Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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I am finishing up development of a game that I am planning to release in January. It's called Jump Gate, and it's a space exploration game. This one is about being the first to claim new planets and gather resources from them. The game has a unique board setup each time, NavComp cards to let you do your bidding (a bit of hand management involved), and each type of resource has a different method of scoring (which is what drives a good portion of the game).
I have an early draft of the rules available and would like some feedback on them.
Here are the links:
- Rules Doc ... about a 1MB PDF
- Development Blog ... has example graphics and some design background
Let me know what you think ... I'll appreciate the feedback, good or bad.
Thanks,
-Matt
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Lacombe
Louisiana
It was a dark and stormy night.
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Too many bullets for my taste. Outlines don't work, in my experience, for information that has to be presented temporally, as opposed to hierarchically [which they obviously work great for].
The indents are distracting. This goes with your attempt to use a hierarchical structure [heading 1 full left, heading 2 indent 1/2 inch along with its associated copy].
In addition, you're not being consistent with your paragraph / bullet-point spacing. If you're going to keep that format, at least make it consistent throughout.
Put some of the information in sidebars. If there are rules that are implicit, but require clarification, don't clutter up the main body text with them. Use some other space.
Related to the above, it's easier to read/scan many short lines than it is to very few long lines of text. Try a two-column format if you don't want to use sidebars.
Use icons and images! If you're going to say "remove the such-and-such cards", show a picture of them. If you're going to describe actions related to icons, show these.
In general, I think active voice would work better. Rather than "This action may not be taken if...", I think "You may not take this action if..." is clearer in most cases.
Also, why not be more specific? Instead of saying "This action may not be taken on...", try "You may not Harvest a Planet that has not yet been claimed," for instance.
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Ben Friedberg
United States
Winona Lake
Indiana
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Hey Matt, your game is looking great! I'll probably be interested in picking up a copy when it comes out.
Your ruleset seems straightforward and easy to communicate, which is a big plus.
The graphic set is looking good. Do you plan on adding more detail / backgrounds to the FRONT of the navcomp and resource cards? Maybe even a color background instead of white...
My only gameplay gripe / question is how powerful the first player is. Might it be useful to include a mechanism to change who the starting player is on each round? (Maybe I've played too much Agricola / Power Grid...) Seems like starting player would be a reasonable special action, for instance. Or maybe even just making it a simple action which would still be costly because the player wouldn't be 'doing' anything...
Your WRITING in the documentation is fairly clear and does a terrific job of explaining through the examples and demonstrating how things will work. SMALL issue with the ruleset would be that you should reiterate down at the land & claim action that only one player may claim a planet. It should be obvious, but I can see the players referencing that list (and the reference boards) a lot during the first game.
My biggest issue with the documentation is the lack of illustrations. Here are the ones that I would think would be the most helpful (by page):
p3: Instead of a jumble of resource cards, put each one in a visible line up so that the players know distinctly what they look like (and indicate what a black hole icon looks like).
p4: instead of a jumble of navComp cards, have one with explanatory text and arrows showing codes and special actions
p5: setup illustration is GREAT.
p5: Illustration with end game scenarios: black hole board with the ending described in the example below. line up of three planets with face up cards all indicating black hole icons.
p6: This would be a lot of work, but illustrations for each action with the components involved and arrows would go a long way. This isn't completely necessary, but it would be REALLY helpful as the rules start to bog down by the time you get here.
p7: If you go with the treatment for p6, this would be another place to include illustrative examples of each action.
p8: probably want to include illustrations for the 'tricky' scoring cards (Gems and EnerGel) The rest are fine
p9: This play example is terrific but REALLY wordy. I like the writing, don't get me wrong, but I gave up very quickly when reading through it the first time. I would recommend including images of actions that the players take showing how the cards relate to the planets and how the board is laid out. Maybe a board layout four times (beginning, between turns, after turn 2 and end game) and just images of the cards played for each player turn.
Again, terrific work on the game. If you already planned on generating these illustrations and just wanted a critique on your content, I apologize. The writing seems very tight and well-polished. I'm looking forward to the final version!
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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Thanks for the that feedback on formatting & writing style, Nate -- important stuff that I will take into consideration as I move toward final drafts.
I expect the formatting to change quite a bit as this document changes from an "information organization" purpose to an actual end-user purpose. I do have to work on my active/passive voice though -- my tendancy is to write in passive voice, which is hard to get out of when first putting words to paper ... but I can usually get it right on follow-up editing passes. So, your very specific suggestions are a good thing for me.
I do want to point out that I'm also looking for feedback on the game itself -- the theme, mechanics, etc. -- in addition to writing style feedback.
Thanks,
-Matt
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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Thanks, Ben, for also having some very specific advice ... exactly what I was hoping for when posting this here.
 I'll try to walk through each of your points.
I was planning on leaving the card face backgrounds white -- from playtesting it seems to work really well for quick recognition. They do seem a bit bland compared to everything else in the game ... but I'd hate to add flash and reduce the recognition part. I'll keep it in mind though -- not hard to change.
As for powerful first player ... I don't think it matters after the very first turn. While my gameplay example might look at things 1 round at a time, the game doesn't actually feel that way ... and by the 2nd round you usually forget who actually started the game. I'll continue to keep an eye out for it, but it hasn't shown to be a problem so far.
Thank you very much for pointing out places for illustrations ... I definitely need to add more to the doc.
And, I think I will break the gameplay example out as its own document because it does need a better treatment than I first gave it.
Thanks again,
-Matt
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Ben Friedberg
United States
Winona Lake
Indiana
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One idea for the NavComp cards might be to have them in a 'green-bar' sort of old terminal style... I think that the repeated information in the coner a la playing cards isn't entirely necessary and would buy you more space for pretty stuff rather than the same colored shapes over and over again. If you took the corner info away, you could have the card broken into 3 'screens' and would also take away the need for 'OR' on every card...
For the resources, I'm thinking that a single pretty image might be a better use of 'chrome' than a single low-quality image repeated as you have illustrated in your rules. You could also take off the corner image and text for more space to make a nice border and whatnot. It's nice to have the scoring info, but that might almost be better on the player reference board rather than on the resource...
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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I hear what you're saying, Ben. And I can definitely see room for improvements. Re-doing the NavComp cards wouldn't be too difficult -- and hands are generally in the 3-5 cards sizes ... so the "corner summary" info isn't as import there.
For the resources, I like the corner summary information simply because this game takes up a lot of room on the table and there is a point in the mid-game where there are a lot of face-up resource cards ... it's nice to be able to stack them and spread them to just reveal their corners.
Removing the scoring info would make more room for a more elaborate picture of each resource. I'll let that thought purc for a bit. 
Thanks again,
-Matt
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Ben Friedberg
United States
Winona Lake
Indiana
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Brykovian wrote: I hear what you're saying, Ben. And I can definitely see room for improvements. Re-doing the NavComp cards wouldn't be too difficult -- and hands are generally in the 3-5 cards sizes ... so the "corner summary" info isn't as import there.
For the resources, I like the corner summary information simply because this game takes up a lot of room on the table and there is a point in the mid-game where there are a lot of face-up resource cards ... it's nice to be able to stack them and spread them to just reveal their corners.
Removing the scoring info would make more room for a more elaborate picture of each resource. I'll let that thought purc for a bit. ;)
Thanks again,
-Matt
Ah, I see what you're saying about the stacking of the resources... That's a good point. your scoring situation reminds me of the civilization card concept from Stone Age. I think that I sort of projected that set of concepts onto your resource cards. Maybe if you only had the corner info on ONE corner as opposed to both the top left and bottom right...
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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Now that the holidays are over, I hope to get back to work on the changes to the card graphics and the rule book.
btw, I had a chance to play the game with a long-time friend of mine who is a graphic designer ... and he had very similar feedback on how to improve the business-side of both the resource and NavComp cards. He also gave me a few quick hand-sketched layout ideas, which should come in handy.
Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks as I'll update this thread (and the game page) once I've made some progress on things.
-Matt
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Best luck Matt inform us.
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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I got a chance to play around with the NavComp card face design today, and thought I would post them here to see what feedback I might get.
First, here's a reminder of what the NavComp card backs look like:
And the original card face style:
So, wanting to put together something on the card face that would be of a similar style to what's shown on the back, I came up with these (click for bigger version):
Every card gives 2 different codes to use for Jumping, Scanning and Landing. The first example is for the cards that also give a special action.
Your thoughts? I appreciate any feedback you might have.
Thanks,
-Matt
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well the cards show combination of information...
geometric shapes; triangles, circles, and squares
numerals 1 & 2
colors; green, blue, and yellow
and the card displays the same information twice. Outside of that, the cards don't do much of anything else.
Sidenote: The lighting on the card background comes from the upper right corner while the lighting on the geometric shapes comes from the lower right corner. This can make an image look falsified.
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Nation Morath
United States
Colorado
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I don't want to step on any toes, but your game's name is very, very similar to an older MMO, "Jumpgate", and its sequel that is currently in development, called "Jumpgate Evolution".
The game isn't widely known yet (I had hardly heard of it before I started working for the developer on a different project), but I'd assume the names are too close to avoid potential legal drama.
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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gsimpson wrote: Outside of that, the cards don't do much of anything else.
And that's about all they need to do ... let the players quickly assess which codes they have in their hand and whether they have any special abilities available.
The original sparse design has been quite functional ... but bland. So, I simply want to make it a bit more interesting without adding any distractions.
gsimpson wrote: Sidenote: The lighting on the card background comes from the upper right corner while the lighting on the geometric shapes comes from the lower right corner. This can make an image look falsified.
Thanks for pointing that out.
The lighting on the geometrics actually is from the upper-left, because that matched the lighting I had on the Planet boards. I'll regenerate versions of those with upper-right lighting to match the shadowing coming from the NavComp UI.
I also plan to add some unobtrusive flavor text next to the big symbols, similar to the gibberish in the arched UI part of the Planet boards.
Thanks for your feedback, Gary!
-Matt
p.s. Your art is very striking! Impressive.
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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Natron77 wrote: I don't want to step on any toes, but your game's name is very, very similar to an older MMO, "Jumpgate", and its sequel that is currently in development, called "Jumpgate Evolution".
The game isn't widely known yet (I had hardly heard of it before I started working for the developer on a different project), but I'd assume the names are too close to avoid potential legal drama.
Thanks for pointing that out.
I had actually found information on "Jumpgate Evolution" when I googled around with the name. From what I read on it, it seemed to me to have enough distinction to not cause trouble.
(Also, not sure what other name would make sense for this one.)
-Matt
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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I've udpated the faces of the Resource cards as well now.
Here are a few examples of what I have so far ...
Again -- feedback is appreciated.
-Matt
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Ben Friedberg
United States
Winona Lake
Indiana
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Looking a TON better Matt... I really like the added 'pop up' idea you have for the wormhole and special power elements.
Couple of nitpicks:
1. Maybe make the Dark Energel a little darker or add some dark streaks perhaps? It's a little too close to the light energel color. Maybe even just take a negative of the light energel picture... not sure what that would end up looking like....
2. The gems in dirt looks a little odd to me still. It's much better than the original but it's still a little static... Maybe having them in a dragon-horde style pile? Perhaps displayed on black satin? I think that the overall issue might just be the sameness with the copy-paste approach. Even rotating the pasted gems a little might help...
3. The new backgrounds are great, but I didn't know if you would want to include a border at all. I tend to like cards with rounded corners and a border around the artwork in the bleed. Are you planning on adding a border or will you just bleed the background?
(Like I said, very nitpicky... the game is looking GREAT overall...)
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I checked out the rules and it looked clean. Game also looked quite interesting, I don't know if the following will be issues, but 2 thoughts came to my mind:
- With 6 players... how long you have to wait for your turn? I'd guess it's not a big deal but something that came to my mind.
- How luck based is the starting setup? I wonder if some people can get big advantages if they happen to get certain cards. I would suspect this not to be an issue, but nevertheless it came to my mind (one way to reduce the luck factor could be to deal 3 cards, and let players keep 2 they want discarding 1. Just a thought)
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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benfriedberg1981 wrote: Looking a TON better Matt... I really like the added 'pop up' idea you have for the wormhole and special power elements.
Thanks, Ben ... your feedback has been very valuable.
benfriedberg1981 wrote: 1. Maybe make the Dark Energel a little darker or add some dark streaks perhaps? It's a little too close to the light energel color. Maybe even just take a negative of the light energel picture... not sure what that would end up looking like....
I know what you mean ... I've been staring at those two side-by-side on my monitor. And when I add-in the fact that the printer's results tend to ride on the dark side, it's a bit tricky to know exactly how it will turn out. The original cards *are* distinguishable just by looking at them -- but I agree that I should drive it toward more contrast.
benfriedberg1981 wrote: 2. The gems in dirt looks a little odd to me still. It's much better than the original but it's still a little static... Maybe having them in a dragon-horde style pile? Perhaps displayed on black satin? I think that the overall issue might just be the sameness with the copy-paste approach. Even rotating the pasted gems a little might help...
Agreed. I'll keep working on them.
benfriedberg1981 wrote: 3. The new backgrounds are great, but I didn't know if you would want to include a border at all. I tend to like cards with rounded corners and a border around the artwork in the bleed. Are you planning on adding a border or will you just bleed the background?
I plan to bleed the lightened background off the edge. With an on-demand digital printer, the cuts aren't precise enough to work a border very well, imo. A bled background seems to work well and won't give distracting results with slightly-off-center cuts.
Thanks again for taking the time to look things over.
-Matt
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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TheMob wrote: I checked out the rules and it looked clean. Game also looked quite interesting, I don't know if the following will be issues, but 2 thoughts came to my mind:
- With 6 players... how long you have to wait for your turn? I'd guess it's not a big deal but something that came to my mind.
- How luck based is the starting setup? I wonder if some people can get big advantages if they happen to get certain cards. I would suspect this not to be an issue, but nevertheless it came to my mind (one way to reduce the luck factor could be to deal 3 cards, and let players keep 2 they want discarding 1. Just a thought)
Great questions, Juuso.
It doesn't take very long for players to complete their turns, so it moves around the table pretty quickly. You also need to pay some attention to what the other players are doing (which planets are still open to be claimed and what resources are available, etc.) as part of planning your turn.
So, wait time isn't the problem with 6-player games. The issue with 6-player games is that the resources get pretty tight ... so, efficiency is even more important than in games with fewer players. I would say that the best number of players for this game is 4, with 5 and 3 being the next best. Two-player games can be too non-interactive (if the players choose to play that way) and the 6 can be a bit tight. I still think it can host 6 players because you don't actually run out of cards ... but the strategy is different and it may be too tense for some.
Luck of the draw, turn order effects, etc., are also more prominent in 6-player games ... but don't seem to matter as much for games with fewer players -- there's generally enough moves taken throughout the game to change your position through good play.
Thanks for those -- always good to work through those potential issues.
-Matt
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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So, I had an epiphany while cleaning out our goldfish bowl this evening and handled the plastic colored gems that the kids like to put in the bottom of the thing. So, instead of returning them to the bowl right away, I took some pictures of them (after a good cleaning, of course), made some color adjustments in Photoshop, and gave them a try on the cards.
I also added some white & black contrast to the EnerGel cards to make them a bit further apart. Here are my updated looks:
btw ... the gems are now back in the fish's bowl ... and no fish were injured in the making of these images!
-Matt
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Spencer C
United States
New England
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Great change to the gems! That really improves the whole look.
There are a number of little quibbles I could make about the card art. For example, your apparent over-reliance on photoshop bling, and I'd also suggest that you make the edges of the pictures on the cards a bit cleaner -- where you have the picture of the gem, for example, either cut away all the background from the photo leaving only the gem, or make a well defined, ordered boundary. But like I said, these are minor quibbles and entering the realm of personal aesthetics and you've definitely got a workable card design there. However, what really bothers me is the fact that the text on the cards isn't always in the same place - this stands out particularly with the Dark and Light energel, where Light EnerGel is significantly higher up on the card than the Dark.
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Ben Friedberg
United States
Winona Lake
Indiana
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Phenomenal change to the gems. exactly the sort of thing that it needed. also +1 on the post above. the text does need to be in the same place. I totally missed it on my first go-round, but I completely agree now that I see it.
The dark energel looks better as well. honestly, you could still stand to go more shades darker on it, but that's not on account of them looking the same anymore. just 'cause something referred to as 'dark' should be, well, dark. Along the same lines, maybe see if you can add some 'glow' to the light energel. it would make the concept of 'light' pop a little more.
Also, along the nitpick lines, should the scoring for the gems read "# in largest set of THE same color"?
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Almost forgot to add: new cards look very, very nice.
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Matt Worden
United States
Minnetrista
Minnesota
www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
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UanarchyK wrote: There are a number of little quibbles I could make about the card art. For example, your apparent over-reliance on photoshop bling
Yes. Can't do anything other than sheepishly agree. Without a great artist's eye, I work from a "what I would like" concept without really knowing how to get there. So, I do rely on Photoshop's magic to help me out ... perhaps overly so. In any case, the "UI" portion of the layout is looking like I had wanted: A gray piping floating a bit above a background -- with different UI shapes and different backgrounds between the different types of cards.
UanarchyK wrote: I'd also suggest that you make the edges of the pictures on the cards a bit cleaner -- where you have the picture of the gem, for example, either cut away all the background from the photo leaving only the gem, or make a well defined, ordered boundary. But like I said, these are minor quibbles and entering the realm of personal aesthetics and you've definitely got a workable card design there.
I wanted each of the "on display" items in that lower display to have a sort of "disolved away" look to their edges.
UanarchyK wrote: However, what really bothers me is the fact that the text on the cards isn't always in the same place - this stands out particularly with the Dark and Light energel, where Light EnerGel is significantly higher up on the card than the Dark.
Thanks for raising that point. The actual alignment for everything will be tweaked as I move into final polish for these. I understand that consistency between cards is important to help players quickly pick up information as they play.
Thanks for your points,
-Matt
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www.mwgames.com/JumpGate ... check it out! ;-D
