Skip to Content
 

Will to Survive: Proofreading needed!

13 replies [Last post]
Mon, 10/26/2015 - 21:08
keshiekay
keshiekay's picture
Offline
Joined: 05/31/2015

Hey, folks!

So, I think I'm decently far along in my rules-editing, but would love another set of eyes on it. Here's a link to the Google Doc, with commenting access enabled:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19ds3aKW26OLGqwkbuemNs7IsFT6raXrVSDFR...

A little about Will to Survive (WtS) -- it's a co-op, post-apocalyptic, resource-management, survival-game that sets itself apart with sheer lethality -- in it, you must balance starvation with battling off hordes of monsters and decide when to sacrifice a Hero for the greater good. Running out of food? Your team may choose to kill and cannibalize one of the Heroes. Running out of water? ...Well, good luck.

Anyways -- let me know if you have any feedback! I'd love to hear it.

Thanks,
Kesh

Top
Thu, 10/29/2015 - 22:53
#1
questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
I took a brief look

And well I really *suck* with rules... Like for an example on Page 1, it says "Place the outskirts off to the side". I thought based on the diagram, it would be best to explain it "Place the outskirts next to one of your buildings". Or something like that...

I'm really lousy at proofreading - but hopefully if I put in a little effort, maybe others might "join in" in helping proof the document.

Either way, I will make an effort to read it on the weekend (Friday night, Saturday or Sunday).

You've helped so many others with their rulebooks - someone should at least return the favor and read through your rulebook! :)

We've got to stick up for the designers that "actively" contribute to this forum... It's enough we get the people who ONLY talk about their game or their Kickstarter and contribute 0% to this community. (And we've got a few of those...)

Anyhow you get the picture...

Top
Fri, 10/30/2015 - 16:44
#2
keshiekay
keshiekay's picture
Offline
Joined: 05/31/2015
Thanks!

questccg wrote:
... For an example on Page 1, it says "Place the outskirts off to the side". I thought based on the diagram, it would be best to explain it "Place the outskirts next to one of your buildings". Or something like that.

That's a good point. Would "Place The Outskirts off to the side of the board, as demonstrated in Figure 1." be better?

And thanks, Quest. Whenever you have time to take a look is fine, and I appreciate your help. If proofreading isn't your cup of tea, I'm also looking for feedback on what does/n't make sense.

Top
Fri, 10/30/2015 - 19:55
#3
questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
I reviewed the rulebook

I must say, this game seems like it could be a Zombie game. I know there are already too many of those - but it just feels like one.

I left my comments. Mostly about things "not being" in the rulebook. Like "resource tokens", where is the section on "resource tokens"...

Otherwise things look pretty good.

The only "design" suggestion I would have is adding distance to buildings. Maybe that could add an extra setup step - and would mean players need to move using APs. An action could be "move" = 3 APs per turn.

Then you could have 4 buildings at a distance of 1 AP, 3 buildings at a distance of 2 APs, 2 buildings at a distance of 3 APs and the furthest building at a distance of 4 APs.

This adds another layer of strategy... Like why would we travel to the further location? Maybe because it has a bunch of loot (seeding mechanics could be different).

Just an idea - if you don't like it you can ignore it. I just thought it would be more realistic if buildings had a distance from each other. You could use 4 colors of Winks (Bingo tokens) and connect the City Hall using the Winks. The furthest building would have 4 winks, etc. Winks are also cheap components and you get an added "dimension" with travelling and APs.

If you need another review at another time - just let me know and I will read through the document again. I have a good grasp of the mechanics (not all details are committed to memory - but I get the overall feel...)

Cheers!

Note: I'll add some more suggestions/ideas - again if you don't like them no problem. I'm just offering them based on my impressions. Let me think some more about the game...

It sort of reminds me of Arctic Scavengers. (Check out "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41933/arctic-scavengers") Not in mechanics - more in theme.

The whole Winter/Freezing and scavenging for stuff.

Top
Fri, 10/30/2015 - 20:13
#4
questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Some of my ideas

I could not find anything about the "duration" of the game. So my ideas are along those lines.

1. Maybe make it that the game lasts 1 year. The goal is to last until next Spring. Making the hardest months to survive over the Winter. Think up an escalation mechanic that means more monsters during the Winter months.

2. Thematically add some kind of story element, which makes it that this "village" or town has been somehow "cut-off" from the rest of the world.

3. Secondary victory condition: build a communications device to call for help and evacuation. Your post-apocalyptic world doesn't mean that you are alone. Just not everyone knows where people are...

4. I'm thinking something in the vein of "The Hunger Games". There are people elsewhere but not in the city you are stuck in...

Why I like the secondary victory condition - it adds to the CO-OP aspect of the game... And it gives a reason to travel between buildings to develop or repair technology to escape or call for help.

Just some ideas - they're all free. Feel free to discuss them with your team! :)

Top
Fri, 10/30/2015 - 21:03
#5
questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
More about the distance between buildings

IF you like this idea - you could ADD another STAT to buildings: How far they are. Like a "Granary" could be 3 or 4 (and kept close to the Outskirts) But it is plausible it gets attacked because of the food it contains. Or a "Well" could be a 1 or 2 (but is Frozen in Winter), etc.

I would play on the "genre" a little bit and add flavors of "Technology" (again like in Hunger Games). Your small city might be pretty basic but elsewhere in the World, there are Technocratic cities, etc.

And so you could have technology scattered around the village/town - to build that special communications device.

This will allow you to balance out the decisions allowable by each Building.

Note: BTW I *like* the Title of the GAME - it's pretty cool!

Note 2: The "Tower Array" could be the communication's antenna and it is THE FURTHEST from your city (4 APs). But you need to make sure it is cleared of monsters before they destroy it. So if the "Tower Array" reaches 10 monsters, players lose the game - their only way out is destroyed - they are stranded...

Note 3: You can collect TECHNOLOGY from other locations in the city and BRING them to the "Tower Array". To add re-playability to the game, the tech required to USE the array could VARY. It could be part of the setup phase of the game...

So players travel between locations trying to amass the CORRECT technology to fire up the "Tower Array" and communicate with one of the distance cities elsewhere in the World...

Top
Fri, 10/30/2015 - 23:32
#6
trichinosis
Offline
Joined: 03/08/2014
Rules

Instead of skipping "Upkeep" in the first round of the game, would it be possible to rename it to a cleanup step, and have it last in the round structure? Then there would be no need to skip it in the first round.

When adding monsters to buildings, says in parentheses (up to 10) ...when it seems like it would be: add X monsters to buildings (max 10 per building).

"The Outskirts is a location, not a building." Is this specified on the outskirts token/card itself? If so, would that save you from having it multiple times in the rules? Maybe not, or maybe it could be in both places. Also, if the outskirts was a small board and not a card, it may seem different enough. Would building cards need to specifically state that they are buildings? That could open up other cards that are locations that aren't buildings for other scenarios. In my mind, I'm picturing "Building" in white text inside the bottom of the house silhouette.

Hero phase: Can you act then move, or do you have to move then act?
Action says you can take an action. I'd prefer "one action." But that's likely me being picky. When you get to collaborating, can only two heroes collaborate, because it states "both" instead of "all".
I'd assume collaborating heroes all choose the same action as their one action for the turn, and it isn't like one person chooses the collaborated action and the others can piggyback that action AND choose their own? And would need to be in the same location?

Carry bonus ... if this is active even when equipped, why give it a name? Just put it above the "Equip" bonus, maybe separated with a blank line? (So we don't think that everything below the word "Equip" is the equipped ability)

Theres a point where if heroes die, the characters roll 6+ ...I guess this is on a d12?

On weapons, there's a 1 H that I'm constantly reading as 1 Hit .. instead of 1 Handed. You use plenty of Icons, seems like there should be one that's a hand. Then you can use one for one handed weapons, and two for two handed weapons. ✋, perhaps?

Top
Sat, 10/31/2015 - 15:27
#7
keshiekay
keshiekay's picture
Offline
Joined: 05/31/2015
Thanks for reviewing!

questccg wrote:
I must say, this game seems like it could be a Zombie game. I know there are already too many of those - but it just feels like one.

It started out as one -- we've expanded it to be 'monsters.' In the story, all of the apocalypses happened on the same day. So you're fighting against zombies, robots, demons, faeries, etc. during Ragnarok. It's a good point that we mention that nowhere in the rules. Oops.

questccg wrote:
The only "design" suggestion I would have is adding distance to buildings. Maybe that could add an extra setup step - and would mean players need to move using APs. An action could be "move" = 3 APs per turn.

...

Just an idea - if you don't like it you can ignore it. I just thought it would be more realistic if buildings had a distance from each other. You could use 4 colors of Winks (Bingo tokens) and connect the City Hall using the Winks. The furthest building would have 4 winks, etc. Winks are also cheap components and you get an added "dimension" with travelling and APs.

Each turn = one month, so we allow players to move anywhere in the town during the Hero Phase. We're also thinking about "connecting" buildings later on (in another expansion, if we get that far). Instead of a small town, you play in a Metropolis, so we'll likely have subway tunnels to connect, and movement will be a little different. For now we're keeping it simple.

questccg wrote:
It sort of reminds me of Arctic Scavengers. (Check out "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41933/arctic-scavengers") Not in mechanics - more in theme.

I'l check it out, thanks. :)

Your comments are super helpful, by the way.

questccg wrote:
Maybe make it that the game lasts 1 year. The goal is to last until next Spring. Making the hardest months to survive over the Winter. Think up an escalation mechanic that means more monsters during the Winter months.

So, your comments make me realize that our Scenarios aren't listed in the rules at all -- when the game is printed, we have four scenarios: survive 12 months, survive 6 months, a technology victory, and a fortify the whole town victory. In the story, the town is cut off due to the apocalypses. Re: secondary win-conditions, the game is akin to Pandemic in that we want the game to be difficult to win.

questccg wrote:
IF you like this idea - you could ADD another STAT to buildings: How far they are. Like a "Granary" could be 3 or 4 (and kept close to the Outskirts) But it is plausible it gets attacked because of the food it contains. Or a "Well" could be a 1 or 2 (but is Frozen in Winter), etc.

Again, super helpful. It's not in the rules, I guess, but our buildings already have abilities (like, +1 to Grow, +1 to Develop Technology). I really, really like the 'Well' idea and how it interacts with the seasons. I'll run that by the team.

For technology, we have Technology Deck where the techs vary from Laser Sights (helps fight) to the Electric Fence, to Long-Range Radio. One of those things that we haven't listed in the rules. Do you think it would be helpful to add an Appendix where we list the cards and what they do?

trichinosis wrote:
Instead of skipping "Upkeep" in the first round of the game, would it be possible to rename it to a cleanup step, and have it last in the round structure? Then there would be no need to skip it in the first round.

We skip it in the first round so that folks don't need to spend food and water in the first month. I'll see if we can word it better if it's confusing to you.

trichinosis wrote:
When adding monsters to buildings, says in parentheses (up to 10) ...when it seems like it would be: add X monsters to buildings (max 10 per building).

I like your wording better. :)

trichinosis wrote:
"The Outskirts is a location, not a building." Is this specified on the outskirts token/card itself? If so, would that save you from having it multiple times in the rules? Maybe not, or maybe it could be in both places. Also, if the outskirts was a small board and not a card, it may seem different enough. Would building cards need to specifically state that they are buildings? That could open up other cards that are locations that aren't buildings for other scenarios. In my mind, I'm picturing "Building" in white text inside the bottom of the house silhouette.

Not specified on the Building cards themselves, but the Building cards have a very specific look (Title upper left, there will be a building picture, has building effect description). The Outskirts card (easier to print, and we plan to run this as a PnP first) doesn't have any images and has the title in the center, rather than on the top left. I think it should distinguish it enough visually.

trichinosis wrote:
Hero phase: Can you act then move, or do you have to move then act?

Action says you can take an action. I'd prefer "one action." But that's likely me being picky. When you get to collaborating, can only two heroes collaborate, because it states "both" instead of "all".

I'd assume collaborating heroes all choose the same action as their one action for the turn, and it isn't like one person chooses the collaborated action and the others can piggyback that action AND choose their own? And would need to be in the same location?

Move then act. You can choose not to move. GOOD POINT on the 'both' instead of 'all.' I hadn't thought about that being confusing.

Each Hero chooses their own action, but Heroes collaborate and decide which actions each Hero should take. So Lil' Timmy may choose to Collect Rainwater, The Mayor may choose to fight monsters, Bubba may choose to Clear The Outskirts, and Blackbeard may choose to Grow food, etc. The "Clear Building" action can be taken as a group -- in that case, Heroes must be in the same location. Otherwise they can be anywhere. Does that make sense?

trichinosis wrote:
Carry bonus ... if this is active even when equipped, why give it a name? Just put it above the "Equip" bonus, maybe separated with a blank line? (So we don't think that everything below the word "Equip" is the equipped ability)

It's active whenever a Hero has it in their inventory (is carrying it). We're trying to word it such that it's clear that a Hero gets the bonus even when the item is *not* equipped.

trichinosis wrote:
There's a point where if heroes die, the characters roll 6+ ...I guess this is on a d12?

Correct. If it was on a d6 that would be waaaaaaaaay harder. Almost every roll in the game is on a d12.

trichinosis wrote:
On weapons, there's a 1 H that I'm constantly reading as 1 Hit .. instead of 1 Handed. You use plenty of Icons, seems like there should be one that's a hand. Then you can use one for one handed weapons, and two for two handed weapons. ✋, perhaps?

Good point. We were debating whether we wanted 1H structure or with the icon. I'll use the icon.

Thank you, Trichinosis and QuestCCG, for your help! Let me know if I can clarify anything else.

Top
Sat, 10/31/2015 - 18:56
#8
questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Response

keshiekay wrote:
So, your comments make me realize that our Scenarios aren't listed in the rules at all -- when the game is printed, we have four scenarios: survive 12 months, survive 6 months, a technology victory, and a fortify the whole town victory. In the story, the town is cut off due to the apocalypses. Re: secondary win-conditions, the game is akin to Pandemic in that we want the game to be difficult to win.

I would ADD the Scenarios to your rulebook. There was no WIN condition so that's why I was unsure about how to win the game.

keshiekay wrote:
I really, really like the 'Well' idea and how it interacts with the seasons. I'll run that by the team.

If it gets invaded with monsters, they can "poison" the water until the "well" is cleared of any and all monsters.

keshiekay wrote:
For technology, we have Technology Deck where the techs vary from Laser Sights (helps fight) to the Electric Fence, to Long-Range Radio. One of those things that we haven't listed in the rules. Do you think it would be helpful to add an Appendix where we list the cards and what they do?

Don't include all the cards, maybe just a section explaining the Technology Deck. And you could maybe show an "example" of a Tech card, like you have done with Buildings in the earlier section.

Cheers!

Top
Mon, 11/02/2015 - 13:34
#9
JamesSylvan
JamesSylvan's picture
Offline
Joined: 11/01/2015
Helping out

Hi Kesh,

You were very friendly to introduce yourself in my "Hello, World" post, so I thought I could take a look at WTS.

Since I am not a very experienced game designer, and I am not yet familiar with your game, I decided to take a read through and note spelling/grammar errors. I hope you will find this helpful.

Top
Tue, 11/03/2015 - 16:53
#10
JohnPace
Offline
Joined: 09/20/2015
Quick look

Hello Kesh,

I meant to look at the game this weekend but got sidetracked, I was able to take a quick look. I will do another more in depth run through hopefully this evening. I made some comments on the document itself but wanted to ask them here as well.

As I was reading through the game I saw you have a Leader Token and the leader moves every turn, but what does the leader do? I could not tell from my reading if being the leader did anything either positive or negative.

I am curious about the month for every turn, that seems like a long time to fortify buildings and defeating monster. This is not a complaint but just curious if there was a reasoning behind it? Though it does go well with growing food.

Another thing that did not jump out at me was the purpose of the Outskirts. In the monster phase I see that more monsters are added to the outskirts but also to buildings. Can monsters move from the outskirts to the city?

Overall the game looks very interesting and it is one I would like to play.

Top
Wed, 11/04/2015 - 07:17
#11
keshiekay
keshiekay's picture
Offline
Joined: 05/31/2015
Thanks, John, for your help!

Thanks, John, for your help! I responded in the doc, but I'll also mention here for posterity.

JohnPace wrote:
As I was reading through the game I saw you have a Leader Token and the leader moves every turn, but what does the leader do? I could not tell from my reading if being the leader did anything either positive or negative.

Even though it's a co-op game, players sometimes can't make a unanimous decision. Or even a majority decision. The Leader Token is the tie-breaker. If that's not clear, I'll make sure to break that down a bit more.

JohnPace wrote:
I am curious about the month for every turn, that seems like a long time to fortify buildings and defeating monster. This is not a complaint but just curious if there was a reasoning behind it? Though it does go well with growing food.

Part of the theme. Since it's a survival game, we wanted it tied to the calendar. Plus, putting it in months allows us to use seasons. Winter is nasty for the players, but the remainder of the seasons have mildly beneficial effects.

JohnPace wrote:
Another thing that did not jump out at me was the purpose of the Outskirts. In the monster phase I see that more monsters are added to the outskirts but also to buildings. Can monsters move from the outskirts to the city?

The Outskirts is there to add pressure into the game. If The Outskirts hits 10, instead of adding one monster to each Fortified building during the Monster Phase, you add two. And then for each additional month that The Outskirts is above 10, an additional monster is added. So, if let unattended, it can overwhelm the board with monsters pretty quickly.

JohnPace wrote:
Overall the game looks very interesting and it is one I would like to play.

I'm glad you think so! We're currently working on a PNP version that I'll share here once done. I'll ping you when it's up. You can also monitor our progress at http://www.facebook.com/omengames or on Twitter @omengames.

Top
Wed, 11/04/2015 - 10:55
#12
JohnPace
Offline
Joined: 09/20/2015
keshiekay wrote: Even though

keshiekay wrote:
Even though it's a co-op game, players sometimes can't make a unanimous decision. Or even a majority decision. The Leader Token is the tie-breaker. If that's not clear, I'll make sure to break that down a bit more.

That was not very clear to me, at least from a quick pass through so maybe a note or something. Have you thought about a negative condition for the leader? For example a penalty to the rest of the team for the rest of the turn if the leader dies, because for the rest of the month the team is leaderless. This would add a height of danger for the leader and possible add more tactics. To counter that there could be a bonus to actions that are done when the leader is helping with the action? This could give incentive to have the leader help out but at the same time have a potential downside.

Top
Wed, 11/04/2015 - 18:15
#13
keshiekay
keshiekay's picture
Offline
Joined: 05/31/2015
JohnPace wrote: Have you

JohnPace wrote:
Have you thought about a negative condition for the leader? For example a penalty to the rest of the team for the rest of the turn if the leader dies, because for the rest of the month the team is leaderless. This would add a height of danger for the leader and possible add more tactics. To counter that there could be a bonus to actions that are done when the leader is helping with the action? This could give incentive to have the leader help out but at the same time have a potential downside.

When we first added the Leader Token, we considered both downsides and giving upsides to being the leader. Now it's just to be a tie breaker. The players are already forced to choose who should strategically die, based on Hero abilities in play, so I don't think there's a need to complicate it.

But you're right, I should clarify leader token stuff.

Top
Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut