After much debate, I have decided that "Plains of Aria" (PoA) should be a game in and of itself. There was some planning that was leading in the general direction of a Magic: the Gathering (MtG) Format... But I just wasn't feeling the overall concept and thinking it would NOT work for a MtG crowd.
What I did is re-read some of Steven's Diary about "Four Corners of the Earth" (FCE) and got me re-thinking the "core" game experience and what I wanted from PoA.
Number #1: No Plains Tiles, Desert Instead.
Plains are boring and the Desert went along better with the SUN Icon on the PoA Custom Dice. Desert Tiles were part of the FCE "core". Enough said!
Number #2: Each second row is dis-aligned by 50%.
Instead of full congruence, this is the sort of alignment seen in FCE. This has multiple benefits in that it makes the "Planes" more varied and allows me to circumvent some legal issues with the tiles (Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks). Again, enough said!
Those are the two (2) key take-aways from the direction of this DESIGN IDEA. It is very much a Work-In-Progress (WIP) and with the Planar Deck which contains the rules about HOW you can build planes and make them grow has taken on a NEW "lease" on life with this CLOSER to FCE adaptation. I think FCE had some good ideas and Steven was onto something. He just said it was a BORING game and I've gone through hoops to keep the game FOCUSED on Game Tiles as opposed to chipboard or chitz... The Game Tiles with the expensive Crystals that make this game a "Black Label" Game for a crowd with more impressive off-line construction of their Planar Deck and Tiles...
This is definitely a NEW direction ... But I think it's COOL. I know now that the issue at hand will be: "How the heck do I make a Deck and Tiles to match???" This will be tricky but for NOW let's just focus on the POSITIVE changes and the fact that PoA will be a game in and of itself!
Cheers all.
Comments
Sandbox vs. No Sandbox
So one of the issues on my mind with this particular design is whether or not to have a "Sandbox". What is a "Sandbox"??? In relation to this game, it is an area in which both players have a separate area of play in which to construct their Game Tile Planes.
I originally had this idea to counter the opponent from "ruining" your plans as you grow a segment of your "Live" Game Tiles (That would be the shared common area in which BOTH players play Game Tiles into...)
Some early thoughts post these ideas was... Well you waste one of your own Game Tiles by doing this. Secondly you must have the "Planar Card" and the Game Tile to fit the spot. Most Game Tile Planes have more that ONE (1) direction they can grow in... Which means to completely BLOCK an opponent, they would need to play TWO (2) Planar Cards to block BOTH options.
While still possible and not too complicated to do... There are options to GROW which could be BLOCKED by a single Game Tile. And that's what at the moment "annoys" me... The DICE can do some mitigation meaning if you are playing "Fire" (Mountains) and the roll is "Fire" you can play YOUR Game Tile into the range being built and unless your opponent BUILDS upon YOUR SET (which is positive because it means you can continue building as this helps BOTH players), then it means they CANNOT BLOCK your range of Mountains.
The idea of the "Sandbox" was to allow a player to BUILD UP his Plane and THEN place it into the common "Live" Area of play. This is just an IDEA... I'm not 100% sure about it.
One of the KEY "take-aways" is the if EVERYTHING is "Live" it may be easier to ruin the opponent's plans. But it's a "two-way street" and therefore you can also ruin your opponent's plans too! And so I'm not sure how much time would be wasted on "take-that" play countering (and/or Blocking) the opponent's growth all the while "stifling" your own growth... (because you are focusing on the opponent's Game Tiles and not your own)!
This was something that I wanted to blog about, just to offer some insight what my plans are with this DESIGN IDEA. It is NOT a game just yet as the prototype Game Tiles have not been created and I believe they will be made by gluing chipboard and paper together to get a thicker sized tile (just a bit). I will no doubt visit Staples to make these prototypes as I don't want to go through all the trouble of custom tiles via "The Game Crafter" (TGC) at this point in time. The design and concept is much too embryonic for that kind of "waste".
Why I say "waste"??? Well it's because I'm not yet sure WHICH(?) Game Tiles are required given a Planar Deck. I had some IDEAS about this... But in no-way CERTAINTY. Allow me to make MY OWN "Game Tiles" means I don't have to WAIT 2+ Months for an order to arrive from TGC. Nothing against TGC... The problem is just a timings issue: I'd rather make my own and make adjustments in a day or two... That's more REALISTIC than waiting for shipping times which are on average 11-Days (from the USA to Canada at my doorstep). Plus depending on how busy the Normal Queue... That could be another 20+ days. Currently it is at 14-Days TODAY! But could go up or down depending on volume and the HOLIDAT season.
ALSO since there is a Postal Strike by Canada Post Corporation (Yeah... Some people I was going to send B-Day and Christmas presents are Fncked), I don't want things coming from the US and then Blocking at the Border because CPC is not handling the packages. Real BAD at the moment...
I can't even send "copies" of "Quest Adventure Cards(tm)" because there is NO LOCAL MAIL!!! Terrible news.
Getting back to the "Sandbox or NOT", I'm also trying to figure out the SIZE of the "Planar Deck". Some early thoughts were 40 Cards and right about now, that seems like TOO MUCH. Maybe 24 cards may seem a bit "streamlined" and FOCUSED. If you can have at MOST "3" of the SAME Planar Card ... That means 8 unique cards assuming that copies are required to help unlock the planes that you want to build in order to WIN the game.
Winning is something that I will discuss in another comment. At the moment, I am unsure how to handle scoring even though I have some connectivity ideas about how Gems allow a players to "interconnect" their Planes and how to grow them. Not 100% sure ... But we'll have to wait and see... TBD.
For now... I'm working on the "Sandbox" and Mind Designing to see what I can come up with in terms of scenarios HOW(?) the game is played.
Terrain Rules...
Okay for FCE had some rules regarding "Terrain". This were meant to force the players to examine what they have done and what they can do. Let me recap my version of these rules:
Mountains (Fire/Red): Can grow in STRAIGHT LINES must not be linked by more than two connections (sides).
Desert (Order/White): Can grow 1-Tile per turn to a maximum of five (5) Game Tiles per Desert. Desert cannot grow next to a Swamp or River.
Forest (Nature/Green): Grows in bunches or groups to a maximum of four (4) Game Tiles per Forest.
River (Water/Blue): Grows DOWNWARDS in the a linked line to a maximum of five Game Tikes (ergo. Great River).
Swamp (Chaos/Black): Grows adjacent to ONE SIDE of a River Tile.
That's what I got ATM... It covers all the different types of Game Tiles and it makes for a good deal rules that would govern the Game Tiles and the different types of Terrain.
Decided against the FCE direction and moving to "Sandboxes"
So I had generally decided on some type of RULES from @let-off Studios Four Corners of the Earth (FCE) and thought this would be a good idea. But I realized that such a DIRECTION would be "too generic". Instead I went to a more flexible design which is determined by Patterns and ran into an issue with "Blocking".
In order to BLOCK, you must share with the opponent the "Plane" your are building within your "Sandbox". There can be from 1 to 3 "Planar" Cards in a player's "Sandbox" and they exhibit the nature of the Plane the player is trying to build.
Some things that FCE does incredibly RIGHT is the way that rows are misaligned. I will focus some more on that aspect and see what can be done to make the design as "FLEXIBLE" as possible.
More on that soon... Keep you all posted as to the general direction of this Design. Cheers!
Let me clarify a bit...
I have been thinking about FCE's "Dominion" Bonus scoring mechanic. And while I think it's cool in the concept of FCE, I wanted something less "obvious". Where FCE uses a 1/3/6/10/15/21 scoring bonus based on the way of obtaining DOMINION, PoA will use "Planar" Cards to define the planes being built.
The "Sandboxes" will be for Planes under construction and there will be MULTIPLE points of "connectivity" given the "Planar" Card used to put the plane in-play.
So with a HAND of FIVE (5) "Planar" Cards and THREE (3) "Sandboxes" players can BUILD their PLANES without "interference" from their opponent. But here's the thing: Playing the plane in-play may sometimes be TRICKY because of how you expect to CONNECT that plane within the area of play.
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So the general idea is that we will be using and RPS-5 which is broken down into FIVE (5) RPS-3s. I know it may SOUND complicated but once you get used to it... It becomes VERY familiar and easy to comprehend.
Red / Green / Blue / White / Black
Red / Green / Blue
Green / Blue / White
Blue / White / Black
White / Black / Red
Black / Red / Green
That's pretty much how it will go... I won't explain it NOW... But if you re-read it a bit, you'll understand that the RPS-3s are built from traversing the RPS-5 from one color to the NEXT.
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I am also thinking about using the "Open Drafting" Mechanic for the "Custom" Dice used in PoA. Right now I only have four (4) prototype dice and I would need a FIFTH (5th) one and it would allow something like this:
Drafting is done by selecting of one (1) dice at a time.
So the ACTIVE player says: "I will CHOOSE first" or "I will get THREE dice".
Then players begin alternating and choosing dice based on the ACTIVE player's decision. If he/she chose to go FIRST, he/she would choose the FIRST dice of their choice. Next the OPPONENT would choose the SECOND dice and lastly the ACTIVE player will choose their SECOND dice (the third dice) and their opponent would then collect the remaining two (2) dice.
What happens with these DICE???
You use them to PLAY a Game Tile into one of your SANDBOXES. Either 2 or 3 depending on what is possible.
Generally speaking you are TRYING to "maximize" your selection for the Round and get to play the most possible Game Tiles into your SANDBOXES.
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There are FIVE (5) COLORS and PURPLE which is a STAT and is a WILDCARD meaning that you can choose the Game Tile of YOUR CHOICE. This wildcard can seriously affect if you choose to GO FIRST or COLLECT 3 DICE.
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I'm still THINKING(?) about the "Dominion" concept. And while you might expend all your Game Tiles, you MAY NOT have the HIGHER "score" (and therefore lose that match). Also the possibility to have "Dominion" over all FIVE (5) Terrain is an alternate Victory in the game. So the idea is to WIN by "Playing all of your Game Tiles AND having the most points" or "By having Dominion over the five (5) types of Terrain".
Something like that. More thoughts soon enough. These are all reflection from last night. I'm still pondering how to make the game more interesting in terms of "Military Might" (ergo "Dominion"). TBD.
Will let you all know how this design will progress. Cheers!
Complexity with "Playing all your Game Tiles"...
While it might be easy to say the Game Ends when a player has played all of his/her "Game Tiles" it's not obvious if this will ALWAYS be possible... And that has me a bit worried.
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I have been thinking about the fact that a PLAYER may "Draw" a NEW "Planar" Card into their HAND when a Plane gets played. That's pretty OBVIOUS. And so you would always have FIVE (5) "Planar" Cards in-hand.
But I've been thinking if you have FIVE (5) "Planar" Cards in-hand and you are the player drawing three (3) DICE... You can opt to only choose two (2) DICE and draw ONE (1) Card from your Planar Deck. Which means you also must DISCARD one card from your HAND too (to preserve having 5 cards in-hand).
Something like that might seem possible... IDK it's all very theoretical ATM.
Other concerns
I might be thinking that the RPS-5 might be a bit too simple. I am pondering the idea of HAVING "territorial" disputes which can lead to more/less "Victory Points". How to handle this??? I'm not quite sure as of yet!
Some EARLY ideas are some thing like this:
This is based on the RPS-3s which are easy to compute given the RPS-5. With little analysis, you can easily figure out what the connection is and then figure out if indeed that connection point is the one that you WANT to use or not.
How does it work??? I guess a bit like this:
What does this mean? I'm not 100% sure about this but my thinking is as follows:
Still more investigation needs to be done and there could be VARIATION on this computation: instead of subtracting points from the opponent, could also just ADD bonus points to the Player with the Blue Game Tiles such that his/her score is HIGHER resulting in the near same effect as a PENALTY would.
Same horse with a different name.
So I have more to ponder specifically about the "Dominion" and RPS-5 and how the scoring ties into it.
As of NOW, I am thinking that a "+4" Dominion Bonus for the player with the "Blue" Game Tiles could be of interest. Not 100% sure, this is an idea. And I need to account for Gems as well. TBD. Cheers all.
Some additional thoughts
I see no reason to have BOTH "Addition" AND "Subtraction" when it comes to Victory Points and scoring. In fact, I see SERIOUS FLAWS in "Subtraction" which can result in scores being LESS than zero (>0) at the onset of a game. These negative scores may be TEMPORARY but they SEEM like there is a FLAW in the game's design.
If you have any thoughts, concerns, ideas ... Feel free to comment and reply to this thread with anything you may wish to share.
Sincerely.
Note #1: So as of today, my thinking is that each "Plane" put into play has a "SCORE". Next we see if it connected to a "Hostile Plane" and if so we check the Gem Criteria to determine the amount of BONUS points for this connection.
So let's say Player #1 is connecting a "Forest" (Green) to the opponent's "River" (Blue). RPS-5 Rules dictate that "Green BEATS Blue" and therefore Player #1 MAY score bonus points given that the "Gem Count" is met to score "+1 Dominion" point (GREEN).
There are a bunch of details to look into and I'll break them all down one at a time:
1. Green BEATS Blue: This means that there is a "Dominion" point possible for Player #1 "Forest".
2. A "Forest" of 4 Game Tiles BEATS a "River" of 3 Game Tiles: The newly added "Forest" must be larger in size than the opposing Plane (in this case the River).
3. AND the "Gem Count" = 2. This means that the "Forest" requires 2 Gems to score "+1 Dominion" point if ALL THREE (3) Criteria are met.
So to break down a bit further, here's what things look like.
A> A Fixed score of "3 Points" for the "Forest" is earned by Player #1.
B> He is placing his PLANE in connection with a "Hostile" Plane and has a larger SIZE by one (1) Point (ergo +1 Point).
C> He has exactly "2" Gems and therefore scores "+2 Points" as indicated by the "Bonus Points" and "+1 Dominion" Points.
D> The total score = 3 + (1 + 2) = +6 Victory Points and +1 Dominion Points. Dominion points cannot be LOST. Once gained the get added to a Player's Score and once FIVE (5) "Dominion" points are achieved, that player wins the match.
That's what I have for now ... And these explanations are pretty in-depth to see if this is sufficient for how to compute a SCORE and "Dominion" over the opponent.
Something like this... Seems to be INTERESTING and maybe can be built upon.
Cheers all.
I'm thinking that "Dominion" needs to be more "FLEXIBLE"
If you only GET twenty (20) Game Tiles... To score FIVE (5) "Dominion" Points as described above is much too challenging.
The reason that I say this is something like this:
One (1x) Size-2 Plane;
One (1x) Size-3 Plane;
One (1x) Size-4 Plane;
One (1x) Size-5 Plane;
One (1x) Size-6 Plane.
That totals twenty (20) Game Tiles...
The challenge here is that EACH one of those PLANES must EXCEED the opponent's PLANES. And so I think there needs to be a COMPROMIZE! If you connect a Size-6 Plane to a Size-2 Plane, you score +4 "Dominion" Points if the RPS and Gem counts are correct. This would mean that if the WIN Condition was FIVE (5) "Dominion" all you would need is +1 "Dominion" Points to win the match.
This is sounding more FEASIBLE and REALISTIC. I hate to think about things and only conclude that they are NOT sufficiently FLEXIBLE enough!
Very positive progress (so far!)
I was thinking about ignoring the "Four Corners of the Earth" (FCE) design and going on another path. After some much needed thinking, I have concluded that I will KEEP the design as being "inspired" by FCE.
Why? Well as I ponder more about the design, it works better to what I have in mind when we think about the Play Area, Sandboxes and so forth.
I have also concluded that 20 "Planar" Card per Player is ample enough for the game to be evolutionary. What does this mean??? To explain the CONCEPT better it's a bit like "Pokémon Stages" (Basic, 1 and 2) but it is more flexible. The idea is that you Planes as they are evolutionary (can evolve from one to another) it means that what you PLAY as cards allows either player the opportunity to score using the existing plane of even the opponent (your own obviously too)!
That's not HOW and WHY I designed this concept (Pokemon Evolution) but I felt like it's the EASIEST way to "explain" this concept.
Basically you can grow and evolve a plane to score more points and since it is an ADAPTATION, you score BOTH the earlier and later points.
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That being said, I am still unsure about "Dominion".
What is there to ponder, you ask??? Well specifically the RULES of how the Area of Play EVOLVES makes it hard to compute ONCE and then NOT re-compute towards (or near) the end of a match. IDK TBH...
I will continue to ponder this "Dominion" Factor and how it interacts and plays with the remainder of the design.
Cheers all!
More on "Dominion"...
From my scattered thoughts ATM... For the CONCEPT of "Dominion", I'm not sure if it should be something that evolves over time meaning it can CHANGE between the START of a match vs. the END where the outcome could be dramatically different OR should it be something that HAPPENS and is scored and the players never look back on that SCORING as the game moves forwards.
If the game was a Video Game well then it would be EASY to have something that EVOLVES over time. But in traditional games, it makes it hard to re-compute at each turn where each player is at. You already have a Victory Point Score to worry about and that's like 1-Time additions... The IDEA is to have "Dominion" to go beyond that with some specific conditions that need to be met to score a SPECIAL "Bonus".
FCE offers us the idea that "Dominion" can be a Victory Condition. Meaning if you meet a specific criteria, you win the game no matter what the SCORE is. While this is interesting and rather TEMPTING too... In a way it needs to be ASYMMETRIC. Why?
Because it means that if Player #1 has a HIGH SCORE, the ONLY possible way for his opponent to win is by "Dominion" which is something DIFFERENT in the style of play. Can you do BOTH (High Score and "Dominion")??? That's a good question to which I don't have an answer ATM.
I will continue to wrestle with this DESIGN and see what may come of it!
Best.
Some rules that I am considering...
Okay... So while there are FIVE (5) "Spheres of Influence" (Spheres), players don't need to build planes for all Spheres. But there can be ONLY FIVE (5) "Planar" Cards in-play at maximum.
So some Spheres like "Order/Desert/White" have an ABILITY to "Grow +1 Tile" if you roll one PoA Dice and land on the Desert. This means that a Desert can GROW at a rate of +2 Tiles per turn. "Deserts" can be prolific in area and have a tendency to encroach into the planes.
However another Sphere like "Nature/Forests/Green" has an ABILITY to "Grow +1 Tile" if you roll one PoA Dice and land on the Forest OR Wildcard. This means that Forests can also GROW at a rate of +2 Tiles per turn. The normal lifecycle is that "Forests" can be even more prolific than "Deserts" in that you have 1:3 odds of growing a "Forest".
Another RULE is that ONE (1) "Swamp" Tile may be played NEXT to a "River" without the need for a "Black or Blue Gems" to inter-connect one another. All other tiles require ONE (1) of the corresponding Gems to connect two different PLANES.
Things like this are RULES that could be inscribed on the "Planar" Cards themselves. And act as an ability to inform players of their ability to affect how the game is played.
It's still very much a Work-In-Progress (WIP) but you can tell that as I have explored FCE, I have borrowed parts and pieces from here-and-there and working on making PoA as entertaining to build your Tiles and Deck offline to the actual match-ups between two (2) "Worldbinders".
So far that's some of the RULES I am exploring and hoping to create. I need to see how many ASPECTS of the game can be influenced with these "Abilities" and "Rules"... TBD.
Some FUN stuff (World-Building)
The Five (5) Factions in the game are:
The concept of "Dominion" surrounds the "Elarion Dominion" which are the Elves with their "Sphere of Influence" being Nature (at the center of the following diagram):
That's a bit of "World-Building" for the game and just sharing what I've been working on and hope you enjoy some of this information. If you have any questions, feedback, concerns feel free to reply and comment.
Many thanks.
Furthermore...
I have come to the following conclusion:
Options go as follows:
If the first player chooses first, he may select the dice of his choosing and draw +1 Card from his Deck into his Hand.
If the first player chooses to go second, he may then take the two (2) remaining dice available to pick.
In Case #1, the opponent gets the two (2) remaining dice and in Case #2, the opponent gets to pick the first dice and draw +1 Card from his Deck into his Hand.
This seems simple enough and we'll have to wait and see how well it works in practice. These are just IDEAS at the moment and seem to be LOGICAL, however it remains to be seen if they actually work IRL.