Game 28: Ultra Violets by ensor

Sounds pretty spiffy. I don't think the theme is a huge problem. Then again, I have a friend who is pretty big on theme; he doesn't like Bohnanza, loves Munchkin. Bohnanza I think is an obviously better game, but the theme turns him off. Killer Bunnies is another example, theme is good, mechanics are so-so.

You're right that's a lot of components. Playtesting might reduce the number of plants you need, it seems like a lot. Might be true with leaves, too.

Some stuff about the rules:
Trading:

Pests seem like they would be around pretty much all the time. 5 unique leaves seems rather steep and if even one pest survives, they'll be back. Perhaps the pests could have a 1/4 side and a 1/2 side. First round: 1/4 side, second round 1/2, third round: spreads but dies on the starting place (immune plants).

Figure I should submit this before I lose it all. Best of luck.

DarkDream has a lot of good things to say.

I don't think you need a theme change, but I think that if you stick with the flowers, you'd better have really really good mechanics. Be prepared to sacrifice aspects of real life African Violets in exchange for playability.

Here's a rather big unspecific change that is probably unimplementable. I imagine that flower growing is lots of work and tending that accumulates in a brief but brilliant show. You game is grow, show, grow, show, grow, show (alternative game title perhaps? Grow & Show). The show should feel like a big event. Perhaps something similar to El Grande's three rounds then score, three rounds then score. You can earn a few points during the growing phase but the big payoff comes at the show. Then again, all my knowledge of flower shows comes from your game and a King of the Hill episode.

I like that idea. How each plant gains a leaf each round. The number of leaves on a plant is public knowledge, but the type plant itself is kept secret. Some plant types show better and some will give you harvesting bonuses. The plant maxes out at five (?) leaves. At any point you can scrap the plant and harvest all of the leaves (or take one for free?) or you can let it grow. The number of leaves it has is its score, plus a bonus for its type.

How about adding a bidding element? Start a round with a leaf seed, and players bid for it (1 unique! 2! 2 unique! 4! 4 unique!). Adds some interaction. Then you get a random flower type that you keep hidden.

Why does the president get her pick of the flowers, anyways? It seems that would create a runaway leader. Why not make the Pres give away leaves from the show winner while the losers get to keep their leaves?

I'd be careful how much "Screw your neighbor" you add. Player interaction can go both ways, Munchkin (not a favorite of mine, however) mixes both Screw Your Neighbor with Help Your Neighbor quite well, IMO. You have that trading phase... hmmm....

I'd find a different way to do the maladies. Rolling a dice and seeing what happens is my least favorite game mechanic. If I think of a different way to incorperate maladies, I'll let you know. :)

- Sean

Here are my initial thoughts. You've made a very nice presentation! The pictures really helped. You have some very cool mechanics in here, especially regarding the Show. I like the basic game you've got here!

On the topic of the flower theme: some have said keep the theme, while others say find a new one. Personally, I think the game seems to work well with the current theme. So, I say don't change it right now, as it isn't yet clear that theme is a problem. If it eventually does become clear that it's a problem, change it. These mechanics should translate easily into a financial or economic theme.

I put a bunch of thought into the question of how to reduce the number of components. Basically, I think that the Environment Deck can be eliminated. Here are two different ways of doing it, based on fixing a different thing that I didn't really like.

What was the thing I didn't like? It was the Malady Roll. It's not that I mind a forced random negative occurence every single turn (after all, you said these flowers are fickle about their environment). What bothered me was that this is the ONLY place in the whole game where you need a die roll. The die roll felt out of place to me. Okay, so the two ways I propose to fix the Environment deck/component "problem" involve either adding die rolls or removing them entirely.

Solution 1: Change the Environment Deck to be more like the Malady rolls by rolling on a table of outcomes. You pay 2 leaves for some random benefit. You could list out exactly the same bonuses your environment cards currently give. So what if everyone knows what you rolled -- I imagine you'd get some pretty nosey competitors coming to visit your greenhouse from time to time. (Maybe that's when they'd plant the pot in your pots!) Doing this gives you two places in the game where you need a die roll while keeping the function of the Environment deck and eliminating extra cards. (It also reduces your production costs.)

Solution 2A: Take the cards in your Environment Deck and turn them into things you can buy from the Store, just like the Mini-heaters and Grow Lights. You already have the Store mechanic, why not tighten that up? You could raise the leaf cost of the fertilizers and make them permanent bonuses (unless a Malady wipes them out -- call it "Repotting Accident" or some such). This gets the extra components down to a single card per player (for each thing in the Environment deck), and makes the player decide when they want to or can afford to invest in something.

Solution 2B: Well, that didn't remove the isolated Malady die roll, so here then is part two of my suggestion. For this, why not consider a bidding mechanism? Each player makes a secret leaf bid (zero or more) that represents their diligence in tending their plants. All players reveal simultaneously and look up the sum total on a chart. Perhaps something like this:
20+ = Nothing happens to anyone's plants.
16-19 = Plant Exchange
14-15 = Power Surge (lowest bidder with a grow light gets zapped)
12-13 = Repotting Accident (lowest bidder spills their special soil)
10-11 = Cold Snap (gets many people)
6-9 = Mildew (gets all people)
1-5 = Pests (lowest bidder gets infected now, others shortly!)
Of course, you'd have to figure out the right ranges, but the player who bids low should be more severely penalized. This kind of thing also gives you a wider range of effects than rolling a die. It might also generate some of the decision-making someone else was asking about.

On to some other notes.

Does there really need to be 5 different kinds of leaves? Most of which get dealt randomly? I haven't playtested it, but it seems to me this will make it somewhat harder to get the leaf combinations you need for what you want to buy. And why should Grow Lights and Mini-Heaters require unique types of leaves? I don't see a thematic reason why this should be so. It just makes obtaining them harder. You can simplify these parts of the game (and perhaps shift the challenge from random collecting to deciding when and what to buy). It's a thought, anyway.

Why is trading-in (during Growth stage) done at random? If there's a thematic reason, that's fine, just tell me. If I'm going to trade in 3 same kind of leaves, it seems to me that I should get a plant of that kind. Or if I trade leaves 2-for-1, shouldn't I get the kind of leaf I want in return? What happens if I try to trade 2 Round leaves, hoping for a Pointed Leaf, but draw another Round one at random? I've essentially thrown away my game currency!

Now, I have to say that I am fascinated by your Show mechanic in which a player's score goes down if a later player *chooses* to wind up with that score. The order of play REALLY matters. Very cool. I don't think I've ever seen this before. How have your playtesters liked it?

Then combine that with the new Club President getting to swap in and out from the flowers shown. You've got a very interesting setup here. It seems to me that this should generate some very interesting interactions over the course of several turns (what with the President going first next time ...).

Oh, I almost forgot. You should mention somewhere in the rules why you have radioactive plants in the game (for those of us who didn't know anything about the cosmically-exposed seeds). In the final scoring, though, it seems to me that everyone with radiation tokens should get penalties, maybe -2 per token. If someone gets "sick" from having 4 tokens, shouldn't the players with 3 tokens feel something too?

And a typo: under the Mildew Malady, you typed "All players will receive lose 1/4 ..." Remove the word "receive."

I hope these ideas help. At least, they should give you something to think about. Of course, keep in mind your target audience. If you want your game to appeal to us gamers (or players more like me), perhaps reducing the randomness in favor of strategic decisions would help (perhaps). If your target audience is the growers, then perhaps keeping the more randomish elements is in fact appropriate. If you want to hit that crossover market, well, you'll just have to find the right balance. But think about the key points of the game and ask if there might be a different way to implement them that keeps whatever flavor you want while simplifying and/or improving the game play.

Okay, that's enough from me. Thanks for listening. Good luck with this! You've got some really great ideas here! (And an awesome wife who's willing to take part in this!)

Captain Sky

It seems to me that the real effect here is that the score-trump guarantees a unique winner for the Show. If you enforce the trickle-down as well, the effect ensures that everyone's score is distinct. Forget theme for a moment. If you can think of a game reason why this is better than simply guaranteeing a unique winner, then do the trickle-down. I don't know how the game scores in practice, so I'm not a good judge. If you think that you might want to break ties throughout the game, then the trickle-down would help ensure that as each player will earn a different number of points in this step. Also, the trickle-down may serve to punish the Club President rather severely if they invested a fair number of leaves in a good plant, only to have it be devalued by three points at the end of the Show! Of course, maybe this would balance out over the course of the game since it could potentially happen to every Club Pres every turn, or maybe it just doesn't happen all that often. I don't know. I guess it might make players not want to be Club President until the very last turn of the game when they cross 40 points for the win. Would that make players actively try to *not* win the Show? That might get wierd.

... hmm perhaps trickle-down might not be so good for the game after all.

Captain Sky