Archive for Sebastian Sohn
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Ian Schreiber and I are collaborating to offer a video game design class for instructors. We are going to show how to teach video game design using modern board games, like the ones on boardgamegeek.com. So it is a class for instructors who want to learn use boardgames to teach video game design. Most of the materials we use in our online class will be available for you to use in your class.
It is a small class of 20 seats--so act now! While supplies last!
Game Analysis and Design class by Ian Schreiber and Sebastian Sohn on WizIQ.
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* This course will start June 27, 2011 and will run through till September 2, 2011. 6-27-11
* Registrations close June 26, 2011
* The course consists of 20 live classes - to be delivered by WizIQ
* There will be exercises (homework) and supplementary documents in .doc or .pdf format
Executive summary for Game Analysis and Design [Teacher's Edition] class:
* For instructors who want to learn how to use tabletop games to teach video game design in their classroom
* A survey of modern tabletop games, covering RPGs, wargames, eurogames, and more
* Play numerous video game versions of tabletop games, solo and multiplayer
* Exercises and material that can be used in your classroom
* Small class to allow more one-on-one time
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Orcs Must Die!
Type: Commercial
Platform: Windows, Xbox 360
Game Developer: Robot Entertainment
Orcs Must Die is a hybrid, an active tower defense game where you setup an automated defense systems -- typical of the tower defense genre but with the twist that you are an active part of the defense. Anything that breaks through your gauntlet of traps must be shot, blasted, or cut down by you, in a first or third person perspective. Robot Entertainment describes Orcs Must Die as a third person tower defense game.
You are a War Mage, the gatekeeper of magic portals. You and your fortress is the only thing that prevents the orc conquest of all known worlds. Orcs are ramming through the gates of your fortress, stampeding toward your magic portal. It is up to you set up turrets (archers), traps, and barriers to prevent the orcs from entering the magic portal.
You have limited inventory slots that are shared between traps and personal arms. Traps are installed in the fortress, while you carry and use weapons. Traps are like ones you would find in a fantasy RPG dungeon: spiked floors, arrow shooters, blade walls, tar pools, and other devices that block, slow, or damage the invaders. Since you a have limited budget and plenty of ground to protect, you must place traps cleverly to control the flow of the orc army. Good placement of traps and barriers create choke points where you can lay traps to create synergistic combos. For instance, an arrow shooter can be placed next to a tar pool that slows down orcs, allowing the arrow shooter to get off multiple shots at the orcs. You can also guard these choke points and attack the orcs that overrun your traps. Game currency is earned by kills, and bonus currency is given for combo hits, like an orc simultaneously slowed by tar, being hit by an arrow shooter, and blasted with your fire balls. The orc army consists of several fiends that vary in hardiness, speed, and movement. Because of forked paths, and fliers, you must run around, shooting and dodging from different vantage points and altitudes.
Orcs Must Die is a great game because of two things: pacing and creative problem solving. You are given plenty time to plan and prepare your defenses. Since your slots are shared between personal defense and environmental defense, you must choose carefully. The mix and ratio of items changes how you play. For instance, I primarily chose traps like tar and barricades that are designed to slow rather than injure or kill to create choke points where I can personally engage the enemy. I saw other players that relied on more deadly traps like a giant swing mace that swats orcs like flies. If you want more action, you can focus on personal weapons or spells and engage the fiends personally rather than relying on automated traps. I like how Orcs Must Die gives the player interesting, creative choices in achieving the goals.
Second is the pacing and tempo of the game. You get one long session to set up traps and then you get three waves of orc attacks, punctuated by few seconds of rest. I like the calm of traps setting; then the adrenaline pumping action begins. It is utter chaos as you run around and shoot in all directions, looking for priority targets like fliers, bigger units like ogres and such. I get an amazing rush as I think it is hopeless and want to give up, the resting period count down begins. I made it! I am alive! I sigh in relief, calm my heart and take in a deep breath, relaxing for a few seconds to prepare for the next wave. I love the bursts of intensity Orcs Must Die provides.
The version that I played at E3 was incomplete; they may be adding few new features like co-op play. Orcs Must Die is scheduled for release on Xbox Live and for Windows this summer, and plans for the PSN is further down the road.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter on Facebook
Type: Free
Platform: Facebook
Paper Game designer: Wizard of the Coast
Softboard Game Developer: Liquid Entertainment
Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter (HON) for Facebook is an adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) 4th edition rules in the Forgotten Realms setting, centering around the Neverwinter city-state. Liquid Entertainment simplified the D&D paper RPG by limiting details and choices and hiding dice rolls. There are numerous races and classes in the D&D paper RPG but in HON, you can create one character from a permutation of four races: Human, Eldrin (elf), Dragonborne, Halfling (hobbit) and four classic classes: Rogue, Fighter, Cleric and Wizard.
Most of the action happens as dungeon crawl adventures underneath the city of Neverwinter. The dungeons are faithful to the paper RPG rules, using square grids for movement and initiative rules for combat. You can borrow instances of your Facebook friends' characters or hire ones from a recruiter to form a party up to four members. However if you want to maximize experience points, you should take fewer than four but know the monsters and exploit their weaknesses. When an another player's character is in use, a message is sent to the owner and the owner may participate by spectating and giving resources to the party. The loot system is unique in that one is presented with ten cards to draw from varying quality of treasure cards. That said, you can mitigate luck by buying luck potions which gives more card draws. Once you reach level 10, you can use a level editor to make your own dungeon and charge an entrance fee. The level editor was not available during the demo.
HON does a great job at faithfully recreating the complex D&D paper RPG experience and yet remain simple enough for most casual players to pick up and play. I look forward to making my own dungeons and exploring fan-made dungeons. HON is scheduled for release this year but neither the developer, Liquid Entertainment nor the publisher, Atari have any details online.
Orginally published at Play This Thing!.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Various San Juan Softboard Games
Type: Free
Platform: Java
Paper Game designer: Andreas Seyfarth
Softboard Game Developer: Various
Download and Play:
Jim's San Juan (Mac)
JSan Juan (Java)
Jim's San Juan
JSan Juan
San Juan lies in the shadows of big brother Puerto Rico. However when it comes to elegance and streamlining, San Juan is better. Like Puerto Rico, each building constructed earns victory points, and your goal is to have the most victory points when the twelfth building is completed. Each card is a building and has a power that gives an advantage -- for instance, saving you money when building or permitting a bigger hand limit.
What is elegant about San Juan is that the game box comes with, cards, score pad, a few tiles, and a pencil. Because of these limited contents, cards are used as proxies for many things. For instance, when your factory produces a barrel of indigo, you place a face-down card as a proxy for a barrel of goods. When you sell that indigo, you get paid in cards from the draw deck. If you wish to build a building, you also pay in cards. Lastly, the Chapel allows you store one victory point per turn. What do you suppose we could use to mark victory points? You guessed it -- face down cards are placed under the Chapel as victory point markers.
San Juan has TCG-like feel to it; the game has basic rules that are superseded by the exceptions of rules written on individual cards. Anyone who has played TCGs will be familiar with the gameplay of San Juan.
There are excellent free fanwares of San Juan. I recommend JSan Juan by André Wichmann, because it is both bug-free and multi-platform. The Mac version by Jim Getzen is slightly better because it talks and has nicer interface, but the AI player in seat #2 does not produce when you choose Producer.
Alea, the publisher, commissioned designers to follow up with a card version after their success with Puerto Rico. Andreas Seyfarth, Tom Lehmann, and Carl Chudyk each submitted their designs. Seyfarth's submission became San Juan, while Lehmann's submission was redesigned as Race for the Galaxy (Space Juan) and Chudyk's submission became Glory to Rome.
I recommend that you watch a tutorial video, use a reference, or read the rules (PDF) before playing.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Puerto Rico Evolver
Type: Free
Platform: Java
Paper Game designer: Andreas Seyfarth
Softboard Game Developer: Chris Gibbs
Play (Java) Now
I have played many fanwares like the Puerto Rico Evolver and the officially licensed version of Puerto Rico and Tropic Euro is the best digital version of Puerto Rico boardgame yet.
The user interface is clean and intuitive although the change in theme from a colonial Puerto Rican plantation to a WW2 factory is strange, especially because the workers were changed into gears, it is a great implementation. Tropic Euro is excellent for beginners because if you never played a game that has variable roles and phases, Puerto Rico can be overwhelming unless someone shows you how to play--that someone can be the Tropic Euro AI. If you are a veteran Puerto Rico player, there is something for you because, Chris Gibb implemented new buildings from the Alea Treasure Chest expansion as well as "patched" the imbalance of the Factory and University. Andreas Seyfarth, Puerto Rico boardgame designer mentioned that he wanted to reduce the cost of University by one and raise the cost of the Factory by one. This would make the University, an unpopular building, more attractive while reducing power of the slightly overpowered Factory. Furthermore, the AI is tough enough to keep you coming back for one more game. Tropic Euro is a hosted Java game that you can play online with people or with the AI. Tropic Euro requires an account but is free to register.
An offline version is available.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Puerto Rico Evolver
Type: Free
Platform: MS Excel 97 or Beyond
Paper Game designer: Andreas Seyfarth
Softboard Game Developer: Tony Mitton
Download and Play
Puerto Rico has been the number one boardgame for several years on Boardgamegeek. It lost ground to some new games for a season here and there, but has always regained the number one slot.
If there are still some of you who are cardboard challenged and have yet to play Puerto Rico, there is a digital solution.
Many game designers use Excel to create simple game prototypes for testing. Tony Mitton took digital prototyping to the next level with his Puerto Rico Evolver, Puerto Rico AI on spreadsheets. I don't really understand, but he claims the AI evolves as you play. However, what I do understand is that the AI is strong and hard to beat.
Puerto Rico Evolver will only work if you enable Excel macros -- look under Tools > Macro > Security.
Puerto Rico is a complex game, so you may want to watch this instructional video, read the rules (PDF), or at least have a building reference handy.
Originally posted at Play This Thing!.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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Type: Free
Platform: Java, browser
Paper Game designer: S. John Ross
Softboard Game Developer: Brandon Barnes
Play Now--Browser-Playable
S. John Ross wrote the Ring of Thieves gamebook to show the power, flexibility, and simplicity of the Risus: The Anything RPG system. Ring of Thieves is 27 pages and can be played in less than half an hour.
Ring of Thieves is well written; I felt more connected to the characters than I have reading other gamebooks. The author drew me in and readily imparted the urgency and importance of the quest. I felt that Lucas, the main character, had to rescue his love -- no matter what the odds were.
Ross designed the Risus RPG as a modern "light" tabletop RPG system: simple, yet robust enough to be used in any setting; easy to learn and play, yet flexible enough to deal with almost any game situation. What is most amazing is that Risus rules are about only six pages. The combat system is also innovative because when you take damage, your attacking power decreases proportionally.
The browser playable version of the Ring of Thieves was developed by Brandon Barnes.
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Sebastian Sohn
United States
culver city
CA
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If you are a fan of SoftBoard games.
Please consider contributing.
As of now this will be reposting of my earlier reviews on Play This Thing!.
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