Hey Guys,
I posted a new blog entry that talks a bit about how I came to understand the implementation of synergy in my card game OverRealm. Just like everything else, synergy doesn't just happen – it's thoughtfully designed. Understanding how to maximize your synergies is important for them to happen consistently. You can read more here:
https://holtforkgames.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/synergy-overrealm-and-oreos/
Have you designed games with synergy? If so, how have you approached it?
My game, Defenders of Wessex has lots of synergy. Each player selects a character (as is the case in most games), and each character has a selection of special abilities in addition to common abilities. In some cases (such as the Architect or Blacksmith) the special abilities modify the common abilities to make them exceptional. Other characters (notably the Abbot and the Cartwright) have completely unique special abilities.
One of the most fun parts of play testing thus far has been to see what combos people can invent using the abilities as presented. The best one: The Abbot has the ability to grant up to 5 actions (total) to any other player(s) per turn; the Cartwright has the ability to move another players character (like the dispatcher from Pandemic); the Kings Thegn has the ability to initiate combat in the middle of his turn(which is typically auto-initiated at the end of the turn). The short version: Wessex was best by Viking raiders, and we were about to lose the game unless three different raiding armies were destroyed that turn. So the Abbot gave the Cartwright 5 actions, for a total of 9 actions. The Cartwright was able to move the Kings Thegn along to all of the fights. The Kings Thegn got amazingly lucky and actually won all 3 battles. It was pretty awesome.
In this instance the synergy was not intentionally designed into the game, it was a combination of the existing rules and player ingenuity.
Ah yes, balancing synergy. I wonder how you did that Squinshee.
I received a lot by accident :)
I think that the synergy between units in a wargame are a given? That is, if this is somewhat you meant.
How the synergies work. TLDR. Unless you really, really want to know, I would post them here.
They are sort of mapped out, but they do all play balanced together. One thing I love most about my game is watching players agonize over which character to pick at the start. They often can't decide on one ability or another. Even mapping everything out would be a little too difficult, I fear. my brain just doesn't work that way, though I do know exactly what each character can do, and I know which characters synergize together really well. There is, in particular, a 6 character chain that nobody has though to exploit yet...but thats another story any way.
Great topic for a post, and I appreciate stating the importance of mapping out game elements to see how synergies can be formed.
Synergy is definitely an element I need to improve for The King's Legion. The game sometimes feels bland or that players are just focused on their turns/actions. I will look at how I can create more synergy between the class abilities.
Thanks again! Great post! I followed you on Wordpress. Are you on Twitter?
Thanks for reading and following! I followed you too :)
And I'm not on Twitter. I really should be. Eventually...
While you only talked about synergy in your game in that blog. Are you planning on gathering more examples from other games?
Probably not. My blog is going to focus on general board game concepts and how they were applied to my game OverRealm. It's not that I'm a narcissist (although...), it's more that the website is about self-promotion and lessons learned that may help others.
(I love reading design blogs)
I think it would be neat if there was to find a link list somewhere here. Of all the users that have their own website/blogsite. Clicking on the names and then discovering that they have their own website, might slow things down. Since most don't do that. Would be neat to have a link list, but I don't know how others think and feel about this.
***
To get back on topic. Have you used synergy before in other games? I am kinda following this topic. Since I want to expand my view on this. "What else is possible?"
I got only 1 game with plenty of synergies of the same design (mainly meat/support roles). But a big part of the game strategy is and remains, combining to get these synergies to work optimal. So, I am fishing for new idea's regarding this concept. Also, I am not sure if I am allowed to call my synergies,.. synergies. Maybe my synergies are called only strategy or tactics?
The main reason that I have them all over my game is because I hate useless stuff. Every piece has to be of use to me and the players.
With card games, if a card isn't used much. You could add cards later on that will make the existing cards more usefull. Since I keep my game more vanilla regarding units, I will probably not have that luxury. Only adding Event Cards that temporary or permanently boosts a certain type of units.
A blog roll would definitely be cool. I like that idea.
As far as synergy goes, it's important to make sure that playing into synergies isn't always the best thing to do at all times. As I see it, cards that provide synergy have less immediate impact on a game – they're value is in how long they survive, because the longer they do so, the more value they provide. So there should always be situations where you as the player have to weigh the pros and cons of that longterm benefit compared to another card that provides greater immediate impact. That's a fun decision to make and many players will have different reasonings for their decision.
War games are not my forte at all, but maybe units could provide different bonuses to nearby units of a different type. Maybe a frontline unit can crate defense bunkers for ranged units; a long-range unit can shoot ally mid-range units to heal them; a mid-range unit can light your close-range units melee weapons on fire to do extra burning damage.
I'm just riffin' here.
Lighting up melee weapons is a new one.
I guess that is something to look at.
All healing techniques are already in play :)
The biggest problem with synergies in my game is that you have to break through by either destroying 1 of the 2 units. Or play an event card that ignores the meat unit, and thus all bullets hit the weaker support unit. However, in a bigger picture the synergy is harder to break due to distance shooting. Which is ok. Since it means that they are driven in a corner at that point.
Frankly speaking. There is no real weakness to my synergies. It is just that it takes time to build it up in the game.
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Very cool! Watching players discover synergies that you hadn't intentionally designed is always really cool to see happen.
I do think it would be a good idea to map out abilities of the different characters to see what overlaps the most and least. This will help in balancing, as you can more actionably adjust the stats of one character who may combo less than others, and vice versa. It will also help to improve characters that don't seem to synergize as well as others.
When you start to map these things out, you get a strong understanding of these relationships in your games. Once I did this, creating new heroes for my game OverRealm became ridiculously easy. Balancing them...that's an entirely different blog post I'm not ready to write yet :)