Your published games?
That would be nice, but neither of our games have been published yet. Both are with publishers, but in different stages of development. Hopefully they will both be on Kickstarter early in 2015. I am talking about what we can learn from other published games.
Like stealing ideas?
Well that is one way to learn from published games. Borrowing mechanisms is a way to build on ideas of the past. That is why I believe we are in a golden age of gaming right now. People borrowing good mechanisms from each other and building upon them. Look at the BGG top 100. Most of those games are derivative in one way or another. I will get into that more next week.
This week I will focus on what I learned from ALMOST liking a few games at WBC (World Boardgaming Championships). I will use a few examples to illustrate this concept, and show how it can help exercise your "design brain".
First up Thunder Alley.
I liked this game a lot. This was almost my game of the show. I think the first 90% of this game is fantastic and very thematic. After playing it 5 times it always had the same problem though. The end game was very unsatisfying because it always came down to a Kingmaker situation. You wanted to sit to the left of the player that would put you in position to win. Either because they were out of it and trying to get into a better position, or had no choice due to their card. But it always came down to someone else putting the winner in the catbird position. It may not have been as big a problem in a shorter game. But after 2 hours of very fun gameplay, it was a very unsatisfying end. This happened in all 5 games I played, and I just soured more on the game as the convention went on.
Lesson Learned: The endgame is very important. You want to leave people on a high note. Not with a sour taste in their mouth.
Next up, Voluspa.
This is basically a tile placement game. Very abstract in the fact that you are just trying to get the highest tile in a row or column to score that row or column. I am usually not one for abstracts, but the Art on these tiles was fantastic. The theme on the tiles was pretty good too. They all had special powers that matched the theme of the tile. So what went wrong. When playing with two players the game played long. Not that it took long, but it felt long. There was no scaling based on the number of players, so you played the same number of tiles as you would in a 4 player game. And some of the tiles replaced tiles on the board, so the game didn't progress toward the end on those turns. I think it would have played better with 3 or 4 as you would have less turns, so you wouldn't have as many active turns in the game. This is easily fixed by removing a certain number of fixed (or random based on your preference) tiles to reduce the playtime.
Lesson Learned: Scale the play experience to the number of players. You don't want a game to feel like it is outstaying its welcome.
Lastly, Lewis & Clark
I loved this game. It was definitely my game of the convention. The racing element combined with engine building was great. Every time you pulled off a cool combo it made you feel smart. So what went wrong? Nothing in our games, but I did notice there was a way to go backwards at the beginning of the track. At first I thought this was odd, but then noticed that there was no other penalty for building up a lot of resources and saving them for when you have better travel cards later in the game. The other day I saw a thread on BGG saying that there was an official "fix" for this problem. I still loved the game, but it is definitely something to be aware of if designing a game where your engine gets stronger as the game goes on. They could have easily fixed this by making the track behind the start position longer. They obviously realized that this could be a problem or they wouldn't have put those spaces back there to begin with.
Lesson Learned: If you have an engine that gets better as the game goes on, make sure the players can't just store resources that do the same thing better later in the game. If you do, make sure there is some incentive to use the resources early, or there is a strong enough penalty for keeping them. Make all options viable, or don't have them as "fake choices" in the game if one strategy is clearly better.
Bottom Line
I don't want to make is seem like I am picking on these games. I liked them a lot and bought 2 of them.
There are lessons to be learned from games, even in their weaknesses. When playing games, don't just look at mechanisms you can use in future game designs, but also think about the lessons you can learn from their less strong parts. This will help you avoid a lot of time making the same mistakes, or help you see these things earlier in your designs.
What's Next?
That's it for this week, next week I am going to talk about building on the greatness of other games. Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
DToW #15 (Learning from WBC)
How was your week at WBC?
Great. Very good news for Bastion fans. We got an intent to publish for The Last Bastion, so we just need to work out the details and clean up the game a bit. But I learned some valuable lessons there as well.
Lets start with making contacts at conventions.
I will start by saying I am a sales person. I have been in sales for over 16 years. This is what I do, so it comes somewhat naturally to me. But it wasn't always that way. I wasn't the most popular kid in school. It takes practice. It is ok if you fail. You won't hit it off with everyone, and that is ok too. But if you have interest in talking to a specific publisher, do it.
If they are very busy when you get to their booth don't go up to them at that moment. Hang out a bit and see if it dies down. If not, try going at another time and see if it is clear then. Don't try to start a conversation if they are trying to sell or demo games to someone else. First impressions mean a lot and that will just tell them that you are rude. On the other hand, don't be the person that is afraid to go up and introduce yourself, you will only regret it later if you don't. Publishers are just people like you and me.
I didn't even have a game to pitch since both of our games are with publishers now. I still went up to publishers I may be interested in working with in the future just to start that relationship. One of the publishers is someone I talked with about Bastion two years ago at WBC. He remembered me and I told him we had worked on the game a lot and got it picked up. He wished me luck and I told him hopefully I would have something for him in the future. I wanted to share this example because it shows that even with noting for them right now, how you can plant some seeds for partnerships in the future.
If you do have a game to pitch it is best to contact the publisher by email before the convention. Follow their normal submission policies, but follow up with an email saying that you will be at a convention they will be attending and you would love to show them your game.
This is a very deep topic and I will get into it more in the future. The biggest tip here is: GO FOR IT! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE AND YOU WILL REGRET IT LATER IF YOU DON'T.
How about playtesting?
To be honest I didn't do too much playtesting at this convention. The biggest reason was that I played with our potential publisher and they gave us some feedback on what they wanted us to work on next. I was already spending all day gaming, and staying up until 3 to finish the prototypes for them so I didn't have time to work on making any changes. Looking back though, I wish I had taken some time to play Bastion or Salvation Road with others. Even if you know there are going to be changes testing the core of the game is always a good idea. I was having too much fun just being a player at this convention and I think that is ok sometimes too. Playing other peoples games helps you develop your own ideas, or may provide inspiration for future ideas.
Is that it?
I am trying to keep these shorter. I don't want to take up your whole Monday reading these blog entries. If you have any specific feedback, please feel free to leave it. This blog is part "how to" but it is mostly meant to inspire ideas, provide motivation, and give weekly personal development goals.
What's Next?
That's it for this week, next week I am going to talk about some of the games I played and WBC and what I learned from them. Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.
Great. Very good news for Bastion fans. We got an intent to publish for The Last Bastion, so we just need to work out the details and clean up the game a bit. But I learned some valuable lessons there as well.
Lets start with making contacts at conventions.
I will start by saying I am a sales person. I have been in sales for over 16 years. This is what I do, so it comes somewhat naturally to me. But it wasn't always that way. I wasn't the most popular kid in school. It takes practice. It is ok if you fail. You won't hit it off with everyone, and that is ok too. But if you have interest in talking to a specific publisher, do it.
If they are very busy when you get to their booth don't go up to them at that moment. Hang out a bit and see if it dies down. If not, try going at another time and see if it is clear then. Don't try to start a conversation if they are trying to sell or demo games to someone else. First impressions mean a lot and that will just tell them that you are rude. On the other hand, don't be the person that is afraid to go up and introduce yourself, you will only regret it later if you don't. Publishers are just people like you and me.
I didn't even have a game to pitch since both of our games are with publishers now. I still went up to publishers I may be interested in working with in the future just to start that relationship. One of the publishers is someone I talked with about Bastion two years ago at WBC. He remembered me and I told him we had worked on the game a lot and got it picked up. He wished me luck and I told him hopefully I would have something for him in the future. I wanted to share this example because it shows that even with noting for them right now, how you can plant some seeds for partnerships in the future.
If you do have a game to pitch it is best to contact the publisher by email before the convention. Follow their normal submission policies, but follow up with an email saying that you will be at a convention they will be attending and you would love to show them your game.
This is a very deep topic and I will get into it more in the future. The biggest tip here is: GO FOR IT! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE AND YOU WILL REGRET IT LATER IF YOU DON'T.
How about playtesting?
To be honest I didn't do too much playtesting at this convention. The biggest reason was that I played with our potential publisher and they gave us some feedback on what they wanted us to work on next. I was already spending all day gaming, and staying up until 3 to finish the prototypes for them so I didn't have time to work on making any changes. Looking back though, I wish I had taken some time to play Bastion or Salvation Road with others. Even if you know there are going to be changes testing the core of the game is always a good idea. I was having too much fun just being a player at this convention and I think that is ok sometimes too. Playing other peoples games helps you develop your own ideas, or may provide inspiration for future ideas.
Is that it?
I am trying to keep these shorter. I don't want to take up your whole Monday reading these blog entries. If you have any specific feedback, please feel free to leave it. This blog is part "how to" but it is mostly meant to inspire ideas, provide motivation, and give weekly personal development goals.
What's Next?
That's it for this week, next week I am going to talk about some of the games I played and WBC and what I learned from them. Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.
Monday, August 4, 2014
DToW #14 (quick take on preperations for a game convention)
Why aren't you getting ready for WBC (World Boardgaming Championships)?
Good question! I felt a sense of duty to the people that have been reading this blog weekly. I want to stay on schedule for you, although this will be a much quicker article than usual.
Why is this such a big deal? Can't you just work on your game next week?
Like I have said many times in this blog. Setting deadlines for myself is one of the best ways to get things done on my designs. This is a deadline to get The Last Bastion ready to show to the world, and get the rules ready for blind playtesting. I was up until 3am last night finalizing them, so I could send them to Mike to make another round of revisions.
So your prototypes are packed and ready to go?
Not exactly. I haven't had time to make the new prototypes yet. This is actually the key point I wanted to make this week. While a professional prototype is important, a professional game is more important. I will spend some time tonight working on the components, but this week and last have been focused on playtesting. Getting the game as good as we can make it before presenting it to the public.
But what good is that without a game to show?
It is no good at all. I will have games when I need them, but game quality is always more important. The content not the visual appeal. At least for your prototypes. Good visual will draw some eyes to your game, but if they play it and it is horrible then you just wasted that graphic design time, playtest time, and potentially turned someone off to your game.
So what are you going to play with?
I plan on printing everything tonight and bringing my prototyping materials with me to WBC tomorrow. I may even get some people there to help me put it together. If you have limited time I would always work on gameplay first. Graphic design is important. In fact it can be a barrier to learning your game. So we spent some time working on that too. Teaching the game to people, even if we didn't play it to come up with questions they have just on initial impressions.
You practice teaching your game?
Yes. This is just as important as getting the game right. If you don't teach it well, and it leads to a bad experience, it is just as bad as having a bad game. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you should be able to get the basic concepts across quickly and concisely.
Bottom Line?
Use deadlines like conventions as motivation to get your game ready. If you have a choice between getting your game physically ready, or playtesting. Always choose playtesting to make sure it is as good as it can be. Most of these playtests may have to be solo. Just make sure something isn't obviously broken, or really fiddly. If it is fiddly ask for feedback on it at the convention. If you are short on time, bring your prototyping equipment with you and make your games at the convention. Either at night, or between games (do not slow other games down by prototyping it will just annoy everyone around you).
What's Next?
That's it for this week, next week I am going to talk about my experiences at WBC. Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.
Good question! I felt a sense of duty to the people that have been reading this blog weekly. I want to stay on schedule for you, although this will be a much quicker article than usual.
Why is this such a big deal? Can't you just work on your game next week?
Like I have said many times in this blog. Setting deadlines for myself is one of the best ways to get things done on my designs. This is a deadline to get The Last Bastion ready to show to the world, and get the rules ready for blind playtesting. I was up until 3am last night finalizing them, so I could send them to Mike to make another round of revisions.
So your prototypes are packed and ready to go?
Not exactly. I haven't had time to make the new prototypes yet. This is actually the key point I wanted to make this week. While a professional prototype is important, a professional game is more important. I will spend some time tonight working on the components, but this week and last have been focused on playtesting. Getting the game as good as we can make it before presenting it to the public.
But what good is that without a game to show?
It is no good at all. I will have games when I need them, but game quality is always more important. The content not the visual appeal. At least for your prototypes. Good visual will draw some eyes to your game, but if they play it and it is horrible then you just wasted that graphic design time, playtest time, and potentially turned someone off to your game.
So what are you going to play with?
I plan on printing everything tonight and bringing my prototyping materials with me to WBC tomorrow. I may even get some people there to help me put it together. If you have limited time I would always work on gameplay first. Graphic design is important. In fact it can be a barrier to learning your game. So we spent some time working on that too. Teaching the game to people, even if we didn't play it to come up with questions they have just on initial impressions.
You practice teaching your game?
Yes. This is just as important as getting the game right. If you don't teach it well, and it leads to a bad experience, it is just as bad as having a bad game. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you should be able to get the basic concepts across quickly and concisely.
Bottom Line?
Use deadlines like conventions as motivation to get your game ready. If you have a choice between getting your game physically ready, or playtesting. Always choose playtesting to make sure it is as good as it can be. Most of these playtests may have to be solo. Just make sure something isn't obviously broken, or really fiddly. If it is fiddly ask for feedback on it at the convention. If you are short on time, bring your prototyping equipment with you and make your games at the convention. Either at night, or between games (do not slow other games down by prototyping it will just annoy everyone around you).
What's Next?
That's it for this week, next week I am going to talk about my experiences at WBC. Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)