Game #5: Everest by FastLearner

I'm doing this piecemeal... it certainly looks like a very nicely presented game! I haven't gotten into it enough yet to comment for real, but here's something I thought of while reading posts...

You could have Action points (denoted as "Oxygen Points" or something), of which you get fewer as you move up the mountain... I have no idea what that does to your game though, but it's a possible way to represent Oxygen.

- Seth

Ok, I haven't read any of the other comments, so there may be some redundancy here...

First impressions: Visually spectacular. Clearly, game design is a great hobby for a graphic designer!

I like the Royal Climbing team as a timing mechanism. You can't sit still and just boost your energy, or try to get more sponsors, you must climb. It doesn't add any complexity per se. I'd keep it in there. But I wouldn't make it an "all players lose" mechanic, rather, I'd just make it a game end mechanic whereby players compare the number of flags they have, but no one has the "mega flags" from the summit. I don't know if a "Republic of Rome" "all players lose" really fits here.

There are WAY too many components. Is there some way you can reduce the number? Maybe not. My thinking was that rather than needing a separate type of tiles for each tier, you can just use the same stack of tiles, but just, following your math, add 4 to the tile for each tier you cross. Of course, people will forget to do that, and it's extra complexity, but it would streamline the components a bit. You have to decide for yourself which is more important.

I was a little concerned with the sponsor thing; it seemed like the expeditions should have been funded before starting, and that you're not looking for sponsors while you're "on the mountain". But I guess the idea with building base camps, etc, is that climbing the mountain is a long process and so adding team members, getting extra money, etc, can happen in the time scale of the climb. I guess it's ok thematically. It just feels like you've tacked that on for the sake of having a resource management aspect to the game, but it only seems to come into play in terms of being able to win auctions. To that end, I don't really see the need for having climbers being from the same country as sponsors, etc. It adds an extra thing to think about when bidding -- do I want this guy, since he's from the same country as a sponsor I want to get? I can't see why you'd think along those lines when bidding. As such, it seems like it's just a luck of the draw thing whereby if a sponsor happens to come up and he's from the same country as your climber, you luckily get extra money for it. Although I guess other players could recognize that and try to deprive you of the bonus. I don't know, I think it's nice atmosphere but perhaps not essential to gameplay.

I don't like the idea that "draft a climber" is an action that costs you your turn; what if you don't win the auction? You have wasted your turn. None of the other actions are like this. The auction should be a separate phase.
Either that, or make "draft a climber" similar to the Sponsor pool effect. It will still be a tough decision; do I strengthen my team, or try to keep going with what I have to get ahead of the pack.

Thematically, I don't think the strength of the team should be cumulative. In real life, the team only climbs as well as the weakest climber. But ok, I see your point.

I don't know how I feel about the whole "your route is easier to climb once you've already climbed it" effect. It works thematically, but just adds one more component, and one that could easily be moved unintentionally by players. If you want to have that effect, why not make all the routes the same color, and using ANY previously climber route is easier? This would permit a little more interaction, and could make the game a little cagey -- should I keep climbing, knowing that others can use my route more cheaply? Yes, because the bonuses for reaching the tiers are worth it. Yet, it would be a nice "catch the leader" ability if you can follow people up the mountain.

Maybe the effect you're getting at more is one whereby if you want to add a member to your team you must start at your base camp, so retracing to your last point will be a little easier. Maybe that's enough of an effect all by itself.

I don't like things in games like "player A determines what the weather will be". I accept that it has an interesting gameplay effect, but something always bothers me when players are allowed to do things that don't work thematically. It's probably just something I'd get over quickly...

I also don't know if there's a need for the exploration phase to work via "draw and place". Since you already have more tiles than board spaces, why not just pre-tile the board with face-down tiles? That makes exploration fit a lot better thematically -- you don't get to "choose" what terrain is where in real life, you just have to deal with it. It would result in a little more luck and a little less interaction, and so maybe it would be bad. The thing that it would let you do that would be cool, though, is that now you could try to "climb without exploring" -- so, you can explore by revealing a tile in front of you and then subsequently climb, or you can try to climb onto a tile sight-unseen, with the risk being that you will lose something if your climb fails. (and it can't just be an action, or else it's much more valuable to try to "blind climb" than to explore)... No clue if something like this would work.

You have some language about a climb "succeeding" or "failing". Since the value of the tile, weather, energy, and climb team strength are all known to you, why in the bloody blue blazes would you ever attempt a climb that would fail? Only if you screwed up the math, yet making a math mistake is not fair grounds to lose a turn, and is not interesting from a gameplay standpoint. Remove that language from the rules, it's really bad.

It seems that a player who reaches the summit first is almost guaranteed the win, and that another player would have to win at least three of the other "legs" (of which there are only 4) to have even a moderate chance of winning. I think it's ok for it the game to reward the person who reachies the top first with the win, but I think right now, it's quite unlikely that anyone other than that person would ever win. Yet, on the other hand, if the summit were less lucrative, then you could get into the opposite situation where a player who wins two other tiers would be guaranteed the win, rendering the summit superfluous...

All in all, I'd say that it sounds like a lot of fun. I'm concerned about a couple of things; perhaps there's a little too much complexity, but it's hard to say without playing. I think the game has good atmosphere, and interesting use of (to be a little blunt) fairly standard exploration game mechanics. You've borrowed a couple of things from Tikal here, but I think the "team strength" thing combined with the auction for climbers (which I think might be better as a "drafting" mechanic) and the draft for sponsors are very clever additions that I think take into account the "funding" aspect of exploration in a way that other games really haven't (except arguably lost cities, which is much more abstract). Great show! This is definitely a game I'd want to try out.

-Jeff

(Incidentally, the "cave exploration" game has made me want to try my hand at an exploration game as well, although mine will have a much broader scope. I'll let you know how it progresses, I'd be interested to compare notes with you and anyone else who's done the "exploration" thing once I'm a little further along...)

OK, so I did know that (which is partly why I bracketed my comment as being facetious. I suppose the real trick is getting back down again :) (something which I imagine will be discussed with regards to the cave game too...)

Ok, here goes... I'm going to put forth a couple of ideas. Some of them may be useful, some may not. Some are suggestions to change part of the game- those are intended to streamline or simplify- and others might just be for asthetics or theme. Do with these comments as you see fit.

Royal Climbing Team: I was in favor of ditching it originally, but I think it grew on me. I particularly liked how you were talking about making the game such that the RCT will most often win the 'race' and therefore points for "good climbing" will win the game. In the case of the a player reaching the summit, just give them a huge bonus (such that reaching the summit means 99.99% chance you win the game because you'll have the most points- or MAYBE even only 90% or so, so the POSSIBILITY of winning otherwise exists, but only if you outplay everyone else). More on Scoring later...

Scoring: Rather than scoring for flags or reaching a certain point on the mountain (though that does sort of make sense), how about scoring for being the first to climb any particular tile. This is how it could work. It goes along with someone's suggestion that you have random tile placement, using 1 stack of tiles, and add to difficulty based on how far you are from the base):

Climb Action, Unexplored Terrain: Choose a facedown tile and place it in the Mountain space you wish to move to. If the tiles are already laid out- a waste of startup time if you ask me- then you just flip it over. this is the space you are currently trying to climb through. You add the number on the tile, some number based on weather (more on Weather later), some number based on distance from base of mountain, and that's the Difficulty of the climb. To see if you succeed, take the ability of each climber in that suit (the type of tile we're talking about- Rock, Ice, etc) - which might be negative or zero (more on Climbers later). Add the abilities, any bonus from Gadgets (things you could buy at a camp or at the beginning of the game, like Crampons which give you a bonus on Ice tiles. More on Gadgets later), any Energy you spend, and any other factors that apply. This is your Competence for climbing in that suit. If your Competence is greater than (or equal to?) the Difficulty then you succeed in climbing- move your Climber onto that tile. If not, you fail and your Climber stays on it's current tile. If you fail by a certain amount (or at all if you like) then you lose a climber. Discard the climber with the lowest ability in that suit.

Possible Scoring for Climbing: * Succeeding in a climb earns you points equal to the amount by which your Competence exceeds the Difficulty.
* Succeeding in a climb earns you a number of points equal to the level of the Terrain tile (printed on tile- same number as used for Difficulty).
* Succeeding in a climb earns you a number of points equal to the tier you are currently climbing on (which should equal the distance from the base).

Climb Action, Explored Terrain: You may use a Climb Action to move to an already face up terrain tile as long as your Competence is greater than the Difficulty (as described above). You score no points for climbing Explored Terrain.

Climbers: I like how it sounds like you've set them up, with abilities in each suit and a nationality and perhaps an ability. I strongly agree with the comments on the Auction. It doesn't fit at all, and it's not equitable, and it basically sucks for the game. If player A wants to spend time and effort recruiting, then let him- but why should player B benefit? I think this means I agree with whoever said "make it like the Sponsers" which I believe is that you use an action to draw one of the three face up Climbers (then replace him, or maybe discard the other two and draw three new ones to choose from.) and then you get that climber on your team (tho he's inactive until you visit a base). I think it's important to note that the abilities in each suit could be both good and bad, like there could be a good Ice climber that sucks on rock (high Ice, negative Rock ability score).

Camps: Rather than going back to camps (which I guess you could do, but I think the game could probably focus on forward movement mostly), why not just have the new climbers join your active team when you BUILD a new camp? Like you have to set camp and wait for them to catch up. I guess that's the same thing really, as people who could build a camp would probably do so rather than run back to get guys, and that option should still be open in case you run out of camps... I'm babbling now.

Getting Crazy with Camps: You COULD set a limit on the number of Climbers in your "party," such that if you want a certain three guys, you have to leave the other two behind at a camp. This would be tricky and a little complicated (you could have game pieces for each climber and leave them at the camp tile) but would be somewhat interesting. I think it's a waste of effort though because it introduces problems along with all the neat decisions. I wouldn't do it, but it might be a neat idea for another game (I'll try and keep it in mind for the "Role Playing" stuff I've mentioned in other threads)

Routes: I don't see why it's necessary to keep track of who's route is whose- especially if you take my suggestions re: Climb Action. You can get rid of the route tokens alltogether, and if you want to climb you just have to make sure you have the competence to do it.

Weather: (You thought I forgot, didn't you?) Take a hint from Evo and have the weather move randomly but sort of expectedly during each Daily Report. Roll a die, or draw a card from a shuffled deck of "Up 1" or "Down 2" cards to see how the weather is changing. That will be in effect the whole round. The benefit of the cards is that it's not dice (which you don't like), and you can add flavor: "Snowstorm: Increment Weather Counter by 2. [Picture of a climber head down in the wind with snow falling everywhere] It was going well 'til that snow storm hit..." or "Sunshine: Decrease Weather Counter by 1. [Picture of the sun starting to penetrate through dark clouds] I think we're through the worst of it!"

[EDIT: The Weather cards could simply have the number ON them, and do away with the weather counter alltogether- this means there could be bigger swings in the weather, but it's probably fair since it affect evereyone.]

Gadgets: the one thing I think you should add (if you follow the other suggestions above) is Gadgets. These are things players can buy- either at the beginning of the game or maybe at camps which confer a bonus in a particular Terrain. If you want to get really intricate, add the number of Gadgets carried to the Difficulty of a climb. Now you have to balance that bonus 3 points (for example) on Ice the Crampons will get you with the 1 point penalty to everything that comes with it. Maybe a Repelling Set won't give a bonus, but will allow you to keep your climber rather than lose one when you fail a climb [EDIT: this could have a drawback like "counts as one item per climber in party" so that it makes climbs significantly harder, but hey- at least noone dies!]. A pack of Powerbars could act as an extra Energy counter.

[EDIT: There could be a facedown deck of Gadgets where you turn up the top three- like Sponsers and Climbers- which would fit the theme, and you could just make it another action rather than only at a camp... might work out that way.]

I think allowing these items for purchase as an action that's only available at a camp would add to the flaver and also the scoring mechanism described above. Yes, it means more peices, but in this case I think it addsmore than it subtracts. Besides, we're doing away with route tokens, board clutter (I still recommend the 1-line energy track rather than 1 per player or having lots of Energy Counters), extra tile piles... looks like the game will consist of a few tokens (Camps, Climber, Energy tokens in each color, 1 Weather token, Climber cards, Sponser cards, maybe Gadget cards, and Gold Bars. Oh, and a way to keep score, which could be a paper and pencil, or a scoring track, or VP chits.

Ok, I think that's all for now. Hopefully some of that will help.

- Seth

Why, thanks!

Well, yes. But that was already suggested as a way to have only 1 set of tiles.

That certainly sounds reasonable. Like "If Drill Sargent Murphy is in your party, subtract 1 from weather. It's a hard knock life... get used to it!"

- Seth

In game terms you pick a guy and put him up for auction. If someone besides you wins then you get the money. Either way you're ahead. Thoughts?

Frankly, I don't like it. It's not AS BAD as losing your action alltogetehr, but still- if yuo need a climber then you need a climber- not money.

Once you recruit someone, there's a point at which they commit to your team. Theoretically (and hopefully) you come to that commitment before they get to the mountain so they can't entertain better offers.

OR, I guess you could like, bribe other people's climbers to come climb for your team. But that would get silly fast.

I think it's best for the game to keep it uniform. The only question should be do you leave the other two up, or do you cycle through them (so recruiting one guy effectively removes another)?

Note that this matching the SPonser mechanic is an underrated but very good thing. When your mechanics all work the same way people understand the game better and it feels less disjointed.

- Seth

This isn't two ways to win, it's just two ways that the game could end, in which case, the winner is evaluated differently depending on the way the game ends. That's fine, but it's not "this OR that", I don't think. "Two ways to win" would be something like "You get X VP for each Tier, you get Y VP for each sponsor, player with most VPs wins". There you can choose different ways to get VP, thus, multiple paths to victory. In your game, you only get VP by climbing, and being the first to reach the goals is the only way to do it. It's not like you would climb really fast to the top of Tier 4, then try to throw rocks down at everyone so they couldn't reach the summit and win before the RCT reaches the top and ends the game...

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The big "exploration games" are Tikal and Goldland. I definitely recommend checking the rulebooks out on bgg to see how those work.

The things that leap out at me as being similar to these games are: players reveal tiles, then place them. Players can build "camps" that let them insert their pieces "further along" in the board. Some tiles are more difficult to cross than others. Some equipment (team members) make it easier to cross certain types of terrain. There is a "big goal" at the end that you're trying to reach, but you can win the game just by having hit certain "check points" along the way. Players can choose one of a limited number of actions each turn. There are others, I think, but you get the idea. I think some of these similarities are fairly overt, but again, because of the innovations with the funding system, and because the board is rotated 90 degrees (thus, it's "vertical" rather than "plan view"), I do think you have something different and original here. And I do think your game sounds fun in its own right!

But what I would do, were I inventing an exploration game (which I am), is read the rules of every other exploration game, and make sure that the mechanics that occured to me as a great way to evoke the theme, haven't occured to other people as well...or perhaps this is part of your process anyway...

-Jeff