[GDS] SEPTEMBER 2015 "The Only Way Out is Up" - Critiques

I really have too much spare time on my hands...

I actually liked The Golden Flower better than my own design. It had some quirks, like how you "build ladders" instead of just having the guy stand there to give a boost, and how moving takes food. In spite of this, I think the overall idea is pretty solid.

Dulosis had the exceptional idea of using vertical surfaces. The theme and game play are a little lacking, but now I'm really excited for a game that can be played on fridges or on blackboards and whiteboards in classrooms.
I'm absolutely going to steal your idea and not look back.

Skyline, in my opinion, has the most potential to be developed into a full game. The theme and the suspense... Makes me think of The Fifth Element and the ending of Crank at the same time. The game is thematically vertical, but not really played vertically, so points taken there.

I liked Towers of Bologna. The changing costs of goods with supply and demand appeals to me (I like capitalist elements in games).

The "highest tower" bonus was substantially unique for each region, which I think is an important feature. Though I imagined it would take a lot of playtesting to fine-tune that to perfection and avoid one region giving a dominating advantage.
Btw small rules discrepancy - you say only the "highest tower" gains perks (in "City Sectors") but the second highest tower also gains lesser perks.

The main problem I can see with it is the fiddlyness of building the towers, and having to remove blocks from towers when dealing with the invasion cards. I imagine it would be very easy to knock a tower over and cause a horrible domino effect. I guess if you were to make it you could have pieces that slot together to avoid or at least minimise that problem.

TY :)

I think it makes sense in my mind, but presentation is important! If it makes sense to me but not others I probably haven't explained well.

Regarding "build ladders", I had in mind each level of height is a substantial amount (eg 3-5 meters height difference). You can climb up one level unassisted, but two levels would be too much.
The needing food to move thing is just that every round you spend one food, and spending it when you activate seemed like a good way of keeping track of it. But I guess it would "fit" better to call it something else eg stamina, endurance.

I actually noticed a big fault in the game after I had submitted it. Because of the way the heights are set up, if you build 3 ladders on your first round and send them with a full expedition the next round you are guaranteed to reach the top! I think allowing players to "stack" ladders was a mistake and disallowing that would fix the problem. I think I also need to make it a little harder to reach the top (eg by giving it an extra level of height, or reducing the expedition food/endurance stock)

I'll comment on the others later on.

At the start of your turn, you take cubes till you have 5/6/8 cubes.
Then you can buy/sell commodities and build. This forces players into the market or to start building. You can hoard lots of cubes in the market, but that makes you vulnerable to robberies and market crashes.

The big unsolved problem I'm sure everyone has noticed, is maybe players will be pissed off if their towers are knocked down by bumping the table, or when chain reactions of falling towers happen and everything is leveled.

The current solution is
Accidents: for the knocking down player to pay a block/tower height + fine. So The knocked down player can instantly rebuild the same height (though a very flimsy tower). If you can't pay, you have to take apart your towers to pay.

Chain reaction: only if your own tower is destroyed during an attack. You pay everyone affected a fine. If you have control of the city center, you can gradually lower the fine, and use shoddy towers as an offensive weapon. Or, if you're afraid of this, you can increase the fine to prohibitive levels, and potentially gain from getting your tower knocked down.

Not very elegant.

I like the premise of this idea. I really the concept of a worker placement game where multiple workers have to work together. This one missed a medal for me for two reasons. First, it could be represented 2d (which would be more practical). Second, I felt like it needs to incorporate so more kinds of obstacles that you'd face trying to climb a mountain.

While I very much enjoyed the creativity of this idea, sitting in front of your refrigerator to play a game is rather impractical. That kept it out of the medals for me. I like the way the dice are used to represent the ants, but I think the game would be better suited on a regular 2d board. Having said all that, if you made a kids game about ants that was played with magnets on the fridge it would be fantastic. I have little kids and having a game they could play on the fridge while I was making supper or doing the dishes would be perfect.

I like how the ships can only go to towers at their starting height or lower. I like how you get cards when someone else goes to your tower. However, I was unclear on what drives how and where you make your routes. As a result, I was unsure about the strategic depth (not that there isn't any, I just couldn't gage it). That kept it shy of the medals for me. I felt like it needs something a little more to it. If you'll indulge me, I have a couple of thoughts.

It would be logical that the ships are carrying things between the towers, so I think it would make sense for this to be a pickup and delivery type of game. I think the tower pieces could each specify different goods/resources and then the top most piece dictates what you pick up from that tower. The roof pieces could then dictate what you need to drop off. You'd then have to choose whether to pick up the piece for future building or to use it for a drop off. I also think it's important for a game to have an element of here's the standard rule, but now I can modify it. I think you could incorporate a special function on each card so that each card for each region is not identical. Then maybe you would choose one special function to use per route or something.

Anyway just my two cents. Feel free to ignore it, but I think there's potential in this idea for sure.

I haven't played any of the Android games, but an elevator to space sounds pretty cool. It seems fitting for the theme of a board game. This one did not get a vote for me because the vertical element was mostly a gimmick (albeit a cool one) rather than being central to the game play. I think it sounds like an interesting concept. It sounds like it combines action point allowance with worker placement. I was left a little unclear on exactly how the AP and stats fit together to meet the challenge cards (it could be simply because I'm not familiar with any of the examples).

I had a fun time participating and voting in my first GDS and it was tough for me to decide how to distribute my votes. I'm a total noob and game design and have very limited play experience as well, but here are some thoughts, for what they're worth.

Towers of Bologna
I liked this pitch a lot. For one, it was the description that I found easiest to understand and visualize while also having a lot of interesting elements/mechanics in play. I also really like the idea of intentional tower-tipping.

The Golden Flower
This one has grown on me a lot, the more that I've looked at it. It took me a while to visualize what the mountain pieces look like and how they are arranged in a hex. I really like the concept of a race-to-the-top where there is a lot of zig-zagging up and down to base camp to get and activate resources to finally get you all the way. (One other thing that's not a big deal but a type of detail that tends to nag at me is the thematic justification for ladders's being single-use only.)

King of the Hill
For some reason, this one didn't quite grab my attention (probably having something to do with my attraction to thematic content). I do like that the description basically tells you everything you'd need to know to actually try it out very quickly with a set of poker chips or similar, which I might actually try do at some point.

Skyline
This sounded like a potentially fun co-op to me, though it also seems like it would be quite complicated to figure out a configuration of obstacles and crises that would hit the balance between assured destruction and fulfilling challenge.

Steam and Steel
This one didn't make my top three but I did like the theme (though, with the taller-to-shorter tower rule, I couldn't help but envision a modified version where people were flying across the city on ziplines).

Android Beanstalk
I'm a bit of a sucker for cyberpunk stuff, so this one had a bit of an advantage for me from the get-go. I also like the idea of the telescoping play-space and the modular ring rotation. I think it would nice if there was more integration of the verticality into the game, like differences in difficulty/reward for objectives completed higher up the stalk or something.

Nuts and Bolts
I really like the physicality of this game. As I've hinted at before, abstract games are a bit hit or miss for me and it's hard for me to judge quality (or at least how much I would like it) without direct experience with the game.

The Phaistos Disk
I like the idea of using the Phaistos Disk in a game quite a bit. The game play as described didn't really strike me being as cool as all that though.

That's an interesting piece of history to pick up on. It's fun to think of people in ancient times enjoying a good board game. Although it sounds interesting, I did not vote for this entry. The vertical element was simply placing the rings on the pawns, so not central enough.