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New game on prototype! "March of Death", a WWII Filipino/American-themed survival game.

I dunno if it's the season, but it seems I've just been thinking up game designs left and right.

Not too long ago, I acquired the game The Grizzled. I wanted to see what made it tick. For those that don't know, it's a 2-5 player co-op game that's supposed to simulate the struggles of war during WWI.

While playing it. I found it to have really solid game mechanics and overall it's a great game, but for some reason the mechanics of the game didn't really match with the theme.

But that's probably just me.

A different way of looking at resources...

My first real CCG experience was, obviously, Magic: The Gathering way back in 1994. It was really the only thing around and the resource system was something that just blew me away. It had this feeling of two Magic users (now called Planeswalkers) battling it out on a field that grew as you played. It had this feeling of the ground beneath you forming as you continued to battle.

It was great.

Of course there are many issues regarding this...Mana Flood and Mana Starve much of which the creators of Magic didn't they'd have to address because they didn't think it would last this long.

An argument for Fudge (FATE) dice.

I'm always trying to look for game mechanics that are not exactly unique, but are not exactly popular either.

One of these mechanics is the traditional roll-and-move. Recently I was thinking of how I could revive the roll-and-move mechanic and I've come up with some interesting results.

But we're not talking about that right now :)

We're talking about Fudge Dice.

The fudge dice mechanism was created in 1992 (the year I graduate high school!) and runs traditionally as 4 6-sided dice with two plus symbols. 2 minus symbols, and 2 blank sides on each die.

Conquest at Kismet Post-Mordem

Some of you know that I released my game, Conquest at Kismet last September. I've made it no secret what I did to get there, but I feel it's necessary to talk about my hits and misses so that people here can learn from my experiences.

First of all, I'd like to thank Victory Point Games in publishing my title. For a lot of people it's an accomplishment to just publish a game they have designed from the ground up and I'm grateful that I've been able to use their resources to do so. Many people take years to realize their dream; it took 10 months for me.

I'm back...I think?

I've been away from these forums for a while.

Maybe you didn't miss me, that's ok. If you did, I'm sorry I've been away.

If anyone has been following my blog, you'd note that I've recently had a child. Of course all you fathers out there know how much time and resources it takes to raise a baby, much less try and design games at the same time.

But I find myself still designing games and as is my lot in life. I've been trying to move up from Kismet and try something a little more complicated. Maybe I'll talk about it later, but I'm not sure if I'll be as active as used to be.

Children...

As some of you may know, I'm expecting my first child in a couple of months as of this writing.

And as some of you know, I released my first card game last year.

But I've found myself being more concerned about my child than expanding my game. While this may be a "well duh" moment, I've just haven't had the motivation to continue with my game...or any game.

Do your research!

We all know that creating a game is not a walk in the park and it takes a lot of man hours just to get a prototype that's playable.

But I'm here to talk about something that is rarely talked about here, but is extremely important in game design: doing research.

Give it a rest.

It's been roughly a year since I started working heavily on Conquest at Kismet. Now that it's out, the reviewers have come in and said their opinions, the audience has bought my games...now I find myself in a position where I can go in certain directions with the game or go completely in another direction by working on another game.

Unfortunately, I've found myself being stagnant as of late.

How much luck? How much strategy?

Games...are diverse. There's no one game that appeals to everyone as everyone has their likes/dislikes. By defining what we want to express in our games, we can directly target our market instead of trying to make a game that pleases everyone; you'll find yourself disappointed in the end.

I truly believe the difference is between luck vs. strategy. By luck I mean elements that our out of our control...or at least elements that are not definitively controllable. When I refer to strategy in this blog, I mean play that is definitive; every move is controlled.

Deck Building = Cult of the New = Bad?

Dominion.

The game that started it all. 10 stacks, small deck, victory points have to be bought while balancing the engine power of your deck as it expands. Lots of possibilities that have been explored over the 8+ expansions and still stands today as the quintessential deck builder.

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by Dr. Radut