Set the Stage: The holiday season is here and the Bigwigs have caught an abominable case of Holiday Fever. Their madness is exposed to their cronies at the Banks who begin touting a new marketing revolution, they call “A FAMILY TRADITION” which guarantees consumer spending will skyrocket this holiday season.
The government is lobbied and signs into law that individuals can be “Too Big to Fail”. Rumors spread that you don’t need to pay off your Credit Card if you can spend its limit. The media twists the epidemic into a challenge and storm the public with headlines...
“THE CITIZEN WITH THE MOST VALUABLE CHRISTMAS WINS”!!
Holiday Fever sweeps the nation. Excessive debts, and wild speculation inflate and deflate the unregulated gift markets. “Sacks of Gold Investment Bank” reports “Pet Fish” are selling at twice their market value...
December nears with Christmas in sight, and your Credit Card is only half way to its limit, the Fever starts to wear, and a new voice is heard speaking of virtue, savings, family, and the true meaning of Christmas. When
Christmas comes what will it mean to you?
Holiday Fever brings family and friends together to make light of the commercialized distractions that sometimes keep us from experiencing the spirit of Christmas. With miracles, luck, strategy, and Christmas carols we join together at the table to create and experience the spirit of a timeless Family Tradition.
Comments
Monopoly?
My first impression on seeing your picture there is, "oh no, another Monopoly-like game". From your description it sounds like the objective and gameplay are not like Monopoly (please tell me you don't roll dice and move that many spaces around the board), so I think your board design might prevent people taking you seriously.
Good luck with the game, though. The idea of a game about trying to make a good Christmas is charming, and even though it probably wouldn't be an all-year-round favourite, it could prove popular around that time of year!
More to discover - than you think!
Yup there are a "pair-of-dice" white d6s... above the money! Oh no, another Monopoly-like game! :P
Yeah my guess is that you are very new to board games. Clearly if you are not, well then it's very curious why you would develop a "roll & move" game. Yes some of the MOST popular games sold at "Toys R' Us" are things like "Monopoly", "Clue", "The Game of Life", "Snakes & Ladders", "Sorry!", etc. All these games are "roll & move" games. Although more prevalent in Big Box stores - these are not the staples of "Board Games". They are merely a subset...
If you find a FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) you will find things such as "Settler of Catan", "Carcassone", "Ticket-To-Ride", "Smallworld", "King of Tokyo", "Pandemic", "Puerto Rico", "Power Grid", "Dominion", "Race for the Galaxy", "Arkham Horror", "Betrayal at House on the Hill", "The Resistance", etc.
These are also some of the MOST popular games on http://www.boardgamegeek.com
Playing or even watching people PLAY these game online (you've got "Watch It Played" with Rodney and "TableTop" with Will and "Dice Tower" with Tom). And there are a bunch of reviewers that talk/blog about games also...
If you want to immerse yourself in the TRUE hobby, I would Google these game and watch playback videos... I've named a couple video reviewers above, there are others. Those are the very popular ones.
Anyhow there is plenty to watch and understand (and hopefully play too) in order to get a better feel for what is REALLY out-there!
Cheers... Hope you enjoy this "hobby" and that you get introduced to all kinds of different games that you have never seen or heard about!
Welcome!
Don't let these guys scare you: this is a great place to get good (honest) feedback about your game designs. If you really want to make a great game, this is a good place to go!
That said, it appears that a large portion of the game that you're proposing is based on chance (you move randomly, draw cards randomly) with the central objective of acquiring the most valuable gift set. Is my summary of your game thus far accurate?
Chance is a fine thing, and an important ingredient to many good games. However, to make a game truly excellent, I suggest you look at the idea of "choices" in your game. On a player's turn, what do they get to choose? Do they get to choose between different gifts at a certain store? Are some gifts more valuable as a set than alone, driving you to seek out sets?
Then, consider what interactions players can have with each other. Can they prevent others from taking gifts they want? Can players auction off gifts they don't want when they arrive at a store, leading to a bidding war between players?
The reason that the others may have a somewhat negative outlook on the game as it's presented here is that those elements (choice and interaction) don't appear to be a prominent part of the game design (much as it is in Monopoly). I recommend looking at some of the games that have come out recently as you begin the journey as a board game designer to find inspiration on how to make your board game more engaging (and attractive to the gaming crowd). Check out the list in the above post for some great suggestions.
Best of luck!
I'm not being "bad" on his game
You pointed out some things: it's "Seasonal". It's "Roll & Move". It seems to rely heavily on "Chance" and to me, it looks like a Monopoly "Copy"!
Mind you I have seen some Monopoly clones out there that are pretty impressive... Wazzajack had a real cool "Taxi" game (seen here: http://www.wazzajack.com/taxi.htm) and I believe it's also "Roll & Move". But the board is original...
It's just my opinion, but you should check out some videos about some of the other games that I mentioned. I bet you'll be seeing things you never knew existed and will be amazed by the creativity these games demonstrate.
I say this - because as you, I too knew little about Board Games. Like MOST people I had the popular games (Monopoly, Clue, Snakes & Ladders, Sorry!, The Game of Life, etc.) I didn't know about all these inventive games until I decided to immerse myself more into the hobby.
While I haven't bought all these games - I have had the chance to play a few of them. I find that watching videos about the others is GREAT. You can see HOW the game's play and the interaction between the players.
Like I said, I hope you enjoy this "hobby" - if you plan to see what other games there are out-there!
Cheers!
Welcome to board games!
Looks like a lot of work and effort went into this. Great job! I'm going to pile-on and say that, while there's nothing inherently wrong with Monopoly-clones, but the modern board game landscape is a varied and diverse place, and if you're not familiar with any of the "new" style games I'd suggest you check some out to get ideas for your next project.
Also, looking at your history it seems that you're interested in printing your game more professionally. I'd suggest checking out this Board Game Geek forum. It has a lot of great information on prototyping, printing, publishing, etc.
polyobsessive
Masterpiece is more the inspiration for my idea, but I'm a Mormon so that makes the Holidays my favorite time of the year. I would love to send you the rules even if you just take a cursory glance I appreciate your advice.
polyobsessive
Thank you
ruy343
I have an strong desire to make a good game which is why I ended up here. I've been play testing Holiday Fever for 2.5 years with family and friends and decided to make a prototype to send out for blind play testing based on the results of my play testing. The difficult part is for me to get some blind play testing done, and sanity checks on my rules.
Most of the game is chance, however there are Naughty or Nice cards which allow players some level of strategy (burglar cards) as well as memorizing where certain gifts are can pay off as well. So gifts can be guessed, stolen, or purchased from other players... I would love to send you the rules and see what you think. Thank you for your time.
questccg
Thank you for your reply. I love reading rules to as many games as I can, but I don't have much opportunity to play different games. Did you ever play Masterpiece? My favorite classic.
killerkilroy
Thank you for the advice, and the complement. I've checked out Board Game Geek frequently, and read as much as I can for the past 3 years. I found the printer I used with Holiday Fever on Board Game Geek. I would love for you to read my rules and sanity check me. I have a great Idea for a strategy game based on modern combat. Isolation, Containment, Assault along with the OODA loop. Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. Thanks for your time.
The theme
I've read through the first part of your rulebook (notes will follow later) and, to be honest, I'm not really sure about the theme now I've read more about it. All the following is just my opinion, of course...
So, if I understand this right, the aim is to have loads of valuable gifts and stuff bought, with those values offset against the amount of debt you have amassed through the game, with the twist that if you amass enough debt, that debt is written off. Is that about it?
So my problem with it is that you appear to be trying to satirise the way that certain businesses get to be so big that they are immune to repercussions from the market (the whole "too big to fail" thing) but you are doing this in a game about people trying to have the best possible Christmas.
In a world where people really do go heavily into debt trying to provide a memorable holiday for their family and society seems to be set up to encourage this over-spending, having a game where the aim is to spend as heavily as you can and hope that you can get away with the mountain of debt you will build seems to be a bit "on the nose". I'm not sure it is something that would give most people a warm, fuzzy family feeling, instead it might be a little depressing really.
By way of contrast, the one Christmas themed game I really enjoy playing is James Ernest & Mike Selinker's "12 Days". It's a much smaller, simpler game being effectively a trick-taking (and set collecting) card game, but it evokes Christmas partly by being built around the gifts in the song (2 turtle doves, a partridge in a pear tree, you know the stuff) but also because each round players give each other gifts.
I think the thing to consider is what feelings you want to evoke in your players. If you do actually want to have players hating the dice rolls and getting annoyed with each other, going for a capitalist spend-fest might be right for you after all I have said. If you want players to have a nice time with their loved ones, I'd argue for taking a look at the theme (and the mechanisms too).
Polyobessive
What I hoped to get across in the rules (writing is a struggle for me)is that players will need to make one of 2 major choices in the game. 1) Be greedy and charge their credit card for everything with the hopes to luck out and become "Too Big to Fail" (which is very difficult to achieve in the game) 2) Be rational find the spirit of Christmas, decorate your tree and finally land on Christmas.
In other words players find that debt is bad and will likely keep them from winning. I'm not sure I've fully made that possible with the game yet, but I have many hours of play testing ahead. Hopefully with folks as intelligent as yourself.
I've tried to make the Theme work by writing the opening paragraph titled SET THE STAGE in the rules where I try to express the media and big business have most people way too focused on Buying stuff than on the true meaning of Christmas. So in theory I want both types of people to have a Path in Holiday Fever. If you want to just charge everything and be greedy you likely won't win but you may have fun doing it!! On the other side if you want to win then go to Christmas and forget about charging everything. This also helps me to try and make the game fun for both Paths. I definitely don't want any board flipping, and so far in play testing players have a great time.
I definitely want to develop the message in the game that there are 2 paths and the debt path probably isn't the wise, family, Christmas spirit thing to do but you can win being greedy.
What I'm hoping to evoke in players is that playing the game is fun, and when they get done playing they reflect on the game and say that really felt like something we could turn into a Family Tradition. Obviously that will be very difficult to do but.....
The game leaves enough time for players to catch up and talk between turns, offers personal opportunities for players to express their gratitude, vacations dreams, and sing carols together. I have a lot of work to do, and a lot of thinking to do.
Polyobessive, I can't thank you enough for your honesty, help, and perspective on my game. I can't wait to take a look at your notes, and I'd love to help you think through anything that you're working on in the future. Thank you.
Very Respectfully
Evan Shelline
OK
Hi Evan,
That's fair enough -- it's good that you have a vision of what you want to achieve with the game. I guess the thing now is to make the game reflect that with its mechanics as well as you can while being enjoyable to play for your target audience. Compromises may need to be made to achieve that.
I sent you an email directly with some thoughts about the game from having read through your materials. I'm happy to discuss any of that.
As for my games, thank you very much. I will be doing some playtesting of one of my designs over the weekend, after which I will be thinking through the feedback I get and then plan to post here about it. Expect something next week... ;)
Rob