Critique the October 2005 GDS entries

Since, from what I can tell, the stacking of the cards really just creates a single card with four attributes (two from the top card, and two from lower cards), you could probably just get rid of the whole stacking mechanic all together, and just have a large deck of cards will all of the possible combinations without much change to the way the game plays.

Another way to accomplish something similar would be dice with each of the special powers on each side. And after rolling bought dice, you have stack your dice into four columns, with the top face being your active special powers. Which would create a situation for a better rule (I think) of "use a special power, then you discard it" kind of thing, revealing the new die face on the stack.

However, I understand the need for it to be included due to the restrictions of the contest. Which is sort of part of the fun on the contest: fitting things into narrow restrictions which probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

Another way to accomplish something similar would be dice with each of the special powers on each side. And after rolling bought dice, you have stack your dice into four columns, with the top face being your active special powers. Which would create a situation for a better rule (I think) of "use a special power, then you discard it" kind of thing, revealing the new die face on the stack.

These are both close, but not quite there. In the first case, when you draw a card, you get those combinations, period. In Mike's system, you have the power to configure your combination.

In the case of the dice, you have to discard a power to gain access to the next one. While that's an interesting mechanic in its own right, it's still not the same.

When I first read Alumni Association, the transparent card aspect seemed pretty tacked on to me. I spent a good bit of time trying to come up with an alternate implementation of the mechanic and couldn't get one that didn't invovle much needless complication.

K.

I think we're miscommunicating here a little bit.
When I refer to "special powers", I mean "access to abilities the other players don't have". In the case of Alumni Association, the special powers are meaningful because they change my strategy based on the powers I gain:
- - snip 8< - -
So, back to my original challenge: come up with an equally elegant way to provide the players a way collect combinations of special abilities in which only certain combinations are valid, but in which almost any individual power is available.

You originally asked for an "alternate system that reproduces identical behavior in as elegant a fashion" which is highly unlikely without transparent cards, as the cards themselves enable the system. It’s a sort of strawman to ask us to duplicate the effects of transparent cards without using transparent cards, ergo, cube tower sans cube tower.

For a similar system, you might use tiles or chits drawn in pairs from a bag. The tiles would be in one of four colors and a player could only have one of each color. If you want it closer to the transparent system, you could say that the player must either keep both or discard both tiles drawn.

A similar effect could be achieved with standard cards. Each card has two powers, but you can only ever keep two (or n) cards.

Despite how it sounds, I don't intend to be dismissive or confrontational. I'd just like to see some deeper analysis of these games and examine the motivations and assumptions that guide the design process, to see the decision tree of game design. I think a fundamental understanding of the tools we use--why they work, as well as how--can only improve the design process and therefore the games themselves. We have a unique opportunity in the Showdown to examine the design process from start to finish, like a controlled lab experiment. With the limitations and extreme time-constraint, the first decisions we make in the design process are probably the most important and may be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful design. I think there are some really good designers here and we all have the potential, with the proper tools, to be great designers.

Also, I'm not picking on Alumni Association - Hamumu admitted the transparent cards were an afterthought, added to satisfy the 3D requirement (first incidence of pasted-on components?)

Here, I think we run into a Chicken and Egg conundrum. As you pointed out earlier, the special powers mechanism Mike chose works most elegantly with transparent cards. My observation was that Mike probably would not have chosen that mechanism had he not already decided to use transparent cards.

While reading the GDS entries for voting, I looked at it the other way: "The Special Powers have certain play qualities. Assuming those are the qualities the designer wants, could any component system besides transparent cards work?"

That's probably close. I'm not sure there is one best way to do anything in game design, just more or less successful ways. If I had any questions while looking at these games, they would be:

"Why did the designer choose this mechanism?"
"What factors influenced that decision?"
"How successful was the implementation?"

The beauty of the system is that we give 10 different people the same set of building materials and get 10 different houses in the end. I was probably too hasty in dismissing Mike's use of the cards - experimentation with new forms is admirable in any circumstance.

I think the most important question to ask is, "What have I learned from this?" When we see how each decision affects the final oucome, when we can trace the river back through all its meanderings to its source, then we can understand and navigate the current and perhaps begin from a stronger position in the next race. (pardon my metaphor)

Brett