Okay, not necessarily the day after, about a week and a half after.
As a novice designer I have had my first brush with the harsh realities of the board game design world...
Great minds do indeed think alike...
The game I've been developing for the past seven months, about Super Villains wreaking havoc on a City from their secret lairs, sending out their helpers to get ill gotten goods to perform heinous acts including building a device to take over the world has just seen the light of day...
Except somebody else designed it first.
It even had the same name: "Nefarious" It was nice to hear reviewers say they all loved the theme.
Even better was that the mechanics in use in Donald X. Vaccarino's Nefarious are not the same as in my game design. I'd hate to be this close and have to scrap the whole game...
I would like to say a special "Thank You!" to all my family, friends, and playtesters who have helped me through the past couple of weeks. I can honestly say that the design of the "Game Formerly Known as Nefarious" might have come to a grueling halt. No longer will I dismiss court claims where multiple parties claim to have created the same work... I now believe that is completely possible!
In response to this incident (and in lieu of getting my website up and running) I'm starting this blog to begin a design history for this and future games...
Are blogs for other people to read? Ooh, then this is probably a crappy start to one...
Comments
My deepest condolences to you
My deepest condolences to you and your game. It's true, ideas are remarkably fickle and often seduce many people before choosing the one to bed down with.
That said, is there nothing you can recover from your "Nefarious"? While you probably can't use the theme or flavour directly any more, if the mechanics are solid then you may be able to find a new theme that makes good use of them.
Thank you.
Thank you for the sympathies. The game mechanics are solid and appear to be different enough from Nefarious (Action cards for Nefarious vs my Worker Placement) that I am pushing forward with the game under the title "V is for Villainy." Opening it to the public at a local mini-con this weekend, so we shall see how it goes.
Lol, don't panic... I had my
Lol, don't panic... I had my "Bunch of Ninjas robbing a castle" game "stolen" by Z-man recently... :)
Anyway, don't panic - change the theme, if you can. Do they have to be super-hero villains in a city? Maybe they can be aliens in a spaceship (let's ride on the "Prometheus" :) or fantasy creatures or something... Unless the rules are too similar, you can get away with it. In fact, sometimes games benefit from changing the theme from something too obvious. Knizia's Colossal Arena begun as a horse racing betting game and ended up as a fantasy arena brawl. Changing a theme might even inspire you to novel rules ideas. When I'm spinning a game idea I frequently change it's theme just to see what unexpected new mechanics might surface up...
My ninjas have turned into gangs of goblins (it was supposed to be a humorous game anyway) and I already have some new fun twists in there thanks to that change.
Here's your opportunity to
Here's your opportunity to really put a unique spin on this theme to make it stand out from the other games with the super villain theme.