Complex game?

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 00:26

#1

metzgerism

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Joined: 06/19/2009

TheNational wrote:I've spent

TheNational wrote:

I've spent the last year creating a game that has a pretty basic, and not terribly original, premise. It's called Nation. It is abstract in that, unlike Settlers, there is no mythology; you just create a nation, and compete with other nations -sort of like Civilization. The game can be played by 2 players up to ? number of players, as it is pretty modular. Like Settlers, it uses hex tiles and the board is unique in each game; though unlike Settlers, each player gets to randomly choose 8 hexes and place them around their "capitol," as they see fit, at the beginning of the game.

Settlers has no mythology. It has some backstory.

I would suggest you have some backstory - theme of a game is completely unimportant to me and still I have at least a write-off backstory (and it's not too bad).

TheNational wrote:

It might sound like I am downplaying the game, but I'm actually really excited by it. I would just appreciate some honest opinions. So here's the basics of how it works:

In the beginning, everyone places their tiles and places an urban area in their home tile (that's the capitol) and also places two People (representing populations of people) on two resource spots in their home tile. Also, each player can place a resource on these people -representing that the people are accessing the resource.

Each turn has 4 potential steps: 1)the player can move people, move something called influence (force, culture, and politics), and they can move resources to their cities to create wealth. 2) purchase items with resources, or indicate that resources will be used to maintain a new urban area. 3) Aqcuire. Each turn a player gets a new person, and two new resources; influence can also add people and resources. 4) Trade. Wealth resources created in the cities can double their value when traded with other players by placing them on resource overubundance spots.

The are some random aspecs, but otherwise everything is transparent on the board (no cards or hidden anything).

The influence, using very simple rock, paper, scissors mechanics can "battle it out." Also each influence has a special ability such as occupation, changing peoples culture, or adding or removing resources.

The goal is to create 4 urban areas first.

Thoughts?

It sounds like you have a lot fleshed out in your mind. Putting pen to paper on this one is a little difficult though.

I would be worried about "adding one person and two resources" mechanic - if you start out with only two people and over the course of the game you always add one, you might have a population problem.

Join the Chat (top right corner) and share your concept with others :)

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 11:21

#2

Traz

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Joined: 04/06/2009

yummy

Dude -
You've got the outline of a game that I would buy based solely on the outline you give. That's the kind of game that's right up my alley and I really like the mechanics as you've laid them out.

Metz makes good points - follow those. I would also consider injecting dice instead of rock-paper-scissors. I hate doing that in games. If you want a randomizer, it's hard to beat dice.

Have you put together a prototype yet? Is it ready for playtesting? Do you have a picture of the game being played you could post?

If you don't have a name for the game yet, I suggest you start referring to it as NATIONS. One word titles rock, and I think you're on to something here that I would like to follow.

BTW - are you Canadian?

PS - work hard on the rulebook. :-/

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 16:43

#3

metzgerism

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Traz wrote:Dude - You've got

Traz wrote:

Dude -
You've got the outline of a game that I would buy based solely on the outline you give. That's the kind of game that's right up my alley and I really like the mechanics as you've laid them out.

Metz makes good points - follow those. I would also consider injecting dice instead of rock-paper-scissors. I hate doing that in games. If you want a randomizer, it's hard to beat dice.

Cards work too, but you don't want the game to be TOO unoriginal or have TOO many parts.

That said, I'm using dice :)

Traz wrote:

Have you put together a prototype yet? Is it ready for playtesting? Do you have a picture of the game being played you could post?

If you don't have a name for the game yet, I suggest you start referring to it as NATIONS. One word titles rock, and I think you're on to something here that I would like to follow.

BTW - are you Canadian?

Go Sharks.

Traz wrote:

PS - work hard on the rulebook. :-/

PPS - work well on the rulebook. ;-*

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 17:41

#4

Traz

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Joined: 04/06/2009

Sharks? NOT!

GO CANUCKS! :-)

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 17:42

#5

MatthewF

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Joined: 07/22/2008

Traz wrote:I would also

Traz wrote:

I would also consider injecting dice instead of rock-paper-scissors. I hate doing that in games. If you want a randomizer, it's hard to beat dice.

I don't think he's referring to a randomizer, nor actual rock-paper-scissors.

A RPS mechanism would be, for example, one where elephants beat foxes, foxes beat mice, and mice beat elephants. If you see that your opponent is building up mice and you plan to attack, you don't bring a big army of elephants, you bring foxes instead. If you see that your opponents are building up elephants and want to buff up your defense, you build up mice instead of foxes. That kind of thing. It can be abstracted to anything, like catapults beat cavalry beats infantry beats catapults.

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 21:42

#6

Traz

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Joined: 04/06/2009

Bring it on, Dude! I got Mice!

MatthewF wrote:

It can be abstracted to anything, like catapults beat cavalry beats infantry beats catapults.

Ah, so - I'm cool with that.

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 22:56

#7

TheNational

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Joined: 08/03/2009

You got it exactly.

You got it exactly. Politics beats force which beats culture which beats politics. The random aspect is that when you pruchase Influence, the type (politics, etc.) is determined by the role of the die. I'll be honest, I'm excited about it, I just hope it plays well. Thanks for your comments.

Is there a risk of copywrite infringement by posting ideas here, by the way? I have a mockup of the game and rules, its been playtested to some extent, but I'm a bit shy about putting it out there.

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 23:20

#8

scifiantihero

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Joined: 07/08/2009

I imagine . . .

. . . that putting it out there (as in, here) would result in more critiques/ comments/ other helpful thing than it would people attempting to steal your idea.

Though, having someone say "oh wow I had that same idea" or "that sounds just like board game X(that you'd never heard of)" may still be pretty likely to happen ;)

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 23:29

#9

metzgerism

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Joined: 06/19/2009

On the chat room, there's a

On the chat room, there's a damn good chance that nobody cares enough to steal your idea (but will absolutely care enough to help out).
In fact, the more time I spend here and on BGG, the less concerned I am with anyone stealing my ideas.

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 01:01

#10

TheNational

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Joined: 08/03/2009

Thanks for the reassurance.

Thanks for the reassurance. I also read the notes on this site about copywrites and such: i feel much better. Anyway, I posted a couple images (version 1 and 2) under the prototype section of Artwork. Thanks for the feedback.

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 01:39

#11

apeloverage

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Joined: 08/01/2008

TheNational wrote:Is there a

TheNational wrote:

Is there a risk of copywrite infringement by posting ideas here, by the way? I have a mockup of the game and rules, its been playtested to some extent, but I'm a bit shy about putting it out there.

Technically it wouldn't be infringement, because you can't copyright rules.

However, as said above, the general consensus is that no one's going to steal your idea so you shouldn't be worried about that.

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 04:46

#12

MatthewF

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Joined: 07/22/2008

apeloverage wrote:Technically

apeloverage wrote:

Technically it wouldn't be infringement, because you can't copyright rules.

Being pedantic in order to make sure no one gets the wrong idea, you can indeed copyright rules, and in fact they're automatically copyrighted if you create them in many countries, including the US.

What you can't copyright is the gameplay, the things the rules do. Only the actual words are protected.

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 11:23

#13

TheNational

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Joined: 08/03/2009

Yeah, I feel much better

Yeah, I feel much better about the copywrite thing now. Hey, did you see the photos under Prototypes?

Wed, 08/05/2009 - 11:34

#14

TheNational

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Joined: 08/03/2009

Traz wrote:Dude -You've got

Traz wrote:

Dude -
You've got the outline of a game that I would buy based solely on the outline you give. That's the kind of game that's right up my alley and I really like the mechanics as you've laid them out.

Metz makes good points - follow those. I would also consider injecting dice instead of rock-paper-scissors. I hate doing that in games. If you want a randomizer, it's hard to beat dice.

Have you put together a prototype yet? Is it ready for playtesting? Do you have a picture of the game being played you could post?

If you don't have a name for the game yet, I suggest you start referring to it as NATIONS. One word titles rock, and I think you're on to something here that I would like to follow.

BTW - are you Canadian?

PS - work hard on the rulebook. :-/

I'm not Canadian, but I do live in the Pacific Northwest. I've been banging my head for a year on the rules. They're down to two pages (which is my goal). Actually version 1 and 2 are two pages, but play differently. Version 1 has simpler pieces, but the rules are probably a little less dynamic and intuitive than version 2, whicy has more complex pieces, but which I think has more intuitive and fast paced rules.

Thanks for your interest, and I hope you do follow, I'll try to keep the site updated. Maybe I'll post the rules on soon (I'll want to profreed them a couple times before posting).

Mon, 08/24/2009 - 05:06