migs' mouth – adorned the center of the circle. Streets fanned from the circle like spokes on a wheel. Across the way, a small café faced his building, and from the lower window a German MG34 chattered, the bullets walking across the stone facing below him.
Whoosh! A stream of white smoke shot from the cemetery to his right. The stream disappeared into the MG34's window and erupted, dust belching from the opening. Oh hell yeah! Migs grinned at the silence. Fatman and Hillbilly were the best bazooka team in Italy.
Then he heard the sound all infantrymen dreaded, heard it and his grin disappeared – the sound of squeaking sprockets. Sarge had told them there were Tigers south of the village, but Migs hoped the Tigers had had bigger fish to fry than a squad of riflemen and their 57mm anti-tank gun. The squeaking grew louder. Now the machine's rumbling diesel thrummed against the morning air. A pair of gray-uniformed German infantry appeared at the end of the street. He didn't fire. No one in the squad fired. No one wanted the squeaking sprockets to know where they were. Migs prayed, prayed hard. I'm sorry Matt died. I'm sorry I lived. Please Lord let the squeaking be something the boys on the Fifty-seven can handle.
It wasn't.
First he saw the flash suppressor. He knew that flash suppressor, knew it was bad news. The long barrel slid inexorably into the street facing him, then the tracks, the fender, and finally the monster turned onto the street proper, facing Migs. The Fifty-seven crew fired. It was hopeless. Migs knew that, the men on the Fifty-seven knew that, but still they fired. The 57mm anti-tank gun popped impotently, the sound seemingly no louder than Migs' own Garand. The shell struck the Tiger dead on, sparking bright on the gun mantle, ringing like a church bell.
Migs held his breath. Please, God, please. Migs didn't know, maybe the 57mm round might scare the tankers, maybe it might hurt something, hurt someone.
It didn't.
The motors whined as the massive turret swung the gun toward the Fifty-seven. The eight-eight millimeter gun spoke, and it was anything but impotent.
–Excerpt of fictional intro to Scenario 1 of Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 Village and Defensive Line Map Expansion by Mark H. Walker.
Introduction
Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 Village and Defensive Line Map Expansion is a terrain expansion to our fast-paced WWII-themed card wargame, Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943, while also serving as an expansion for a future game in the Spearpoint 1943 line, Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 Eastern Front. The map expansion takes the basic Spearpoint 1943 card game to a new level of tactical depth. Immersion is the goal as you dive into fictional intros like the one above by author Mark H. Walker of Lock n' Load Publishing, highly-detailed artwork by German artist Marc von Martial, and well-tested rules that seamlessly tie it all together with the original game and its components by designer Byron Collins. (Don't have the original game? We've got you covered in our Kickstarter Project with support levels that include the original Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 plus the Map Expansion.)
We've been demonstrating the expansion prototype at every game convention we've attended in 2011 and have received lots of praise from gamers who sat down to play. With this designer diary, I'll take you through the basics of the Map Expansion and what's included, link you up with reviews of the game it expands (as well as reviews of the expansion), and offer you insight into the design with plenty of photos and videos along the way.
Components Overview Video
This video shows a prototype featuring the major components of the Map Expansion (Maps, Feature Tiles, Counters) with an explanation of each component and how it works. Pay special attention to the Feature Tiles. Some are specific for use with each map and they set up differently with each game, helping make every game unique. Even the orientation affects line of sight, or the ability of a Unit to see its target, into and out of each tile. Some tiles that depict village buildings can even be destroyed in-game by powerful weapons such as large tank guns, bombs, and artillery, turning protective stone houses into rubble, opening up line of sight, and exposing any infantry within. (To learn how line of sight works in more detail, please check out this Kickstarter update/preview.)
Design Insight
Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 pre-game deck-building in action
With the simplicity of the base game came a cost – some things had to be abstracted. In the original game, I chose to abstract movement and range and line-of-sight to keep the game light, simple, and playable in 30 minutes without a lot of rules look-up but with a good tactical feel. This works well for the original game, and it remains a good portable filler wargame.
These abstractions are lessened by the Map Expansion. As more detail is added, that too has a cost – typically more rules and potentially a longer play time (in this case 45 minutes vs. 30 for most games). The payoff for this additional level of complexity (which really isn't that complex) is greater depth. Where Spearpoint 1943 is a filler card wargame, Spearpoint 1943 played with the Map Expansion takes that filler a step further and essentially turns it into a more "meaty" board wargame. I would still consider Spearpoint 1943 with the Map Expansion to be a relatively simple "gateway" wargame.
Spearpoint 1943 with the Map Expansion in action at Williamsburg Muster 2011
Players who have played the original game and the Map Expansion note (in a good way) that each plays like a completely different game, both with their merits. A lot of expansions I've bought in the past aren't generally game-changers – sometimes they even feel rushed out by the publisher and I just end up feeling underwhelmed. It's honestly easy to make more of the same.
The Map Expansion may optionally be played using miniatures
A comment we commonly receive from players at conventions who play the expansion is that it feels like a miniatures game. Thinking this over I realized, "Hmm, you're right!" and experimented with something else entirely – an optional way to play. The cards from Spearpoint 1943 are used as the pieces in the expansion by default. They provide all of the stats you need for how the Units behave in the game, which minimizes or eliminates rules lookup.
But let's take it a step further. If you have your own miniatures you can actually use those miniatures on the boards in place of the cards, referring to the cards only for their stats. While this may "complete the look" of the tabletop, it is totally optional.
With respect to artwork development, it has been my great pleasure to work with German artist Marc von Martial. Marc has done an incredible job on the artwork for this game, achieving a level of detail that makes you feel a part of the action. Marc worked tirelessly on multiple revisions of the Feature Tiles to help clearly convey how line of sight – that is, the ability of a unit to see its target – works in the game and to get it just right. These tiles are extremely important to the game, set up differently on the map even if playing the same scenario. That is a key aspect of increasing this game's replayability factor. In an illustrated Kickstarter update, Marc answers ten questions in depth, giving his perspective on this project. (Marc does game artwork for multiple publishers of board and computer games as Cogwheeldesigns.)
In closing, we've taken a card wargame filler and added meat to it – a lot of meat. Even so, it remains a simple-to-learn system that appeals to those familiar with wargames as well as those who are not. The goal of this expansion design was not to create "more of the same" but rather challenge players with a whole new way to play. So if you are an existing player of Spearpoint 1943 and want to take it further, the Map Expansion is a must-have. If you have never tried the game, by picking up both the base game and the expansion, you're essentially adding two unique games to your collection. Finally, keep in mind that the expansion can optionally be played using miniatures as the pieces (15mm works well) in place of the cards from the base game, which really does look stunning on your tabletop.
Detailed Session Reports / Walkthroughs
For a more in-depth look at the game with the expansion and its rules in action at a convention, please check out this detailed session report, featuring two brand new players learning how the game works from the designer at the 2011 Guns of August convention in Williamsburg, VA.
Demo game at Guns of August, Williamsburg, VA 2011
In addition, please check out this in-depth 36-photo After Action Report Album from the designer, who walks you through one play of Scenario 2 of the Map Expansion. Every photo is captioned to recount the action.
Scenario 2 in action
Reviews
* This review by Charles Cabell is based on prototype play of the Spearpoint 1943 Map Expansion.
* Check out this video review of the original Spearpoint 1943 card game by Marco Arndaudo, which provides a good overview of how the original game plays.
Final Thoughts
I hope that you'll join our growing fanbase of Spearpoint 1943 players and support us over on Kickstarter before our project expires on January 8th, 2012. At the time this designer diary was written, we were 40% funded! I'd love to have you as a backer of this project; we can't wait to get the Map Expansion to production, but we can only do so with your help! Please help us make this game a success! "Migs" is depending on you...
Our Pledge to You
As the designer and publisher of this game, I pledge to support you for whatever you may need as you discover this game and others from Collins Epic Wargames. I'm very active here on BoardGameGeek, supporting players of our games, as well as the game designers who call BGG home. Please let me know if I can do anything for you with respect to our games and if you see me at a convention near you, stop by and we'll play a game or two.
All the best,
Byron Collins
Collins Epic Wargames, LLC
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Mark Jackson
United States
Fresno
California
Am I a man or am I a muppet? If I'm a muppet then I'm a very manly muppet!
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I love movie previews, so much so that I refuse to buy a ticket to a film unless I know I'm going to get to see the trailers before it starts. And that's my function here today, to act as a movie trailer for the upcoming release of Memoir '44: Campaign Book Volume Two from Days of Wonder.
Previews have targeted audiences, one excellent current example being the differences between the first American trailer for The Adventures of Tintin (which pretty much keeps Tintin hidden throughout) and the European trailer for the same film, which both has a different name (The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which sounds like a typical Tintin graphic novel) and manages to highlight Snowy, Archibald Haddock and Dupont & Dumond (all classic Tintin characters). The people promoting the film know their jobs...
...and I know mine. Obviously, the audience for a preview of an expansion for a game system with the words "Campaign Book" and "Volume Two" in the title is going to be limited to those who already own Memoir '44 (and some or all of the numerous expansions) – or, hopefully, some of you who are wondering whether it's worth jumping in based on this addition to the franchise. Let's answer some questions you might have:
What is a campaign?
The Campaign Books (along with the additional web-released campaigns, The Vercors Campaign and Audie Murphy's Campaign) offer a way to chain Memoir '44 scenarios together in order to experience a series of battles or, well, a campaign. Two added game mechanisms – Reserves and Victory Rolls – combine with scenario and campaign specific effects to give a unique feel to each series of battles and reward the victor with some "spoils of war" to enhance his chances in the next battle.
Campaigns vary in length, usually consisting of 4-6 battles, but Grand Campaigns exist as well, tying together multiple campaigns to cover larger sections of World War II.
Which expansions do I need to use this book?
Obviously, you need a copy of the Memoir '44 base game. Beyond that:
• The Island Hoppers Grand Campaign (which consists of four campaigns: Guadalcanal, Marshall Islands, Marianas & Palau Islands and Home Islands) requires a copy of the Pacific Theater expansion.
• The Bicycle Blitzkrieg & Fall of Poland campaigns require tiles from the Terrain Pack expansion (although you could do without those in a pinch).
• The Breakthrough Normandy Grand Campaign requires the Breakthrough map boards (which could also be the paper Breakthrough map from the Campaign Bag) as well as tiles from the Terrain Pack (in such quantity that faking your way through would be tough). Though not required, it would also be great to have a copy of the Winter Wars expansion for the Breakthrough command card deck; the extra fluidity of movement makes the Breakthrough scenarios flow better.
• The Air Aces campaign requires the Air Pack expansion.
Wait a minute, I thought Air Pack was out of print. Why did Days of Wonder include a campaign in a new book for something that's difficult to acquire?!
DoW's Eric Hautemont explains what's going on in the Memoir '44 forums on the Days of Wonder website:
Quote: No, we have no plans to reprint the Air Pack (in this form or any other), as the costs to do so would be prohibitive.
The reason we went ahead and included this (small) Air Aces campaign at the end of Volume 2 is because the other campaigns in the book ran longer than initially planned, so we had to increase the page count in this volume from 112 pages to 128 pages (due to the way pages are bound, the page count in a book like this go up in 16 pages increments).
The Air Aces campaign was short enough to fit in the few remaining pages we had, so we added it in as a bonus for people that own the Air Pack.
For those of you that were not able to acquire the Air Pack while in print, we will post a free PDF of the Air Rules on our web site at the same time the Campaign Book Volume 2 ships.
Do I need Campaign Book Volume One in order to use this one?
Nope – the Campaign and Grand Campaign rules work the same way in both books. What you're getting is 46 new scenarios tied together into eleven different campaigns.
So, what do you think?
I'll be writing a full review for The Opinionated Gamers in the next couple of weeks, but so far we've played the first three Breakthrough Normandy scenarios – a hint based on my son's mistakes: the 82nd & 101st Airborne need to secure the area before attempting to grab objectives – and the first two Bicycle Blitzkrieg scenarios (where my younger son is trampling over my pathetic British defenses), and we're having a great time!
The scenarios are all top-notch, I love the variety of theaters of operation, and I especially appreciate the suggestions in the rules for "making do" if you don't have a particular expansion. (Example: The paratroop drop scenarios both use the Night rules, but offer an alternate way to have the same effect if you don't own the Night rules board.)
A review copy was provided by Days of Wonder to this reviewer.
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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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Each year at Spiel, Japon Brand features a number of €10-ish card games that serve as POP pick-ups for the curious. You hmm and haw and think that maybe the game sounds interesting yet you're not sure – but the game is €10 so you give it a try anyway. Some turn out to be winners (R-Eco), some are functional if not-thrilling (Catch Out), and some fall into the category of "What was I thinking?"
For 2011, Japon Brand is offering a wide array of €30-40 deck-building games such as Dynamite Nurse Returns (yes, really!) but only a couple of games you might take a flier on because "well, it doesn't take up much room, and I can fit it in my coat if I have to". Such are the ways of Spiel and gamers who are always searching for something new.
One such game – Master Merchant, from designer Seiji Kanai through his own Kanai Factory – fits the *-building game genre featured in many other titles offered from Japon Brand in 2011, but in this case Master Merchant is a hand-building game, with no deck. On a turn, a player plays 0-2 cards from his hand, laying them face-up and visible on the table as he does so. If he acquired new cards, those also go face-up on the table. If at the start of a turn, a player has no cards in hand, he picks up all of his cards, thereby giving him access to everything – but only up to the limit of playing two cards per turn.
As you might expect from a *-building game, however, certain cards let you break the rules in various ways, including being able to play more than two cards in a turn. What are you trying to do with all that activity? Your goal is to have eight or more coins in your bank or eight or more different types of cards in your deck; in either case, doing so wins you the game instantly.
Each player starts the game with the same two cards in hand, and a card can be played face down for a coin, with your cash stash being tracked turn by turn, or played face up for its effect. The two starter cards let you (1) buy a card (paying the cost from your stash) or (2) take one coin from each player who has at least four.
Ten different face-up card piles – costing 1-4 coins and having four copies of the 1-cost card, three of the 2-cost, and so on – are available for purchase, none of which duplicate the starting cards, which means that you have only one way to buy cards outright, which means that you need to cycle through your deck quickly in order to play that card. That said, other cards naturally give you different ways to acquire cards. Playing one of the 1-cost cards lets you acquire any 1-cost card for free; another card lets you buy a face-up card from an opponent by paying her the cost of that card from your stash.
And that last qualification – buy a face-up card – is important for game play. A number of the cards let you mess with the contents of an opponent's deck, but you can't touch a player's starting cards, cards in hand or cards played face-down for coins. Thus, by playing cards face-down, you can protect them from being bought out from under you or forcibly returned to the face-up piles (for compensation, yes, but still) – but getting one coin for a card play isn't a great option given what the cards themselves can do. So decisions, decisions.
Given the size of Dominion, Ascension, Thunderstone and other deck-building games, which started large and are growing ever larger, it's fascinating to see what's possible within the forty cards of Master Merchant, which takes *-building in a different direction.
Wed Oct 19, 2011 10:27 am
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Some days ago, I was lucky enough to be contacted by "Cielo d'Oro", an Italian design group, asking me to playtest the new game they are going to propose to publishers at Spiel 2011. I was so impressed by this new game that I asked whether they had already designed something and discovered that they are the design team behind Aquileia, the winner of the 2010 Premio Archimede, that being Italy's greatest award for unpublished games and new designers. Here's the summary of that game from the Studiogiochi website:
Quote: If you think that modern life is complicated, try to find your way between the market, the arena, the stadium, the theatre and the forum of ancient Aquileia.
I was also surprised to find almost nothing about this game online – despite it being a Spiel 2011 release from Zoch Verlag – so I decided to send a few questions to Cielo d'Oro's Giorgio Villa and write this preview. Let's start with a slightly longer summary of game play and the game's setting:
Quote: Each player, representing a wealthy Aquileian patrician, owns a certain number of henchmen (pawns) whom he uses for the main activities: playing, gaining culture, trading, and building. Each activity can bring expenses, earnings and sometimes victory points. The game lasts six rounds, and the player with the most victory points wins.
Aquileia, the second most important city of the Roman Empire, had been originally founded as an outpost against the Barbarian invaders. From its military origin comes the peculiar quadrilateral structure divided by the main streets.
Later, the city developed to become an important political and cultural center and a prosperous trading city, especially for precious goods, thanks to its convenient and efficient river port. Important monuments such as the Gladiator Arena, the horse-racing Stadium, and the famous theater were built, as well as craftsmen's workshops and patrician villas, which completed the architectural network of the city.
Andrea Ligabue: Aquileia, your first design, was the winner of the last edition of Premio Archimede. Can you tell us the story of Aquileia?
Giorgio Villa: Aquileia is not our first design. We have been inventing games since ten years ago, and sometimes we had already come close to publication. We had visited the Nürnberg fair and the Essen fair a few times, bringing our ideas, learning from our contacts with the publishers (we got to know most of them) and playing the most acclaimed games.
We had already participated twice in the Premio Archimede, always qualifying as finalist. In 2008 we got tenth place with Expo; in 2006 we got fourth and 14th with Tiago and Calderone.
Other games were tested and unfortunately not accepted by the biggest German publishers.
Aquileia is somehow the "summa" of all our experiences. The setting was chosen after a visit to the archeological site of Aquileia, that inspired the creative minds in our group.
Aquileia prototype
Liga: "Cielo d'Oro" is a collective name. Who are the designers behind this name?
Giorgio: We are all friends since fifty years ago when we were classmates in the elementary school of our town, Saronno.
• Pier Volonté: the promoter and designer. He is the "Yin". He has the idea.
• Giorgio Villa: the public relations man. He has the words.
• Chicco & Gigi Tramezzani: "the sponsors". Providing commitment and support, but no cash!
• Stefano Fontana: the artist and designer. He is the "Yang". He gives a shape to "the idea".
• Mario Biscella: the old, wise guy. He cools down the "Yin" and the "Yang".
• Ercole Telazzi: the workshop apprentice.
• Renato Borgatti: the professional tester
The story begins ten years ago with a little child who did not sleep and her dad (Pier) who designed his first game to keep her awake. The experiment worked, so Pier created another game and then another, and another, and another! He needed some friends to test his creations and there we were.
The story continues with hundreds of nights spent playing and arguing (as only friends can afford to do) and with the shared commitment of publishing games, sooner or later!
By the way: "Cielo d'Oro" was the name of a weird stage character played by Pier thirty years ago. What does it mean? Who knows? The crazy comedy was entirely written, produced, acted and directed by all of us – but that is another story.
Liga: Can you tell something about the game? Is it a gamer's game or a family game?
Giorgio: It's a gamers game, but in our opinion it's also a game that can be easily enjoyed by "non-gamers". There is a lot of interaction, fun and strategy at the same time.
We think that one of the main features of this game is that it's made of many games in the same game. The "strategic" gamer can build his strategy balancing his strength and his participation in the different areas of the game, while the "amateur" player can enjoy the fun of the competition. The presence of dice in certain areas allows the non-gamers to compete with the most "professional" players with a chance to win.
Actually one of the nicest sides of the game is that you have the chance to win until the end; you are never cut out of the competition to win.
Liga: Which games have inspired you in the design of Aquileia?
Giorgio: As we said before, Aquileia is somehow the "summa" of all our experiences. There are ideas inspired from many games, and it would be hard to name any of them. In the end, we prefer to think that this game is an original, very original compilation of the best ideas and mechanisms in the game market.
Liga: Is there something special in Aquileia that you want to tell us about?
Giorgio: I think that what makes Aquileia special is already written in the above paragraph. While being an outsider in the game market, we honestly think we have created a very playable and amusing game which hopefully will open more doors for us in the game inventor environment!
Game board
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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I was curious to learn more about Upon a Salty Ocean – being released by Italian publisher Giochix.it at Spiel 2011 – because I know the designer, Marco Pranzo.
At the first PLAY: The Games Festival in Modena, Italy in 2010, he won a contest by designing a special game with Moonghs, the characters from Martin Wallace's Moongha Inavders that are also the mascots of PLAY. The game was simple as it was constrained by the promo cards available at the event, but Marco's skills were already evident. So I did the reasonable thing and asked him for more details.
Marco sent me images of the early stages of the game board and they show the evolution of the game up to when Giochix.it started work on it.
Liga: Please, Marco, tell us how you got the idea for this game and what is new in it?
Marco Pranzo: I got the idea for this game reading the book Fish on Friday by Brian Fagan. In the book the author explains the importance of fish and salt in the history of Europe. Due to religious norms there were several days in the year when it was forbidden to eat meat. Therefore there was a demand for fish and the main way to store it for long periods of time was to have it salted. At the time ships left the harbors loaded with salt in order to be able to process fish directly on board.
Prototype game boards, versions 1 and 2
What I found interesting is that incidentally the high demand of fish pushed for an improvement of naval technology and the development of new ships such as caravels and carracks, and in the end this made possible the discoveries of the Americas by Columbus and the Great Banks of Newfoundland by Cabot.
The game is a classical German-style resource management game with a tight integration between mechanisms and theme. Actions require money and the cost is incremental because it grows every time that action is performed.
Prototype game board, version 6
Liga: Can you explain in more detail how the game works?
MP: The players are rich merchants in Rouen. At the time Rouen was the main French harbor, and one of the main activities was to fish in the ocean. The players have to accumulate money as after the fifth turn, the King of France, Francis I, arrives in the city and the richest merchant will be declared the winner.
However, the coins are also used to take actions, so the players have to find a trade-off between accumulating money and spending money for doing actions. There are four types of actions:
1. Navigation: A player can either move ships from Rouen to the sea and fish for cod or herring, or move a ship back to Rouen.
2. Harbor: A player can either build a ship or load them with salt.
3. Market: A player can either sell their fish and salt to the market, or to buy them from the market and store them for later.
4. City: A player can either build a building in the city – with buildings providing bonuses, special abilities and additional points at the end of the game – or build a salt mine.
The cost of the actions increases each time during a round that any player uses that type of action. What's more, the price of the goods is influenced by other market actions and by events. Hence it is important to sell at the right moment.
Liga: It looks a gamer's game – is it?
MP: Upon a Salty Ocean is mainly a game for gamers, but it is not too complex.
Nearly final game board
For more details, read the longer game description on the game's BGG page or download the rules, which are available in various languages on the Giochix.it website.
Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:00 pm
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A.J. Porfirio
United States
Thompsons Station
Tennessee
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It was Christmas, and I'd been waiting for so long. I had VERY strong reason to believe it was under the tree. Finally, I would get that awesome looking (name redacted) zombie board game!
Sure enough, I opened the present from my wife to find the big, beautiful zombie game I had longed for for some time. I opened it and read the rules. I punched out the chits and opened the cards. I familiarized myself with the game thinking that my non-gamer wife and her family who was visiting for the holidays would be willing to play a game or two. At worst, my brother-in-law would play.... Wrong! The holidays passed and despite my urgings and pleading no one would sit down and play. 
I joined a local game group – Mombasa South, what's up! – and eventually got to play. I love zombies, and I love the game, but I never forgot how disappointed I was that I had to wait so long and if I could have just played solo, too, it would have quenched that thirst I had.
Thus the concept for If I'm Going Down... was born! I would venture to design a compelling solo game in which a player could sit down and kill some freaking zombies all on his own! I'm sure other solo zombie games are out there, but I couldn't find any that met my satisfaction. (That said, If I'm Going Down... is not only for solo play and can be played with others.)
Killing Zombies Is Nothing New...
Okay, I can see the "eye rolls" and hear the collective moans of some of you – you'd make good zombies, by the way – as you think, "Another zombie game?" Well, simply put, YEAH!
But I hear you, and I knew from the beginning that I would have to do something unique to make the game compelling and different from everything else that is out there. I began to think about what I could change in the formula of "zombie survival"; what would make it unique?
And it hit me – get rid of the survival part! What if there were a zombie game in which you weren't going to survive? In which you knew with certainty that you were going to die? That was interesting...to me at least. So I floated the idea out there and the response of other folks was the same: They were intrigued...
The object of the game would be to kill as many zombies as possible before ultimately meeting your fate. Hence the title, which comes from the phrase, "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!"
So I coined and trademarked the phrase Dying Card Game (or DCG) and defined a DCG as a game in which it is certain your character WILL die during the game. Now you guys are astute, and everyone knows about Fantasy Flight Games' Living Card Game system, but this is not that – well, not totally. Is it an intentional spoof of sorts? Well, yeah, I'd be lying if I said it weren't, but the only real similarity is that a DCG is not a trading card game and you know which cards you are going to get as they are the same in each set. Also, If I'm Going Down... is not a deck-building game, in case you were wondering that as well.
The Design
Okay, let's look at the actual design...
I wanted – and needed really, given the DCG concept – to put the characters in a hopeless situation, one in which they could survive for a bit but would eventually be overrun by the living dead. The game would play like a tower defense game with the character card being stationary and the zombie horde moving closer and closer each turn. I decided I didn't necessarily want the board to be the same each time and that I did not want to use miniatures for a couple of reasons:
1. Miniatures are costly and I am small time.
2. I wanted the zombies to be very detailed and have personality and character that I felt could be accomplished only through illustrations.
I decided on cards. The drawback would mostly be the table space required, but I was assured by colleagues that most people would not mind.
Thus, "The Shack" was born! The character(s), exhausted from fleeing, head to an old shack. The horde surrounds the shack and begins to break in...and the fight is on.
As you can see from the play area, the zombies enter from three points – window, door, window – and each turn they move toward the character(s). You must use weapons and resources to kill them, but eventually, if you are lucky to survive that long, the resources will run out.
I decided upon dice for combat. Essentially you would roll for each attack and you needed to get higher than the zombie's Z-number plus the range (number of card spaces away) to kill a zombie. The Z-number would always be 1 or 2 because to me you either get a head shot or you don't. Zombies don't really have hit points.
Well, a couple of things did not work. Dice combat, as you've probably already guessed, was tedious and prolonged the game. Plus, testing revealed that it was almost never correct to attack a zombie unless it was in the "Danger Zone" right next to you (range 1). Secondly, as much as my little theory on hit points (or lack of) seemed like a good idea, it was too boring and despite some having abilities, zombies were too similar, especially in their difficulty to kill. I did keep the Z-number plus range – even though it may seem strange to some that the range is part of the equation – but I wanted an accuracy component as part of the challenge, and the closer something is, the easier it is to hit a critical area and do more damage.
So if no dice, then what? I had a bad week of designer's block and couldn't figure this one out, yet there was a simple but brilliant solution that a good friend suggested to me: Use cards!
The challenge was that I didn't just want a bunch of cards that you drew specifically to see whether you hit or missed as that seemed like a waste of cards. What I ended up with I am very happy with; I decided to use the same cards that are used for resources to determine whether you hit or missed!
•••
Let's go on a bit of a tangent to discuss resources. Originally, what is now the Fate Deck was called the Resource Deck. It's one function was to determine whether you found a resource when searching. Mixed in with the various resources – which include Ranged Weapons, Melee Weapons, Items, and Other – there are "No Luck" cards.
• "No Luck" cards represent your search yielding no results as I did not want searches to automatically be successful.
• Item and "Other" resource cards are mostly self explanatory from the card text. Some provide bonus points for completing an action, and some have other functions.
• Weapon Cards have several icons that contain important information for attacking. Each weapon shows either one or two hand icons to indicate how many hands are needed to "use" the weapon. (Two-handed weapons also have a horizontal card orientation to quickly identify them as such.)
From left to right there is a "Uses" icon represented by chalkboard scratch marks, an "Attacks Per Use" (APU) icon represented by a number over a bloody slash, and a "Power" icon represented by a number over cross hairs.
• If I'm Going Down... uses a unique inventory tracking system in which resource uses are tracked by placing the resource on a tracker aligned with the starting number of "Uses". Each time the resource is used, the player moves it on the tracker until eventually the resource is gone. Some weapons, such as bats and swords, have an infinite number of uses, but most of those can break or be dropped due to a card effect.
• "APU" is the number of attacks you get with a weapon each time you use it. Think of the value as the number of shots you can fire or the number of times you can swing. In most cases, you have the option to change your target with each attack.
• "Power" is the amount of damage you do to a zombie when an attack hits.
•••
That ends the tangent as you can see how the Resource Deck (aptly renamed the Fate Deck) works and a bit about the cards themselves. So how could I use those cards to also determine the outcome of attacks?
Well, it was simple really. You would draw a card from the Fate Deck and if it were anything but a "No Luck" card, the attack succeeded and the weapon's power could be applied to the zombie as damage!
A great effect of the Fate Deck is that as the game goes on and resources are acquired and used, the mix of "No Luck" cards in the deck becomes greater and greater. Thus, the more items you have found, the less chance you have of both finding one in the future and hitting your target during an attack. For me, this simulates perfectly the fact that resources are finite and the longer you battle the zombies, the more that things such as fatigue and battle stress become a factor that affect your ability to attack effectively.
WOW! This is getting long, and I am probably going into a lot more detail than necessary. Hopefully I haven't lost you. Let's keep the rest more succinct. I could go on for pages, but I will just touch on some of the elements that might be interesting to you from a design perspective:
1. The Moan ability. One of the zombie abilities is Moan. We all know zombies moan and usually it isn't given a second thought. Some zombie stories speculate that zombies communicate through their moans, so originally if a zombie with Moan came into play, it would attract another zombie that you would have to put into play as well. This was at the beginning of the game's design when you rolled to see how many zombies entered play. I ended up getting rid of the roll-to-enter mechanism so that version of Moan went with it.
Well, now what? What if I took it in a slightly different direction? I thought about it and if you were living in the zombie apocalypse, wouldn't the moans drive you effing crazy? My answer was yes, so I made Moan an ability that has a direct impact on the endgame. You essentially lose a point when you die for every zombie in play that has the Moan ability. The mental anguish finally takes its toll! In the end, this adds a bit of strategy for which zombies you should kill as Moan zombies can be a two point swing to your score. Instead of yelling, use a gun to tell the zombies to STFU!
2. Scenario stories. I always wanted the game to have a dark but captivating story to be told through the eyes of the characters AND zombies. Plus, as much fun as zombie killing is, I realized that non-zombie-loving-freaks may tire of the "kill 'em all" mode quickly. The stories add a lot of flavor to the game and also give more of a sense of accomplishment (or failure) depending on how well you do. The game's Kickstarter page – more on that below – has a link to a sample scenario story.
3. The turning process. Originally, I used health trackers that were the same as the inventory trackers to track the turning process. Basically, after you were bitten, you had five turns before you became a zombie, too.
Well, there were some issues. The playtesters complained about having to track so many things and the card space required for the character card and the tracker was an issue. From a strategic point of view, I did like how it allowed you to know somewhat when the end was coming (to plan for moan kills and such), but I didn't like that everyone turned at the same rate. After all, some victims turn nearly instantly, and some can withstand the effects of bite for longer.
So again I decided to multipurpose the cards. Now some of the Occurrence Cards – cards with random events on them that get drawn from the zombie deck randomly – have a radioactive icon on them. If such an Occurence enters play, you must resolve the Occurrence AND if any character was bitten previously he immediately becomes a zombie! This makes for great tension in the multiplayer co-op mode because you CAN attack a bitten player before they turn, or you can press your luck hoping they can manage a few more kills before becoming a zombie.
That should give you an idea of some design elements in the game and my thought process when it comes to problem solving.
Art and the Need to Pay Homage
Let me say that I am amazingly fortunate to have the talented Aaron Wong working on the zombie and character art for this game. What great work he does!
I wanted a serious style of art for the zombies and not cartoony. I came across Aaron's work and knew I had to have him. We worked out a deal, and I could not be happier to have him as the exclusive artist for the game. He can take a few words from me and make them worth a thousand! (See what I did there?)
Another goal of mine was to pay homage to some of the GREAT zombie works that have defined the genre, such as Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, The Walking Dead, and so on. The game is filled with these things through both the art design and flavor text. I know the diehards will truly appreciate it. Some are very obvious, and some are more subtle. Here are a few examples to show what I mean, and I'll leave it to you to discover the rest:
• Lizzy - She is an homage to the little girl in Night of the Living Dead, both artistically and mechanically. The "Loved One" ability leaves you unable to attack her until you have held her back or she has bitten you. In other words, you have to let her get a lot closer than you'd like. (My favorite zombie BTW, and one of the most dangerous.)
• Otis Zombie cut off arm - This one goes out to The Walking Dead and the Rick character. You might think it should be on a character instead, but I don't want all the homages to be obvious. I want you to have to think about some, while discovering and exploring the game thematically and artistically. I'd love for you to discover something new the twentieth time you play.
• Iconic Items - You just might find an umbrella (Resident Evil), a propane tank (Dawn of the Dead), and much more in your search for useful resources.
There is a lot more, but that gives you an idea of how I accomplished my goal of paying respect to the GREATS. Now that I think about it, it is sort of a game within the game to discover and match these up!
The Decision to Kickstart
Early on in the process, I decided to go through Kickstarter to try to fund the project. Having graduated with a business degree, I am confident enough in my abilities to give self-publishing a go. I did not have much desire to go through the submission process to publishers and potentially wait and wait and wait only to see nothing get done. I am a go-getter. I would rather get out there and make things happen than rest the fate of my project in the hands of another. Don't misunderstand – I am not knocking the big publishers or the designers who choose to go that route. I am just communicating my personal preference. In fact, I think for most designers traditional publishing is preferable.
Let me tell you right now that I have spent about as much time researching Kickstarter – the process, what it takes to be successful, the characteristics of successful projects and also the unsuccessful ones – as I have on the game. That is an exaggeration, but it sure seems like it sometimes.
I have marketed from the day I knew I would use Kickstarter. I have supported other projects – and more importantly the people behind them – in any way I can. I can say without question that these activities will help my campaign and whether If I'm Going Down... is funded or not I will never regret it. The ability to help others reach their dreams is priceless.
Anyone can throw a project up on Kickstarter, but the great ones understand the value of the experience! This was an absolute goal of mine from the beginning. I don't want you to just pledge. I want you to pledge and join the conversation! Join the evolution of If I'm Going Down... and forever say you were a part of it from the beginning! Backers will have voting power and will collectively create their own promo cards and custom scenario! Give me ideas! Interact with me and the other backers! Isn't Kickstarter proof that we can accomplish SO MUCH MORE together than we can on our own?
With that I leave you with a link. Yep, it goes to the If I'm Going Down... Kickstarter page. Come join the fun!
A. J. Porfirio
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Dungeon crawl games – that is, games in which players fight monsters and collect treasure in an underground lair – have taken many forms over the years, and in keeping with the spirit of its previously released light party games Horse Fever and Monkey See Monkey Do, Italian publisher Cranio Creations is putting its own spin on the genre with Dungeon Fighter.
Dungeon Fighter can best be described as a dexterity-based dungeon crawl game, and while the 2010 release Catacombs could also fit that description, Catacombs used an as-serious-as-you-want-it-to-be approach by using wooden disks that players had to flick during play. Sure, flicking a wood disk is not inherently serious, but you can still imagine yourself drawing back an arrow and looking down the shaft at a target be you launch the disk.
Not so in Dungeon Fighter, which leans toward the silly end of the dexterity scale.
But first, let's get an overview of the game. In Dungeon Fighter, you play a hero who will explore a dungeon with the other members of his party, facing off against the monster hordes infesting the various rooms. The dungeon is randomly created by combining two adventure maps with one boss map, with each map showing various corridors and rooms. Only through steady applications of skill and courage will a party be able to face off against the final dungeon boss – not to mention have a chance to defeat it.
An additional difficulty is that the team must agree how to move the party each turn, or else the leader will decide on his own and drag everyone else with him.
In each room, players will face a monster and to fight off this beast players must throw one or more dice onto the monster's card. Yes, when you're trying to hit a monster in this dungeon, you're really trying to hit it!
How are the monsters represented? Similar to a game of darts, each monster card has five concentric zones with increasing numbers from the edge to the center (1-5), with the number equalling the amount of damage that the player will inflict on a monster while fighting. The cards also include four "Missed Shot" zones (which always count as a miss), four "Critical Hit" zones that cause six points of damage when struck, and (of course) the center of the target, which inflicts ten points of damage when hit.
Heroes try to defeat a monster using the dice available to them at that time. The party starts with three basic dice, and throughout the adventure players can earn more dice that offer additional skills. Some faces on the dice display special icons that can activate special powers on a Hero's information sheet.
As you might expect from a dungeon crawler, all the familiar material is present: equipment, the aforementioned special powers, big bosses who await at the end of the dungeon.
A hero can be knocked out at most three times, with each time spent unconscious causing a scar – with the "scar" after the third knockout being removal from play. Maybe next time, Hero!
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