Nova

On the next playtest the things I am going to look for are:

1. Runaway leader syndrome (which i think is a possibility)

2. Not enough time to make Colonies, making low scoring games a reality (not what I want)

3. With less players trading won't be a big deal

4. Upgrades may make the game a little easier for a person, and cause a run away leader. (May half to tone some down or make harder to upgrade)

5. Greens and Purples are tough to get, although they're suppose to be. I want to see if that makes a big difference in making colonies.

6. Colonies may not get completed. Maybe players should score for colonies even if they aren't finished, but get more points for finished colonies (and on top of that, for having a colonist on the planet.)

Those are my thoughts right now. I may get a chance to break it out tonight. I'll keep everyone posted if I do.

Well I could make a good excuse for that, but the lack of rereading it probably caused this (although I heard today on the radio about a very horrible mistake in someone's book. Sometimes we need to reread these things many times, and then let someone else read it almost just as many.) I'm fixing it as we speak and plan to reread and fix it (if needed) to make it clearer as soon as I can.

Yes the planets are one color each. This is the current distubution:

Green-3
Purple-5
Orange-7
Blue-9
Yellow-11
Red-13

Surprising, green isn't that rare, at least in the games I've seen it. Getting a mine on green is a great thing though.

I wanted the first solar system to be able to be chosen as a starting area, but it doesn't seem like that's enough space for a player to survive, even at the lowest level. You're right, though, there doesn't need to be more than a single planet there (at least no more than 4) to show that there is a solar system there. I will fix that in the next set of rules.

Hmmm...I thought I wrote that, and I swear I did, but you're right, there's no mention at all about mines in there. It's in there now. Basically, it costs a move point (MP) to do it. I'm probably going to put a glossary in the new version of the rules.

Yes they do come from the speed track. So far there's been plenty of materials for the players, and no chance of any of them running out of fuel. I think if you do run out of fuel, then, just like driving, you're punished for not managing your fuel very well. These days, unless you're in the country, you should have no reason to run out of gas, unless you're lazy like me and hate to do it. The game is very similar, the chances of running out of materials is extremely slim, and if you are holding onto one of the more valuable materials, then you can probably trade that for more than one material.

It's not in the rules, but there is a wave tracker that keeps track of both of these things. When I take pics of the game, I'll show you how it looks (it's not pretty, but it's easy to understand.) Actually the pics will help a lot in answering questions of how the game is played. I may add a chart to the rules still to help players.

It could be your fault, or the random set-up has made red a little rare, and all the other players have already put mines on all of the red planets. So therefore, you need to trade with them. And they are probably very happy to trade a few reds for a orange or purple.

Actually as i stated in one of my earlier posts, on level 3 (the slowest level) the wave destroyed 2 solar systems in the first 4 turns. After the first turn, it actually destroys 2 every 3 turns, until the speed gets reduced.

when players loss materials off their speed track every turn, they didn't gain anything, unless they had 3 or more mines. Since that will take at least 2 or 3 turns at the beginning to do that, I thought it was too much. So far the fuel reduction has worked out like I wanted it to. It's random, so the players can't pick which one they lose, and it keeps them on their feet. I'm going to watch this closely though. I don't want the players to get too compfortable too early.

I'm preparing a computer made player reference and as soon as that is done I'll post it here. Right now I have a homemade one that just got made obsolete from the new victory point conditions.

Thank you for your comments, they have given me much more to think about...Although I wonder if my brain will accept all of this thinking...

This weekend I finally got to pull out the game and playtest it to the end. Here's the results of that playtest...

1. The racing part and gathering materials part of the game shined. I am very happy with it and see no major changes happening to that part of it.

2. The Colony Building part was dull, and the endgame dragged on and on. Plus all of the players tied for the most points.

3. The wave speed started out at 4, and as I expected, it provided tension the whole game. There were quite a few turns, where all you could do was move from one solar system to the next in trying to get away from the wave. The wave lasted to about until the speed reducer was at level 8 (which means it desroyed 10 solar systems in all, about the place I want the game to end.)

4. Upgrades were too powerful and now have been tamed. The booster especially was way too much, basically giving double movement for the rest of the game too early was not very balanced.

4. The game took about an hour total, with 2 players, for the first time learning the rules. I figure with 4 players, which will be my next playtest, it should take that same amount of time, maybe with an additional 15 to 30 mins of teaching the rules and discussing any problems the testers have with the game. I probably will put a sample game in the rules and anything else to make it quicker to learn.

So to the changes...

1. The fuel and wave parts of the round will be switched. The way I had it, you would put materials on the speedtrack, just to watch them get wiped out the next part. That didn't seem right, and has been switched, so now the materials on the speed track are removed first, then you may add the new ones.

2. Instead of upgrades being part of your move, they are now part of the fuel part of the round, meaning you place materials on them when you place materials on your spee track. You need all of the materials on the upgrade for it to work, but do not have to put them on all at one time.

3. Also, when you lose materials off of your speed track, you lose them off of your upgrades at the same time. That means, you could have just a single material on an upgrade and will need to get the other material on there, for the upgrade to work.

4. The biggest change is the colony parts. They are no longer placed on the planets. Instead of building them at the end of the game, you build them throughout the game, and store them on the ship. Each one is worth just one point. The four colony parts are still there, but now, there is a colony part tracker, which tells which part needs to be built at that time. When a player builds that part, the tracker moves to the next part, which can be built by that player or the next player to build that part. Only that part can be built at that time, so the players will have to fight over the materials needed for that part at that time.

Besides scoring points from colony parts, you also get points for each solar system away from the wave when it stops and for being the furthest away from the wave when it stops (If only one player, he or she gets 2 VP. If more than one player is tied for the furthest, then they all get one 1 VP.

5. With this, colonists are being kicked out of the game. The number of colony parts per player may be increased as well. The game will end again as I wanted, when the wave ends.

6. Some minor changes. My wife suggested that the wave could surge if a 12 is rolled. I like it and will test it out to see how it effects the game. I also came up with the opposite effect if a 2 is rolled. Basically, when a 12 is rolled, the wave is increased by one instead of reduced. A 2 reduces the wave by 2 instead of 1.

7. The person closest to the wave goes first when moving. If there is a tie, then the player with the least amount of colony parts goes next. Finally, if still tied the player with the least amount of materials on their speed track goes first. Any other ties are resolved randomly. The next player to move is the player closest to the wave, next lowest amount of colony parts, or materials on their speed track, and continues until all players have moved using this.

I think that's it for the time being. I plan to have my next playtest on Friday but I want to break it out before then.

-Steve

I had the four player playtest and a couple other playtests since I posted last. There were only a few things that needed to be changed, and those changes were very minor except for one.

The game was fun and it provided a good deal of strategy, but the victory points was always the weakest link. I couldn't think of anything to make it stronger. It took me a few weeks, but I finally thought of something at the beginning of this week.

Before, VP were given to you by the number of colony parts you built, and then a bonus for the distance you were from the wave at the end of the game. Another bonus was given to you if you were the farthest or tied for the farthest away from the wave.

The last 2 ways to make VP are still there, in their current forms. They work well, and give enough points to make travelling farther from the wave worthwhile.

Testing has shown that making colonies was a little tougher than I thought. The most any player has made was 7 or 8. I think for 1 VP, the players weren't focusing enough on them. So I made the stakes a lot higher for building them.

Each player now has a Colony Part tracker on their player reference/ board. On that tracker, there are 4 squares with numbers 1-4, matching the colony part numbers on the player reference.

The player who builds all four colony parts first, receives 16 VP. Then all other players recieve VP equal to the number of colony parts on their colony part tracker in this manner, 9 VP for 3 colony parts, 4 VP for 2 colony parts, and 1 VP for 1 part.

I believe this will encourage players to make colony parts, so at least they can score 9 points at the least.

The bonus for finishing a colony may seem a little high, but I did the math in my head, and it works out good to me. For example, Jon builds all 4 colony parts and gets 16 points. Becky had 3 parts, so she gets 9, and Caleb had 2, and gets 4 points. However on the next one, Caleb works real hard and gets the next one in a hurry. He gets 16 points (20 total.)
Becky had 3 again, so she scores 9 VP (18 total) and Jon couldn't build fast enough and only has one part for 1 VP (17 total.)

I'll have to test it more I know, but it feels and looks good. I now feel that the VP will reward those who build and penalize those that do not.

I hope to have another playtest on Friday. I will post how this was received and how it worked.

-Steve

It's been a while since I've reported anything on Nova. After I finished Nova's proto I found that they weren't all that hard or time consuming so I made quite a few other games that I have been working on, mostly games that I have not discussed on here (they all have been pretty cut and dry designs and didn't have a lot of problems with them.) In fact, they've made me forget about Nova and it's been collecting dust rather well.

In the last month, however, I've dusted off the rules, look at all of the possible problem areas and started redrafting them. The basics of the game, like the wave, materials, etc. are all the same. My focus was on the things that bothered me the most, which are these:

1. "The Settlers Effect" (Not to be confused with the Butterfly Effect) Basically after a while in Settlers, I can tell you who will have a chance to win and who will not. I don't like that at all. Sometimes half way through the game is already decided. So I put some rule changes in to help curtail this.

2. The Victory Condition. I've went through victory conditions in Nova like nothing else. Nothing has seemed to work, although the 4 different parts with the person building them first getting 16 pts and then it going down from their, was the best I had so far. But it's not exactly what I want.

So this is what I would like:

1. I want a system that does not require players to have to spend movement to gain victory points. Right now, I'm looking to add it into the fuel part of the turn.

2. I want players to compete equally, even if they do not get mines on the right planets early. Right now, I see one bad move coming to haunt a player forever. I don't think the game should forgive every bad move, but it definately needs a little forgiveness.

3. However I want a strategy that rewards the player who has taken the best moves, who has moved ahead when they needed to and stayed behind to collect the right material.

Here's the current version of the rules, and the last victory condition that I had, even if I don't completely like it. If anyone has feedback on any of the rules in here, I'd be happy but at the moment, I think playtesting is the only thing I can do for everything besides the victory condition.

http://home.cfl.rr.com/invisiongames/NovaRules.doc
http://home.cfl.rr.com/invisiongames/NovaRules.pdf

Warning: These haven't been edited enough, so there may be some mistakes and clarity problems in here. I'm going to work on getting edited this week.

Another note, the game is only 3 to 6 players, after finding out that 2 players is not viable.

Thank you for your help in advance,

-Steve

I went ahead and read over your rules. It would be helpful to have the files on what the Speed Track looks like.

Here you are:

http://home.cfl.rr.com/invisiongames/Nova%20Player%20Reference.pdf
http://home.cfl.rr.com/invisiongames/Nova%20Player%20Reference.doc

I like the ability of choosing the speed level of the wave. I presume, the higher the speed level the faster the game goes. It's a neat touch to allow players to decide if they want a longer or shorter and more frantic game.

It works ok, except that 3 doesn't provide much challenge, but it's good for players to learn on.

Right now they're the same color on both sides. There's a bag that they are stored from, and they are brought out randomly, like carcassonne.
I like the hidden planet idea, but don't know if it would work the way I want it to. It may even get more complicated than I had envisioned or make the game more luck filled than it should be as well. Those are my initial thoughts.

The special planets are interesting as well, I may think about including them. I'm not too sure, since it will add more luck to the game, and the luck level is about where I want it.

Both players would get a material of that color. This rule was made to give mines more usefulness, so that they would be used more. The moving of mines will help this even more (at least on paper, I'll see in the next test)

Planets don't last long enough to really give too much material. This will be something I could implement easily enough without making it complicated. I will look into this.

I would perhaps think of another balancing mechanism, by having the solar systems closer to the wave at the beginning of the game have better planets, or at the least on average having more planets.

The starting positions can make a player have a slight advantage over another, but I've never seen it be enough of an advantage. I do like the idea of having better solar systems nearer the wave. I will look into this as well.

I think with the upgrades, there is enough building in the game. (You will see with the player reference.)

Goal cards would be interesting, although they are hard to balance (as we have seen from the Disciples game.) I also had an idea where players would draw colony part cards, which would be worth a certain amount of points if they built them using certain materials. I like the idea, but not having all of the cards. I will think about the goal cards (or a good alternative for them.) Maybe I can have variable powers, with a goal attached to those powers.

In all of the games I have played, I've only seen one player (which was myself) get eliminated by the wave. The only way that you can eliminated if is you forget how far the wave is moving and don't move far enough. I usually remind players how far the wave is and let them know that they need to move farther to survive.

My playtesters will probably think the same. However I first designed the mines as being able to send materials out at speeds faster than the ship you are flying. So in that way it works. This gives a little more resource management with the added bonus of not having a mine get stuck on a planet you don't need materials for anymore. I haven't tested it yet, so who knows.

--DarkDream

It's been great! I appreciate all of your comments. I'm off to work, so I'll have the drive to think about some of things. Thanks again!

-Steve