[GDS] JANUARY 2014 "Big Ideas in Tiny Packages" - Critiques

Time Capsules

Interesting conceptual approach, with setting things into motion and seeing how they work out. I can see how this can be tied into the challenge, but those direct connections are missing. Setting up foundations or addressing issues is a really interesting decision mechanic.

There is definitely a balance in design description for these challenges in letting loose on the game mechanics and explaining the vision. As an elevator pitch, if the game take more than 30 minutes to play odds are components and specific mechanics take away from the presentation rather than add to it.

I do think many game instructions miss out on a key game summary and overview which will be the tool to sell with. The flavor text stuff is conceptually fun, but doesn't provide the overview of play that brings together the whole thing.

Something like...
You'll have one year of monthly turns to fix your part of the world or to set in motion foundations that will change the world while you are cryogenically suspended awaiting a cure.

Each turn you'll collect your money and discover and interact with dilemmas. You can solve them directly or cooperatively or establish foundations to fix them slowly.

When you awaken you'll be the greatest philanthropist if your continent is the least in danger.
...
It'll be interesting to see where you go with this. The premise is interesting but needs a little bit of propping to understand why these multiple people are all to be frozen at the same time and awoken at the same time.

The game offers interesting options, depending on the exact cards, some tough decisions can be made, when to buy remedies, and to play them now, or wait a bit. I like setting up foundations that will work while you sleep.
No points from me because the theme only vaguely matches the GDS.

This entry was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

I really liked the speculation aspect of the mines, with the ability to check it out after buying it. I like the unpredictable nature of this, and would probably encourage players to bid on lots of mines, but only pursue the best ones. I could see this maybe also working with players being able to look at one random card before buying the mine (so they have some idea of what it’s all about), but only being able to see them all once they make the investment. I think this part of the game is a great foundation, and there’s potential to build it further.

Besides this, I would have liked to get a bit more of a feel for how the game would be played, and less about the specific components. I think I understand the pollution, playing cards against opponents, but this really doesn’t seem to add much. Overall, I think the GDS requirements are met, but for the purposes of voting, I’d rather see them integrated more strongly, such as there being an actual relationship between actions and pollution, instead of what I think is just pollution being a method of attacking / hindering other players.

Fun bit of pun for the title, just enough to catch attention. With detail comes responsibility... my first hangup with this entry was understandng what was what. Is an action a card or something different? Are action cards in the power deck, or a different deck? Probably spent too long trying to get that clear in my head.

The auctions seem important and I wasn't clear on the play of the 1-4 cards.

Scored low on fit to the challeneg for me, because I didn't feel any sort of case for lookng at alternative energy. I can sorta see the elements, but wasn't piecing together the bits.

I think I'll have a copy paste of summarizing a game. A gameplay synopsis that is engaging and intriguing is a very important step to get publishers, players, etc. interested in your game. The classic elevator pitch, you have fifteen seconds, make me beg to play your game in that time (about two - three sentences.) Happens in a game store, if I'm browsing randomly, maybe ten seconds. You've nailed the first few seconds with a good title.

If this is a game you are actively developing start a fresh post with a full presentation of it. I can tell from the entry and your post that there is a lot of thought here and I'd contribute more feedback with a complete picture.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your comments and feedback and questions. This is the first time I have participated in a challenge like this and the game was designed in response to the challenge and while it initially was to see if I could do it, I'm actually become interested in possibly making it more viable. It was difficult to explain my idea in 500 words and some of my colleagues observations are correct in that some parts of the mechanics could do with refinement. Let me try to clear up some of the questions though.

I grew up and continue to live in the coal regions of PA and am the first generation to not have involvement with mining which is where my perspective is derived. I tried to incorporate into my design my understanding of coal mining and the business as it was run historically with some poetic license.

I envisioned the mines as being piles of cards randomly dealt out in different amounts and comprised of the resource cards of dirt, coal, oil, gas and minerals. The piles would vary in number of cards just like a real mine does and because these substances form in similar strata it is not unrealistic to find them close together in formations.

In this area the company owned mines, but some people with connections were able to bid on and buy the rights to private mines as well which is where the bidding/claim mechanic came from.

The ability to speculate by using a worker and peeking at the pile gives you an idea what kinds of production and transportation cards you need to collect. Perhaps it is more realistic to allow for trading with other players the equipment as a possible action.

I have no problem with allowing more than one card to be drawn or altering how the action cards are selected. Perhaps it makes more sense to provide some type of economic mechanic to provide the ability to hire workers/production/transport items but the cards to me seemed an economical way of doing this.

The renewable energy items I mentioned where integrated into the design from the beginning and stupidly pulled out to try to make the word limit. My initial explanation probably didn't do this part of the game justice.

I equated the transportation of resources to the production of energy assuming that the resources destination was some type of power plant but I did not focus on the "power plant" part because I thought the mining was interesting so the design assumption was that once you transported it the resources became energy and scored points based on how much you were able to move that turn.

With regard to pollution, the production/transportation cards would have a pollution value and the action modifiers(think events) enabled players to play the finger of fate in interfering with others game play (probably simplistic but i thought it was an economical compromise at the time)

Once you mined the right amount of coal/oil and had a certain qty of minerals (as scored by the point values of the cards) and accomplished through mining and possibly trading with other miners, you could convert those cards to renewable energy production which would enable you to continue to score points as eventually the mines would dry up and you would be out of fossil fuels sooner or later and need to continue to score points. There would be action cards or event cards that also affect these like (high pressure system --no wind effect of cancelling points scored for windmills this turn) , or (Hurricane--lose solar power production for one turn) that type of thing.

So in that sense the action cards provide events that occur that you can play on other players or yourself (some would provide bonuses) to move forward as they are applicable.

Naturally this was an initial design so I agree it is not perfect and could do with some refinement, but for a first try at something like this I was happy with my initial result and appreciative to all of you for your feedback and encouragement. Thanks and I hope this helps. Please feel free to msg me if you would like to discuss it some more.

Peace, David

One thought for Mines a Wasting... the dealing out card prep could happen during the game using a die roll to determine as each mine is possessed. That distributes the setup time into the gameplay.

Thanks Bike, he bounces back quickly. Seeing the deeper thought you had to encourage people to think about finite resources with a free-ish game is clever.