I'm interested to see what other people have come up with. I'm past what I call "alpha testing" on my game and am now getting down into the tweaking and developing part. I might email Queen with an overview of what I'm working on to see what they think of the concept.
Queen Games seeking new Cube Tower game
Mon, 12/15/2008 - 13:05
#61
Cool
Fri, 01/09/2009 - 18:06
#62
My cube fu grows!
Well, I've learned a lot about what the cube tower does well and... not so well. I'm still continuing on my original game idea, but I've started a new one inspired by Meddler's time-travel idea back on page 1. Based on what I've learned in my first cube tower game, I feel like the system I've set up in this second game will work better. Guess I'll see!
If I ever get to external playtesting, I may see if anyone here wants to playtest for me.
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 03:39
#63
Glad to see someone taking
Glad to see someone taking inspiration from the idea, keen to have a look should you continue with the project :).
Edit: Would offer theoretical future testing services (time permitting) but without access to a tower that's pretty tricksy.
Wed, 02/04/2009 - 13:02
#65
Shamus, a Cube Tower design
Since reading this thread back in September I've been working on a design for a noir detective game using the Cube Tower to simulate various events. The design is now in the playtesting phase. I've assembled my prototype and uploaded the necessary files for anyone who has the tower and cubes from Shogun or Wallenstein or that other, German-named game, to play. If anybody would be willing to print-and-playtest, please message me your e-mail address and send an invite to the Google Group. And if you have a design that can be assembled economically, I'd be glad to return the favor!
I will also, eventually, be looking for somebody willing to translate my rules and query letter into German.
Here's the Game Journal.
Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:11
#66
How to make one.....
Anyone know where to find plans to maker a cube tower?
Or should I disassemble a cube tower and redo it?
I don't have Shogun or Wallenstein, so I thought maybe there was a way to make one.......
Wed, 10/21/2009 - 09:37
#67
Any progress? Any advice?
Hiya. After a year of development and playtesting, I'm nearly ready to submit a design to Queen. Any more advice on how to contact the company? Specifically, should I attempt to do so in English or seek a translator on my side? Earlier posters were more successful e-mailing in German, but that was some time ago. Meanwhile, Queen-games.de is down, with a database error that appears to be targeted at switching the user to an English-language version of the site. So, on the one hand, they're trying to become more English friendly, but on the other, they are finding it a bumpy ride.
Hmm....
Wed, 10/21/2009 - 18:26
#68
Glad to hear it!
I'm glad to hear you have progressed your sleuthing game to the point it's ready to submit!
I never did work on the ideas I had for the Queen cube tower - as I recall my favorite idea was to use the tower mechanism to resolve actions at which you could get better... the better you are at the action, the more of that action's cubes you throw into the tower... the more cubes that come out, the more potent or effective your action!
Maybe one day I'll revisit that idea. Meanwhile, keep us posted on your progress with Queen games! Unfortunately I have no idea how to get ahold of them. I would start by emailing someone over there and asking who to talk to. Who knows, you might hit the right person, or at least a helpful person!
- Seth
Thu, 10/22/2009 - 12:19
#69
e-mailed....
Well, I e-mailed Queen, now that their site is up (and promoting two Dirk Henn designs on the front page). Will let you know.
Thu, 10/22/2009 - 12:36
#70
Good Luck
Good luck! I'm curious to hear how it goes.
I worked on two different cube tower games. In the first, I found the tower too random for what the game needed, but development continued on it with dice instead (ironic, no?). The second actually works well with the tower, but I have some problems in another system in the game and have been at an impassse on it.
Wed, 01/05/2011 - 19:17
#71
What ever happened to...
I'm glad to hear you have progressed your sleuthing game to the point it's ready to submit!
I never did work on the ideas I had for the Queen cube tower - as I recall my favorite idea was to use the tower mechanism to resolve actions at which you could get better... the better you are at the action, the more of that action's cubes you throw into the tower... the more cubes that come out, the more potent or effective your action!
Maybe one day I'll revisit that idea. Meanwhile, keep us posted on your progress with Queen games! Unfortunately I have no idea how to get ahold of them. I would start by emailing someone over there and asking who to talk to. Who knows, you might hit the right person, or at least a helpful person!
- Seth
*bump*
I really enjoyed this thread, and always wondered what ever became of any of the designs people were working on for the Queen cube tower 2 years ago.
Did anybody submit a game to Queen? Are they still looking for games using their Cube Tower? Did anyone take their design outside the scope of the Queen Cube Tower and make a different game out of it???
I did - the post I quoted above was some of the early development of Eminent Domain, which is at this time being illustrated, should go to the Manufacturer this month, and hopefully will be available in April!
As you can see, I did use cards instead of the Cube Tower, but I think similar things could be done with the Cube Tower as well to represent the idea of "experience" in a game.
So let's hear it! What ever happened to your Cube Tower games?
Thu, 01/06/2011 - 18:31
#72
Biomedica and Timestream
Mine are pretty much where I stated in my last update to this thread. I tried to think of the "real" system that the tower could represent or simulate.
The first was biomedical research -- an area where one team might perform research for a project and get results that don't necessarily help them, but advance the research of another team/project. I thought the cube tower simulated this well. Players don't throw their own colors in the tower as in Wallenstein/Shogun, but each type of research (pharmacology, genetics, etc.) had its own color. So, you might be trying to collect 3 Genetics and 2 Pharmacology to complete a breakthrough for the SARS virus, but the cubes you threw in don't come out right; the next player might take advantage of those for his project, though, and so on.
In playtesting, the cube tower was actually too random. The quantity of cubes required to differentiate the projects vs. the rate they came out wasn't satisfactory and I ended up replacing the whole thing with a weighted dice-driven system that worked better. I ended up with a functional game that wasn't very "fun" and in which the level of control mismatched the weight of the dice system. It sits.
The other was based on an idea someone else came up with in this thread (I think). The game was divided into 3 time periods and 4 spheres of influence (politics, military, etc.). Agents (cubes) could move freely within a time period, but used the cube tower when jumping through time -- thus, most of the time the agents would arrive where you wanted, but sometimes they got lost in space/time and ended up coming out later elsewhere. I added in an anomaly system to add danger to the jumps and as an aggressive option for "bombing" a target time/sphere. The cube tower worked great for this, but I had issues creating the "time flow" mechanics of the game -- I wanted the past to influence the present, but the systems I made weren't balanced and everyone either went straight to the past because only that mattered, or stayed in the present. This sits now, too, until I can figure out a system to balance the time periods while still giving incentives to visit different periods and go after different spheres of influence. It's an asymmetric design problem, really, while trying to remain "true" to the time travel / conflict theme.
Thu, 01/06/2011 - 20:30
#73
Submissions
Is Queen Games still looking for dice tower designs? Or has that window passed?
And, could you describe what you mean by "too random"?
I do not have a tower myself, but I can imagine from the posts that you can never really be sure how many dice will fall out of the tower. So, sometimes you put one in and one comes out, but you could put in three and none could come out. Or put in one die and get out four. But, the system is closed... so over enough time the aggregate input and output will equalize and the trials won't be statistically independent. For example, if there are no dice in the tower, you won't get more than one out. Whereas if you put in a lot of dice and get nothing out, the odds increase that the next person will get a multiple return.
So, if you could give me a better sense of the statistical profile of the dice tower, I would greatly appreciate it.
If it behaves as I think it does, it might actually be a perfect 'contraption' for a game design that I originally envisioned as a dexterity game. But, it would nice to know a little more.
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 10:54
#74
It's not that the number of
It's not that the number of cubes falling out is too random, per se, but that the way I was using it was too random for the system.
In Wallenstein/Shogun (the games that originally use the cube tower) it is used to resolve battle. Each player's armies are represented by little cubes (in his color) on the board. When the blue army attacks the red army, all the cubes involved in the battle are thrown in the tower. The ones that come out are compared and cancel each other out (IIRC), and only the surviving cubes from the winner go back on the board.
In that system, the result is generally a red win or a blue win. The margin of victory and surviving cubes may change a bit, but generally the larger army is more likely to win since either side could be considered equally likely to get cubes stuck in the tower on this toss. Of course, the army with more cubes previously stuck in the tower could potentially have additional cubes come loose and thus get a boost to their output. As you see, it is a closed system so if red has a bad battle (throws in 4 cubes, only gets out 1), then everyone at the table knows that it is very likely that red will have a strong bonus in the next battle because he has 3 extra cubes already in the tower. (Battles are always between just 2 players; extraneous colors/cubes that fall out remain in the tray and are tossed back in next time, so they only leave when participating in battle.)
By the way, these are small wooden cubes, I think 8mm, and not dice.
In my game, each color represented a type of research and did not belong to one person. The player might have bought/acquired 5 red, 5 blue and 3 yellow cubes and thrown them into the tower to try solving a project. But if the right combination of colors didn't come out, he was unable to solve that project. My system required too specific results from the tower (x, y and z), whereas Wallenstein really only needed one general result -- who won? This is what I meant by too random for my game. Decreasing the cube combinations made the projects too generic and the cube-gathering system too simple; increasing the cube combinations made the tower "too random" for player's taste. So, I moved to something other than the cube tower.
Fri, 01/07/2011 - 10:54
#75
Oh, also, someone has done
Oh, also, someone has done statistical analysis on the tower before. I don't have the link handy, but if I find it, I'll post it. Or, reread this thread, someone might have mentioned it earlier.
Mon, 01/10/2011 - 01:12
#76
Yes I have submiotted a game
Yes I have submiotted a game to Queen. But alas they do not reply back when you email them, so I have no idea on how far or short things have gotten. I submitted it back in essen 2009. =S
Mon, 01/10/2011 - 16:28
#77
Delays and New Directions
Not exactly the most encouraging thing to hear if I am thinking about sending them a game design. :( Good luck.
As it turns out though, after sifting through this long thread for information about the statistics of the cube tower, I realized that it works a lot differently than I imagined it to work and I discovered that queen is looking for a 'big box' game. So, the game that I had in mind would no longer work. However, some of people's designs two years ago did look promising to me. I particularly liked the simplistic gold panning design - might be really fun for kids.
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Glad to see you're continuing on in the project, Mike! I still haven't had the chance to meet with Peer to work on our initial idea--he moved further away and has a new baby, and I'm still looking for a new apartment for my family.
Please let us know here what kind of response you get back from Queen. That's one of the publishers I have no relationship with yet (Peer knows them better) and I'm curious to see how they operate, especially in this case. Bernd Dietrich is probably the one you want to get in contact with--I think he does most of the development work.