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Generic Board Game Creator

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 10:30
RookieDesign
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hello to all,

I want to start this thread to help put on form a Generic Board Game Creator module. The goal is to produce a program to build your board game in it. This way everybody could playtest it.

Topics that I would like to see discuss in this thread are the following:

    Past previous experience. Darkehorse mentioned that this was talk before and the project never left the ground.
    Current product that doesn't give you satisfaction. Why is that?
    If you not satisfy with the current product like Vassal, what do you need?
    Leadership and contributors. In order for a project to advance, somebody have to drive it. Even if it is a common contribution. Somebody alone or a very small group (2-3) should give a direction to the project.
Let the brainstorming begin.

Have a good day.

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 10:50
#1
jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Generic Board Game Creator

Might I suggest that an alternative way to have this conversation would be to pretend that implementations like Vassal and the like don't exist, and just brainstorm a list of what operations would be needed to play most games? I suggest this because (a) presumably, most of us haven't tried to implement our games on a computer engine, and (b) if those who have start talking, the conversation will quickly go over the heads of those who haven't. Whereas, a conversation about "what would it be nice to have?" would be easier to have.

I'll briefly get such a conversation going; presumably others have already suggested as much.

What I think would be needed would be a "virtual tabletop" that lets you put components on the table and move them around. This would be the easiest thing, because then the game board could be completely passive -- just a picture, or whatever, and players would move pieces around on top of it.

Some common "components", like pawns, cubes, meeples, or houses, could be available to the players to bring onto the table, and to move freely. It would be best if these were generic, but perhaps there could be an option to add special pieces as well.

Cards and tiles could be handled much the same way; they would have to have 2 states, "up" and "down", and presumably (esp for tiles), it would have to be possible to rotate the tiles. Shuffling, drawing, etc, would all have to be possible. The issue of keeping card draws secret might be a challenge. Perhaps there could be two options, "Draw secret", which only shows the card to the active player (and other players see only the back), and "Draw public", which flips the card face up for all players to see.

Dice could come in two varieties -- standard, or custom. In either case, when a die is rolled, a random number is chosen and one face is revealed. "Roll the die" would have to be a usable function.

And with that, you could actually play almost any of the games we've designed here. This interface would assume players know how to play the game and how to appropriately manipulate the components. But, I think this would be way easier to write than a language for each of us to develop a custom application that will "play" our individual game.

No doubt someone can come up with even better ideas than these, as well as ideas about how to implement this. Just thought I'd throw a simple "wish list" out there...

-Jeff

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 11:32
#2
Zzzzz
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Generic Board Game Creator

I think Jeff is on the right track and the topics of this thread should focus on the "would like to have" instead of how it would work. How it gets implemented can be dealt with after a list of wanted items are composed.

To the "wish list" I would like to see a rules display window. This could be something as simple as a PDF display area. This would help when teaching new players the rules of your game. And I like the idea of having it available in the virtual board area, no looking at other webpages, programs etc....

Another "wish", having additional states for the pawns, cards, etc, that handle orientation (for now maybe just every 45(?) degrees). This would handle the placement of say "roads" in a settlers based game, or tapping type mechanic in a CCG or in a mini style game that needs to track the direction in which a unit is facing.

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 12:35
#3
Anonymous
Generic Board Game Creator

I agree that the best direction would be for a generic engine that could handle onscreen the various manipulations of playing pieces. Something to consider would be the uploading of the game components. Each card would either have to have text that is entered into the engine or an image of the prototype piece. The same would be true for really every kind of piece.

The engine would have to take into account the possibility of multiple boards in various arrangements. 2 examples that come to mind are the various boards of Lord of the Rings, or the player mats of Puerto Rico.

It wasn't mentioned already so I will add that a chat window is a must so that participants and thos just watching can interact with each other.

Jeff hit on a good theme regarding public and private holdings. The engine would have to allow for parts to be either public or private and have the ability to show other players the number of components held by other palyers (if they can't see the actual faces of the components).

Sounds like you're off to a good start!

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 13:32
#4
Trickydicky
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Generic Board Game Creator

Maybe these suggestions are automatic assumptions, but I will throw them into the pot anyway.

I think the board needs to have the ability to support both hex as well as square tiles.

I also think that there needs to be a place where any cards that aren't instantly discarded upon play can stay. For example there could be a "public hand" where certain cards are sent. These would be cards that stay in effect for the rest of the game.

It would also be important to have a private holdings section on the screen for each individual player. This should be generic enough that each designer could enter in the type of holding, i.e. money, food, etc.
These could be set at private or public depending on the game. This is important because not every game board has a place for the individual private holdings, i.e. Monopoly.

A turn counter system might also be nice, but it really isn't that hard for each player to keep track of how long certain objects have been in play by themselves. Having a computer system might cut down on disagreements of time though. It might not be worth the effort though. I know for one of the games I'm working on, players perform tasks that take a different number of turns each. It would be nice if they could simply click on the card with the task to represent that they have spent another turn performing it. The computer could then automatically count down or add up the number of turns they've spent on each task. Again this could be managed from each players home without any computer help, so if it is to difficult, forget I'v asked.

Just some more thoughts for the wish list (this kind of feels like a letter to Santa Claus)

Thanks

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 16:13
#5
RookieDesign
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Generic Board Game Creator

Trickydicky wrote:
I think the board needs to have the ability to support both hex as well as square tiles.

I also think that there needs to be a place where any cards that aren't instantly discarded upon play can stay. For example there could be a "public hand" where certain cards are sent. These would be cards that stay in effect for the rest of the game.

Actually I'm thinking dumber than that. No I'm not talking about you Trickydicky. I'm mean the board.

The ability of hex or square isn't a request. The board will be an image and you could drop other images (Pawn, token) on it. You can then support all kind of map including world map or road a la Catan.

For the card, no rules/effects will be incorporated in the game. You have to do everything by hand. Don't lose the card if you still need it.

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Thu, 09/30/2004 - 17:37
#6
Trickydicky
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Generic Board Game Creator

Quote:
Actually I'm thinking dumber than that. No I'm not talking about you Trickydicky. I'm mean the board.

Actually when it comes to computer programming I am pretty dumb. lol. Meaning, I don't know what all can be done in different programs. What you described is much better than what I described. I just didn't know it could be done like that.

Shows you how much help I'd be on a project like this.

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Fri, 10/01/2004 - 00:45
#7
RookieDesign
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Generic Board Game Creator

Trickydicky wrote:
Shows you how much help I'd be on a project like this.

That isn't true. Maybe you don't know programming, but you knkow your game design. By stating what you need, that can help in building a better module.

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Fri, 10/01/2004 - 14:18
#8
phpbbadmin
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Ok

Ok here is one of the previous threads I had mentioned earlier:

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=796&postday...

I like what folks have said thus far. I think this thread can quickly get out of control. Perhaps we need to start a subforum to further discuss/develop this idea.

Any thoughts?

-Darke

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Fri, 10/01/2004 - 23:25
#9
doho123
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Generic Board Game Creator

It's going to take someone a LOT of free time to get this up and running, and have to maintain it for all the features that various people would want.

A better idea, I think, would be to st up some sort of prototype exchange program, where people can ship finished prototypes with each other.

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Fri, 10/01/2004 - 23:51
#10
jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Generic Board Game Creator

doho123 wrote:
It's going to take someone a LOT of free time to get this up and running, and have to maintain it for all the features that various people would want.

A better idea, I think, would be to st up some sort of prototype exchange program, where people can ship finished prototypes with each other.

I don't disagree that this would be a great thing, but I don't think it's likely to be as inclusive. As it stands, currently, I simply don't have access to a game group to playtest games for others, and even when I did, it would have been asking a lot of my group to playtest someone else's games simply because "he was playtesting my games". However, I do have a computer, and if I can find 3 or 4 other people, could playtest my (or their) games over the internet, without needing to find other people to playtest the games.

I have no doubt that such an endeavor will be difficult (it's way over my head!), but that's partly why I emphasized a program that could do simple, generic operations, so that it can handle "almost every" game, but doesn't require customization or specialization. I think it can be done, but as to who can or will write it, I'm not sure...

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Sat, 10/02/2004 - 08:02
#11
phpbbadmin
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Generic Board Game Creator

doho123 wrote:
It's going to take someone a LOT of free time to get this up and running, and have to maintain it for all the features that various people would want.

A better idea, I think, would be to st up some sort of prototype exchange program, where people can ship finished prototypes with each other.

I think the virtual board software is something you could use even before you get to the stage where prototypes could be exchanged. Let's face it, creating a prototype takes A LOT of work. To create more than one of them is extremely time consuming. Plus what happens when you make a minor change? That's the beauty of a virtual board game environment; minor changes are simple, you don't have to be as nearly far down the design process as you would be with a physical prototype exchange. Heck, you could probably even use the software to self playtest very effectively.

I think it's a project worth working on. Very much so.

-Darke

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Sat, 10/02/2004 - 19:36
#12
Anonymous
Generic Board Game Creator

I think you guys are really on to something here which would add alot of value to your forum.

Are you familiar with the German site Brett's Game World or BSW?
Here's the link:

http://www.brettspielwelt.de/gate/jsp/base/

I think they do a really great job of taking popular German games and creating a simple interface and vehicle for playing these games.

I think making a template that all games could be played on will be difficult, but definitely an interesting challenge. I imagine it is possible.

I recommend that you use Flash as your software package for many reasons.
We have had great success with it here on an educational level. Whoever you have putting the stuff together will have to learn a bit about scripting in Flash, but it doesn't seem terribly difficult. Our students are able to pick up the basics in the context of one 11 week course.

Good Luck with this!!! As far as I know, nothing else like this exists and would be a great tool for board game designer's everywhere as well as for educational purposes.

Elder

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Sat, 10/02/2004 - 22:58
#13
doho123
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Generic Board Game Creator

I did a "generic tool" sort of along the lines that is being discussed. It did not have multi user access, and it was fairly narrowly focused. This took 1.5 months of 40 hours a week (and being paid for it). Adding a multi-user interface would probably take another 40 of debugging.

For anyone to bother with this for free, would have to make the system really, REALLY dumb. Ultimately, there would have to be one menu to load up elements (maps, counters, cards,etc). and placement of those elements. And then, you would probably have to right click on those element to change their state, giving you a menu of the state change (face down, turn 90 degrees, increment a counter, delete from game board, change graphic to XXX,etc), and let the players deal with the rules of how those elements should be changed, much like a real board game.

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Sun, 10/03/2004 - 20:34
#14
Trickydicky
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Generic Board Game Creator

Quote:
I think Jeff is on the right track and the topics of this thread should focus on the "would like to have" instead of how it would work. How it gets implemented can be dealt with after a list of wanted items are composed.

Nothing wrong with what has been said of late, but I think we should try to get back to the "wish list" for this program. I mostly feel this because programming mumbo jumbo goes over my head. But I am interested in what other features designers would like to see on this program.

Thanks

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Mon, 10/04/2004 - 09:26
#15
RookieDesign
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Generic Board Game Creator

Quickly (because I'm suppose to work :( )

I have some objects defined.
Boards
Cards
Tokens
CardPiles
Banks
Dice

Now boards are either the main board, or players board.

Cards are either cards or tile. You can flip them and orient them.

Tokens are any pieces. You can orient them (like road in Catan)

CardPiles are a stack of Cards.

Banks are either a money bank, or ressource bank (Barrel from Puerto Rico) and can be limited or unlimited. Can be auction title and such. A bank contain only the same king of object.

Dice well any size and combination you roll them.

I think with these basic object it is possible to make a good deal of board game. I know I could with mine.

Explain what are your needs. Understand that if you need house tokens and road tokens, these are just tokens with different image on them.
If you need to flip a pawn, you can take a card instead. When designing for computers programming, think about use and attributes and how they can be grouped together. The more common point between object the faster it it to develop.

Have a good day.

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