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The War of the Worlds - One More Day

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The Great Nothing
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Joined: 06/29/2020
WotWOMD Survivor Back.JPG

The War of the Worlds - One More Day, is a deck building, exploration and survival game based on events in the novel The War of the Worlds, by HG Wells. It can be played either solo or with 2 players working together.

You play as one of four Survivors (Journalist, Astronomer, Curate or Artillery Man) trying to stay alive and not give up hope, during the Martian invasion of Victorian England.

You will have to survive through one of twelve Stories (three per Survivor), exploring the six Locations (Horsell Common, Leatherhead, Weybridge, The City of London, Greenwich and The Coast), before the Martians eventualy succumb to the bacteria found on earth. The Stories include finding a loved one, learning about the Martians, inspiring your church-goers or aiding the British Army Artillery to destroy a Fighting Machine.

As you play through your story and explore the Locations, you will be impacted by the events from the Martian invasion that are unfolding around you – from tumultuous masses of people fleeing and blocking your way, the horror of stumbling upon a Martian pit, being slowed down by the Red Weed and of course coming face to face with the Fighting Machines themselves! These events slowly get more and more dangerous as the Incoming cylinders from Mars land, bringing more peril to Earth.

You will need to learn when to momentarily Dodge a foe, when to run away further to Evade them, or even when to take to an opportunity to Damage and maybe if you are very lucky, Destroy one.

Whilst exploring you will find ways to gain Stamina (to carry out extra actions), Intuition (to help you travel to new Locations) and the Queens Shilling (to develop your Survivors deck) purchasing new cards from things you find on The Road, or at the Locations you visit.

The War of the Worlds – One More Day, allows you to play through the stories of the individual people caught up in the events at the time of the Martian invasion, having to survive against desperate odds, one day at a time.

The Great Nothing
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Joined: 06/29/2020
Introduction

Hi,

The War of the Worlds - One More Day, is my first ever game :) It consists of approx 250 cards and 38 tokens for solo play. I am still working on the 2 player design. Play time is approx 1 hour solo.

I started designing this deck builder about 9 months ago, and I feel it is now at the stage where is it ready to go out for sharing and wider play testing. I hope to be able to get a printed version ready to mail out, and a digital version for the online platforms prepared (with text only on card fronts) once the card back art work is completed.

Game Overview -

At the start of the game you will need to select one of the four Survivor character cards (each with their own 10 card Survivor deck), take the appropriate amount of resource tokens and set their Health & Hope trackers based on the info from the Survivor character card. Then select one of three Stories to play through, this will give you objectives or tasks to achieve before the end of the game.

The types of cards in the game are -
* Survivor cards - which make up your deck/hand/discard and can be purchased from the Market Place
* Event deck - made up of predominantly negative events which impact on your Survivor. A number of these are drawn each turn.
* Incoming deck - increases the challenge of the Event deck as the game progresses.
* Six Location decks, which move into play to modify the Event which are drawn that turn, and also add cards to be purchased from the Market Place

The resources/measures in the game are -
* Queens Shilling token - to allow you purchase new cards for your deck
* Intuition token - to allow you to Travel to new Locations
* Stamina token - to allow you to draw an additional card to your hand
* Hope tracker - if you end your turn without Hope, the game ends
* Health tracker - if you end your turn without Health, the game ends
* Turn tracker - there are 15 turns plus a 5 card mini deck to randomise when the Martians succumb to Earths bacteria. Making the game 21-26 turns.

The basic out line of a turn -
* Advance the turn tracker
* Draw 5 cards from your Draw deck to form your Hand
* Draw Event cards – 3 from the Event deck if you aren't at a Location, or 1 Location Event and 2 from the Event deck if you are at a Location
* Engage with any Engagement cards which have been drawn
* Play cards from your Hand to your Discard pile to mitigate the negative effects of Events and Engagements
* Resolve the remaining Events and Engagement effects
* Discard Events cards, but remain Engaged with Engagements
* Potentially travel to a new Location
* Purchase new cards to your Discard pile from The Road or Location market places

Once you have an Engagement in play with you, they will damage you every turn unless you deal with them using your Survivor cards in your Hand,. The four options are -

* Dodge – this is Exhausts the Engagement for the rest of this turn so they cant hurt you, but they remain Engaged with you. They are Unexhausted before the start of the next turn.
* Evade – you run further away from the Engagement – but they are still around, ready to possibly Engage you again later on. Discard this card and shuffle it back into the Event deck.
* Destroy – The Removes an Engagement from the game completely. There are very limited number of cards in the game that will deal Damage to Engagements as I didn't want this to be a fighting game, as much as a survival game.
* Travel – If you gather and spend enough Intuition tokens to meet the requirement printed on each Location, you can Travel to the Location. This means a few good things – all Engagements are Evaded immediately (following above rules). The Location Event deck replaces one of the three Event cards drawn each turn (they are not necessarily good events in the Locations, but some might be better, and some will have information to progress your Survivors Story). Finally, more items are added to the Market Place whilst you are at this Location.

Hope that helps lay out the game. I will try and share some more info and details soon.

Any questions or comments are appreciated :)

Regards

Matt
The War of the Worlds - One More Day

The Professor
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Joined: 10/25/2014
Interesting Game

Matt,

Deck Builders remain extremely popular, especially when done well. I'll assume that you've played Dominion, CLANK!, and other titles in the genre. In addition, have you seen the other War of the World games on BGG just as a matter of reviewing the literature on the subject?

A few things that strike me at first blush include:

Pros:
Deck Building ~ As a mechanic, it's great provided the players can build and destroy elements of their deck to refine options
Theme and Narrative ~ if delivered in a rich and textured way, ala Nemo's War, it could prove a very compelling game

Cons:
Dodge & Evade ~ these two cards seem far too similar to be of value in the same deck...while there may be an appearance of choice, there might not be
Tokens ~ Recommend incorporating these onto the cards; instead of having Queen's Shilling or Intuition as a token, make card with those values (i.e. Donminion's Gold , Silver, and Copper or CLANK!'s feet for movement)

Inquiries: Two things I'm curious to know
Age Range?
Length of Play?

As a developer, I assist designers refine gameplay; playtest games; and edit and proofread rulebooks. I certainly invite you to check out my website professorslab.com and if you're interested, we can discuss all of the services.

Cheers,
Joe

The Great Nothing
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Joined: 06/29/2020
Thanks for your feedback Joe

Thanks for your feedback Joe :)

I do like playing deckbuilding games - but must admit I dont own the Grandfather of them, Dominion! I really should get a copy :)

I've looked at the other few WotW board games (and own one of them) - and am happy that I feel I am bringing something new to the table, which I feel is closer to the source material of the original novel. Focusing on the stories of one or two people, and the challenges trying to survive during the invasion - rather than it being a battle game between the human and Martian forces.

In a future post I will go into more details of the game play, and why Dodge and Evade are used differently. There are tactical decisions of when to use the various options.

For example, the Artillery Man may want to add Damage to an Engaged Fighting Machine - with a volley from a Battery of Cannons card. The Artillery Man could then use a card to Dodge the Fighting Machine, and thus stop the Damage they would normally recieve during the Event and Engagement phase that turn, but still remain Engaged with it.

If they can remain Engaged, and survive by Dodging for a turn or two, they might draw another Damage dealing card, and stand a chance of Destroying that Fighting Machine. If the Fighting Machine were to be Evaded and shuffled back into the Event deck, any Damage suffered is removed.

I will have a look/think about the card nased token option - I do wonder how much this might add to the cost of the game, so card based might be a good alternative.

I think age range is probably 12+

Length of play would start out at about 1.5hr, and once experienced in play and card actions, comes down to about 1hr.

I will have a look at your website :)

Many thanks

Matt
War of the Worlds - One More Day

The Professor
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Feedback...it's what I do!

Matt,

You're very welcome. I provided what I could based on the material at hand.

You do owe it to yourself to play Dominion. What deck-builders have you played?

The narrative, if written well, can prove very compelling and I'll be curious about your journey in this area.

I'm also curious about how you're differentiating Evade and Dodge.

As a developer, I'm very sensitive to costs, which is why (in addition to not making too fiddly) I recommended adding the elements to the cards.

The Age Range and Play Length are right in the "sweet spot" for your game.

PLease let me know if you have any questions about any of the services. SA I mentioned elsewhere, BGDF Community Members receive a 10% discount!

Cheers,
Joe

The Great Nothing
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Joined: 06/29/2020
Apologies for the slow reply

I have purchased Dominion and hope to get it to the table asap :)

Looking through BGG deckbuilding list - I've played Gloomhaven, Tainted Grail, LotR JIME, Clank, Legendary Encounters Alien, Hogawarts Battle, Thunderstone Quest, Big book of Madness plus Arkham Horror and LotR LCG's.

I might have over egged the Narrative element! It is more a way of giving the players objectives, and telling a small story (literally just a few sentences scattered through the game when they find the correct card) - but gives it all more structure and direction.

Thanks

Matt

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