Sedj asked me to give his game a look, so I did. I haven't been involved in this thread before so I perhaps can look at it with a fresh view.
I'll read Sedj website and give comment as soon as I seen something unusual or something I think I don't understand or seems weird.
Intro: OK, sounds reasonable. Nothing unusual. OK theme for a game.
Typo: "Advertisements are the your source of income"
Modifier and Event cards seem to have almost the same purpose, except that you play Modifier cards onto a Program card (much like global and local enchantments in Magic). Is this distinction necessary? Would not a single line on each Event card "play this on a Program card" be enough?
"Deal out 5 cards from the Play deck face down to each player (you may look at your cards at this time). ". It sounds as if you just take a single peek at your cards and then put them face down again and not take them in your hand. Would it no be better to just say "each player takes 5 cards from the play deck and takes them in his hand"?
Players take turns bidding first each round . Two players will have a slight advantage (or disadvantage, I do not yet know) when there are 4 players, as they will be start player twice and the other players will be start player only once. Might not be a big deal; just an observation.
The bidding procedure reminds me a bit of Amun-Re. In that game each player has a "bidding stone" in his color, that they place on a number on the card to show what their bid is. This is a bit less clunkier than you "closest edge".
The bidding is not flawed, but I think it can be executed in a better way. First, I think that players should only be allowed to move their bid to another program when they are overbid. Secondly, a player should not be allowed to overbid on the same program card, but must move his bid to another program card. I think this will make the bidding a lot fiercer and tense. I think in your version I would simply start by bidding $1 and see what they others do and reacting to that, instead of trying to bid the "right" amount right away. Oh, by the way is it possible to bid $0? Or is $1 the lowest bid?
A possible variant you might want to try out is having one program card less than the number of players. This will leave one player out in the cold, which probably leads to even fiercer bidding. Might not work so well with 2 players though.
Programs on the current day are checked for Hits.
All programs? Also the programs of other players, or just the programs of the current player?
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Ah, I understand it now. Player 1 is just the guy who rolls the dice for all players. I think the layout here could be a bit better. A day consist of all players taking two actions. At the end of the day the dice are rolled and some "end of day" things happen.
It might be nice to have a way of tracking which day it is. More important is some sort of token or card to keep track of who is "player 1".
At each weeks end, in turn order, players choose a Program and roll a die. If the roll is LESS THAN the number of Ratings Counters on the chosen Program then that Program has Jumped the Shark and is discarded.
Wow, seems pretty random and quite harsh. I don't know yet how fast rating counters go up an a program, but if a program has 4 counters you already have a chance of 50% of losing it. Wouldn't rolling two dice be good enough? Isn't there another non-random way of doing this? I mean generating hits is already random... why not just state that a program with 5 hit counters becomes discarded? Other players could anticipate this and move their programs to that timeslot, hoping that a popular show will jump the shark an their own show will fill the gap.
Whenever one or more players have Programs to place (we'll call that "in their hand"), players take turns Placing a Program in an open time slot, Picking up a Program at the cost of $1 (any Ads on such a Program are discarded and a Ratings Counter is removed) and then placing a Program (either the Program just picked up or another Program), or Passing
Use a bulletlist to list the three options a player has, makes it clearer. I'm not sure I like the structure of this phase. I understand why you have chosen it, but I don't think the $1 is a very elegant solution. Why not start this phase with a round of giving each player the option to move exactly one program, and then rounds in which they can place their program cards from their hand? This makes it less fiddly and it becomes more important to plan ahead as you cannot move more than one program at a time.
Hand size in 8/7 Central is 5 cards. When taking this action a player may discard any number of cards before refilling their hand (to 5 cards) from the Play deck. The first card can be discarded for free, but the player must pay $1 per card discarded this way after the first.
Again, I understand the reason for this rule (to prevent a player's hand from filling up with unplayable cards), but there must be a more elegant way of solving this problem. How about, as an action, a player can sell a card to the bank; that card is discarded and the player gains an amount of $ equal to the cost associated with that card. It could work, the player gets an extra card, some $, but for the cost of an action.
Resolve Active Player's actions first
You mean Player 1 ;)
If there is no Ad attached to the Program, collect $1 Revenue
Why? Seems illogical, fiddly and not related to reality? Especially when you use my idea of sellign cards for money, because then you have an alternative way of generating money.
EXAMPLE: Station Identification matches categories NECESSITY, CONVENIENCE, and LUXURY. On a Program with both NECESSITY and LUXURY a hit would provide [1 Card (Revenue in upper left corner of card) x 2 (matching Ad Categories) = 2 Cards]
What?? I don't understand; do I get cards as a revenue, not money? I think I get money, but the example is confusing.
For EACH GENRE, the player with the highest Genre Total (total of Genre Level plus Ratings Counters for all Programs on the current day) scores a Victory Point
But you only count programs on the current day right? Otherwise I don't see how it matters where you place your programs.
The winner of the game is the player that collects the most Victory points in the alloted time. 2 and 4 player games should last 4 Weeks. 3 player games should last 3 weeks. Players can agree on a longer game, but it is recommended that each player have the same number of Weeks as "Player 1".
Determining the winner should be in its own paragraph, not hidden somewhere in scoring. I prefer that the length of the game (or the end condition) be stated somewhere at the beginning, preferably in the part where you explain the game structure.
I don't like idea that you play 4 weeks with an even number of players and 3 weeks with 3 just so that the (dis)advantage of the starting player evens out. Just an idea: what if you go with the variant where you auction off N-1 program cards, but the player without a program card becomes the starting player for that week? Then you can lose the whole "passing the player 1 status to the left" thing and it becomes more or less a player's choice instead of a thing that the game mechanism dictates.
The cards: get rid of the minimum bid thing. Auctions are supposed to be a self-balancing thing, so if a player wants to bid low on something, let them.
I don't like how the "hit" numbers on the cards are not sequential. I think it is nicer to to have sequential numbers, like 9-12 instead of 2,5,7,12 even when they provide statistical the same probability. It just makes it easier to check when something is rolled. I like it that you state the probability on the card (the 12/36 for example) but I think whenever you make a "nicer" prototype it is better to colorcode them (dark to light for example), because it is even more numbers on the card that is already quite full with information. I think players are interested to know whether a program has good, mediocre or bad probabilities, but giving them the exact numbers might be just a bit too much information.
The overview shows that the game and the cards becomes quite cluttered near the end of the game so it probably is a good idea to streamline the information on the cards as much as possible and remove anything that doesn't contribute a whole lot to the game.
Overall, sounds like a nice game with some interesting mechanics and a nice blend of German mechanics and American theme and chaos. Kep us informed on it!
