[GDS] SEPTEMBER 2014 "Stand Up Game" - Critiques

Great job on the win Rich. Thanks for putting an entry in, it's nice to have you in on the fun. Thanks for a great challenge. I think this was my favourite one yet.

I voted DTC for gold. Great job combining elements and forcing the player movement. The idea of attaching pieces to a D6 with magnets was very creative. I like the negotiation component and the chance to vary things at each planet. My only concern is with the logistics of rolling the dice. Firstly, there could be issues with the equipment pieces coming off when you roll. Secondly, it may not work well rolling when you don't have something on each face, as it would not have balanced weight. Maybe you'd have to be forced to lose any equipment pieces that fall off. You could count the side that lands down rather than the side that lands up, since the added weight would make the sides with equipment more likely to land down. I think that would add some interesting things to consider before attacking.

The criteria I followed for awarding medals in my vote was the prominence and necessity of the “stand up” element in the game design. Is the “stand up” element essential or could the game function without it. Using something like placements on a board or marker cards/tokens scattered around a table.

I liked a lot of the ideas in this entry, but the “stand up” element wasn’t pronounced enough for my liking and it didn’t receive a medal purely because of that.

The movement around the room, and the available choices/information being limited according to where you are, would work very well. And it would certainly lead to a number of interesting choices and information bartering.

That being said, I felt it could be represented just as easily with circular cards for each planet and facedown resource cards running around their perimeter in a circular configuration for the line auction. A circular layout of resource cards (tokens), around a central planet card, could also throw up some other possibilities.

The inner planet is a circle on 2mm card and the facedown tokens are held in spaces on an outer ring. This outer ring is also 2mm, but it has 1mm indents to hold the tokens. The outer ring also revolves around the inner ring, using hi-tech finger push power.

When a player lands at a planet they take a position next to one of the resource points. This resource point can’t be occupied by another player. The player can then buy resources via a revolving line auction mechanic. They can buy the resource in their position for 1 credit or they can rotate the ring and buy the resource in the next slot for 2 credits and so on.

If a player simply wants to view some or all of the resources they can rotate the ring without buying anything. Obviously, when a player rotates the ring they also affect the line auction prices for the other players at the planet, whether they buy anything or not.

If they rotate it all the way around and then buy something it will cost them the total credits for all the turn notches made. So if the planet has 6 spaces they can buy the resource in the first slot for 1 credit. If they look through all 6 resources and then buy the one in the first slot (when it returns to them) it will cost 6 credits.

The mechanic might also open up an avenue for boosting the theme. Perhaps the turn rate/cost differs for the different planets to represent an orbit or it revolves on its own at the end of the round – so players can wait for a different line layout instead of actively turning the resource wheel.

An advance on this idea would be to give the players fuel points. The ship of a player is assumed to land at x position in orbit around the planet. Breaking through the atmosphere and landing on the immediate spot costs 1 fuel. If the player wants to land at another spot on the wheel they have to fire their boosters using up more fuel. So rotating their position 2 spaces would cost 2 fuel points.

The whole thing could be simplified further by having the players’ land where they want on the ring and then moving their ships around the ring instead of moving the ring. This would allow them to land where they wanted in the line auction and their movement wouldn’t affect the line auction for the other players.

What struck me as another drawback was the conversational aspect. For conversations to be private the planets would have to be quite a distance apart, even with whispering. The need to communicate with players at the other planets would then require a degree of volume in the form of raised voices. For me, shouting across the room would serve to eject me from the theme a little. Why am I sitting in my super hi-tech spaceship and shouting to communicate?

One idea that occurred to me was to use information drop pods, which might work better and be more in theme than shouting information across a room.

The players would leave beacons at the planets in the form of information that they know or want to know. This could be represented by leaving a card behind (iron here) or a card asking (is iron here). Another player could then pay to look at the card when they arrive or put down an answer that the questioner would have to pay to see when they return to the planet.

Alternatively, multiple answers questions could be handled with a game piece like the movement wheels in star wars miniatures.

The best solution might be to have two part plastic spheres or tubular containers (like old film canisters) and the players write their information or question on a piece of paper and pop it in. Alternatively, spheres could be used as information pods and the tubular containers could hold equipment/resource tokens or requests for the same.

This would allow the players to trade at a distance and pick up their information or items when they visit the planet at a future time, without the need to shout across the room.

I really, really liked the magnetic dice idea where the players add dice faces via magnetic attraction. Allowing the players to change their options in respect to the equipment attached to their ship (dice) is a great idea. I could see this being used in a lot of games.

The easiest way I can see to do it would be to have a two piece dice mold with a central space for a sphere magnet. This could be two halves or a dice with a plug space which would look a lot neater. The ball would be dropped in and then the plug would be glued in. Each face on the dice would feature an indent and round tokens backed with magnetic paper would be popped in and popped out.

http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=43

And that’s about it. I liked the theme and a lot of the ideas in the design. I just didn’t feel that the “stand up” element was as strong as some of the other designs and it could be replicated quite easily on a table setting.

Having said all that I think its great the Rich won this months contest and I hope it marks the start of more entries from him in the future.

I really liked the title and the introduction, but I have to say you lost me from there. I may be be missing something in my understanding, but it doesn't feel like enough. I don't see what is encouraging a lot of trading. Let me see if I've got it straight. You start the first round with one cube in your colour, so you would make one trade to get a different colour and you're done. You then get a new cube in your colour and trade with a different player the next round. You just need enough rounds to trade with each other player and then everyone ties. Please set me straight, if I've got it wrong. I think there need to be some more variables. If the idea is to try and serve the VIP guest first, there should be other people you are trying to serve that keep interfering. I see something along the lines of three guests each including the preferred. First, you have to collect order cards of differing colour combos for drinks and apps and once those are delivered you collect the main dish orders. You'd have to go to different stations to get different parts of the orders. Each chef station could generate different colour combos each round based on when the order cards are received. There would need to be some sort of penalty if you take to too long to serve the non VIP guests. I hope that makes some sense and is helpful. Like I said I like the concept I just didn't see enough going on to force the action.

I'm sorry for not posting sooner, I'll catch up tomorrow.

I just want to say thanks to everyone who voted for my entry.
Personally, I would have disqualified myself, because I completely forgot to include TWO of the listed mechanics (at least I forgot to intentionally include them.)

That said, I'd love to take this game further, so any criticism is still much appreciated. :)

Digger, Trader, Conqueror

Congrats on #1. I voted Silver on this one. This game hit all the requirements of the contest in a way that works well. The movement would affect the gameplay a lot by limiting your information about what's going on at other planets (as opposed to sitting at a table moving a ship around a board, and having all information available to you). I really liked the idea of using bargaining and threats to get that information from other people.

I'm Waiting

I voted Gold on this one. I loved the use of movement in this game, imagining how you might try to get to the mat you need as soon as possible in a round, then just stay there. But you still need to trade, trying to get people to come to you, or throwing a cube to someone else to do a trade because they're not close enough to you. But cards wouldn't throw very well, so you would be limited to trading with the people next to you unless you leave that mat and hope no one else takes it before you get back. I can also imagine someone inching off their mat to reach for a trade, ready to jump back at any moment like a baseball player getting ready to steal a base.

I think a deeper set collection mechanic would really help to make the trading more interesting. It could be as simple as needing more than 1 of each color, so it's not over in so few rounds, or getting multiple sets over a number of rounds. There's a lot of interesting stuff that could happen with the trading, but keeping the victory condition too simple might prevent the trading stuff from working as well as it could.

This entry received my silver medal for a combination of factors. I only saw the movement requirement and set collection at work, so I docked some points for that, but the rest of the game scored so well, that it just had to end in my top 3.

First of all, I like the theme of food/restaurant related games, so that's a big plus. I also liked how the game was set up and how there wasn't really a table variant to compare it too. It really embraced the requirement to move around the room.

The entry could've been a little more clear on the details of the rules, but then again, that is not usually required for this challenge.

I would add that if this ever goes into production, I'd try for food-shaped foam, much like the food-shaped game pieces/meeples that are available, just to add to them that little bit more.

I missed that you get the colour you end up in rather than your colour. That makes a big difference. Throwing pieces at each other also adds a big dynamic to the game I didn't see. I'm not sure picking food up off the floor and then wait staff throwing it at each fits the fine dining theme, but that's probably okay.

Tagged – Gold Medal

I really liked this game because I felt it encapsulated the moving around a room or rooms the best. One aspect that I found very interesting was the novel deck building aspect. When I looked at the game I identified the mechanics as set collection and deck building.

It appears that the deck building aspect wasn’t included as a conscious mechanic to satisfy the requirements of the challenge. Never the less, for me it’s in there. You tag physical objects to add them to your deck and prevent others from adding them to their decks.

Kind of strange, since it wasn’t wholly intentional, but this deck building aspect using the freeform tagging of real world objects really grabbed me. Allowing the players’ free reign to choose their game pieces and build a deck from them has a lot of possibilities.

It reminded me of an art installation that was run in London a few years back, The Locked Room Scenario by Ryan Gander. The participants entered a closed environment featuring objects in the form of staged room sets, some of which they could interact with and some they could only see.

With only the barest narrative to explain things every object, irrespective of whether it had anything to do with the narrative, became an item of interest and potential. The experience affected the way the participants viewed the objects to the extent that it influenced the degree of attention they devoted to objects after leaving the installation.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/28/artangel-locked-room...

http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/2011/locked_room_scenario/about_the...

I can’t help but wonder if something similar could be done with the Tagged design. Perhaps the players tag objects that are combined in an explanation/story that they write down.

These stories are then judged by a single adjudicator or by a consensus vote to determine which is the most applicable to a given plot line. The players then receive points for each item that they tagged and included in their story that was present in the chosen story.

I like the idea of everyone moving around, bringing everyday objects into play as game objects through tagging. It might be an idea to consider using different rooms instead of steps. One room is included in the game for each player. These rooms could be general rooms or they could feature some staged objects to tie in with the plot line.

6 tokens are placed in a pile for each room. These tokens identify a room along with a visitation value. So it could be visit room one first, room 3 second and so on. The players then choose 6 tokens each, taking it in turn to do so. Their choices have to represent different rooms so they can’t choose 2 or 3 tokens for the same room.

When everyone has chosen off they trundle to the first of their rooms, where they tag an item(s) or do nothing.

The adjudicator visits one room after a period of time and upon their arrival the player in that room must leave. When this player enters another room (in line with one of their tokens) the player in that room has to leave and go to the room of the next token. This continues until all the players have used their tokens.

The players then return to the start point for the scoring phase. This is repeated 3 times with the adjudicator developing the plotline after each scoring phase.

A simplified outline would have the moderator tell part of a plotline/story. When the players returned they would have to submit one of their tagged objects for the vote. The vote would then reward the item(s) and accompanying explanations that best fit the plotline - sort of like Dixit rewards cards that best represent the given clue.

The score awards would need some thought along with how to deal with/reward players that pick the same item (maybe players can pick the same item to cancel it out).

I voted silver for this game. I like the elements involved. I would have liked some specific examples of the cards to have clearer picture, but I'm sure the word limit was a problem. I think the timed track is interesting and would create a different feel for the gameplay. I think this could probably be done without people moving around, but moving fits well with the timed dynamic. It might be worth trying the game moving around to the timer as well as just moving player pieces around a single board in a more traditional everybody takes one turn per round manner and see which you end up like better.

I think I was going to have the players stationed about the room for the game, but became distracted with the different special roles of the players and ran out of time. Having it spread out would have been more secretive and could open up different opportunities for secret sabotage.

Thanks for the votes!

I think this entry suffered from a description that was trying to describe everything all at once rather than in the usual structure.

The goal of connecting tiles on each worksite would have been better stated upfront. Then readers could frame the turns and actions in terms of how it gets them to that goal.

On the actual game, i think this would play better just using pawns to place on the action-sites rather than moving around. And players are paying tiles to pick up more tiles? So really they're just exchanging tiles for more tiles? Without knowing how the tiles special actions affect gameplay you could probably do without this exchange and just pick up tiles.

If you get a chance, I'd suggest rewriting this entry and post it as a separate thread.

I agree with rich. This is a great variant on the game horse, but it would not be practical in most people's houses. I like the idea of overtime forcing someone to make multiple shots to claim a single card. I like having different categories for the shots, but three is likely enough. You could have a stack of cards per category. I think since you are collecting cards you could make it so that you are trying to spell horse as opposed to trying not to spell it. Each card could have 2-4 letters on it that can be used by the winner.

This was my first entry for a game competition. I strayed from the rules after I got the idea in my head and ran with it. That most likely hurt my chances at victory. However, I do think I have an interesting game idea and will evolve it a little bit to see where it might lead.

Thanks for all the input, and I hope to see another game competition soon!

To new and old participants, I want to say thank you for entering this month. It proved to be a very difficult challenge, but led to some very creative ideas to develop! All of these merit such development, and if you as a designer eventually discard it, hopefully you can pull some future inspiration from it.

In regards to my entry DTC, thanks for the insights. There are considerable mechanical issues with the game - e.g. how the magnets will work (i picture a large cube with indented sides that a square refrigerator-magnet would fit in and lay flat). I see that a version of this could be made with hidden planets at the same table, but part of my reasons for making it stand-up the way it was had to do with the aesthetic while playing. The game is meant to be in "actor stance," so anytime I can get the players to actually do the action their avatar would instead, the better.

The comment about leaving "drops" at the planets is interesting, and I might explore that, as it would add a level of competition if two players announce they're going to the same planet in order to steal the drop from each other.

The comment about speaking your communication out-loud being outside the theme; I'm okay with that. It's enough in the theme to think that all these traders would be on a collective CB-radio-esque network.

Thanks again for the feedback! This is going in the development queue for sure.