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Getting over this hump....

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Mrtwills
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Joined: 08/30/2015

I've almost begun to prototype my first game (which I feel must be the hardsest game to create) but I feel stuck in a couple of elements that I feel I can both workout on here and with my co-designer wife.

The game is a prison gang game where each player controls a gang within a space prison. Mechanics will be worker placement and hand management. Each player has a gang leader and 4 lieutenants that are on a player board. Each player board will have card spaces for weapons, new general population prisoners and items that can be used to change your gang. The Gang leader for each team has variable abilities but starting lieutenants are all the same. As a player you will manage your gang in an attempt to control the prison gaining the most influence and prestige.

The five parts that I'm stuck in my design and are preventing me from starting a prototype are...(I know I need to fail faster but want to talk this out on here first).

1) Action Spaces on the Board

I know that I want to have at least 8 spaces, thus giving my players 8 choices of action throughout the play. I'm thinking actions spaces for
~Health (Infirmary- Heal up characters) = get characters ready to battle after losing in a fight
~ Commisary -( Get Action Cards) = disrupt play in interesting ways
~General Pop Cards (for new characters/Cafeteria) = diversify your gang with unique abilities)
~Gym (for working out leveling up gang members) = gaining advantage in fighting
~ Yard (Drugs - which are the economy of the game) = sometimes you will need drugs to use action cards/can be used for trade/
~ Workshop
~ Classroom - Misison Cards that give points based on completing objectives (This is a new idea)
~ Security/Administration - This location would be locked until you have several types of items possibly and or could fight your way in. But still trying to think about the function of this room - higher class action and weapons possibly but worried about balance.

2) End Game

I want the game to be based on a points system where at the end of the game there are various ways of earning points. Primarily through killing other gang members and being the most powerful gang within the prison.

Any thoughts on the game so far. This is where I think I will start to get some of my ideas out of my head and onto a computer or out of the design journal. There will be more posts to come on other idea that I've thought of in relation to the game.

mcobb83
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Joined: 06/07/2016
From experience - prototyping

From experience - prototyping is only as hard as your drive to make mistakes.

I have a currently very successful prototype, made from poster paper and cardboard. It has been played many times by many hands, and it is now actually moving into the publication stage (artwork is in progress now!)

The prototype began on a normal piece of printer paper, before moving to a 1/3 sheet of poster paper, before its current 18x27 size. Its details have changed many times over the past 3 or 4 months of playing, and at one point it changed after every play test, though it has remained consistent for almost a month now.

The easiest thing for myself personally (and some may have different experience), start with something of minimal effort/work, see if it works out, and if it does then make it better. If it doesn't work, you now know what to change.

questccg
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I'm the opposite

mcobb83 wrote:
...start with something of minimal effort/work, see if it works out, and if it does then make it better. If it doesn't work, you now know what to change.

Usually when a Design enters my mind - it is some EPIC "beast" of a game with all kinds of moving parts. Something to equal or match the depth of strategy found in Magic: the Gather (Mtg)... Ok... maybe not!

But I find that when I start playtesting, I'm like a sculptor: I remove the excess layers in order to achieve a simpler more streamlined results. After each iteration the game's "core" starts to solidify making the "core" game a very stable part of the game.

Now I could ADD to the "core" - but seeing as my game is expandable, we can wait until there is more SALES of the "core" product - to actually justify investing more in the Brand.

That's my two cents.

mcobb83
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Not trying to hog the thread,

Not trying to hog the thread, I swear...

I agree with questccg, and it is my experience too- that after the 3rd iteration of the prototype (1 and 2 were scrapped entirely) I have removed things from the game after every test, and I have yet to add to the game. So don't be afraid to try something, watch it fail, and change it. Then you strip it down until it is bare bones.

questccg
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Too much violence?!

Mrtwills wrote:
...I want the game to be based on a points system where at the end of the game there are various ways of earning points. Primarily through killing other gang members and being the most powerful gang within the prison.

This does sound like a "very" VIOLENT game... That may turn-off a lot of people. I know video games are filled with violence - but Table Top games are usually less violent even in themes where there are battles. Perhaps it's the very nature of Board/Card games that all you have is a board and a bunch of cards.

Obviously you COULD still have "very" VIOLENT CARDS... But I think most people don't go in that direction because it turns-off parents, the game can't be played by children and well all you are left with is teens and some young adults. A more narrow market segment.

IDK if it's because my own game is about "TRADE" - but I would make it that the game would be about "Escaping Prison" by different possible means. You could have a prison board with different sections (some high-security and other low-security inspired by CLUE) and you have to amass enough $$$ to perform some kind of "break out". And to earn access to other areas you need to BRIBE Prison Guards... And to earn money means dealing cigarettes, liquor, "protection" (?) ...

At the beginning of each game, each player chooses one SECRET "break out" card which tells them HOW THEY MUST escape from prison.

And then I would mostly drop the "killing" of the other in-mates - unless one of the requirements it's killing another in-mate. But still this reduces greatly the level of violence in the game.

Just some ideas - I have after reading your OP.

Squinshee
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When iterating, instead of

When iterating, instead of adding, I try to merge my components/mechanics together. Doing this makes for a more cohesive design. I love when I have two or more different problems that I fix with one mechanic/system, like shooting two birds with one stone. This makes your design feel entwined.

Usually your ideas are all there, but the way they're arranged isn't optimal. Sometimes scrapping ideas is best, and other times you have to figure out how to alter its implementation. For me, fixing multiple problems with one solution has provided tremendous results and doing so helps you figure out "what's wrong."

You won't be able to know what isn't working until you get it on the table. That moment is so crucial and illuminating...and potentially disheartening. How do you get to your first prototype? That differs from person to person. I personally like to write the down how the turn is structured. This helps me understand how the game flows and if my design is overwrought (seriously, if it's over a page long, it's too long. Complexity isn't always dictated by the quantity of rules). Then I design enough to get to the first playtest. As your game has assymetrical elements, avoid making multiple characters - just play a mirror match, because you'll scrap 99% of your design, and playing it will be easier as there
are fewer variable player powers, making it easier to learn and play.

After I play, it's time to scapel and suture :)

X3M
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Instead of killing. How about

Instead of killing.
How about annexing the other prisoners?

No killing. And you might want to try to conquer a certain piece that got developed during game play?

questccg
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More about the "violence"...

If my end-goal is to AVENGE a "Family" dispute and the prisoner is held in Maximum Security because people know he is a target... Well I can imagine having to get a "gun" or a "knife" and then making my way into "Maximum Security" and somehow wait until prisoners are let out of their cells or a guard is paid off to "look the other way" while I do my duty...

I think that's at MOST the amount of violence you may want to target.

And still kids will not play the game - and neither would parents. But it could be FUN for Teens and young Adults (20s).

It doesn't have to be SUPER Violent - PG-16...

Mrtwills
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Joined: 08/30/2015
Addressing the violence

I never meant for the game to be about a real prison on earth it's a space prison so that I can do alien races and variable abilities that way. Plus weapons can become more thematic to sciene fiction. However I feel that I'm still going to base much of the play on elimiating other players and killing. I don't find it to be anymore violent than air locking people in Battlestar Galactica or other games. I do have a mechanic in place where if a specific prisoner has attacked and killed three other prisoners they must be retired and put in solitary confinement. That way there will be a limit to the beat down a particular player can take without using other strategies or prisoners to attack with.

This game is not intended for mass market, it would be a hobby market game and I don't feel anything is to harsh thematically. There is killing in many games war games, zombie games. Never played it but you must banish players in Dead to Winter and that's as good as killing.

let-off studios
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End Game

I think developing how you want the endgame to look should be a priority at this point. You have a concept, which seems solid, and could easily be nuanced enough to create a game. But what does it take to make it to the end? What has changed that makes a difference from one player to the next, and can determine who has won (or lost) the game?

Is there a certain amount of rounds/turns required, and the player with the most points wins? Is it instead a deadline: players must compete to reach certain requirements or everyone loses? Is the endgame forced when a player finally collects X number of items, kills X number of rival inmates, pays X amount of debts/obligations, or otherwise reaches a finish line of some sort?

Individual mechanics are one thing, and I imagine you can pick and choose what to keep at any step in the process. But a reason to engage the mechanics at all seems like a worthwhile starting point.

Apologies if this sounds a bit too theoretical but it's a useful perspective to prevent "losing sight of the forest for the trees." Keep your big picture in mind, and the rest can flow naturally into and out of your design.

let-off studios
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Violence, Shmiolence

And I also think it's completely possible to have a game that includes violence, but abstracts the violence to the point that it's not graphic/distracting from other, more engaging aspects of play.

...Or didn't y'all ever play Chess? Or maybe you heard of a game called Axis & Allies? Maybe Cash n' Guns? ;)

I'm joking a bit here. My point is you can choose your own level of detail in that area, high or low, even if the theme still stays related to something like incarceration and prisons. You'll figure that out later, particularly when you determine your intended audience.

Mrtwills
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Joined: 08/30/2015
Until I've playtested the

Until I've playtested the mechanics and how the game plays I was thinking the first iteration would be a point system based on kills and possibly other points based on various elements I'll add as I go. The game as of right now will last 18 rounds of play. Today I have grandma coming over to watch the kids so I will be creating boards with cardboard and cardstock and working on creating some thinking maps on order of play then working on the first cards of the game.

BoardGent
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Security and Cafeteria

Security sounds like it would be really tough to balance. If items and such are gained randomly, it could make the game way too swingy and make other players suffer too much for not being able to get in. It sounds like the game already has a lot of choices to make in terms of which room to go in (if I'm understanding correctly) and general management.

Meanwhile, rather than give characters abilities in the cafeteria, simply having new characters (and replacing old ones) should suffice, reduce the amount of material needed to play, manage and design the game.

On the subject of the Infirmary, it might be tough to keep tallies of health of each character without having a really cluttered game board. To that end, if replacing characters was the way they were "healed", then that would be another way to reduce on materials and have easier management.

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