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Anthony Boydell
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
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This sunny spell continues and it would've been churlish, nay LAZY, to have missed the chance to travel over to the Paull's Game Developer Day on the motorbike. My helmet has a flip-down sun-shade gizmo which means no more be-dazzlement, the top-box is big enough to accommodate a glut of prototypes and I needed petrol anyway, so this was the perfect excuse to touch my inner Easy Rider.
My prototypes: Paperclip Railways (not for playing, but for discussions about packaging etc), Mountain Railway, Ticket to Ride: Ivor the Engine and Ecology (a VERY early Boydell prototype from 'the Cheltenham Years').
I arrived in Nailsworth just after 10AM to find Sebastian Bleasedale and Brett Gilbert already in attendance (teachers' pets!); Seb was collecting 'names of games' for us all to choose from, Brett was up for some 'localized banter' and Alan did the only decent thing and brewed up a pot of strong coffee.
We were joined shortly after by Mr Richard Breese, Andrew (a new attendee, Alan met him at Essen), Jeremy (looking for some rules QA-ing of a Pirate game due for release at UK Games Expo) and the affable Mr Rob Fisher (Monkey Dash).
Andrew gave us a potted history of his 'career to date' by way of background and what a mix it was: graphic design and advertising in 'the City', moved into Theatre and then, recently, returned to Art and Design to garner some kind of peace. Through his membership of a Quaker community, Andrew came across a spiritual text, 'The O of Home' about what Home means in all sorts of context - from this book came a game, and from this game came the first play-test of the day.
1 - The Home Game
Nominally 3-6 players, this is a story-telling game with a little bit of set collection (of 5 variously-coloured tokens) and a lot of co-operative elements. Players travel (via a die role) along a lattice of spots, through the four stages of life: Childhood, Youth, Prime and Old Age. Certain spots lead to certain actions - such as swapping tokens, the taking and resolution of Event cards, the gaining of personality traits etc. The key to our enjoyment of the game was that any cards that needed resolving involved us, as a group, judging the matching gain or loss of tokens eg. the event 'Your Parents Divorce' lead us to deciding the player would lose 1 x FAMILY token but would gain 1 x COMMUNITY token (out into the big world). Another example was Charlie Paull drawing the personality card 'You Have A Loud Voice' to which we responded: 'everyone else loses 1 INNER PEACE' and so on.
Verdict: The game designer view was that the EVENTS were the focus of the game and the bit we all looked forward to. 'Lose the die and tie movement to the cards' was one suggestion, also 'lose the complicated lattice of movement spaces to simplify, and speed up, progression'. It had a GiftTRAP/Dixit vibe that I liked - definitely a social experience where the-more-players-the-better should be encouraged. Not for the overly-analytical or the socially-awkward!
Lunch of a meaty, cheesy, bready, pickle-y nature was followed by a rearrangement of the group. Alan Paull, Richard Breese and myself repaired to the sunny dining room for a first 'go' at ORIGINS/DAWN OF CIVILIZATION - the new 'proper' boardgame from the venerable Mr P.
2 - Origins of Civilization
As first play-tests go, it wasn't bad at all - although it was obvious that there were a lot of upkeep actions and components that involved much effort to complete but weren't really adding to the core of the game.
In summary, players are vying for control within a number of barbarian clans by recruiting soldiers, priests, bureaucrats, artisans, farmers and merchants. In a Small World-like way, the amount of pawns/rods/discs etc in a clan determine it's turn order - important for the resolution of player actions and subsequent 'attainment' of technologies.
The aim is to get victory chits by either PROPOSING the development of the clan in some way (see list of people earlier) OR by being the clan leader WHEN that development happens OR, of course, BOTH! Technologies are 'claimed' by the presence of people types on one or all boards and/or by the attainment of previous technologies eg. if I have 2 trade routes AND Taxes has already be completed, I can gain '<insert name of achievement here>'.
There is A LOT of promise here...but on longer meditation, I don't feel it's as deep / thinky as Confucius (which should be Mr P's natural home) - at least not in its current form (Mr Breese likened it to Alan's Tara, Seat of Kings in 'feel').
The joy, of course, is that I feel we're on the yellow brick road with this one - looking at an fascinating 18 months of development ahead! I will be nagging him to bring a copy to Uk Games Expo if anyone would like to contact us (feedback@surprisedstaregames.co.uk) and participate in another play-test?
Following several desperate phone calls about 'it all going pear-shaped here', I returned to the family pile circa 5PM to relieve some of the parental stresses and the beautiful, bright day ended quietly.
You will notice, from the above, that NONE of the Boydell prototypes got a look in - this isn't a major worry, as I was being somewhat opportunistic anyway! My only regret is that I failed to try another of Brett Gilbert's designs - he's a funny and inventive chap, you know: http://www.brettspiel.co.uk/
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