[GDS] NOVEMBER 2013 "The End is Near" - Critiques

I used a somewhat arbitrary point system to determine my vote. For me this entry only lost major points on rule clarity, but that was enough to have it land outside the top 3. The scores were close, though.

Limit: 10 points; the limit required by the contest rules was beautifully implemented.
Theme: 7 points; I love pirates, but there was some points lost because it's not exactly the most original of themes.
Mechanics: 7 points; The mechanics worked fine, but there was nothing new that got me hyper-excited. That's why the entry received average points in this category.
Rules clarity: 6 points; the question I posed in the original contest thread is what cost most of the points here.
Components and profit: 8 points; I gave points for how cost effective I deemed all games to be.
BONUS: 7 points; points for overall feel and things not covered in other categories.

TOTAL: 45 out of a possible 60. (The game that received my gold medal vote totalled 51 points in this scheme)

Yeah, I did leave some stuff out because of some time constraints and also because I didn't really have an idea about the combat system until after the entries were locked in.

Pirates is overused, but at the same time, I don't know of any stellar pirate games so I attempted my own.

Anyone wanting to know about the combat system I did devise, basically it revolved around the attacker throwing (yes throwing) the dice into a dice tower and needing to roll above a threshold to win the fight. All dice the didn't make it into the dice tower count as misses.

Too bad I didn't come up with it beforehand.

I'll post my own link once all is said and done to give a bit more details into the game.

Cool! That fits well with the other whimsical features of the game. Maybe use those spherical six-siders colored like cannon balls?

What do you think could add more tension and options for the late game? Would limiting the amount of treasure and allowing players to see the treasure add some more tension? That way you have to be constantly banking your treasure instead of just waiting till there are 6-7 pieces of eight found? This coudl create another reason for banking your treasure early on though, and that is security against pirate attack since they wouldn't be able to take gold from you, only treasure (and pieces of eight).

I don't know if this addition made it into the contest entry, but I also planned on being able to spend gold to upgrade your ship/crew. This may have been a feature that wasn't thought of until submissions were already locked in.

I must say though that compared to the last few, this was a very close top 3. Only one point difference between the three! So congrats to all who won.

I can see many possible hurdles that the designer may need to overcome for this game. I may be missing something due to the breifness of the rules, but here are my concerns:

From the rules as they are laid out, it seems that a player could possibly just squat at a treasure location and collecting multiple cards each turn. Only moving back to a dock/market to sell them all when their supply is full (if there is a limit) or as the game nears an end.

There may not be much reason for players to even interact with each other much, nor to move around very far. Why risk a battle, or spend your actions traveling around, if you can just stay in one area on your own and collect easy treasure.

Drawing and placing random treasure tokens unseen would prove to be quite difficult. You may need to have a textured face/back to allow the chooser to know which side was up without looking. Alternately, you could just leave the tresures in the bag until you are at a treasure location, and are in the process of digging one up.

Pirates are a very common theme as many have said, but that is because they can make for an interesting story line. Also as others have pointed out, it seems to be quite difficult to capture the essence of the Pirate theme and come up with a gem of a game. So I think it may still be worth-while to keep on trying to find the perfect set of mechanics.

I have kicked around similar ideas for a pirate themed game, and have run into some of these same hurdles. Here is wishing you well on coming up with some new ideas to make the game shine.

I did rank this game fairly high in my list as it could have potential, and I would love to play a well constructed version of it. But there were a few other games in the competition that came together a bit more completely, or where I saw some signs for quite interesting mechanics coming together.

Great discussion today (yesterday by the time many of you see this). Let's keep the ball rolling with Tuesday's entry by bike, Aliens on Holiday.

I'll post my own critique when it's properly Tuesday and not just late Monday for those in the US.

Rich,

Yes, that could work as well. I was thinking the threshold would be pretty low. Basically if you get your cannons in you'd be able to board. How much treasure you could take would depend on the size of your ship's hold and your crew size/skill. You gave me an idea with your talk about Sonic (I loved those old games) in that any overkill would be used to make the enemy lose treasure. Basically if you get to steal two treasures, and you roll 5 over the threshold, you get to pick one of their treasures to discard (basically putting it back into the pile of tiles on the table). I'd have to play around with the numbers and see what worked and what didn't, but I kinda like the idea that in the heat of battle some of the treasure falls overboard.

Also I updated the rules so that you can upgrade your ships guns, crew, sail, "armor" (old ironsides anyone), etc so you can actually get faster ships. I may have to reduce the number of actions in the game and perhaps make crew skill/captain skill affect how many actions you get a turn. I could also add in picking captains at the beginning to give each player a bit more customization at the beginning.

I would just like to add that I'm grateful for all the feedback. It's been really helpful.

Since there was only one criteria for the whole contest, I was especially harsh to any game that at the time I felt deviated from this path. If the contest had more criteria I would have been more lenient.

Taking that into mind, the auction is the reason this game didn't get my medal, mainly because I felt the mechanic in which you could take gold from the gold track allowed the players to affect the game end in a minor way. That dropped the game out of the running for me.

Taking in the game as a whole though, the game seemed good. The theme seemed good. The pilot starts off in the negative gold numbers (the cost of flying the ship). The aliens paying their fare to get on the ship (2 gold). I just felt that taking gold from the ship though just didn't make sense theme wise. Other than the stealing gold from people, the theme made sense.

The auction I had problems with though. If I have a card that gives me 5 gold, why would I want to ever bid more than 4 gold for it? I know that you can steal gold from other players, but that doesn't really help me, it only screws them over, slightly because you can only steal one gold from each player. If I wanted to play that a card that gave me lots of gold, I'd wait till it was my last card and then play that one for free as the last player or at least wait till the end when there is less competition. I just felt that there was no reason to ever play gold cards in the beginning rounds of the auction.

Other than those gripes I think the game has potential and with some work could do well. Congrats! You did well.

Aliens on Holiday

I wasn't enthused about the concept on this one. Partially, the mechanics of play seem fussy with coin hiding and shuffling your seven card hand. Partially it seems the game length would be a bit drudgery. Too long to win for kids, too light for adults?

Since hands are playing out to zero cards and an alien advances two and a gold can at most reduce it by 1 and round is played to zero cards for someone, it seems it is a forced given that the pilot advances one each round? Or (big difference) is the pilot moving all the way to the highest gold coin on the track? With multiple moves, at best a conspiracy can slow the advance, at worst one player can make a token resistance.

I can see the die roll mechanism, and it has a potential to it. But it isn't a compelling mechanism for me in this game, as I can see it better paired with game that has room for some big reckless moves.

Overall, I liked the write up and the concept is amusing. I wish I was confident on the ship move. I would've liked to hear that there was a bidding mechanic before even parts as that would've informed my overall read and kept me from doing a few re-reads for understanding.

Adding a range of powers to the aliens could have me completely rethinking my pov.

Thanks for the critiques. Let me first clarify some questions that have been raised.

The gold-track I would implement as a ladder towards the rocket. Starting at -20 up to 20. Only for gold. The aliens are inside the rocket in theaterlike setting with numbered chairs. It is important to remember the order.

The pilot will climb the ladder if there is a coin of gold on the next step. He does not advance when there is no gold there. I figured I needed the pilot because otherwise players might continue to take gold from the ladder, and the game could possibly never end. Maybe... it is just easier to not have players take gold from the ladder.

The bidding should go quick. I suppose the whole game could be played in 30 minutes. The actions are straight forward: taking gold, or adding an alien. An alien means you get more cards the next round, and the gold helps to win bids. Well spotted that adding more than 4 gold does not really help! Something to look at.

After the action there is a choice to add an alien to the rocket. This is good for the scoring, but means a player receives a card less. (I did not make clear that only aliens in front of the player give the player an extra card).

Interesting to see if the game breaks down if one player manages to collect a lot of gold. I think it can happen, but that player will not have many aliens in the rocket, or just outsmarted the others with bidding.

I will find some alien-currency!

Some afterthoughts:

I think the gold-track should start at -12 for 4 players, -9 for 3. etc. That way the end-of-game tension gets to you pretty fast. Do you leave that extra alien for more options now, or do you put it in the rocket?
Taking all gold from the bank, and removing the pilot, is a simplification. Game end is game end.
I would love to implement variable alien powers. I think the aliens waiting in the rocket can have a few buttons to change the game. It is marked on their chairs. For instance "add or remove 2 gold after the bidding is shown". "Force a player to play a different card". "Rethrow the dice". Question is if these powers can be used once per turn, or once per game.

The dice ending the game I took from Evo, and expanded a bit on it. It is important to be ahead in the rocket for most of the game (especially with the shorter ladder). It can end now!

Interesting and unique theme. Very light and somewhat humorous.

It seems that the tie-breaker condition almost exclusively depends on who wins the first bid. (Assuming that they get an alien on board to ensure a tiebreaker win.) Seems odd to have this condition decided so early in the game. (I do understand that it is for tie-breakers only, but...) Perhaps I misunderstood though, as one of my atlernate suggestions would be to total their seat positions and the player with the lowest total would win. (The average seat position of their aliens is lowere, and thus they were on the ship earlier.)

The game seems almost too light since there are only two turn options (get gold, or an alien). But then again, there is the secret bidding and whether to board one of your aliens or not. Perhaps there is enough to it that will make this game apealling to a target audience of families with kids, or just as a fun diversion.

I wonder how this would play out if instead of odd vs even for the alien/gold cards, there was a different dynamic such as higher cards for gold, lower cards for aliens. (Or perhaps some other specific mix. Perhaps even something like a 4-wild which could be used as either. Or what about a 0-both card?)

As this was more of a complete game than some of the others, and I did think that it could be fun in a goofy sort of way, this game did make it to the Bronze spot on my list. Congratulations.

Aliens on Holiday didn't score so well, I think, not because the game isn't promising but because the description didn't do it justice. I found it hard to find the flow of play in the description, and I think it might be because the mechanical end-game goal wasn't stated until the end. After I knew that gold was being placed on a track causing the pilot to move up and subsequently get closer to a game-ending roll, I could go back and see how every action affected this.

Still, particulars over the gold economy are questionable (as posted by others earlier). I quite enjoy the combination of gold + card value bidding, and would like to see how it works in practice.

This one has the best rule ever:

The theme works good in the game. The luck factor is high (you can play if your neighbours card is good for you, the end is suddenly reached when a player has enough points). That suits the theme.

I am curious how the linking of cards can work practically. It is impossible to list all allowed link-cards on a card.
It could take a lot of work to make a decent set of cards that work well enough together, and are fun to play.

Two reasons why I did not vote for this one, first is I am not convinced that there could be 216 funny cards making the game could. Second is personal, I prefer games with less luck.