Archive for Robert Seater
-
Robert Seater
United States
Ashland
Massachusetts
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
Feed me...games...
-
I’ve been trying to combine the various suggestions on this threat to create multiplayer DS rules. The hardest part is to get the game mechanics and difficulty to scale up smoothly as more players are added, without adding too many fiddly mechanics. E.g. I don’t want to have to change the deck composition based on the number of player, but I don’t mind small variations in setup. I’m also torn about player elimination – I really want players to worry about getting eliminated, but I don’t want people to have to sit out for a long period because of some early bad luck (especially if the game is going to last 30-45 minutes, and the early fights are going to be legitimately challenging!).
Below is my current mostly-cooperative rule suggestion:
(1) Rotate who is leader each turn, passing that role to the left. The leader decide to fight or flee (when facing a high level monster).
(2) When a monster attacks (when its initiative comes due), it rolls a separate attack against each player. If a player has several heroes, the attack goes against the lowest DEF hero, with that player breaking ties (as in the solo game). If a player has been eliminated, the extra attack is skipped -- there is always exactly 1 monster attack per player left in the game.
(3) Monsters are also harder to kill. For each player number, there is a card you use to augment all monsters. E.g. there is one for 2 player games, one for 3 player games, and so on. We can probably support as many as 8-10 players. The card is two sided -- a red side shows mostly bonus hearts (LP) and some bonus shields (DEF); a blue side shows mostly bonus shields and some bonus hearts. Each monster is either flagged as red or blue, and the corresponding side of the boost card is used. This reduces the extent to which all monsters look the same in a 8 player game.
(4) Each player receives the full gold reward of the defeated monster, but players may not share gold and equipment (except at the Trader location). If there are items as rewards, the killing blow player gets the items, and everyone else gets a gold substitute (50/100/150 for level I/II/III items).
(5) There is a partial form of player elimination. A player who loses his last hero is temporarily eliminated from the game, and he gives all of his items and gold to a single surviving player. At a tavern, you can buy a new hero for an eliminated player for only 200 (bringing them back into the game), instead of 300 to buy an extra hero for yourself. When you bring a player back into the game, they always start with their original starting character, so there is some continuity to their play experience.
(6) If the team defeats Grimlock, all surviving players win (and all dead players lose). If all players are out of the game at any one time, everyone loses.
-
Robert Seater
United States
Ashland
Massachusetts
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
Feed me...games...
-
I just posted a file containing an XLS spreadsheet with a complete revision of the decks. It also lists the rule changes I have been using (on the final sheet of the file). It should get through admin modding soon. A few notes (in no particular order):
- Currently, the game last 4 years, before you are forced into the showdown battle. It makes the game last a little longer, but is seems about fair (and gives you more time with the higher level monsters). The lower cash influx makes the late game quite tense, so I decided not to rush it. That was a recent change, so I'm not quite sure it's right -- it might make the game too easy for some characters or if you get a good start. But so far, I still lose most of the time, so things are looking good.
- I've been playing games in about 30-45 minutes. I lose a lot, but I usually feel like I could have won if things had gone a little better or if I'd made better choices. The end of each year tends to be a bit easy, but then the new year brings new forced battles that are trouble.
- Much testing is needed, especially on the relative value of the different heroes. It's hard to get a lot of data on those, and some heroes are better late game, but have a rough time getting started. Their powers are also weird enough that it's hard to assess them in the abstract.
- In the published game, I think 7 of the 14 heroes will be flagged with an icon meaning "not a good idea to use as your starting hero if you are new to the game". The ones I have flagged right now are
(a) all the ones with an attack of -4,
(b) the assassin, and
(c)the shapeshifter.
Those guys are trickier to play in the early game, and can be a bit tedious and random if you don't equip them properly. As such, they aren't a good play experience for new player but they're good for some variety.
- I'm also curious about win percentages, what monster tends to do player in (when they lose), and how players tend to win (when they do)?
(a) the player kills grimlock before year 4
(b) the player kills grimlock in year 4
(c) the player kills grimlock alone in the showdown
(d) the player kills grimlock with some buddies in the final showdown
- I recast all events (except the Curse) as locations and/or terrains, to simplify things. I was worried at first, but I find that I don't miss them -- and there's no memory at all. Curse might be better named as "winter" or "snowfall" to go with the 'time passing' theme.
- I also added some more ways to get treasures (including buying them from the Hermit). I raised the number of distinct treasures at each level to 8, and I made the cursed items a mix of good and bad effects -- they often mess you up, but they don't completely hose you. I also added a super-treasure, the "weapon of legend" which can be bought for 500 from the witch. The intent was for it to offer a way to win the game with just 1 or 2 heroes, rather than the 3-4 that I normally see. It also shouldn't come out every game, so it's exciting when it does.
- I trimmed down the number of terrains (to 6). This way, the terrain stick around for longer each, and it feels like you're slogging through the landscape.
- On my prototype, I've been using a graphic layout where there is an icon for each LP and an icon for each DEF, which I cover up as damage is dealt and wounds received. That reduces the math that I have to do, which I find helps further de-fiddle the game.
- This is still just a revision of the solo rules. Now that the basic game is harder, I feel like I'm ready to catch up on the multi-play discussions that have been going on.
-
Robert Seater
United States
Ashland
Massachusetts
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
Feed me...games...
-
I played around with the deck today to see if I could accomplish the "three decks" approach with just 1 deck. I also wanted to reduce the cash flow from defeating monsters, and tweak some other cards.
Rules:
Each monster has a level. You may choose to avoid monsters with level higher than the current year. You must fight monsters with level equal to the current year.
Whenever you draw a location, you may visit it. Then keep drawing cards until you hit a monster. All events & terrain keep accumulating until you hit a monster. They reset even if you choose to evade the monster.
Each terrain has 3 lines of text, for the 3 years. When exposed, use the row corresponding to the current year. I've currently given each terrain 3 names, but I think that's annoying and it should probably go back to 1 name for the entire card (with 3 varying effects). But the different names does add some theme.
Omit the Witch's Deck. Include all of Andreas's new heroes.
Players start with $50 and 1 hero, chosen from 3 randomly displayed heroes. I just did this solo, so this is orthogonal to the question of how to handle multi-play.
You win the game by defeating Grimlock or by defeating every monster but Grimlock. At the end of year 3, every surviving monster (including Grimlock) attacks you at once, and you must kill them all to win.
Adventure Deck: Spells
Blind: Prevent 1 monster attack before it is rolled
Transmute: sell 1 item, then buy 1 item (from blacksmith or alchemist)
Form Fate: View and rearrange the top 7 cards from the deck
Teleport: You may retreat from any battle after seeing an attack roll but before applying the damage from it.
Weaken: Give a monster -2 DEF for the entire battle
Shatter: Destroy 1 item or force a player to lose $100.
Strengthen: Add +3 to an attack roll before rolling.
Adventure Deck: Events
Curse: Until the next monster is revealed, discard all spells drawn and purge all terrains and events drawn. Purged cards are kept with used spells.
Treasure Find: Gain a level X treasure, where X is the current year.
Blood Star: All heroes and monsters have ATK +2.
Bad Omen: The next monster has -1 to its level.
Windfall: Double the reward of the next monster.
Highway Robbers: Randomly choose one of your items. Discard it or pay its cost.
Alms: The player with the most money pays 50xYear to the player with the least money. If there is a tie, the leader breaks the tie.
Fog: All heroes and monster have DEF +2.
Festival: If all players agree to pay 50, then heal all heroes.
Adventure Deck: Locations
2x Blacksmith: buy any amount of equipment (same prices as before)
2x Tavern: Each hero may pay 50 to heal completely. You may pay 300 to view 3 random heroes and add 1 to your band.
2x Alchemist: buy any number of potions. See new list given below.
1x Witch: either pick 1 purged card at random or pay 50 to choose any 1 purged card. Put that card on top of the adventure deck.
1x Traders: sell any number of items for their face value
Adventure Deck: Terrain (each group of 3 is one card)
1) Meadow: nil
2) Forest: nil
3) Jungle: nil
1) Valley: monsters ATK +1
2) Mountain: monsters ATK +2
3) Cliff: monsters ATK +3
1) Pasture: nil
2) Thicket: nil
3) Swamp: monsters +1 LP
1) Slums: heroes cannot us potions
2) Sewers: heroes cannot use potions or spells
3) Ruins: heroes cannot use potions or spells or innate skills
1) Road: Heroes +1 INT
2) Bridge: Heroes +2 INT
3) Tunnel: Heroes +4 INT
1) Hills: Monsters +1 INT
2) Mine: Monsters +2 INT
3) Cave: Monsters +4 INT
1) Coast: monster level -1, monster reward + treasure level I
2) Peninsula: monster level -1, monster reward + treasure level II
3) Island: monster level -1, monster reward + treasure level III
Alchemist Deck: new potions
100 --> potion of healing. Discard at any time to heal 1 wound.
200 --> potion of wind. Discard at any time to immediately let one hero attack an extra time.
50 --> potion of invisibility: Discard to reroll any 1 die.
-
Robert Seater
United States
Ashland
Massachusetts
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
Feed me...games...
-
I just did another solo crawl, and this one was way too easy. I won during the 2nd year, with a band of 4 heroes, only a little equipment, and a heap of unspent cash. I started with the Dwarf with an Axe bonus. Mr Choppy chopped up a lot of cridders.
The early game was great -- I had some close fights with some low level monsters, but as soon as I had some cash I bought equipment, then in rapid succession defeated monsters to buy additional heroes. Basically, the cash reward from monsters was too high compared to the cost of equipment, so even a few low level monsters let me full equip myself. I'm not sure I'd ever buy a sword or chainmail, since I'm never short on cash.
I eventually got some pretty ridiculous treasure bonuses, but I don't think they were the issue, since they came after I had a pretty solid band and was taking out monsters left and right. A +2 bonus to all my stats just ensured that Grimlock went down in 2 rounds, but didn't really change the ultimate outcome.
I don't think I rolled particularly well, nor the monsters particularly badly. It just seemed like using early cash to buy an axe (which is doubled for Mr. Choppy) and then spending cash on new heroes was a really efficient bootstrapping approach. Maybe the heroes are actually too high powered, and the Ulg-Saint-Dwarf trio should be brought down to the level of the weaker Magnifex-Balmir-Drunkard heroes. That might explain why I had such a sudden boost in power level when I bought extra heroes.
Revisions to Try
I'm going to try a revision of the monsters to drop their gold rewards and/or convert them to treasure rewards. I think that will make the mid-game more tense and deadly, and the lower end equipment more viable.
Doing so might require lowering the price of the potions, since they are one-time effects that compete with the ongoing bonuses of the equipment. However, I did find that the small potions were a good buy even at $100 -- I hated buying them, but they made my nearly invincible once I had high defense. (I assumed they could be used during combat). With lower cash from monsters, though, they probably need to come down in price.
It's fun to get more heroes, but really really strong. The lower cash should help, but I still think the price of hiring a hero at the tavern might need to go up. Testing needed.
I also want to cap the game at 3 years -- at the end of the 3rd year all monsters immediately attack you as a mob (with no event bonuses). I think that you should usually be able to win the game before then, but if you don't then it's a fun way to lose.
Revisions I was Trying (and liked)
All the changes I was trying should have made the game harder, unless I'm missing something subtle. So, I don't think they were the cause of the low-tension game, but I did think they worked out pretty well:
I was playing that you had to fight, but could flee for free -- which was slightly harder than the printed rules, since high initiative monsters got a free swipe at me as I ran by them. I liked that, since it made initiative a more valuable stat, and put it on par with the other stats.
I also left out the witch's hut entirely. It's just one card that usually just gets you a spell that already exists in the deck. I found that I didn't miss it at all, and it cut an entire deck of cards from the game. I might put it back in as "Take a random card from the pile of used spells, or pay 100 to take a discarded spell of your choice" to reproduce it's former effect without a special deck.
I only included 2 copies of each equipment card, but they never ran out even with my ample band. I also cut the Treasure Guardian (since it seems pretty boring), and the Elixirs of Invisibility (Because I couldn't remember what the correct text was, and my copy has a misprint). The elixirs can go back in.
-
Robert Seater
United States
Ashland
Massachusetts
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
Feed me...games...
-
Andreas recently submitted Dragonslayers to Cambridge Games Factory. I do CGF development, and I enjoyed the game as a core dungeon crawl system. I've been talking to Adreas about how to improve the game, mostly by making it support multiple players in a more interactive (semi-cooperative) fashion, in order to add another layer of player interaction and decisions on top of the core game system. Here is the initial feedback that I sent him, including some (perhaps crazy) suggestions to stir up ideas.
Note: In this review I had one rule wrong: I was shuffling the end-of-year card into the deck, rather than placing at the bottom. As a result, I had a more random end-game and some of the feedback doesn't apply. But for the sake of good scholarship, I've pasted the entire feedback here unaltered.
|
|
Director of Game Development at Cambridge Games Factory
