Game: Doubloons!

Thread: Re: 7 Player Game

DuckAndCower — 2008-10-13T14:32:23+00:00

Should point out that we could kind of see the fronts of the cards through the graph paper, so something a bit heavier is probably a good idea.

Thread: Re: Question About Card Backs in PDF

Howitzer_120mm — 2008-09-27T17:14:25+00:00

No problem! Glad to help.

Thread: Re: Question About Card Backs in PDF

kswingruber — 2008-09-27T17:03:44+00:00

Howitzer_120mm wrote:
kswingruber wrote:
[c]
[/c]Dang. I should have given this thread a different title...
Just go back to your original post and click "edit". Then you can change the title.
Doh! I actually figured that out awhile later, then didn't think of going back and changing this one.
Thanks for bringing this post to my attention again!
[c]
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Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

Howitzer_120mm — 2008-09-27T16:57:33+00:00

kswingruber wrote:
[c]
[/c]Dang. I should have given this thread a different title, that "Minor Problem with Card Backs?" thing doesn't look good in the Forum listing - it really is misleading, and I hope it doesn't cause people to think there's a problem with the game, which is not what I meant at all! Maybe you can delete this thread, or rename it? Sorry about that.

Just go back to your original post and click "edit". Then you can change the title.

Thread: Re: 7 Player Game

jkenney23 — 2008-09-21T17:30:52+00:00

Sorry, I completely forgot to mention the materials.

I wasn't sure how the game would go over so I went very lo-fi: pennies and graph paper. (I was out of normal printer paper.) Since everyone enjoyed it I do intend to follow the suggestions on your site and print the cards on business cards AND play with the suggested number of players.

Thread: Re: 7 Player Game

Random_Person — 2008-09-21T16:50:13+00:00

Thanks a bunch for that report!
I never honestly tried to take it above 4 players, but I could see it being fun with a large group.

We ignored the suggested number of players (read: I'd forgotten to write that down, or I just didn't see it on the rules sheet), but decided the game ended when all the coins were taken and/or all the cards were gone. Happily, both things happened at roughly the same time.

Yeah. I apparently forgot to include number of players in the rules. That's been pointed out to me post-release, and at some point in the future I'll add it to the rules.

I like the "all coins taken" variant. I had it set at 10 coins per person in a 3 or 4 player game to eleminate the potential that one person could scoop up a couple of extra coins in the end game and have 12 or more, easily winning... but, I never playtested it otherwise, so it might be good.

In most games, the deck should run out as the coins do. I did the math that way... somewhat sloppily... so there are going to be games where there's no cards left to draw and players still needing.

How did the creation process go? Did you use printable business cards? How about the coins? I'm really interested in what people are doing to print this. I'd like to use suggestions for future releases.

Thanks!
Chevee

Thread: 7 Player Game

jkenney23 — 2008-09-21T15:41:15+00:00

For my most recent get together with friends I was adamant that I would finally bring a majority of games that everyone, regardless of skill level or interest in geeky boardgames could play. Thanks to the Geek List Print n Play Games That People Actually Play I found one that perfectly fit the bill. Doubloons! has pirates, a single sheet of rules, and can be played in ten minutes.

We ignored the suggested number of players (read: I'd forgotten to write that down, or I just didn't see it on the rules sheet), but decided the game ended when all the coins were taken and/or all the cards were gone. Happily, both things happened at roughly the same time.

Doubloons! illustrates a point of game design that I always find interesting: it seems the easiest way to engage players is to have them taking each other's stuff. It doesn't matter if the person finds the game otherwise dull -- the moment their stuff is taken, they suddenly have a vested interest in revenge.

But enjoy the game the group did, gleefully swapping coins or throwing an opponent's back into the pile. At the end there was the hallmark of a fun game, an intense disection of the action. I can see this game breaking the ice at future get-togethers.

Image

Random_Person — 2008-08-24T15:27:49+00:00

Original Sketch for "Yo ho ho" pirate

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Random_Person — 2008-08-24T15:26:37+00:00

Original Sketch for "Land Ho" pirate.

Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

Random_Person — 2008-08-22T20:55:27+00:00

kswingruber wrote:
[c]
[/c]Dang. I should have given this thread a different title, that "Minor Problem with Card Backs?" thing doesn't look good in the Forum listing - it really is misleading, and I hope it doesn't cause people to think there's a problem with the game, which is not what I meant at all! Maybe you can delete this thread, or rename it? Sorry about that.

Ha!
I don't think it's that serious. I can only hope that people looking at PnP games aren't expecting to find perfection!

Chevee

Thread: Re: three fast 2-player "try it" games

Random_Person — 2008-08-22T20:53:56+00:00

kswingruber wrote:
How's about these ideas (just thinking on the fly, and tossing 'em into the open for consideration/ridicule)... make the list of card explanations in the rules bulleted or whatever (for easier reading), and maybe do some symbols on the cards to clarify where the coins can come from and go to (ie the pile or a player's take). AND little "cheat sheet" cards for players' reference (heck, I could even throw that together and post it on BGG).

Sounds like an easy way to earn yourself some GG!

I thought long about how to make two different symbols to differentiate the take and the pile... and I couldn't come up with anything. So I used the keywords:
Steal = take from another players take
Take = take from the pile

I might work on something for version 2.0

Thanks!
Chevee

Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

kswingruber — 2008-08-22T16:28:14+00:00

[c]
[/c]Dang. I should have given this thread a different title, that "Minor Problem with Card Backs?" thing doesn't look good in the Forum listing - it really is misleading, and I hope it doesn't cause people to think there's a problem with the game, which is not what I meant at all! Maybe you can delete this thread, or rename it? Sorry about that.

Thread: Re: three fast 2-player "try it" games

kswingruber — 2008-08-22T16:23:48+00:00

Random_Person wrote:
2) the section that explains what the cards do should be bulleted or something to make it easier to find each card - or (gasp) those explanations could be put right on the actual cards in small print.
I was really hoping that with only 8 cards in the game, and the keywords/numbers/arrows it would be easily picked up. Maybe I missed the mark when I imagined fleets of gamers introducing this at parties to non-gamers and immediatly taking off without a hitch.
Nope. You didn't miss the mark at all. After the first game we were actually pretty good at knowing what the cards did. Mainly we had to check if the coins were coming from the pile, or from the other's take. The symbols for face-up/face-down are good (once we caught on to what they meant! LOL).

How's about these ideas (just thinking on the fly, and tossing 'em into the open for consideration/ridicule)... make the list of card explanations in the rules bulleted or whatever (for easier reading), and maybe do some symbols on the cards to clarify where the coins can come from and go to (ie the pile or a player's take). AND little "cheat sheet" cards for players' reference (heck, I could even throw that together and post it on BGG).
[c]
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Thread: Re: three fast 2-player "try it" games

Random_Person — 2008-08-22T11:56:53+00:00

kswingruber wrote:

In the course of a half hour, we were able to review the rules and get in three games! I won the first one, which didn't please the wife, but she surprised me by saying we'd have to try again. After two more games, she'd won the best two outta three (and really spanked me on the last game).

First off, thanks for trying it out. I hope it goes over well!

Fun Game!

That's what I was going for!

I've spent many a game designs on trying for strategy... most I'm not pleased with. When I decided that I wanted to do a Pirate game (how I came to that is a story in itself) I tucked my ego aside and said, "I'm going to design a FUN game." I tried hard to make the game as easy as possible without sacrificing all the strategy. I wanted FUN but I also wanted people to come back to it. I put this one in the same category as Guillotine for our group. Super light, super fast and most of all FUN.

I hope I achieved that goal, even if I sacrificed "rating points" to do it!

We did have a few minor critiques, but only with the rules, not with the game itself... 1) if the game really is for 3 or 4 players, that should probably be mentioned in the rules

Thank you for this. I have fired my editor.
I SHOULD have mentioned number of players in the rules. D'oh!
You CAN play with two, but some cards become nearly pointless.

2) the section that explains what the cards do should be bulleted or something to make it easier to find each card - or (gasp) those explanations could be put right on the actual cards in small print.

Grrrr. I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
I was really hoping that with only 8 cards in the game, and the keywords/numbers/arrows it would be easily picked up. Maybe I missed the mark when I imagined fleets of gamers introducing this at parties to non-gamers and immediatly taking off without a hitch.

Thanks so much for the kind words and help!
Chevee

Thread: three fast 2-player "try it" games

kswingruber — 2008-08-22T06:36:19+00:00

[c]
[/c]After stumbling upon this game and reading the rules, I thought it would be just thing thing for the Talk Like a Pirate Day party that my brother-in-law hosts every year (Pirates of the Spanish Main didn't go over so well in the past: too many non-gamers). So I printed it out, made markers by simply using a Sharpie on a set of shiny pennies, and finally convinced the wife we needed to give it a go (after all, it's her brother's party).

I know the BGG info says it's for 3 or 4 players, but the rules don't say anything about number of players, and it's a fast game, so what the heck!

In the course of a half hour, we were able to review the rules and get in three games! I won the first one, which didn't please the wife, but she surprised me by saying we'd have to try again. After two more games, she'd won the best two outta three (and really spanked me on the last game).

We had fun with the game, but suspect it would be even better with more players. We're anxious to try it now with more people!

Fun Game!

We did have a few minor critiques, but only with the rules, not with the game itself... 1) if the game really is for 3 or 4 players, that should probably be mentioned in the rules, and 2) the section that explains what the cards do should be bulleted or something to make it easier to find each card - or (gasp) those explanations could be put right on the actual cards in small print.
[c]
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Image

Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T14:07:45+00:00

"Aaarghh!" Card (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T14:07:13+00:00

"Blow Me Down!" Cards (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T14:06:41+00:00

NEW Coin Images - more cartoony look as keeping with the game (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T13:54:44+00:00

"Gives Us Me Booty!" Cards (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T13:53:59+00:00

"Pieces of Eight" Cards (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T13:53:20+00:00

Coins for the game - original set (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T13:11:39+00:00

"Avast me hearties!" Cards (with permission)

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Howitzer_120mm — 2008-08-18T13:06:32+00:00

Yo-Ho-Ho! cards (with permission)

Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

Random_Person — 2008-08-17T14:37:28+00:00

kswingruber wrote:
So, to do away with PDF format, the trick may be to come up with a generic (freeware?) image display/print program, package it all up into a ZIP file, and give careful instructions on how to use it. And of course hints to the end user on how to get around any imaging software they may already have installed (eg open the "generic" utility first, then open the JPG files from there).

And one last thought: I love that you made your game to be printed on business cards. But since I was almost out of business card blanks, I just printed it on 110 lb. stock, and chopped them up on the paper cutter. Some cut guide marks outside of the actual card area might be handy too...

Thanks for the help. I'll look into it. I think the issue is that when I compress to PDF, the file is a huge SVG. So, really, PDF is just rendering my SVG when you load it and sometimes, depending on system memory and the such, that can get glitchy. I've never had a problem with just re-loading the PDF and checking it before I print to make sure the boxes come out right... but I didn't mention that in the how-to file and I should. Maybe I need to invest in some better PDF software than what I've got. The rules don't have the fonts embedded either because I use a free online conversion for Word documents... I need to get that fixed.

As far as business cards go... I've ALWAYS made my prototypes on business cards. I've had the pleasure of working many jobs that give me business cards, so I just write on the backs. In my opinion, it's the easiest way for the end user to print my game and immediatly start playing with a great deck of cards that can be easily shuffled. I do recognize that some will just print and cut, so I'll be adding cutting guides for this on my website... and on future projects.

Thanks!
Chevee

Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

kswingruber — 2008-08-17T03:47:50+00:00

Random_Person wrote:
Is there a way to do this and ensure that the end-user doesn't have printing issues if using printable business cards? I'm afraid that most people have some sort of imaging software installed that would want to take over on "photo" printing and thus would shrink to fit printer margins and thus cause a lot of wasted print...

Well... there is a lot of confusion about printing images, and most image (photo) display/printing programs only add to the confusion. PDF usually takes care of dimensioning problems, but I've even had problems there, especially with margin settings. And sofware that "takes over" various tasks is really annoying (I won't even climb up on my soap-box about that one! LOL).

The trick is to set an image at a certain number of dots-per-inch, and then get it to print at an exact size. Margins of course also figure into all this.

I generally use a thing called ACDSee (an inexpensive image organizer/viewer) which does a really good job of printing... but it's not practical for a print-and-play game to require that they have a particular piece of non-Freeware.

So, to do away with PDF format, the trick may be to come up with a generic (freeware?) image display/print program, package it all up into a ZIP file, and give careful instructions on how to use it. And of course hints to the end user on how to get around any imaging software they may already have installed (eg open the "generic" utility first, then open the JPG files from there).

Another option might be to do cards with nanDECK, which is a pretty cool (and free!) card layout program. I'm pretty sure you could easily set that up to print on business cards.

And one last thought: I love that you made your game to be printed on business cards. But since I was almost out of business card blanks, I just printed it on 110 lb. stock, and chopped them up on the paper cutter. Some cut guide marks outside of the actual card area might be handy too...

(and, I didn't manage to get in a game of Doubloons yet)
[c]
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Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

Random_Person — 2008-08-16T15:44:15+00:00

kswingruber wrote:

Or maybe just make 'em all .JPG files. They'd be a little smaller than the .PDF files, and there'd be no weirdness with the various PDF viewers.

Is there a way to do this and ensure that the end-user doesn't have printing issues if using printable business cards? I'm afraid that most people have some sort of imaging software installed that would want to take over on "photo" printing and thus would shrink to fit printer margins and thus cause a lot of wasted print...

Thanks!
Chevee

Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

kswingruber — 2008-08-16T05:55:58+00:00

[c]
[/c]Random_Person wrote:
Maybe a graphic designer somewhere can help me with this issue.
Or maybe just make 'em all .JPG files. They'd be a little smaller than the .PDF files, and there'd be no weirdness with the various PDF viewers.

Random_Person wrote:
Thanks for trying the game!

Well... haven't played it just yet, but I hope to con the gaming group tomorrow into a round or two. I'll post some comments when I do get to try it...
[c]
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Thread: Re: Minor Problem with Card Backs?

Random_Person — 2008-08-16T02:53:04+00:00

Hmmm.
I'll have to look into that. I've only ever had one issue with printing, and that was on the fronts of one page and only on a single copy of the game.

I have noticed irregularly that when I load the files, sometimes a few text boxes are completely opaque as opposed to transluscent. I'm not sure why this is, but I've had luck with re-loading the .pdf and all is good. I've never tried printing them when this error occurs.

Maybe a graphic designer somewhere can help me with this issue.

Thanks for trying the game!
Chevee

Thread: Question About Card Backs in PDF

kswingruber — 2008-08-15T21:01:14+00:00

[c]
[/c]I just printed out a copy of the card backs.
I noticed that they aren't consistent... the backer
rectangle for the text is pure white on some cards,
but kinda "translucent" for others. Could this a
glitch in the .pdf file, or is it just some
weirdness on my system?

(For now I'll just print a copy of the cards without
the otherwise nifty card backs.)

oooh... and same problem with the card-fronts too,
though there it doesn't really matter..
[c]
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