Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

Mon, 07/21/2003 - 13:09

#1

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

8/7 Central

I will be posting a list of the Programs I've been using (there are 25 of them, I'm not yet done with my revised set of 50 Programs, rebalanced and updated) in the next day or two. Until then I'll reference my game journal and website

www.dakotacom.net/~sej/87central.html

which I updated last night so it should be all up to date.

Take a look at the rules and cards, I'll post a formal new topic under the GDW forum later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks!

- Seth

Mon, 07/21/2003 - 13:30

#2

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Sample Program

Here's a sample program:

Lust In Space <-- Name
Min Bid 3 <-- Minimum Bid
2 3 7 11 12 (12/36) <-- Hit #s (Hit Probability)
COMEDY 3 <-- Genres (and levels)
DRAMA 3
NICHE 5
1-Hr <-- just indicates that it's 1-Hr
NECESSITY <-- Ad Categories
LUXURY
EXOTIC

Space travel, Love triangles... gives a whole new meaning to the term "wormhole" <-- Lousy flaver text off the top of my head

Mon, 07/21/2003 - 14:41

#3

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

Hi Seth,

A few disjointed remarks about your game.

I should point out that I am commenting at the level of someone who primarily enjoys "German style" games, which, in general, have simple and elegant mechanics and rules; games like Acquire, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, etc. Scurra's game was a game I would like very much.

That said, I find that my designs commonly start theme-first. I think of a theme, then think about the mechanics to capture all the subtleties and nuances of that theme, and usually end up with a lot of mechanics, rules, cards, text, etc. It's funny, because while I enjoy playing the very streamlined games, I have a harder time designing them.

What I'm leading up to is that my first impression of your game is that it is mind-boggling in its complexity. And that may not be a bad thing; from the looks of it, it looks like you have created a pretty nice simulation of being a TV network exec. But I am envisioning a game that takes at least 30-45 minutes to learn, and at least 2.5 hours to play. Have you tested it at all? How have the test games gone?

I like that your game seems to have a simple structure: Bid to get good shows; lay out a schedule for the week; get advertisers to fund your shows; check to see how the rating are faring; etc.

But, the devil is very much in the details, and there are a LOT of details in your game. Each card, of which there are 4 different types, has a lot of different info. (And why do the cards have to hit on such randomly chosen numbers? Do everyone a favor -- give each card numbers corresponding to the chunk of probability space you want the card to occupy. So, if you want the card to have a 20% chance of succeeding, have it "hit" on 4 and 5, for example...)

My concern is that there is so much to think about that decisions aren't as meaningful. Part of this effect is enhanced by the fact that there are so many different "action" and "event" cards that are so different in their effects that a person would be unwise to spend too much time planning, as much of the game's action will depend on luck, such as how people roll, and what cards they draw. You also have some events that are only triggered in certain configurations; and certain cards that are only playable in certain configurations. In practice, these will require even more checking, and a lot of times, the specific configurations will be overlooked.

Here are the ways that, if this were my game, I'd cut out complexity. First, advertising; I wouldn't have ads being playable only on shows with certain symbols. You could, if you insisted on that mechanic, have the ad give a bonus if it's matched to a certain kind of show. Put each show solidly in one category or another. I wouldn't bother with the "strength" of the show; it's counter-intuitive. A "great" show is, from the standpoint of the execs, one that gets watched a lot and makes a lot of money. The "strength", ie "This is a rank 3 Drama and a 2 Comedy" is needless chrome, in my opinion. It's either a comedy or a drama, and the "hit rolls" take care of whether it's good or bad, from a bidding standpoint.

One thing I didn't get from the rulebook was how many time slots there are available each day; hopefully, it's just prime-time that you're dealing with; that alone gives you 6 per day, for a total of 30, which is a lot considering players start with 5 shows!

I didn't really like the random element of choosing ratings by die roll, but I understand you're trying to simulate the unpredictability of the public. However, I don't think it is great from a simulation standpoint, either; shows don't have the same odds of being viewed every week; once they pick up steam, they will attract a pretty stable viewership each week. One other way you could do things is to have the players with the "best-ranked" shows get the most points; something you could look into.
In fact, I think this is an important aspect of TV that your game doesn't capture. No one puts up a show against Friends or the Super Bowl because they know it is going to get destroyed. In your game, there doesn't seem to be direct competition in any of the time slots; each show gets viewers totally on its own strength, and on luck of the draw.

I liked the idea of "jumping the shark"; it keeps a great show from just going and going forever. Although, a lot of shows, like Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, etc, do just that. But, from a game standpoint, having a sure thing can be bad. Although, you could change things just by having the show cost more to produce with time. So, a great show brings in more advertising revenue, but you also have to pay the actors more, so it costs more...

I've only seen a couple of your cards, and they seemed tongue-in-cheek, but very adult in their sensibilities. I think that's ok, and there are a lot of people who will buy it in spite of (or indeed, because of) that, but I probably wouldn't. (for whatever that's worth). And a game that isn't "family-friendly" definitely won't win the Spiel des Jahres (for whatever that's worth).

Finally, as pertains to the rulebook itself, I didn't feel it was particularly well-organized or clear in its explanations of how the game works. But it's a preliminary rulebook, so don't worry too much about it at this point. The main thing that you need to think about when writing a rulebook is "what would it be like to read this for someone who has no clue what I'm talking about". Your book would make perfect sense to someone who's seen the game. To me, who hasn't, it was confusing.

So, I think this game has tremendous potential to be really fun, and to be a really good simulation, however, right now, I feel that it's swamped in complexity. I'll be interested to see what others have to say on the subject. But, the things I'd probably consider changing, if it were my game, would be to
1. Put each show in one genre only
2. Have a system by which shows can compete against one another by Time Slot, and not just by genre; (ex: Survivor vs Friends; the execs don't care that Survivor is "the best" reality show and that Friends is "the best" comedy; they care which one gets more viewers. So it isn't just the genre, it's who wins the time slot that matters).
3. Modifiers, events, etc, are all well and good, but be careful about adding too many "special effect" cards, unless you don't mind the game being very luck-heavy.
4. See if you can reduce the number of different *kinds* of events/modifiers/advertisers so there are only a couple of different classes, although individual cards may still differ in their relative values.

Anyway, good luck with your further development of the game. I think you're off to a great start, and with substantial modification, would have a game that I would enjoy playing. Without much modification, you probably still have something that a lot of gamers might like, so certainly take my remarks with a grain of salt, and viewed through the lens of the kind of games I enjoy.

Great job!

-Jeff

Mon, 07/21/2003 - 16:32

#4

FastLearner

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Joined: 12/31/1969

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

Here are some slightly-edited thoughts that I sent Seth about the game last week (he's already responded, but I figured I'd prove that I actually can comment on a game... :) ) Editing is primarily based on clarifications he's already made in the rules.

First let me say that I think it's quite clever. You've managed to really match the theme to the mechanics in a way that seems quite fun.

I find the term "Hit" to be confusing. In non-industry terms people will think of "Hit" as a successful show. I understand that more hit numbers = greater chance of it actually becoming a hit (effectively), but I still think it's a bit confusing. Match and Match #s might work as a replacement.

I also think that the hit numbers mechanic *might* be more confusing that it's worth. Players have to, for example, draw a modifier that says "Add Hit #s 5 6 8 9," at which point the player needs to look at all of his programs and (a) figure out which programs don't already have those numbers, and (b) if they understand the idea of a bell curve, figure out which shows will be the most helped. One suggestion is to simplify it a bit. Programs could start with, say, an Appeal Factor which you need to roll under to qualify for another Ratings Counter. Then the modifiers and such could add to (or subtract from) the Appeal Factor. It would be an interesting mechanic because not only would it make it easier for folks to caluculate how much something would help them, but it would also take nice advantage of the bell curve -- early modifiers help quite a bit but the more you add the less valuable each successive one becomes.

The bidding process is quite interesting and clever. My only concern is a practical one: I would guess the way it works now each player has different-looking money. This might be too expensive to publish, as each player would need to have a lot of their own money and couldn't share it with others (no common bank). As such the component cost (in that area) is at least doubled, probably tripled. I'm not sure how to use that mechanism without different-looking money, however. (Seth commented that players place their bids on different parts of the cards, similar to the way bets are placed in craps games in Vegas.)

I like the way you added Jumping the Shark into the game. Great idea.

I like how you lose a Ratings Counter if you move a program: good link between theme and mechanic. If you want to add a little bit of "realism" in exchange for complexity (probably not a good idea) you could have it lose one counter for changing slots within the same day, and two counters for changing days. But it's probably not worth it. :)

I don't understand how Bumping a Program works from the description. It seems that you effectively "push" or "bump" a program from one time slot to another by placing a program into an already-filled slot. However the sentence "Bumping is similar to Moving a Program except that you cannot Bump another Program" doesn't seem to fit that. Also, do bumped program lose a Ratings Counter? (This may have been fixed in the most recent rules... I admit that I didn't check.)

Mon, 07/21/2003 - 18:48

#5

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Reply to JWarrend...

I went through the rulebook last night and deleted some out of date stuff, and it's possible I deleted one or 2 things too many. Or maybe I just need to revise the rules a few more times (which is something I admit I already thought I needed to do).

I'll respond to some of your comments here. I'm going to make a concerted effort nott o sound all defensive or anything because I really do appreciate these commenst and I agree with most of them.

jwarrend wrote:

What I'm leading up to is that my first impression of your game is that it is mind-boggling in its complexity. And that may not be a bad thing; from the looks of it, it looks like you have created a pretty nice simulation of being a TV network exec. But I am envisioning a game that takes at least 30-45 minutes to learn, and at least 2.5 hours to play. Have you tested it at all? How have the test games gone?

I know that from a description it sounds really complicated, but 8/7c really isn't that complex when you get down to it. It's very algorithmic. I might put some kind of disclaimer on the rules that says "Don't expect to understand this completely just by reading the rules- go through a sample game as you read them" or something. In fact, narrating a sample turn or 2 might be a good idea.

In my experience it has taken very little time to teach the game (between a description of the rules and a few turns of the game it's been pretty clear to everyone- at least 10 people, various levels of gamer mixed in) and with the current rules the game length is down to under 2 hours (for both a 4-week 2 player game and a 3-week 3 player game). The early test games were indicative of a lot of problems, but I think most of them have been fixed and the recent test games have been fairly successful. There are a few issues that need working out, which I will be detailing during these 2 weeks of GDW. For the most part it's the little things that pop up when a rule gets changed.

jwarrend wrote:

Each card, of which there are 4 different types, has a lot of different info. (And why do the cards have to hit on such randomly chosen numbers? Do everyone a favor -- give each card numbers corresponding to the chunk of probability space you want the card to occupy. So, if you want the card to have a 20% chance of succeeding, have it "hit" on 4 and 5, for example...)

I don't think there is too much info on the cards, with the exception of the Programs. From the beginning it's been said that there is a lot, maybe too much info on the Programs. This is a trade off I thought would be ok, as long as the information was organized. Each chunk of info on the Program is only important for 1 part of the game at a time, so once you get used to it I think it's not so bad. It's the getting used to it that might prove to be a problem.

As for the random seeming Hit#s... there are lots of shows, and I didn't want them all hitting att he same time as each other. Also, I wanted some control over the likelyhood of hits, hence the 2d6 settlers-style hit numbers. If I wanted to give a show a high hit probability I gave it a combination of hit#s that added up to a lot of pips. The important point is that when there's 2 shows opposing each other, there needs to be the chance that one will hit and not the other.

In the new set of shows I think I will sort of correlate the hit numbers to the genres a little, like Comedys might have hit numbers from 2 to 5, Drama from 9 to 12, News 6 and 8 (7 is reserved for 1-hr shows)... SOMETHING like that. So if the roll is low, anything hitting will be a comedy. this might actually be bad for the reason I mentioned above- competing comedy shows all hitting at the same time :/ Well, it's just an idea.

jwarrend wrote:

You also have some events that are only triggered in certain configurations; and certain cards that are only playable in certain configurations. In practice, these will require even more checking, and a lot of times, the specific configurations will be overlooked.

I'm not sure what you mean about the certain configurations. I think I did a bad job in the rules of explaining things like Ad categories. I might as well say something about it now. There are 5 Categories, 3 of them common, 1 less common, and 1 pretty rare. So you can almost always play an ad on a show, but some ads are better on some shows then on others. And occasionally you'll have an ad you cannot play because you don't have any shows with teh Special category (for example).

The Modifiers can go on any show at any time. Obviously some are better than others (depending on the situation), and there may be optimal ways to play any given card at any given time- that's the point.

jwarrend wrote:

Here are the ways that, if this were my game, I'd cut out complexity. First, advertising; I wouldn't have ads being playable only on shows with certain symbols. You could, if you insisted on that mechanic, have the ad give a bonus if it's matched to a certain kind of show. Put each show solidly in one category or another. I wouldn't bother with the "strength" of the show; it's counter-intuitive. A "great" show is, from the standpoint of the execs, one that gets watched a lot and makes a lot of money. The "strength", ie "This is a rank 3 Drama and a 2 Comedy" is needless chrome, in my opinion. It's either a comedy or a drama, and the "hit rolls" take care of whether it's good or bad, from a bidding standpoint.

You're right, the hit#s indicate how good a show is likely to be (for bidding purposes). However, maybe I did a bad job of describing the scoring in the game- which is completely seperate from the Hit#s. The Scoring is based on the Genre numbers. Some shows are in a single category, some are in 2, and a few are in three (to an extent). The Daily Show for example could be "Comedy 5 News 3", while Star Trek could be "Niche 8" and Deep Space Nine could be "Drama 5 Niche 5 1-Hr" or something. Seperating the income from the scoring is supposed to help REDUCE the luck factor, so someone who gets screwed out of money (by luck for example) can still be in contention to win.

jwarrend wrote:

One thing I didn't get from the rulebook was how many time slots there are available each day

I'm pretty sure it's in there- 2 half hour time slots per day, Monday through Friday.

jwarrend wrote:

I didn't really like the random element of choosing ratings by die roll, but I understand you're trying to simulate the unpredictability of the public.

It's supposed to be like production in Settlers. You can look at the hit#s and get an idea of how often a show should hit, but you never know for sure until it happens.

jwarrend wrote:

However, I don't think it is great from a simulation standpoint, either; shows don't have the same odds of being viewed every week; once they pick up steam, they will attract a pretty stable viewership each week.

This is true. I hadn't thought about that. Also, this is not supposed to be a simulation as such. I'm modelling the game after TV Networks, but I'm taking liberties as well.

jwarrend wrote:

One other way you could do things is to have the players with the "best-ranked" shows get the most points; something you could look into.
In fact, I think this is an important aspect of TV that your game doesn't capture. No one puts up a show against Friends or the Super Bowl because they know it is going to get destroyed. In your game, there doesn't seem to be direct competition in any of the time slots; each show gets viewers totally on its own strength, and on luck of the draw.

This is where I think I failed to convey the whole point of the game. The whole scoring aspect of the game is either pitting your Comedy against the opponent's Comedy and taking their Comedy points for that day, or conceding thet their Comedy is going to be better than yours and instead pitting a Drama against it so you at least get points for Drama viewers that day. the scoring pits shows in each time slot against each other in the most direct way possible.

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. The scoring is per day, not per time slot. But the theory is the same. My Monday shows vs your Monday shows- either we're competing for the same Demographic (same Genre), or we're going for the other Demographics (other Genres).

jwarrend wrote:

I've only seen a couple of your cards, and they seemed tongue-in-cheek, but very adult in their sensibilities.

By this I think you're referring to the sample show. I just put that down off the top of my head. For the most part I don't have names or flaver for my shows yet- that's something I need to do to finish the game to be sure.

jwarrend wrote:

Finally, as pertains to the rulebook itself, I didn't feel it was particularly well-organized or clear in its explanations of how the game works.

I need to re-write it. I would like to add diagrams (pictures of the cards with leader arrows to each part with a description in the sidebar. You know, like you'd see in the instruction booklet of a Nintendo game describing the information on the screen.)

jwarrend wrote:

...the things I'd probably consider changing, if it were my game, would be to
1. Put each show in one genre only

Shows are in either 1 or 2 Genres, with the possible exception of 1-Hr shows which might have up to 3. At least that will be the case in the new set of shows.

jwarrend wrote:

2. Have a system by which shows can compete against one another by Time Slot, and not just by genre; (ex: Survivor vs Friends; the execs don't care that Survivor is "the best" reality show and that Friends is "the best" comedy; they care which one gets more viewers. So it isn't just the genre, it's who wins the time slot that matters).

In this case, if Survivor were on opposite Friends, then the Comedy fans would watch Friends (that player would score 1 VP for Comedy) and the Reality fans would watch Survivor (we'll call that Drama, and that player would score 1 for Drama).

jwarrend wrote:

3. Modifiers, events, etc, are all well and good, but be careful about adding too many "special effect" cards, unless you don't mind the game being very luck-heavy.

Managing and using the cards is where the strategy comes in. You place your shows so as to compete with opponents, and you use the cards to win the little battles each day. Out of curiosity, would you say that Magic is too Luck-heavy?

jwarrend wrote:

4. See if you can reduce the number of different *kinds* of events/modifiers/advertisers so there are only a couple of different classes, although individual cards may still differ in their relative values.

I think that's already the case. I tried to make some cards that affected each part of the game. Adding or removing Hit#s from shows, making ads more or less effective, increasing or decreasing the genre#s, affecting which shows get watched or which genres score, etc.

jwarrend wrote:

Anyway, good luck with your further development of the game.
Great job!

Thanks again for the detailed review. I definitely need to review and revise the rulebook. I'll post something more tonight or tomorrow.

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 04:39

#6

sedjtroll

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

The Programs by the way...

8/7 Central Programs

None of these really have names or any flaver yet. Some ame's I've kicked around for various shows include "Lust in Space," "The Dale E. Show," "G.E.D." ... Like I said, nothing special.

Here's the format:
Show# Hit# Hit# Hit# (total pips)
Min Bid
Genre# Genre#
Ad Category Ad Category (NEC, CON, LUX, EXO, SPEC)

1. 4 5 (7/36)
0
News 8
NEC EXO

2. 5 9 (8/36)
0
Drama 8
NEC LUX

3. 6 10 (8/36)
0
Comedy 8
NEC CON

4. 4 9 11 (9/36)
1
Drama 5 Niche 3
LUX EXO

5. 6 8 (10/36)
1
Niche 7
EXO SPEC

6. 5 9 10 (11/36)
1
News 7
NEC EXO

7. 3 5 9 11 (12/36)
1
Comedy 5 Drama 3
CON LUX

8. 4 9 10 11 (12/36)
1
Comedy 3 Drama 5
CON LUX

9. 3 4 6 10 (13/36)
2
Comedy 3 News 4
NEC CON

10. 5 6 8 (14/36)
2
Drama 3 News 4
NEC LUX

11. 3 4 5 9 11 (15/36)
2
Comedy 3 Drama 3 News 2
CON LUX

12. 4 6 8 10 (16/36)
2
Comedy 3 Drama 3 Niche 2
CON LUX

13. 5 6 10 11 12 (16/36)
3
Comedy 3 News 3
NEC CON

14. 3 6 8 10 11 (17/36)
3
Drama 3 News 3
NEC LUX

15. 3 4 5 9 10 11 (18/36)
3
Niche 5
EXO SPEC

16. 2 6 7 8 12 (18/36)
3
Comedy 5 Drama 5 1-HR
CON LUX

17. 3 4 8 9 10 11 (19/36)
3
Comedy 3 News 3
NEC CON

18. 3 4 6 8 10 11 (20/36)
4
Comedy 4
CON LUX EXO

19. 2 3 4 5 9 10 11 12
4
Drama 4 News 3 Niche 3 1-HR
NEC LUX EXO

20. 3 4 5 7 9 11
4
Comedy 5 News 3 Niche 2 1-HR
NEC CON EXO

21. 3 5 6 8 9 10 (22/36)
4
News 4
NEC LUX SPEC

22. 2 3 4 6 8 10 11 12 (22/36)
4
Comedy 3 Drama 3 News 4 1-HR
NEC CON LUX

23. 2 3 4 7 8 10 11 12 (23/36)
5
Drama 3 News 3 Niche 3 1-HR
NEC CON LUX EXO

24. 4 5 6 8 9 10 (24/36)
5
Niche 3
CON EXO SPEC

25. 2 4 6 7 8 10 12 (24/36)
5
Comedy 3 Drama 3 Niche 3 1-HR
NEC CON LUX

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 10:54

#7

jwarrend

Offline

Joined: 08/03/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

sedjtroll wrote:

I'll respond to some of your comments here. I'm going to make a concerted effort nott o sound all defensive or anything because I really do appreciate these commenst and I agree with most of them.

Well, you certainly know more about the game than me, so your insights should carry more weight! No worries about "defensive", you should vigorously defend your design! You've put a lot more time and effort into it than me!

Quote:

I know that from a description it sounds really complicated, but 8/7c really isn't that complex when you get down to it. It's very algorithmic.

I agree that the gameplay itself doesn't seem too complicated. I'm more concerned about the huge number of different kinds of cards and different properties of each card. I'll say more below.

Quote:

In my experience it has taken very little time to teach the game (between a description of the rules and a few turns of the game it's been pretty clear to everyone- at least 10 people, various levels of gamer mixed in) and with the current rules the game length is down to under 2 hours (for both a 4-week 2 player game and a 3-week 3 player game).

I think that's still a bit long for what it is. I compare it to Illuminati, which is a cute idea, but I find, depends very heavily on luck of the draw. I don't like when a 2 hour game comes down very much to luck, EXCEPT for games like Risk or Axis and Allies where that is the whole point of the game...Other opinions on length?

Quote:

I don't think there is too much info on the cards, with the exception of the Programs. From the beginning it's been said that there is a lot, maybe too much info on the Programs. This is a trade off I thought would be ok, as long as the information was organized. Each chunk of info on the Program is only important for 1 part of the game at a time, so once you get used to it I think it's not so bad. It's the getting used to it that might prove to be a problem.

But because bidding is important, you need to look at every aspect of each card, then compare to all the spots in your lineup, current cards you have, cards other people have, etc. The program cards have a lot of information, and you do need to be able to keep track of all of it. The problem I think this presents is the case where there are so many variables that good decisions aren't rewarded. Does it really make sense to agonize over which shows to bid on? Or can you just randomly choose which shows you'll take and still do ok? If it's the latter, it's a big problem.

This is actually something it's important to do in playtesting at some point. Have someone (or yourself) make all their plays "Zen-like", without any heavy thought. If that person is able to do pretty well in the game, then decisions aren't important. And for a 2 hour game, there should be a lot of meaningful decisions.

Quote:

As for the random seeming Hit#s... there are lots of shows, and I didn't want them all hitting att he same time as each other. Also, I wanted some control over the likelyhood of hits, hence the 2d6 settlers-style hit numbers. If I wanted to give a show a high hit probability I gave it a combination of hit#s that added up to a lot of pips. The important point is that when there's 2 shows opposing each other, there needs to be the chance that one will hit and not the other.

You can do that, but it doesn't have to be accomplished by having disconnected sets of numbers. I understand you're trying to take advantage of the probabilities of 2d6, but if I am choosing to bid on a card that has hit numbers "2 3 7 12" and one that hits on "4 5 8 11", that is a ton of math for me to do in my head. There has to be a better way.

Also, I think I missed a rule. I was under the impression that when you rolled the dice on your turn, only your shows could "hit", if you happened to hit the roll. But in fact, it sounds like it's a Settlers system where all shows that have the hit numbers can "hit". Is that right? That certainly changes things from what I thought...

Quote:

In the new set of shows I think I will sort of correlate the hit numbers to the genres a little, like Comedys might have hit numbers from 2 to 5, Drama from 9 to 12, News 6 and 8 (7 is reserved for 1-hr shows)... SOMETHING like that. So if the roll is low, anything hitting will be a comedy. this might actually be bad for the reason I mentioned above- competing comedy shows all hitting at the same time :/ Well, it's just an idea.

An interesting thought, and worth thinking about more...

Quote:

You're right, the hit#s indicate how good a show is likely to be (for bidding purposes). However, maybe I did a bad job of describing the scoring in the game- which is completely seperate from the Hit#s.

Completely separate? Now I'm really confused; I thought that scoring was a combo of "Genre points" and "ratings tokens", which you get from hitting a die roll. So let me see if I understand your game a little more; shows score points if they are good shows (as evidenced by "Genre points"), or perhaps more correctly, if they are better shows than the others that are being showed in the same time slot. Some shows are more likely to be "hits", which means you're more likely to get advertising dollars, which you need to be able to bid to pick up good shows. Is this where the tension in the game comes from? I'm still not sure about it, but I'd have to play the game to have a better sense for whether I like it or not.

Quote:

The Scoring is based on the Genre numbers. Some shows are in a single category, some are in 2, and a few are in three (to an extent). The Daily Show for example could be "Comedy 5 News 3", while Star Trek could be "Niche 8" and Deep Space Nine could be "Drama 5 Niche 5 1-Hr" or something. Seperating the income from the scoring is supposed to help REDUCE the luck factor, so someone who gets screwed out of money (by luck for example) can still be in contention to win.

Ok, I'll buy that for now.

jwarrend wrote:

However, I don't think it is great from a simulation standpoint, either; shows don't have the same odds of being viewed every week; once they pick up steam, they will attract a pretty stable viewership each week.

Quote:

This is true. I hadn't thought about that. Also, this is not supposed to be a simulation as such. I'm modelling the game after TV Networks, but I'm taking liberties as well.

But you obviously have a lot of "simulation" elements in there, and I think that's great. If you can make a simple change that would make the mechanics fit your theme better, I think it's better. One thing I didn't get; are "hit" tokens removed each week? If not, that would solve the problem, perhaps; a show that "hit" last week will have a "buzz", and will already go in with a built-in audience. One thing I don't think the game captures is the "closed-sum" nature of TV, ie, there's only so many viewers in the public, and if they're all watching Friends, then they aren't watching Survivor. Tough to model that, though...

Quote:

This is where I think I failed to convey the whole point of the game. The whole scoring aspect of the game is either pitting your Comedy against the opponent's Comedy and taking their Comedy points for that day, or conceding thet their Comedy is going to be better than yours and instead pitting a Drama against it so you at least get points for Drama viewers that day. the scoring pits shows in each time slot against each other in the most direct way possible.

Ok, that's fine. We're just thinking on different models of TV viewing. I'm looking at it from the view of "what show will viewers watch at 8 pm?", whereas you're looking at it as "some people like Drama, some people like Comedy", etc. It sounds like in your model, it's sort of a done deal that if someone has a Drama 8, you can never stack your Drama 4 against it, unless you have some great power cards; thus, I don't see why you'd ever even try. I guess you just shouldn't have let them win the bid for the Drama 8 in the first place? I'm concerned a lot of situations might be somewhat anticlimatic. What do you think?

jwarrend wrote:

3. Modifiers, events, etc, are all well and good, but be careful about adding too many "special effect" cards, unless you don't mind the game being very luck-heavy.

Quote:

Managing and using the cards is where the strategy comes in. You place your shows so as to compete with opponents, and you use the cards to win the little battles each day. Out of curiosity, would you say that Magic is too Luck-heavy?

I don't consider managing power cards to be strategic; it's almost entirely tactical, because you can't really predict what power cards other players are holding. And if there are a lot of different kinds of power cards, (a) you can't really make long-range plans until you've memorized every single card in the game which takes a lot of playings (b) you have to count into the deck and remember what power cards have been played (c) even then, it's a crap shoot who has what card and whether they'll play it or not. in case you can't tell, I really don't care for power card games. I played Hacker once, and was set up to win, but someone else played a power card that gave the game to someone else. Many games of Illuminati I've played have come down to who has the right power card. I think there are some games that use power cards well (Lord of the Rings, for example), but in general, they add a lot of luck but not, to my mind, a lot more fun. I haven't played Magic, so I couldn't say if it's luck heavy. But I would say that if I were to play a game, from my perspective, not having played, it wouldn't be very strategic, because I'd have no idea what cards another player might have (since I don't know them all). And the deck-construction aspect probably lifts it from being "luck-heavy" (although it makes the game a case of "who bought better cards?", to some extent), but that isn't the case in your game, where cards are drawn randomly. Have you played Illuminati? Do you like it? Lots of people do; I used to.

I think that again, we've just hit on an aspect of game designs that we differ in opinion on. I don't like power cards in a 2 hour game, but I'll admit that they do work in some designs, so perhaps I should withhold judgement...

Again, a good core idea, and I'm still interested to hear what others think, particularly in terms of how much information is contained in the game.

Best of luck!

-Jeff

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 11:00

#8

Brykovian

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

I've finally gotten a chance to give it a read through. Man, everyone who has submitted a game to this workshop has really done some good work! Makes me really worry about dropping the bar when my turn comes up. :roll:

Anyway ... I thought the rules read pretty clearly to me, Seth (although you may have had a chance to clean them up between the earlier posts and my own). The only thing I'm a bit shakey on is the end-of-day scoring. I think that a couple of examples would clear things up greatly. For example, if two players both have shows within the same genre, then only the player with the most genre points for the day gets the VP? And if a show has 2 different genre ratings, then it can be condiered for both genres? If so, does this mean that a single show could gain a player 2 VPs for the same day, if no one else can compete in each of those genres?

Otherwise, I think it seems a fun time. I do agree with jwarrend that the different types of effect/event cards seem to add some complexity -- perhaps a small number of examples would help that out as well. The best/fastest way I've ever learned a more complex game was to watch a round or two of it stepped-through in baby-step tutorial fashion. (I saw an extremely good web-based tutorial of Settlers once -- taught me the game in about 5 minutes.)

Not a whole lot of additional constructive criticism to give here. I think that the program cards will be a make/break feature for the game from a publishing/marketing side of things. The mechanics are important, but the flavor is what draws people in ... this is a theme-heavy game, so pulling out of the abstract -- as I know you're planning on doing once you have the mechanics/balance down -- will be important.

As for the different-colored money question raised above ... I envisioned colored poker-style chips being used for money. This would be feasible for the bidding portion, I think. Also, where the chips are placed on a program card could indicate which player is the current best bid holder.

-Bryk

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 11:48

#9

Scurra

Offline

Joined: 09/11/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

jwarrend wrote:

Quote:

with the current rules the game length is down to under 2 hours (for both a 4-week 2 player game and a 3-week 3 player game).

I think that's still a bit long for what it is. I compare it to Illuminati, which is a cute idea, but I find, depends very heavily on luck of the draw. I don't like when a 2 hour game comes down very much to luck, EXCEPT for games like Risk or Axis and Allies where that is the whole point of the game...Other opinions on length?

I have to admit that I'm with Jeff on this one. A 2-hour investment of time requires a game of some depth; this feels like a 1-hour game with slightly too much in the mix.
I love the theme (I have an old abandoned design on a similar theme) and you have thought of some nice tweaks - the adverts are a clever touch, and the whole "genre/ratings" thing is great.

However, I still think there might be too much bookkeeping involved - you omit to mention the Ratings Counters in your preamble, and I was confused for a while as to how this was monitored.
But adding Adverts, Modifiers and Events could make the whole thing slow down badly.
As with the Heist game I outlined elsewhere, a game that is heavily dependent on Modifier cards is hard to judge without a good selection of them to see - the Programme examples were helpful, but I think I'd like to see some Events and Modifiers too - any chance of that?

I'm not sure how your bidding round works. Several programmes (how many? It seems to say X in the ruleset I have seen) come up together and players may bid on any of them? How do you keep track of who has bid what for which programme? (This is an issue I am interested in since I faced the same dilemma in one of my games and didn't find a wholly satisfactory solution.)
The layout order pattern didn't make a lot of sense to me. Were you representing something like the Settlers "clockwise/anti-clockwise" mechanism? (which I tried to do in WarZone and explained horribly too!)

Day End checking: Are there cards that last more than a day but less than a week? Or more than a week? If so, how are these monitored (do you have to remember the duration or what)?

The "Jumping the Shark" gimmick is great but potentially crippling if the target doesn't have any sort of chance to save their show. I know this will only happen once or twice in the game, but it still seems a little too strong for a random-based effect.

Duplicated line in the "Moving a programme" section (the last line appears to simply restate the previous line but using different words...)

But it sounds like a lot of fun, and has serious parody potential.

(And can I say that advertising more powerful cards for an expansion set doesn't always fill me with delight - that's usually the sign of a game that wasn't properly designed in the first place!)

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 12:55

#10

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

Scurra wrote:

jwarrend wrote:

(And can I say that advertising more powerful cards for an expansion set doesn't always fill me with delight - that's usually the sign of a game that wasn't properly designed in the first place!)

Oops, I missed this the first time...I agree, having a planned expansion before you even have a finished game is not a great idea in my opinion. I think having ideas in mind for ways that you could add to the enjoyment of the game is not a bad idea, but the game is already complex enough that adding more complexity via an expansion isn't something you need to think about right now.

Another thing: in a bidding game, why have a "minimum bid" for the shows? Let the players set the value of each show with their bids.

The more I read the rules, the more simple I feel the mechanics are, and that's a good thing; yet, I still feel there's a lot of bookkeeping to do, but maybe it becomes easy to internalize after you've played a bit. Still not sure!

-Jeff

BTW, looked at your website. It's funny; I also have a game in development about "Chicago gangland", but it's in a pretty early stage. Maybe I'll post a game journal and you and I can compare notes. I also have a "12 disciples", but suffice it to say, it takes a very different view of the situation than your game! But, there are some similar ideas, I think. I'll let you know when it's more done, if you'd like to hear how I tackled that theme.

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 14:40

#11

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

jwarrend wrote:

Does it really make sense to agonize over which shows to bid on? Or can you just randomly choose which shows you'll take and still do ok?

I'd like to think that you bid on a Program based on (a) Hit#s- if you want a moneymaker, you bid on a show with lots of pips, (b) Genres - If you want to score points you bid on a show with either High level in 1 category, low levels but 3 categories, or Niche (since it's more rare), or maybe (c) If you have adsin hand that are EXO or SPEC categories, you might want to make sure and get a show with that Ad Category- which might not be worth as much to someone who doesn't have those ads in hand at the moment.

Quote:

I understand you're trying to take advantage of the probabilities of 2d6, but if I am choosing to bid on a card that has hit numbers "2 3 7 12" and one that hits on "4 5 8 11", that is a ton of math for me to do in my head. There has to be a better way.

That's one thing I agonized over a lot. Currently, I display the total pips (in parenthises- see list of Programs. I think I forgot this on my sample "Lust in Space") under the Hit#s so it's easy to tell how often the show hits. I will take some pics of my prototype cards to give a better idea of what it looks like.

Quote:

Also, I think I missed a rule. I was under the impression that when you rolled the dice on your turn, only your shows could "hit", if you happened to hit the roll. But in fact, it sounds like it's a Settlers system where all shows that have the hit numbers can "hit". Is that right? That certainly changes things from what I thought...

All Programs on the currrent day are checked for hits, no matter wose turn it is.

Quote:

Completely separate? Now I'm really confused; I thought that scoring was a combo of "Genre points" and "ratings tokens", which you get from hitting a die roll. So let me see if I understand your game a little more;

OK, I misspoke. So when a show hits it basically gets +1 to each Genre (because it gets a Ratings Counter, and Ratings Counters add to Genres for scoring). So the Hit#s are INDIRECTLY related to scoring.

Quote:

shows score points if they are good shows (as evidenced by "Genre points"), or perhaps more correctly, if they are better shows than the others that are being showed in the same time slot. Some shows are more likely to be "hits", which means you're more likely to get advertising dollars, which you need to be able to bid to pick up good shows. Is this where the tension in the game comes from? I'm still not sure about it, but I'd have to play the game to have a better sense for whether I like it or not.

I think you've got it. Shows can be "Popular" (high pips), but that doesn't mean they are "good" (high genre#s). And in fact a "good" show for a fan of Drama might not be watched at all by someone who just likes News.

So shows that the general public will watch a lot will make you money off advertising. And shows that are "good" within a particular genre will score you points in that genre.

Quote:

One thing I didn't get; are "hit" tokens removed each week? If not, that would solve the problem, perhaps; a show that "hit" last week will have a "buzz", and will already go in with a built-in audience. One thing I don't think the game captures is the "closed-sum" nature of TV, ie, there's only so many viewers in the public, and if they're all watching Friends, then they aren't watching Survivor. Tough to model that, though...

Ratings Counters are not removed from week to week. So in that respect you might say the shows that got watched a lot, and got a following, do have an advantage over new shows (they have bonuses to genre#s from their ratings counters).

As far as the Closed Sum nature of viewers... as far as I'm concerned and for the purposes of this game, there are a whole lot of viewers. So many in fact that they don't 'run out.' The ones who are watching Friends don't watch Survivor- that's true- but they also don't watch Monster House, or Barney. the point is that for this game there are 4 Demographics, and each Demographic watches whatever show is "best" for them each day. (the Demographics are the same as the Genres).

Quote:

It sounds like in your model, it's sort of a done deal that if someone has a Drama 8, you can never stack your Drama 4 against it, unless you have some great power cards; thus, I don't see why you'd ever even try. I guess you just shouldn't have let them win the bid for the Drama 8 in the first place? I'm concerned a lot of situations might be somewhat anticlimatic. What do you think?

So the way you would compete with a Drama 8 program is to either put Comedy and News against it (they get the VP for Drama, but you get 2 for Comedy and news), OR put your Drama 4 against it, and play cards to increase your Drama scores and increase the popularity of your Drama 4 (add Hit#s).

For example, advertise your Drama 4. There's an Ad and an Event that get you extra Ratings Counters on programs... so you put that ad on a high pip show, thereby advertising your weaker show on your popular show, and when th popular show hits you get a Counter on the weaker show too, making it stronger.

Note that a "popular" (high pip) Drama 4 can overtake an "unpopular" Drama 8 before long, even without the help of other cards (just due to hitting and gaining ratings counters).

Quote:

I think that again, we've just hit on an aspect of game designs that we differ in opinion on. I don't like power cards in a 2 hour game

So there may be a problem with power cards, or with the cost of some cards. I agree with that. However, I'm not sure I agree that every card people might potentially draw is a power card. Most of them aren't all that powerful, and most have multiple uses and multiple 'answers'. Read the card list (on web page and in Journal) to see what cards you think are too powerful.

Thanks again for the great, in depth comments. I feel like I've done a bad job of explaining my game thus far, but with this back and forth maybe people will get all the details and then the real fun can begin :)

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 14:45

#12

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

Brykovian wrote:

The only thing I'm a bit shakey on is the end-of-day scoring. I think that a couple of examples would clear things up greatly.

I thought I wrote an example, but it's in some comment in my journal and I forgot to put it in the rulebook. My bad.

Quote:

For example, if two players both have shows within the same genre, then only the player with the most genre points for the day gets the VP? And if a show has 2 different genre ratings, then it can be considered for both genres? If so, does this mean that a single show could gain a player 2 VPs for the same day, if no one else can compete in each of those genres?

All of that is exactly correct.

Quote:

As for the different-colored money question raised above ... I envisioned colored poker-style chips being used for money. This would be feasible for the bidding portion, I think. Also, where the chips are placed on a program card could indicate which player is the current best bid holder.

I maintain that if people cannot keep track of things like THEIR OWN MONEY, then they have more important things to worry about than who's winning a bid in a card game.

Thanks for the comments!

-Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 15:01

#13

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

Scurra wrote:

...the Programme examples were helpful, but I think I'd like to see some Events and Modifiers too - any chance of that?

Well, all the cards are posted on the web page (link near top to Playtest Cards) as well as in my Journal ;P

Quote:

I'm not sure how your bidding round works. Several programmes (how many? It seems to say X in the ruleset I have seen) come up together and players may bid on any of them? How do you keep track of who has bid what for which programme? (This is an issue I am interested in since I faced the same dilemma in one of my games and didn't find a wholly satisfactory solution.)

X is defined earlier in the rules as the Number of players in the game. So for a 3 player game, 3 programs are up for auction at a time.

And yes, you bid on any of the available programs. As I mentioned, players inability to keep track of their own money is not my problem. I use a system like Craps in Vegas, my bid is on my sidfe of the card, your bid is on your side, and his bid is on his side. I may detail this in the rulebook, and add that once your bid is placed you don't touch it again until your turn, when you first take back any bids that are no longer winning (if you got outbid), then place whatever bid you want.

Quote:

The layout order pattern didn't make a lot of sense to me. Were you representing something like the Settlers "clockwise/anti-clockwise" mechanism? (which I tried to do in WarZone and explained horribly too!)

The intent was to balance out the disadvantage of placing first (scoring-wise this is a big disadvantage). However it appears that Player 1 gets an advantage moneywise, so I thik I'll change it to just go around in a circle- players place 1 Program at a time, in turn order, until all programs are placed. Also, I might go up to 6 rounds in the Starting Lineup (and perhaps up the starting cash to 30).

Quote:

Day End checking: Are there cards that last more than a day but less than a week? Or more than a week? If so, how are these monitored (do you have to remember the duration or what)?

The Duration of a card is printed on that card. I will post a picture to help describe this.

Quote:

The "Jumping the Shark" gimmick is great but potentially crippling if the target doesn't have any sort of chance to save their show. I know this will only happen once or twice in the game, but it still seems a little too strong for a random-based effect.

First off, it only happens to shows that are hitting a lot. Second, there is a crad that removes ratings counters which can be used to ensure a show won't Jump. Also moving programs removes a ratings counter, so that can be engineered to help keep a show from jumping (I don't know that I've accurately descibed the rules for moving programs- in fact, I'm not sure those are set yet- they need help). Finally, there's an Ad that has the special ability "When this show would Jump the Shark, discard this Ad instead."

As for a "random based" effect.... it's not random. OK, it's a little random because you roll a die, but I'd call it Probability-based, not Random-based. The more counters the show has, the more likely it will Jump- but even then if it's not much of a threat to an opponent then it's probably safe.

Quote:

(And can I say that advertising more powerful cards for an expansion set doesn't always fill me with delight - that's usually the sign of a game that wasn't properly designed in the first place!)

That was stuff that has gotten cut out of the game thus far, but which we may want to put back in later (via expansion). I don't have an expansion planned per se, just some cool stuff that was deemed too complex or too much stuff for the stock game. I just wanted to write it down so as not to forget it.

Thanks again for the comments!

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 15:05

#14

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

jwarrend wrote:

Another thing: in a bidding game, why have a "minimum bid" for the shows? Let the players set the value of each show with their bids.

A number of reasons. Suppose for example I have $8 and both of my opponent have only $2 each. When the 3 shows come up for supplemental auction, should I be allowed to buy all three? This would be possible if none had a minimum bid- I bid 2 on one of them, then outbid the other guys for 3 each.

With a min bid, this becomes less possible, and if it DOES happen, then that means the shows are all crappy (low min bid).

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 15:39

#15

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

Thanks for continuing the discussion. I think we're getting into discussion of gameplay here, which is good. But of course, it should be kept in mind that I've only read the rules, so things won't make sense to me in the same way that they make sense to you...

Quote:

Quote:

It sounds like in your model, it's sort of a done deal that if someone has a Drama 8, you can never stack your Drama 4 against it, unless you have some great power cards; thus, I don't see why you'd ever even try. I guess you just shouldn't have let them win the bid for the Drama 8 in the first place? I'm concerned a lot of situations might be somewhat anticlimatic. What do you think?

So the way you would compete with a Drama 8 program is to either put Comedy and News against it (they get the VP for Drama, but you get 2 for Comedy and news), OR put your Drama 4 against it, and play cards to increase your Drama scores and increase the popularity of your Drama 4 (add Hit#s).

For example, advertise your Drama 4. There's an Ad and an Event that get you extra Ratings Counters on programs... so you put that ad on a high pip show, thereby advertising your weaker show on your popular show, and when th popular show hits you get a Counter on the weaker show too, making it stronger.

Note that a "popular" (high pip) Drama 4 can overtake an "unpopular" Drama 8 before long, even without the help of other cards (just due to hitting and gaining ratings counters).

Ok, thanks for analyzing the strategy. Let me be more clear with my question; the other player has a Drama 8, and is scoring points every week with that show, and you want to stop him. Because of the way the shows came up in the Bid, you got a Drama 4. Can you stop him? Your answer seems to be, yes, if you happened to draw the right Ad or Event that gives you a way to boost your ratings. Or, you can put up a Comedy against his Drama, so at least you break even with him. Ok, I'll buy that, I guess. I don't like relying on luck to give you a good card; but I will accept that trying to come out even is ok. You say Drama 4 will overtake Drama 8 eventually with Hitting; does that mean that in general, the Genre Level and "number of pips" are inversely related? That would be cute; shows that are likely to be popular have little criticial acclaim (ex Beavis and Butthead), and so initially, won't score much, but over the game, they'll hit more, and thus, will generate more points in the end, and meanwhile, are scoring more revenue dollars. Cute! But is this how the game actually works?

Quote:

So there may be a problem with power cards, or with the cost of some cards. I agree with that. However, I'm not sure I agree that every card people might potentially draw is a power card. Most of them aren't all that powerful, and most have multiple uses and multiple 'answers'. Read the card list (on web page and in Journal) to see what cards you think are too powerful.

By "power card", I have in mind any card that presents a rule exception; ie, it confers a special power that is not ordinarily accessbile to all players. In that sense, your Modifier cards are all "power cards", because they all have a special effect of some sort or another. All of your Event cards are also "power cards", because they confer powers not ordinarily given to players. Cards don't have to be powerful to be power cards.

What I object to in power card heavy games is that they present a steep learning curve to the game. Example, you're playing along, you take Action A, then another player drops a card that says "Undo Action A"; if you didn't know that card was in the mix, how could you plan your move effectively? Now fast forward to the situation where you've memorized the whole deck, and you know every card that's in there. Now, in your game, there are, what, at least 30 or 40 cards? So when I'm planning my moves, I need to iterate through 30 or 40 possible actions that other players could possibly take and plan accordingly; most likely, I can't, and so I'll just try to guess which cards might come up.

Now, to that, I would say, if it were my game, "if you're trying to consider the effects of 30 or 40 different cards, you're thinking about it WAY too much". But that is just my point. For a 30 minute game, I agree, the mix of special effect cards is ok (cf Fluxx, which is 100% power cards, but almost zero% strategy). In a one hour game, you're pushing it. In a two hour game, I want to be able to think a lot. I want to have to weigh my decisions carefully. If the game comes down to "who drew the best power cards", or "who drew the right power cards at the right time", that's a problem in a longer game like this. Moreover, if just the cards in my hand have multiple effects and/or could be played in several different ways, that also requires thinking time.

One thing that I didn't get from the rules; can cards be played on any show, or just the shows that are "up" on the current day?

Do you see what I'm getting at wrt power cards? I hope I've explained it clearly. This isn't just a rules ambiguity; this is a basic game design issue. For a game that I think does this extremely well, check out Star Wars: Epic Duels. Each player has a deck of cards with which they can carry out actions. Some are "standard" cards, and some are "special cards", but the deck has way more "standard" than "special" cards, and there are only a couple of types of "special cards", each of which are duplicated a couple of times. In your game, I feel that the "special effect" cards are overwhelmingly in the majority, and that makes the game very much about luck. On the other hand, I think they are all well-thought out, and add lots of flavor to the game, so there's a tough balance you'll have to strike. See also "Lord of the Rings", where for example, NPC cards like "Aragorn" or "Gimli" give you enhanced ability to carry out standard actions in the game, rather than giving you a one-off power. (of course, there are still some one-off power cards, but again, they're in the proper proportion to standard cards).

Also, I don't understand the difference between Events and Modifiers; it seems they're drawn and played the same way, and reading the cards, it isn't clear what the distinction is; why not just roll them all into one deck?

Anyway, again, I like the game, and think the flavor is great, but I'm just concerned that with all the different cards whose powers are so varied, there is too much to keep track of. And that's bad for a 2 hour game, where I want to keep track of all the important game variables. Again, the only exception are "wargames" like Risk, where I expect die rolling to play a role in the game. In contrast, Monopoly is long and luck-heavy, and unless you play with a wheeling-and-dealing crowd, doesn't offer enough decisions in proportion to the randomizing factors. So I don't play it.

Now, I think your game feels like it's intended to be heavier than Monopoly or Risk, yet I can't tell if you're aiming for something like "Puerto Rico", or something like "Illuminati"; what experience do you intend the game to have? What I'm telling you is that if you're looking for a game like "Puerto Rico", you're not there yet. If you're looking to make something like "Illuminati" or "Hacker", I think you're close. My comments/suggestions will help if you want to make the game more like "Puerto Rico", but if you're not going for that level of strategy, then my concerns about power cards are unwarranted. So, what kind of experience do you intend the game to provide?

Quote:

Thanks again for the great, in depth comments. I feel like I've done a bad job of explaining my game thus far, but with this back and forth maybe people will get all the details and then the real fun can begin :)

Hmm...it seems like you already have some feedback you're intending the forum to provide. What kinds of specific questions do you want us to address? I've tried to give both "I don't understand this" and "I like/don't like this" kind of feedback, but are there specific issues you'd like us to resolve? Keep in mind that things like "what do you think of this card?" will be tough to answer without actually playtesting the game; balancing can only happen by actual playing. But hopefully, we can give you feedback about mechanics, etc, that will help...

-Jeff

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 15:44

#16

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

sedjtroll wrote:

jwarrend wrote:

Another thing: in a bidding game, why have a "minimum bid" for the shows? Let the players set the value of each show with their bids.

A number of reasons. Suppose for example I have $8 and both of my opponent have only $2 each. When the 3 shows come up for supplemental auction, should I be allowed to buy all three? This would be possible if none had a minimum bid- I bid 2 on one of them, then outbid the other guys for 3 each.

With a min bid, this becomes less possible, and if it DOES happen, then that means the shows are all crappy (low min bid).

- Seth

There are other ways of doing it; how about capping the number of shows a player can win? In another example, let's say there are 3 $3 shows available. The $8 player can nab two, whereas the $2 players can't nab either. I think the more you try to balance the cards yourself, the more work you're creating for yourself to playtest and ensure that they're balanced. And a show's value may be very situation-dependent anyway. That's the great thing about bidding -- it makes your life as a designer easier. Take advantage of it!

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 17:00

#17

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

jwarrend wrote:

Ok, thanks for analyzing the strategy. Let me be more clear with my question; the other player has a Drama 8, and is scoring points every week with that show, and you want to stop him. Because of the way the shows came up in the Bid, you got a Drama 4. Can you stop him? Your answer seems to be, yes, if you happened to draw the right Ad or Event that gives you a way to boost your ratings.

"Happened to draw" has a connotation associated with it that I think is misleading. My point is that there are lots of ways to make your Drama 4 compete with their Drama 8. One other thing that hasn't been talked about much yet is that really the scoring is per day, not per time slot... so if they have a Drama 8 1/2hr show, you can stack your Drama 4 1/2hr show with another 1/2hr show (maybe Drama 3, News 3)... now you're total drama is 4 + 3 + Ratings counters... now you're really competing in Drama.

Quote:

Or, you can put up a Comedy against his Drama, so at least you break even with him. Ok, I'll buy that, I guess. I don't like relying on luck to give you a good card; but I will accept that trying to come out even is ok.

Exactly right, except rather than calling it luck in getting a good card, call it resourcefulness in using the cards you DO get (and judicious use of Refilling Hand to dig for cards you need)...

Quote:

You say Drama 4 will overtake Drama 8 eventually with Hitting; does that mean that in general, the Genre Level and "number of pips" are inversely related? That would be cute; shows that are likely to be popular have little criticial acclaim (ex Beavis and Butthead), and so initially, won't score much, but over the game, they'll hit more, and thus, will generate more points in the end, and meanwhile, are scoring more revenue dollars. Cute! But is this how the game actually works?

Yes, that is exactly how the Programs were made. Right now (the Programs listed in the Journal) aren't balanced quite right, as they were made before the current scoring system. the new crop of shows will be better balanced (I hope).

Quote:

If the game comes down to "who drew the best power cards", or "who drew the right power cards at the right time", that's a problem in a longer game like this. Moreover, if just the cards in my hand have multiple effects and/or could be played in several different ways, that also requires thinking time.

What I'd like for players of my game to do is to 'work with what they've got.' On the one hand, as a light game with people not knowing or caring so much what cards there are people can play stuff they think might help and have fun thwarting each other and seeing what happens. On the other hand, once people have learned the cards they can consider that their play may be undone (though I don't think it's important to know exactly how. Besides, even if you wanted to think of every option- only about 3 of the 40 cards would really affect your play)... the play can be deeper in strategy and tactics.

Quote:

One thing that I didn't get from the rules; can cards be played on any show, or just the shows that are "up" on the current day?

Any Program. You program all the shows in your lineup ahead of time, not just on the days they run :P

Quote:

Also, I don't understand the difference between Events and Modifiers; it seems they're drawn and played the same way, and reading the cards, it isn't clear what the distinction is; why not just roll them all into one deck?

Um... I guess I was unclear again on that. They ARE all in one deck. There are 2 decks total- one is Programs, and one is Cards. In the Cards deck there are Ads (which attach to Programs and grant Revenue), Modifiers (which attach to programs and modify them), and Events (which do not attach to anything, they are like Sorceries or Global Enchantments in Magic).

Quote:

It seems like you already have some feedback you're intending the forum to provide. What kinds of specific questions do you want us to address? I've tried to give both "I don't understand this" and "I like/don't like this" kind of feedback, but are there specific issues you'd like us to resolve? Keep in mind that things like "what do you think of this card?" will be tough to answer without actually playtesting the game; balancing can only happen by actual playing. But hopefully, we can give you feedback about mechanics, etc, that will help...

I AM getting useful feedback already (and it's only day 2 of my 2 weeks!) which is nice. What I am looking for specifically might be difficult without playing the game... information about the amount of money in the game, the turn order, the overall speed of the game and how to make turns go by a little quicker without giving up the things that make the game fun, and certain rules that are really not seeming right at the momnt- like moving programs, and like ads (replacing them and/or cancelling them).

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 17:42

#18

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

sedjtroll wrote:

"Happened to draw" has a connotation associated with it that I think is misleading. My point is that there are lots of ways to make your Drama 4 compete with their Drama 8.

That's the crux of what I was asking. If the only way to be competitive with another person who has a better show is to have the good fortune to draw a card, then it will be tough to unseat that person. That may not be bad, I'm just trying to understand if it's an aspect of the game. At any rate, it seems from your analysis that the cards are only one way to increase your shows' competitiveness, but that there are others. That's what I wanted to know.

Quote:

What I'd like for players of my game to do is to 'work with what they've got.'

That's fine, but it does mean the game's outcome will be decided at least in part by luck. Not necessarily a bad thing, as long as that part is small enough so that a good player will still win most of the time (a 2 hour game really ought to reward skill...)

Quote:

Um... I guess I was unclear again on that. They ARE all in one deck.

Sure, they're all drawn from the same deck, but what I'm wondering is why there's a distinction between the cards. I get that Ads are different, but I guess I didn't really get the difference between Modifiers and Events. I suppose it's just that one affects a Show, and one affects..."Everything". It just seems like if you could have these cards be more similar in some way, it would simplify the game a bit. Probably not much, though.

Quote:

I AM getting useful feedback already (and it's only day 2 of my 2 weeks!) which is nice. What I am looking for specifically might be difficult without playing the game... information about the amount of money in the game, the turn order, the overall speed of the game and how to make turns go by a little quicker without giving up the things that make the game fun, and certain rules that are really not seeming right at the momnt- like moving programs, and like ads (replacing them and/or cancelling them).

- Seth

Amount of money, turn order, speed, are all play balance issues, and will be tough to evaluate without playtesting. How to make the turns go faster...I think I've already answered that, I think it involves cutting out a lot of the information and streamlining the game substantially so that players don't have so many things to consider. One quick change that you've already suggested would be to postpone die rolling till the end; it doesn't seem to add too much, except that you do have some "undo" cards so a player who placed an Ad could have it removed before the "global die-rolling" turn.

To be honest, I'm not sure I like the cards that interact with other player's shows. I don't think networks operate this way; better to have only cards that boost ratings/quality/etc for your show. That way, you could safely move die rolling till the end of the day, and it wouldn't be a problem. As for the other rules...moving a show, should it cost anything? I would say no; you have plenty of needs for money, so I think the ratings hit is enough of a penalty. Canceling ads; why would you want to do that? And why would you pay to do it, and burn a turn action? Can't see it. Replacing ads; don't see it in the rulebook. If you want to have it, why not make it free, but the removed Ad then goes to a face-up draw pile which other players can access. So, you can switch an Ad with a more lucrative one, but at the risk that the advertiser will now go to your competition!

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 18:34

#19

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

jwarrend wrote:

Canceling ads; why would you want to do that? And why would you pay to do it, and burn a turn action? Can't see it. Replacing ads; don't see it in the rulebook. If you want to have it, why not make it free, but the removed Ad then goes to a face-up draw pile which other players can access. So, you can switch an Ad with a more lucrative one, but at the risk that the advertiser will now go to your competition!

The reason one might want to cancel an ad is because they drew a better one (more lucrative with the shows in play). However, there's some nice tension if you can't just play the better ad willy nilly. Besides, the advertisers are paying you for that ad slot, you shouldn't be able to just ditch them for free, should you?

When there were 2 or 3 ad slots per show this wasn't that big an issue, but when I went down to 1 ad per 1/2hr show suddenly Ad real estate is at a premium. It actually runs out. And if you are forced to play a mediocre ad early (to get some income going), and then draw a better ad later, how should that be dealt with? Jeff had some good suggestions, like the face up draw pile is interesting, but I'm not sure which way to go at this time. Any more opinions? The Ads are a significant portion of the game because as my friend insisted last night, if you don't start with lots of good ads, you lose. I think he's wrong, I think if you don't start with lots of good ads you have to spend turns digging for ads, and you should save some money in initial bidding to play your cards. If you don't start with ANY ads, well that's a probelm. But the deck is 50% ads.

Another note on ads... I'm thinking of adding a Revenue# to each show (like a built in ad), which would be crappy ($1 or maybe $2 on some shows per hit) but a lot better than nothing. Maybe the high pip shows get $0 automatically and therefore have to have ads played to make lots of money.

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 19:37

#20

Anonymous

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

I read the rules to the game, and I read a lot of the replies, but honestly, I was mostly skimming (it's a lot of information to take in all at once, so I'll be rereading it throughout the day).

The first thing I wanted to say though, is this game sounds fun, and interesting to me.

There seems to be a big issue with complexity, and while there are a lot of elements, I don't see much complexity. The complexity is all in the initial setup it would seem, and it would pan out during gameplay quite nicely as things start to get rolling.

My first impression of revenue dollars though... it seems that players will end up with more money than they need with advertising and whatnot, but that's only a first impression I suppose.

Another thing to concider about shows getting more popular. My first thought about addressing that is to do away with the Settlers style hit system altogether and go with a dice goal type system. Say every show hits if it reaches a result of 10 on two 6 sided dice. However, with each rating counter you get to add 1 to the result, and shows which are predicted to do good will have a modifier instead of a pip number.

So a show with a rating of +2 isn't very decent as it won't hit as often (given a more probable 7, then add the +2 only = 9) but a show with a rating of +4 will hit fairly decently, but then as shows get more hits, they'll take off and hit far more often. New shows, regardless of their genre will always get a slower start than other more established shows.

Also, since the game will only last as many weeks as the number of players (if I remember that correctly), then it'll give more of a chance for shows to Jump the Shark (as my first impression was that this would be a rare occurrance).

However, I'm sure changing this mechanic could alter the balance (not to mention all the reworking of the cards you'd have to do :P)

I like the two half hour slots per day, gives players a better chance at competing by mixing and matching shows and MOVING shows accordinly. I think there should be plenty of actions involving spending money however, as money doesn't see to e a victory condition, it should be far more liquid in it's nature... Then again, they're action cards to play and whatnot, so money is probably getting spent more than I figure.

Those are just a couple of initial suggestions. I'll reread everything more in depth and decide if those suggestions should be burned at the stake.

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 20:10

#21

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

How's this idea sound..?

Suppose you could spend money to purchase an additional action. I don't know that it would come up that often, or if it would even be worth doing... unless you don't normally get an action at all without paying for it.

Maybe something like you can play an ad during your turn and you can purchase other actions.

I dunno, just thought of that.

- Seth

Tue, 07/22/2003 - 20:33

#22

Anonymous

Just another thought

What if all the shows had a production cost to them? From what little of the industry I understand, I think some networks front cash to some of the shows airing on them.

So what if you had an upkeep cost for all your shows? Something in the ballpark of $1 or $2, and you had to pay your production costs for all shows aired that week.

I know it's adding more complexity and yet another stat on the card (unless you could tie it directly to a number already on the card... such as genre level), then that would force players to be a bit more mindful of how they bid.

Sure they can outbid someone for that hit show... but will they be able to run it for more than a week? Force players to treat each show as an investment, rather than a purchase.

It would also put a little more thought into playing action cards, and a lot more emphasis on earning money from advertising. You want your shows to be successful and you want good advertisers so you can get more money to help pad your bottom line a bit, in order to give you more room to play action cards which will further increase your ability to earn victory points.

Players with runnaway hits run the risk of drowing in debt in order to keep their victory point earner in the game.

Also, just going back to the idea I suggested about reaching 10 with modifiers...

I didn't take into account that each player rolls for each turn, so there are up to 4 rolls per day depending on how many players there are...

Is that to say that you check the result against ALL shows for that day, or just the shows YOU own? Because if it were all shows, then shows could really take off quickly... too quickly.

Anway, I was also thinking about genres... I like how you've separated genres in order to balance insanely successful shows. If a show is a garanteed win (for points) on a certain day, just run a show of a different category, and you'll get points for that category. Smart.

No suggestion there, just commenting on the balancing aspect of it, it's good.

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 02:26

#23

sedjtroll

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

Yet more thoughts on 8/7c

I don't know if I like the mechanics/rules for moving programs. It needs to be possible to move them, or you can't compete properly with other networks. It's BAD to allow movement DURING the week, like as an action because that not only doesn't make sense, but it's also degenerate as far as scoring goes.

Maybe the way it is right now is best after all... at the beginning of a new week, after the supplemental auction, players take turns in turn order either placing a show (open spot only), moving a show (at the cost of like $2 and a ratings counter) or switching 2 shows (at the cost of $4 and a RC off each)... Cancelling a show counts as moving it (to the discard pile), and shows that cannot be placed get discarded.

Those sound like rules you would find in a real game, don't they?

The question remains- is $2 a good number? And should there be any tie-in to ads with moving programs? Do ads go with? Do they fall off? Can you sac an ad instead of paying the money to move?

Remember that with the current ad real estate being tight, cancelling an ad might be something people want to do.

While we're on the subject of ads, is it fair to have a card that removes an ad slot from a show when the shows only have 1 ad to begin with (see Advertising Strategy which I thought was a pretty well balanced card before...)

- Seth

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 08:44

#24

jwarrend

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Joined: 08/03/2008

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

SHould it cost $2 to move a show? Impossible to say; that's a play balance issue, and you need to playtest to find that out. It matters how frequently players want to do it, how much benefit they can possibly gain from doing it, how much do they need money for for other actions, etc; only playtesting can fix the proper value of each action.

Should there be a card that can cancel an ad slot? No, that's too devastating. You could have a "advertiser switch" card where you steal an advertiser from another player, or where you force them to drop an advertiser, but canceling the slot altogether is counterintuitive, doesn't work with the theme, and again, is one more thing to think about.

Another thing; I initially liked "Jumping the Shark", but the more I think about it, I don't think it works in the game. First, thematically, it doesn't match; shows don't "jump the shark" after just 3 episodes, which is all this game lasts. It's one more rule, and thus, it adds time and complexity, but I don't think it adds much strategically, in the sense that it isn't that important -- "big" shows only score 3 times anytime (unless you can change your schedule mid-week, which btw would be a bad idea) anyway, so to compete with someone's "big" show, you (a player) must do something more clever to defeat them. How about making "jump the shark" an action card? It would fit much more as an action card, and still give you the flavor, without adding an unnecessary rule. How important has this mechanic been in test games?

I'm a bit concerned that the game is too "short" in terms of number of weeks, such that you don't really have enough time to develop your shows, find an audience, etc. Maybe the theme ought to be that this is the beginning of the new fall lineup, and you're trying to have your new shows be the ones that survive into the fall and don't get cancelled. That theme would work great with a 3 week game.

-Jeff

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 10:23

#25

Scurra

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Joined: 09/11/2008

Re: Reply to JWarrend...

sedjtroll wrote:

Scurra wrote:
...the Programme examples were helpful, but I think I'd like to see some Events and Modifiers too - any chance of that?

Well, all the cards are posted on the web page (link near top to Playtest Cards) as well as in my Journal ;P

My apologies - I had missed the links at the top of the page.
Can I say how glad I was to see the pics of the prototype cards, if only to prove a point about bits of cardboard!

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 12:07

#26

sedjtroll

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

Bits of cardboard

Scurra wrote:

Can I say how glad I was to see the pics of the prototype cards, if only to prove a point about bits of cardboard!

you can say anything you like :)

What was the point you were proving?

- Seth

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 12:19

#27

sedjtroll

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Joined: 07/21/2008

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

jwarrend wrote:

Should it cost $2 to move a show? ...only playtesting can fix the proper value of each action.

True. I think it needs to cost SOMETHING, otherwise people will just move shows back and forth based on how their opponent just moved their show and the game would stall. I thin kirt should be cheap enough that you will want to do it, but expensive enough that you'll only want to do it if it really, really helps.

Quote:

Should there be a card that can cancel an ad slot? No, that's too devastating... canceling the slot altogether is counterintuitive, doesn't work with the theme, and again, is one more thing to think about.

Two cards I have- Offends Advertisers and Advertising Strategy- seemed good (fair, balanced) when I had 2 or 3 Ad Slots per show. Now Offends Advertisers seems a little brutal (maybe if it cost a little more it would be fair), and Ad Strategy (half of it) seems counterintuitive. Ad Strategy could be changed to just kill an ad (not the Slot) when it is played...

Quote:

Another thing; I initially liked "Jumping the Shark", but the more I think about it, I don't think it works in the game. First, thematically, it doesn't match; shows don't "jump the shark" after just 3 episodes, which is all this game lasts. It's one more rule, and thus, it adds time and complexity, but I don't think it adds much strategically, in the sense that it isn't that important -- It would fit much more as an action card, and still give you the flavor, without adding an unnecessary rule. How important has this mechanic been in test games?

So first off, I think this game sort of pulls off a variable timeframe. The Weeks sort of represent more than just 1 week each. Maybe "Monday" is indicative of all mondays for a month, so a game is really 3 months of programming. It's sort of nebulous, but I think it works- otherwise 3 weeks is way too short.

Jumping the Shark has been pretty important. It's a way to keep Ratings Counters under control- you don't want your good show to Jump so RC's are both good and bad. I actually wonder if there shouldn't be MORE Jump checking- like instead of 1 show, maybe every show. Or a more static "If a show has 4 counters on it at end of week, wipe all counters off it" so it can Jump, make a Comeback, and maybe even Jump again.

I agree that a Jump the Shark card would be sweet. I will make one. Pay like $4 to make a ump check on a Program.

Quote:

I'm a bit concerned that the game is too "short" in terms of number of weeks, such that you don't really have enough time to develop your shows, find an audience, etc. Maybe the theme ought to be that this is the beginning of the new fall lineup, and you're trying to have your new shows be the ones that survive into the fall and don't get cancelled. That theme would work great with a 3 week game.

I totally agree. Your suggestion sounds great to me. Keep them coming!

- Seth

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 15:41

#28

Scurra

Offline

Joined: 09/11/2008

Re: Bits of cardboard

sedjtroll wrote:

What was the point you were proving?

That the game should be disassociable from the components.
I realise that most prototypes look like that, but it's always nice to see the proof of it. I take far too much trouble over my prototypes these days, and it's good to be reminded that index cards are quite sufficient :)

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 15:54

#29

FastLearner

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Joined: 12/31/1969

Game #3: 8/7c by sedjtroll

Scurra, you continue to freak me out. I do the exact same thing -- my prototypes are all of extreme quality, too early much of the time.

*Begins to wonder if he isn't posting as Scurra in his sleep.*

Wed, 07/23/2003 - 16:03

#30

sedjtroll

Offline

Joined: 07/21/2008

excerpt from Game Journal - example of scoring

Here's an example of scoring on a given day in 8/7c:

I have the following in play:
a News4/Comedy3 Program with 2 Ratings Counters
a Niche5 Program with 1 Ratings Counter

You have...
a 1-hr Drama3/Comedy4/Niche4 Program with 2 Ratings Counters

Scoring is as follows:
Comedy: You score 1 VP (4+2=6 > 3+2=5)
Drama: You score 1 VP (No competition)
News: I score 1 VP (No competition)
Niche: We each score 1 VP (5+1=6 = 4+2=6)

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