With the opening of The Game Crafters games-on-demand website, I've been thinking of re-publishing some of the games I had self-published a few years ago. "Castle Danger" is almost ready to go (without much for changes, other than an extended board design and using pawns for pieces), but I wanted to improve DareBase before re-publishing it.
There's been some good, constructive feedback on DareBase's BGG page as well as a very interesting point by Keith Carter on superdupergames.org (where DareBase can be played against other people):
For the improvements, I wanted to do the following:
- Increase the feeling of "speed" in the game (seems a bit sluggish and frustrating at times)
- Extend the impact of the "dice queue" ... give a deeper look into future possible moves
- Give the players more options on their turns ... reduce the chance of having to pass
- Re-balance the aggression/defense mix in order to naturally encourage more aggressive play
- Possibly work in a card-based selection/movement mechanic to replace the dice queue
With all of these changes in mind, I think the updated design might be better considered a sequel instead of just a new edition of the original game. So, I'm calling it "DareBase Deluxe". A number of my proposed changes should be workable by simply adding dice and changing the rules used in playing with the original set ... but, obviously, the game cards are a significant change.
Here are my proposed changes:
- Bigger Dice Queue: Use 5 or more dice in the dice queue. It still works similarly in that coaches will use dice from one side, reroll the 1st die in the queue and add it to the other end when their turn is finished.
- 2 Player Moves Per Turn: On a coach's turn, he will now use the first 3 dice from the queue. 1 will be used to determine movement speed and the other 2 will be used to determine which of his players will be moving. Each player on the field may only be moved once per turn. (A coach with dice 1, 1, and 3 cannot move their player #1 twice.)
- Player May Reroll the 1st die in the queue before moving: The player may choose to reroll the first dice in the queue before moving.
- Possible Other Dice Queue Changes: I will be testing different ways to use the Dice Queue. Instead of just moving 1 die to the back of the queue after playing, what if the coach would move 2 or 3 of them? What if the coach picked 3 from the first 4 dice and used them, then rerolled all of them before adding them back into the queue? If more than 1 die was being relocated to the end of the queue, what if the coach was allowed to reroll more than 1 of them before making his moves? Obviously, these would probably require a Dice Queue size at least of 7 to work well ... but I want to see what testplaying shows.
- A Diagonal Move Costs 1.5 (instead of 2): The cost of a diagonal move is reduced to 1.5. The player still needs at least 1 movement point remaining to move horizontal/vertical and at least 1.5 movement points remaining to move diagonal.
- 2 Center Squares are "Power Stations": The 2 center squares will now be treated as "Power Stations" -- a player who moves onto one will end his movement for that turn, but will become the strongest player on the field, as if he had just entered the field from his endline. If a player starts a turn on a Power Station, the 2 center squares act like normal squares on the board.
- Cards Instead of Dice: Instead of using the Dice Queue for player selection & movement, the game will use a special "game deck" that contain cards with 2 sections on it -- the left side shows a player selection and the right side shows a movement number. Each side has a different team color -- so a "Yellow" player selection card will have a "Blue" movement number and vice versa. Instead of using a dice queue, there will be a number of cards face-up on the table in a draw pool, which is refreshed from a draw deck. Each coach starts with 3 cards in his hand. On a coach's turn, he selects 3 cards from the draw pool and plays down 3 cards -- 1 movement number and 2 player selections. After moving his players, the coach discards those 3 cards and refills the draw pool from the deck. Once the draw deck is depleted, the discard pile is reshuffled and set down as the refreshed draw deck.
I will be starting to playtest these changes and looking to publish "DareBase Deluxe" through thegamecrafter.com within the next few months ... comments and questions on these concept are very welcome and appreciated.
Thanks,
-Matt
![Syndicate content](/misc/feed.png "Comments for \""DareBase Deluxe"\""){kind=small}
Comments
Tweaking the Dice Queue Changes
From some solo playtesting this weekend, I'm getting zeroed-in on some of the dice queue changes.
I found that moving 2 players in a turn didn't really help much ... in fact, it amplified any "lucky dice" that the coach may have worked into.
I really like the "Held Die" concept. That, combined with the re-roll any single die in the queue, and the pick 2 out of the first 3 really reduces getting stuck with bad dice. It should also allow players to put together some sort of multi-turn stategy instead of only being able to choose the best option at-hand.
The "Power Stations" in the middle of the field makes a big difference ... not sure I'm sold on them yet, though. -Matt
Extended Dice Queue Isn't Working
The "extended" dice queue didn't work as well as I was hoping. It did reduce the chance for getting stuck with no real options ... but it greatly increased the amount of chaos involved, and made it nearly impossible to predict what your opponent might be doing.
So, I'm going back to the drawing board a bit and starting over with the current 3-dice queue. However, instead of using the first 2 dice to pick a player and a movement amount, the coach just uses the first die for movement and can choose to move any of his players.
To make the lower-end of the numbers less of a drag, the implementation works like this:
I've played through a few games this way and I really like the way it flows ... especially with the new "distance 1.5 for diagonals" and "power stations" rules. And these rule changes could be used with the original 1st edition sets as well.
I'm also changing the way the cards-based game would work as well. More on that once I've made the changes and have had a chance to test it.
-Matt
New 3-dice Rules *are* working
Now that I've played a few games through using the new 3-dice queue rules (stated in the previous comment) ... I like it quite a bit.
The only tweak I've made at this point is to drop the "any single player may not move more than a distance of 4" restriction when getting a 3-or-better on the die. It's showing to be an advantage to be able to move more than 1 player on a turn. Having a single player move a distance 5 or 6 isn't going to be overly powerful, but might be quite handy at times ... so, I don't see a reason for the restriction. (Less is better, right?)
Also, I'm toying with a "shift" option for the coach to use, which would allow him to keep the queue where it is, re-roll any one die, and them force the next coach to play the current die. I doubt this would be used very often, but might give the coach a last-ditch way of avoiding a defeat based on the current dice.
Now, on to the cards ... Sticking with allowing coaches to move multiple players in a turn, I'm using a combination of suits in the deck. There will be 4 suits with 10 cards in each suit. The values on the cards will be 2, 3, and 4 -- with three 2's, four 3's, and three 4's. there will also be eight "wild" 6's.
Coaches each start with 5 cards, which are kept face-up so the other coach can see what you have to work with. There are 3 cards dealt out in the middle as a "draw pool". A coach starts his turn by taking 2 new cards, either from the draw pool or from the top of the draw deck (draw pool is refreshed back to 3 from the draw deck).
Then, the coach can play 1 or more cards of the same suit. Each card can be used to move a single player. Each player can be moved only once in a coach's turn. A wild 6 can only be played by itself, but the 6 movement points can be distributed across multiple players if the coach wishes.
I've only testplayed a few hands ... not a whole game yet ... so, once I get those in, I'll let you know how that goes.
Also, there will be liberal flag-passing rules ... but I'll save that for a future update.
Dropping the Cards ... back to "just" a 2nd edition
The cards seemed to work ... but I didn't see that they added much to the game. Turns out that the tweaking of the dice-related rules accomplished a lot of what I was hoping to do ... so, I don't see the need for cards at this point -- I think it would only add confusion; too many options.
So, since we're back to just the original components, I can't justify the "Deluxe" suffix any more ... it'll just need to be a "2nd Edition -- With updated rules!! (and double the marshmallows)".
As for the Flag Passing Rules ... You will be able to transfer a flag between any 2 players that are horizontally or vertically adjacent (no diagonal passing) at any time and at no cost. This can be done in a chain, if you can work it out. This should relieve the condition of having your flag carrier stranded and motionless for a couple of turns ... and give you the ability to grab a flag and have a more powerful teammate run by, take the handoff and continue into enemy territory.
So, now I just need to tweak my graphics a bit (mainly removing the word "Deluxe" -- man, it was everywhere), and update the written rules ... maybe we'll see it available via TGC before the end of the month?
Oh. I also do plan to put out a free Print-n-Play version of the game as well on BGG, like I recently did with Castle Danger.
-Matt
Summary of Rule Changes
Only thing I have left to do to be able to publish DareBase at TGC is to finish up the rules document ... this is taking a bit longer than I expected.
However, I can summarize the rule changes being put into this 2nd Edition, with respect to the original:
Movement Cost Change: Diagonal moves costs 1.5 (instead of 2).
Power Stations: The 2 center squares are "Power Stations". Any player that starts a turn not on a Power Station and ends a turn on a Power Station becomes the strongest player on the field.
Dice/Movement Rules:
Dice "Shift": A coach may choose to "shift" instead of making a move. The dice queue is left as-is and it becomes the other coach's turn. The other coach is not allowed to shift on this next turn. However, he does have the option to re-roll the 1st dice in the queue before using it to make moves on his turn.
Flag Passing: A carried Flag may be passed between any 2 players that are horizontally or vertically adjacent (no diagonal passing). This may be done at any time during a coaches turn and at no cost.
Okay ... wish me luck, and feel free to post any comments/questions/ideas.
-Matt
It's released!
I just finished things up for the 2nd Edition and it's now available at TheGameCrafter.com:
http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/darebase
You can download the rules PDF from that page if you want to see how it all came together.
Thanks,
-Matt