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Solar Flare

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Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969

I have just completed the first draft of the rules for a game I am curently working on called "Solar Flare".

They can be found here: http://www.bgdf.com/files/My_Uploads/Infernal/Solar_Flare_Rule_Booklet.pdf"

The game is about masive warships engaged in combat in space. The players must command their ship, assigning crew and manageing power usage. They must use the available cover and tactical advantages of various obstacles Planets, Moons, Asteroid Fileds and Nebula.

Also there are rules that allow a player to create a ship to their specifications.

The feel of the game dictated the unusual turn structure. By placing weapon then movment then power. It slows down the combat and requires the player to make tactical and stratigic decisions that will only impact the game during later turns and giving a feel for vast ships trying to out manouver their opponent.

The game should progress at first with each opponent wereing down their opponent untill one player manages to inflict significant damage onto their opponent. Then the game should move to a hunter and prey style where the attacker is trying to puch through the defenders outer ship sections and damage the core while the defender is trying to prevent this from happening.

This switch between play styles should emerge from the gameplay and not as part of a specific rule.

This switch between the War of attrition and the Hunter/Prey play styles may switch back and forth several times during the game as players utilise defensive and offensive positions.

The basic mechanics of attack resolution is fairly simple, Roll a number of 6 sided dice equal to the strength of the attack and any that equal or exceed the shield charge or armor value drains 1 point of charge from the shields or does 1 point of damage the the hull.

Players must assign crew teams to charge the engines, lasers and other ship system. The amount of power a crew team can assign each round is determined by their skill level.

Each game should last around 2 hours.

What I am interested in is:
1) Do the mechanics fit the theme of massive space ships trying to out manouver each other.
2) Is 2 hours too long for a game of this type.
3) Will there be enough tactical and stratigic decisions in the game or are there too many.
4) Are the rules too complex/too simple/or just right
5) Would any one actually play a game like this

Johan
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Joined: 10/05/2008
Solar Flare

Hi

I have tried to read your game and I stopped after page 2 (after the complete set up).
This game is not possible to read. Some quick advice:
- Change the font. The font is not suitable for text, just headlines. There are a lot of fonts that work as Times, Ariel, or Comic Sans (from MS Word (I would not recommend the last one but it works)).
- it looks like you have a descent game there and if you want people to read the rules set up a time in GDW section. You do that by reading the rules for GDW and then contact jwarrend.
- You have the number of player included in the text, but I miss estimated time, the intended player group (family, geeks or what) and the age.
- If you want to show the game via an example, the add pictures. I like examples but where is the rules.
- It is OK to add different options on what player can get for their ships, but that is not part of the rules. It is options that should be placed in some appendix.

// Johan

dete
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: Solar Flare

Infernal wrote:

The feel of the game dictated the unusual turn structure. By placing weapon then movment then power. It slows down the combat and requires the player to make tactical and stratigic decisions that will only impact the game during later turns and giving a feel for vast ships trying to out manouver their opponent.

The game should progress at first with each opponent wereing down their opponent untill one player manages to inflict significant damage onto their opponent. Then the game should move to a hunter and prey style where the attacker is trying to puch through the defenders outer ship sections and damage the core while the defender is trying to prevent this from happening.

This switch between play styles should emerge from the gameplay and not as part of a specific rule.

This switch between the War of attrition and the Hunter/Prey play styles may switch back and forth several times during the game as players utilise defensive and offensive positions.

To me this part sounds a lot like Chess, and the hunter/prey
part sounds like the end game in Chess. 2 hrs. is too long though!
Maybe you should play a lot of Chess like for a week (like Yahoo Chess)
even if your already a decent player.
and then see if you may see some improvements for your game.

-dete

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Solar Flare

I have not read the rules, but I have seen the PDF.

First, yes the font is hard to read. It fits with the theme, but keep cool fonts only for titles, not normal text.

When I have seen your figures and printout at the end of the document, it reminded me something "Star Fleet Battle"(a great horor in game design). This is the game that you do not want to know that it is existed. This is a game that was so much complex that there was a class at the university to teach how to play. The rules books contains 30 to cover movement and 10 page to cover how to shoot torpedoes, another 10 pages for phasers, etc.

What I mean is don't make your game too complex, it will discourage your players. If you only control 1 ship, it is not that bad because you can feel like you are micromanaging your ship like a character in an rpg. But if you manage fleets of ship, the data to manage will be overwhelming.

Making more simple rules can mean removing separate recording of hit location. Or just record damage location for hull, shield stay centralised. Don't record any variable thing for weapons no power distribution, they are all available and at full charge at the beginning of the round. Recording hull and shield for each ship is enough.

Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

Thanks for the replies.

Quote:
First, yes the font is hard to read. It fits with the theme, but keep cool fonts only for titles, not normal text.

I agree, The font is hard to read. I should have used something other than the default font, my bad :oops: .

I am also going to work a bit on the layout, moving the images to apropreate positions and Rearanging the sections (I am also going to add a tabel of contents.

Quote:
To me this part sounds a lot like Chess, and the hunter/prey
part sounds like the end game in Chess. 2 hrs. is too long though!
Maybe you should play a lot of Chess like for a week (like Yahoo Chess)
even if your already a decent player.
and then see if you may see some improvements for your game.

Yes. I have tried to construct the rules to allow for deep strategies.

It took me around 2 hours (including doing the advanced setup) to solotest this game. This involved a lot of fixing on the fly as I tested, so I should have put 1 to 2 hours as a maximum.

Quote:
What I mean is don't make your game too complex, it will discourage your players. If you only control 1 ship, it is not that bad because you can feel like you are micromanaging your ship like a character in an rpg. But if you manage fleets of ship, the data to manage will be overwhelming.

This is one of my main goals. I am trying to make a rules light space war game.

Quote:
- You have the number of player included in the text, but I miss estimated time, the intended player group (family, geeks or what) and the age.

Good point. I will include this in my review of the rules.

Thanks for the input. BGDF and everyone here is an invaluable resource.

Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

I have updated the rule book so as to be easier to read.

I have had some problems with file coruptions when ever I tried to include graphics at appropreate places within the text. I have had to move the graphis to a seperate file to fix the problem. :x

Here are the 2 files:
http://www.bgdf.com/files/My_Uploads/Infernal/Solar_Flare_Rule_Booklet.pdf
http://www.bgdf.com/files/My_Uploads/Infernal/Solar_Flare_Rule_Booklet_G...

I hope this make it easier to read.

dete
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

I looked at your graphics pdf.

my impressions:

why is this complicated? It looks simple.

I don't like that all the ships look the same only
different colors.
I feel like in the video game, Mortal Kombat when
you pick one of the ninjas, Sub zero, Skorpion, Smoke,
Reptile, they look the same just different colors, and
I feel jipped.

Reminds me of a cut it out yourself and play board game.
It had space ships and was played on Hex.
Predator prey type game, I think fuel was some how
involved. And the unique part of the game was that
there was an ALIEN ship that could use a homing device
and capture up to 2 ships. Basically the Token was made
of paper and had 2 slits on it and allowed you to put in
the captured ships. Neato!

Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

Quote:
I don't like that all the ships look the same only
different colors.

I am no artist so I just made a basic ship. This is only the first prototype.

Quote:
why is this complicated? It looks simple.

What do you find complicated about it?

dete
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

hey man, you did a good job with the initial ship design,
I'm just recommending to add more. Your art work doesn't
bother me, looks just fine!

I read earlier that you were worried it's too complicated,
I'm saying that by looking at your pictures pdf, it doesn't
look complicated.

Infernal
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solar Flare

I have tried to make it as simple as I can while still retaining the stratigic deapth that I want. So yes, the rules (and the images) are simple.

The ships are just an amalgam of basic shapes (triangles and ovals) the space between the wing and the hull is just a white oval. If I decide to publish this game then I may invest in an artist to create some better graphis. But as far as this goes I will be staying with the current graphics.

Thsanks for the input.

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