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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

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Johan
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Actually I'm a little nervous about this but here we go...

Feeeed Meeeee was one of the games that I came up with to the Micro game contest (the one that didn?t happened). It also exist an older Black & White version, which uses pawns instead of markers.

Feeeeed Meeeeee

The file is 1,9 MB and its only 4 pages (some graphic examples are included). I also wanted to include the word-version, but that is not up to date.

// Johan

onew0rd
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Wow! A very nice rulebook, game, and art! Great job!

Components, Theme, and Art

I only have VERY MINOR suggestions in this area. I would change the Smalls to Goblins or Gnomes or something just to add some more flavor. Also, make it clear where the start is (even though it's obviously 0) just to clarify the start and finish. A VERY GOOD JOB with the art! You need to have the Rulebook proofread for spelling and grammar as well.

Theme

I really like the theme. The only change I would make is the smalls to goblins change I suggested above and that's more a matter of opinion.

Game

I really like the game. I think this could be a blast. I do have a big suggestion for the gameplay. Instead of having the phases/turns make it maybe something like Puerto Rico where the phases are all at once. You could have those phases be cards to be selected in any order. I don't think this would hurt gameplay much and would create a more chaotic feel to the game (which compliments the theme). Have everyone start with a 2 random food cards then the first player chooses a role. Then in clockwise order each player fulfills that role. Maybe have a way to allow a player to take his turn immediately (giving players 2 tokens to do so in a game)...I got a little carries away there, sorry.

Overall, I think you have a great game here.

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

onew0rd wrote:
Wow! A very nice rulebook, game, and art! Great job! .

Thanks

onew0rd wrote:
I only have VERY MINOR suggestions in this area. I would change the Smalls to Goblins or Gnomes or something just to add some more flavour.

The reason why it was Smalls where that I use these small trolls in several games, where Goblins also are present, but I will consider it.

onew0rd wrote:
Also, make it clear where the start is (even though it's obviously 0) just to clarify the start and finish.

I believe that the start was stated in the picture in page 1 (position "The troll is not hungry"), but maybe it is not clear enough.

onew0rd wrote:
A VERY GOOD JOB with the art! .

I will tell my daughter. She draws most of the basic arts for me (she has done all the trolls and the smalls in this game).

onew0rd wrote:
You need to have the Rulebook proofread for spelling and grammar as well.

Yes I know , English is not my native language and sometimes I have a really hard time with it.

onew0rd wrote:
I do have a big suggestion for the gameplay. Instead of having the phases/turns make it maybe something like Puerto Rico where the phases are all at once. You could have those phases be cards to be selected in any order. I don't think this would hurt gameplay much and would create a more chaotic feel to the game (which compliments the theme). Have everyone start with a 2 random food cards then the first player chooses a role. Then in clockwise order each player fulfills that role. Maybe have a way to allow a player to take his turn immediately (giving players 2 tokens to do so in a game)...I got a little carries away there, sorry.

I have tried to have random phase in other games with mixed result. The game is really chaotic today(you will have a hard time to control your Big Troll), but I give it a will try (I have a game session coming up soon and I will do a version to that).

onew0rd wrote:
Overall, I think you have a great game here.

Thank one more time. I'm glad that you liked it.

// Johan

Brykovian
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Hi Johan ...

Very nice game, first of all ... not sure why you were nervous to post it. Like onew0rd said, the artwork, rules booklet layout and (especially) the little narratives add a lot to the flavor of the game.

I only have a couple questions after my initial read-through ... During the start-of-game setup, do the players who place multiple Smalls into storage rooms (2nd, 3rd, 4th players) place all of their Smalls in the *same* room, or can they distribute them among several rooms as they wish?

From play-testing, does there seem to be a big first-player advantage if all players start with all Smalls behind the table? (I assume this is the reasoning for allowing each player to place a different number of Smalls in storage rooms at the start.)

Thanks Johan ... lookin' good! ;)

-Bryk

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Brykovian wrote:
... not sure why you were nervous to post it.

This is the first time I go outside the group with this game and I don?t know if the game would work all the way.

Brykovian wrote:
Like onew0rd said, the artwork, rules booklet layout and (especially) the little narratives add a lot to the flavor of the game.

When my youngest daughter described the game to a friend she said: This is a diet competition for trolls and your job is to hold the trolls to cheat. If you don?t help your troll, he will eat you playing pieces. (After that she did say something that I had to have a twisted mind to come up with something like that).

Brykovian wrote:
I only have a couple questions after my initial read-through ... During the start-of-game setup, do the players who place multiple Smalls into storage rooms (2nd, 3rd, 4th players) place all of their Smalls in the *same* room, or can they distribute them among several rooms as they wish?

They can distribute them as they wish. It is not clear in the rules and I will update the rules with that.

Brykovian wrote:
From play-testing, does there seem to be a big first-player advantage if all players start with all Smalls behind the table? (I assume this is the reasoning for allowing each player to place a different number of Smalls in storage rooms at the start.)

Actually it's the other way around. The last player has a great disadvantage. In this game you loose a little every time it's your turn.

Thanks for your input. Glad you liked the game.

// Johan

Anonymous
Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Hi Johan,

The rules should definitly be proofread. Sometimes you use two terms for the same game item (e.g. Food Card / Food Marker). This is a bit confusing.

I really liked the anecdotes about the Feeeed Meeee game. They remind me of the Blood Bowl Rulebook.

If you don't want to call your small trolls "goblins" you could call them "trollkin" as they are called in the RPG Runequest.

Nils

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

First of all: Welcome to the forum SparkValor

SparkValor wrote:
The rules should definitly be proofread. Sometimes you use two terms for the same game item (e.g. Food Card / Food Marker). This is a bit confusing.

I have missed that. It was food markers in one incarnation of the game, but I switched it to Food Cards. I will fix it.

SparkValor wrote:
If you don't want to call your small trolls "goblins" you could call them "trollkin" as they are called in the RPG Runequest.

I like that, but is Trollkin a Trademark or is it possible to use it.

// Johan

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Hello

From the idea that onew0rd come up with, I am now working with a variant of the game (back to the drawing table). It will be tested in a couple of weeks.

The new variant will have a deck of cards instead of dice. The order will go clockwise around the table.
Each player get one "Feed the troll" card and 5 other cards are dealt to each of them.
When it's you turn you must play one card from your hand. If you play the "Feed the Troll" card, you must feed the Troll (as in the original) but you will also receive new cards (up to the 6 card limit).
The other cards will be (the one that I could think of):
- Move x Smalls (Where x is a value between 1-6) It works as the dice roll (except for the hungry troll movement).
- Regroup (Move any number of Smalls that are in rooms to any room at the same side).
- Threw them out (Threw one Small out from each room where you are more then them. There trolls will get hungrier).
- Get Food (Get food from rooms where you are the strongest one (I can have some variants on this theme).
- Steal food (Steal food from another player where you have more Smalls that are "Hidden behind the Table" then them.
- Trade: Trade any number of foods with another player (Your pick).
- You are blocked (Another player can't do anything his next turn.
- Your troll is hungry (Move another players troll one step).
- You know that I'm cheating, but not how (All the other players trolls will move one step).
- Feed the Troll.

Some of the cards will have a "hungry Troll" mark. When those cards are used your Troll will get hungrier.

Thank for the idea onew0rd.

// Johan

Anonymous
Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Hello, and thank you for sharing your game. I truly enjoyed the blend of theme and illustrations--you and your daughter are very talented!!!

I haven't read all of the previous posts yet, but I did look over your last post and noticed the idea for using cards to advance the hunger-line. While this is a valid idea, I actually preferred the original method of rolling two dice and then using high or low based on how much you cann accept your troll's hunger increasing. I thought that was a very nice mechanic for the actions allowed. It gives players a good decision to make in a relatively light game. Since you already use cards for the food markers, I would suggest keeping the variety of having dice for the action portion.

I was curious if your playtests have actually come in at 15-20 minutes as stated in the rules. With rolling, moving the chef, using from 1-6 moves of a small trolls and then laying out cards, in addition to movement up to 12 spaces (with many possible chances to move backwards)... I just don't see all this happening (with 3-4 players) in 15-20 minutes. It seems like it would take closer to 60 minutes for the average game, which isn't a bad thing.

Just to clarify a few points that weren't clear in the rules:

The game ends when a chef reaches the "6" space on the hungry scale? The description in the rules of the end game condition is nice and thematic, but you should translate into terms used on the board. If the 6 space ends the game (and therefore has no need of being numbered since the numbers are used for game actions), you could simply put "End" in that space.

Can players use other players' card chains to feed their troll? I assume they can't, but you should make that clear in the rules. Also, can a troll eat any player's small troll? Again, that should be clear.

Other than that I thought the game was inventive and clever! On a technical note, the PDF is by no means low res, which is OK, just put a warning that it will take a while to download or spool to a printer (or make a downsampled version if you can).

Since english is your second language, have you considered having someone look over your rules for a thorough spelling and grammer check? Considering your illustration skills, I'm sure that there are many on this site (myself included) that would be willing to do this in exchange for (minor) illustration work.

Again thanks for sharing your game and good luck with it!

Caparica
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Re: Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

I really like the theme, and the small trivia about the Trolls.
By the rules I infer that this is a racing game where don't want to be the first. This is an interesting mechanic, you try to avoid the inevitable.
It is difficult for me to understand a game by the rules only, but it seems that the choose between high / low die result and move 2 / 1 positions is not really important, and the winner will be someone who got lucky.
I assume that you play tested it, so it really take 15 minutes to do a complete game? You always advance, more or less advance, but you can't keep the Troll feed.

Paulo
www.2concept.com

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

SiskNY wrote:
Hello, and thank you for sharing your game. I truly enjoyed the blend of theme and illustrations--you and your daughter are very talented!!!

I'm glad you liked it. Both of my daughters are doing work for me (Test, grafics, ideas, input and so on).

SiskNY wrote:
I haven't read all of the previous posts yet, but I did look over your last post and noticed the idea for using cards to advance the hunger-line. While this is a valid idea, I actually preferred the original method of rolling two dice and then using high or low based on how much you cann accept your troll's hunger increasing. I thought that was a very nice mechanic for the actions allowed. It gives players a good decision to make in a relatively light game. Since you already use cards for the food markers, I would suggest keeping the variety of having dice for the action portion.

Actually I will make a version with cards instead of dice. The original is still intact but I will have a possible variant. I like the one with dice, but I can't resist making a variant.

SiskNY wrote:
I was curious if your playtests have actually come in at 15-20 minutes as stated in the rules. With rolling, moving the chef, using from 1-6 moves of a small trolls and then laying out cards, in addition to movement up to 12 spaces (with many possible chances to move backwards)... I just don't see all this happening (with 3-4 players) in 15-20 minutes. It seems like it would take closer to 60 minutes for the average game, which isn't a bad thing.

Yes. We have made around 25-30 test sessions (from the first version to this). The time is normally 15-20 minutes but we know how the game works. The thing is that the chefs move fast in the end (When you feed the troll with one of your Small then the others Big Trolls get hungrier).
I will check time when we are 4 players.

SiskNY wrote:
The game ends when a chef reaches the "6" space on the hungry scale? The description in the rules of the end game condition is nice and thematic, but you should translate into terms used on the board. If the 6 space ends the game (and therefore has no need of being numbered since the numbers are used for game actions), you could simply put "End" in that space.

Can players use other players' card chains to feed their troll? I assume they can't, but you should make that clear in the rules. Also, can a troll eat any player's small troll? Again, that should be clear.
I will update the rules to make this clear

SiskNY wrote:
Other than that I thought the game was inventive and clever! On a technical note, the PDF is by no means low res, which is OK, just put a warning that it will take a while to download or spool to a printer (or make a downsampled version if you can).

This is the low res. ;) (The press version and that is around 7MB (The game board is nearly 9 MB).

SiskNY wrote:
Since english is your second language, have you considered having someone look over your rules for a thorough spelling and grammer check? Considering your illustration skills, I'm sure that there are many on this site (myself included) that would be willing to do this in exchange for (minor) illustration work.

I'm using Microsoft spell check and grammar check but that clearly is not enough.
I'm willing to trade Graphics for grammar and spell check (I work for spell check;) )
I have several games in my pipeline so I will be need this services.

// Johan

Johan
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Re: Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

caparica wrote:
By the rules I infer that this is a racing game where don't want to be the first. This is an interesting mechanic, you try to avoid the inevitable.
It is difficult for me to understand a game by the rules only, but it seems that the choose between high / low die result and move 2 / 1 positions is not really important, and the winner will be someone who got lucky.

Yes you will nearly always advance in this game.
When my daughter saw this comment she said that she couldn't agree less. The winner it the one that uses his/hers dice most wisely. and a move of 1 or 2 can be devastating (also losing a Small in a wrong moment).

// Johan

Anonymous
Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

Hi Johan,

Johan wrote:
First of all: Welcome to the forum SparkValor

Thank you.

Johan wrote:

SparkValor wrote:
If you don't want to call your small trolls "goblins" you could call them "trollkin" as they are called in the RPG Runequest.

I like that, but is Trollkin a Trademark or is it possible to use it.

I don't think it is a Trademark. But if it is, it is a Trademark of Greg Stafford / Issaries Inc.
I know Greg Stafford personally and don't think he minds.

Nils

hpox
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

For what it's worth, I like the term "Smalls", it's cute and original.

Brykovian
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

hpox wrote:
For what it's worth, I like the term "Smalls", it's cute and original.

Also for what it's worth ... I agree with hpox ... ;)

-Bryk

Johan
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Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

I tested the game this evening with a group that had never played the game before. Both times (including description of the rules) took 20 minutes.

// Johan

Anonymous
Game #52: Feeeeed Meeeee by Johan Forsell (Johan)

One thing that I didn't see metioned so far in the other comments was the trouble that I had reading through the rulebook since you switch back and forth between one and two-column layout. This might just be because I'm trying to read it on the screen (as opposed to in print), but going from page to page, I was never 100% sure which column came first. Should I read the left column all the way down? Was this printed such that it would become a booklet later? Just a little confusing.

My other question deals with the initial placement of the Smalls. The rules specify that first player places X Smalls, second places X+1, etc. But it doesn't spell out where the rest of them go. Is the "behind the table" area off the board? At first, I thought this would have been on the board directly behind the image of the Troll that is there.

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