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Game #57: News by Brett Paul

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Anonymous

Thank you for the opportunity to open my game up for feedback in this forum. My apologies for being so quiet on the message board lately, but I needed to get my submission together such that it made sense. Here we go...

The game is titled, unimaginatively, "News." This is a game in which each player must manage reporters who are trying to research and write stories for the news. This game started out as a thought experiment, trying to come up with a game that would use Puerto Rico's role selection mechanic. It has come a long way since. It even made a trip to Germany when I submitted it to a publisher there. Amusingly, they rejected it saying that it was too much like Puerto Rico, and that PR was the better game. I'll let you be the judge on its resemblance.

The game is composed of several parts. It helps if you have Carcassonne: Builders and Traders for the playing pieces I used in the prototype. The components are:

The game board (Excel file). (26k) A low-quality .jpg image of it can be found here. (74k)
The Source and Story cards (Word document). (1,823k)
The Rules (Word document). (112k)
The Information Tokens (Word document). (309k) My prototype uses spray-painted blocks, but I kindof like these more.
Money Tokens. My prototype uses play pennies and nickels.
The Selected Role token. My prototype uses play dimes.
Two six-sided dice.
Three small meeples per player (each player gets a single color). This is partially where Carcassonne comes in handy.
One large meeple per player (same color as the small one).
One scoring token per player (same color as the meeples).
A Starting Player token. I used the black token that came in New England.

Note: downloadable files are hosted on my server, which is a bit slow.

The rules document was designed such that it is printed in booklet format (print pages 8, 1, 2, and 7 on one sheet, two pages per sheet, duplex, and pages 6, 3, 4, and 5 the same way, fold both pages in half and put one inside the other). If this confuses you, just print it normally, and please forgive the LARGE font face. :-)

Some of the concerns I have on the game are:

It's got a good number of rules. I am wondering if there is a more elegant mechanic for some stuff that is simply eluding me.

There's a LOT to track during play, which can lead to analysis paralysis.

There really are a lot of components. Are they all necessary or is there some clever way to eliminate some of them?

Some of the top "gotchas" of the game are:
Players continue to select roles until every player passes.
Sharing information with another player does not cause you to lose the information. Both players take a new information token from the bank.
Stories that have 3 or more of the same color icon provide an information credit. The player with this story does not take information from the bank, but can use this credit when publishing.

Well, there you have it. Let me know what you think. Thanks again!

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

After reading through the rules of your game I have a couple of comments and questions. Well, I must confess I didn't get all the way through the rules. The reason for this was there was so many.

Question one: Who is the active player? Is this player supposed to be the Governor in PR? The active player gets extra chances to do stuff.

Sharing Information Tokens: Just from reading the rules I feel like I wouldn't ever pay to share information, because the other players can decided not to share information. I would just wait for somebody else to share information with me.

Comments about the overall role choice mechanic:

I like the subtle changes from PR in which instead of each player picking a role (then executing that role), all players choose roles (costing more based on who else is doing it) and then all the roles are executed only by the people who bought them. Another good thing about this is that players can buy more than one role per round. but a problem this might lead to is one player stockpiling money, and just waiting for the right time to purchases tons of roles at once. [not sure if the stockpiling would actually end up being worth it though]

Hamumu
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Game #57: News by Brett Paul

I don't have time to look into the game in detail now, since I should be working, but I wanted to drop in to say I would LOVE to see a thread from you discussing how you made your prototype parts. I've never seen a board made in excel, and though I also do my cards in word (mail merge), I'd like to hear how you did yours. Especially since it looks like yours print with outlines - I can't get mine to print the outlines of the cards! I'd love to hear whatever you can say about that stuff.

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

DrMayhem wrote:
I didn't get all the way through the rules. The reason for this was there was so many.

Yep, I understand. The rules are mostly summarized on the game board itself for reference.

Quote:
Question one: Who is the active player? Is this player supposed to be the Governor in PR? The active player gets extra chances to do stuff.

The active player is the one selecting a role right now. It's not the one who started the round.

Quote:
Sharing Information Tokens: Just from reading the rules I feel like I wouldn't ever pay to share information, because the other players can decided not to share information.

This is why it is rolled into networking. There are several reasons to take the Networking role even without info sharing.

Quote:
I like the subtle changes from PR in which instead of each player picking a role (then executing that role), all players choose roles (costing more based on who else is doing it) and then all the roles are executed only by the people who bought them.

Not quite... Each player selects a role and executes it in turn, like PR, but by taking a role, the cost goes up. Other players can take the same role later in the same round. On the other hand, what you describe here might be an interesting alternative.

Quote:
Another good thing about this is that players can buy more than one role per round. but a problem this might lead to is one player stockpiling money, and just waiting for the right time to purchases tons of roles at once. [not sure if the stockpiling would actually end up being worth it though]

I haven't seen this being a problem. Things to spend money on in the game are: role selection (when they cost money), additional reporters, ace reporter, and bribes for stories.

Thanks!

Scurra
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Game #57: News by Brett Paul

I can see why they said it was too much like PR, because it is too much like PR :-)
Your role-selection changes are nice but effectively only make the bribery costs work the other way - however, I like the incremental cost concept (take this role now before the price goes up.)
It feels to me as though you should break away from PR completely, by not using the "everyone gets the action" mechanic and instead simply getting people to have to pay if they want to take the role. (You'd have to work out a different way for the Publication role to work, but that might be better in the long run - it might be fun to restrict publication to an "end of round" phase anyway.)

The whole "sources" concept is very neat but it might be the thing that makes it too complicated. Why not make them spaces on the board to which you send reporters, rather than cards? Some of them could be prestocked with Information tokens (to match the "instant source" idea, while others might provide fixed tokens?

I'm sure the resources payoff stuff could be made a lot more elegant - the whole "follow-up" bonus gets really confusing, but could probably be parlayed into something neater (you can remove an information token from a previously published story provided there are still three on it? That way an older story becomes less valuable over time if you keep trying to build off it instead of going after new stories...)

As a News Gathering simulation, I like some of the model a lot (get information from sources, trade it with other players) but other aspects seem a little too "game-mechanic" like (paying to select roles, drawing random cards.) Still, you can't have everything.

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Scurra wrote:
The whole "sources" concept is very neat but it might be the thing that makes it too complicated. Why not make them spaces on the board to which you send reporters, rather than cards? Some of them could be prestocked with Information tokens (to match the "instant source" idea, while others might provide fixed tokens?

When you asked about ways to get rid of components, this is it right here. On the board you could have 3-5 source locations all of which take one move to get to from the office. Then you could have a system where random generic information can be placed at each source. When a player uses a source or 'buys' the information, the player that obught it would get said information, with different payment options available, where they can pay x amount for the info, x amount for exclusive info where they take the info and the type of info gets replaced by a new type

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Here are some of the things I've gleaned from everyone's comments (thanks, all!), and a couple other things that those comments sparked.

This suggestion could go a ways towards reducing some of the complexity and some of the tedium associated with revealing sources: Rather than having individual sources, change over to having sources on the game board itself.

This next one doesn't reduce components since it relies on the deck of cards still, but might still help make a cleaner game: Pre-stock these starting sources with information by drawing the top X cards (where X = number of players). The way the stocking works is that the information shown on the source drawn is distributed to the source spots on the board.

Private source could become like an extra room on the board, and gets all the information shown on the card when revealed.

Secret sources would work the same way (or could be eliminated).

Instant sources provide information as they do now, but the rest is distributed to the spots on the board.

Dispatch would send reporters to the spots on the board only.

Publishing would send reporters to the story, and then to the office.

On role selection:
Rather than having everyone execute every role, players in turn select a role and put a marker on it. Other players who want to do the same role would then have to buy into that role. Players can continue to select roles until everyone passes. (This introduces a possible need for tokens to show what roles you will execute, or something on the board that the player puts a token on.)

Under this scenario, publishing would happen once per turn, after all the roles are executed.

Distribution of the information tokens could be similar to ship distribution in Tongiaki - fill each source area first, then distribute at will (or distribute evenly at the start of the game).

These are all things to try. (Now I just have to get the stuff written and get my playtesters together again).

Could also combine the two decks - stories and sources, and just use them for the different purpose when it is drawn. This eliminates one of the decks.

Another possibility is to have generic (wild card) information that can be used as a substitute for whatever information you lack, with possibly certain limits (no more than 3 wild cards for in-depth stories, none for basic stories).

Is it worth it to differentiate between basic and in-depth stories or should the basic stories go away altogether?

Thanks again, all. This is surely something to think about. I promise that the next game I put up here for review will be MUCH lighter. This is probably my heaviest (rules-wise) game.

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

theicemage wrote:

On role selection:
Rather than having everyone execute every role, players in turn select a role and put a marker on it. Other players who want to do the same role would then have to buy into that role. Players can continue to select roles until everyone passes. (This introduces a possible need for tokens to show what roles you will execute, or something on the board that the player puts a token on.)

I just had another idea on role selection, but it would require huge changes in the game format as far as I can tell. There could be a certain number of role counters and until all of them are placed on the different roles, then they are not cleared. This might require some payment upon publication to go along wiht the VPs, or a choice at publication to either take money or VPs

Scurra
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Game #57: News by Brett Paul

theicemage wrote:
I promise that the next game I put up here for review will be MUCH lighter.
You know, I keep telling myself that as well :-)

It'd be a shame to lose "secret" sources, but I can't think how to represent those within a board structure. OTOH there's interesting scope for having different ways for the Sources "spaces" to operate. For instance, a Private source could only take one reporter (but if they leave, another one could come in), whereas a Press Conference might only give information out when X reporters are actually in the room (although obviously it should really work by giving out information at a fixed time for simulation purposes!)

Johan
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Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Hi

On my list over games I want to do is a News game (reporters that compete to get the best stories). I have started and failed with that project three times. I am impressed on what you have achieved and looking forward to see more of the game.

I have read the rules and checked the game board (but not the cards). I can not find any errors or loopholes in those. The rules need to be clearer and have more examples.

I am interested in how many players (it seems to be five), have you tested the game, how is the game tested and the estimated time for the game.

There are two things that I missing in the game (maybe it is in the cards):
- Planted news (false news or twisted information).
- News that continues for several days (new information is added to old news and gives it a new angle).

Good luck with your game

// Johan

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Scurra wrote:
It'd be a shame to lose "secret" sources, but I can't think how to represent those within a board structure. OTOH there's interesting scope for having different ways for the Sources "spaces" to operate. For instance, a Private source could only take one reporter (but if they leave, another one could come in), whereas a Press Conference might only give information out when X reporters are actually in the room (although obviously it should really work by giving out information at a fixed time for simulation purposes!)

For Press Conference, if roles are all selected first, then executed, I was thinking that Press Conference would come right before publishing. In other words, roles are all selected/bought into, then all roles (including dispatch) are executed, then Press Conference (if applicable), then publishing.

Another approach on this would be to have a press conference every turn (total of maybe maybe 10 rounds in a game).

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Johan wrote:
I am impressed on what you have achieved and looking forward to see more of the game.

Thank you! I am wondering what the next version is going to look like after the feedback in this forum. :-)

Quote:
The rules need to be clearer and have more examples.

Yes, they do. When I sent it to the publisher, the first thing they did was come back with a bunch of rules questions. I need to clean that up.

Quote:
I am interested in how many players (it seems to be five), have you tested the game, how is the game tested and the estimated time for the game.

I have played the game with two, three, four and five players. It seems to be equally playable with each of these. I haven't tried with more players. The estimated time for the game is 90 minutes, but that depends on the number of players. Under the current rules, there is a lot to track (as I said in my initial post), and AP can be a problem.

As to testing the game, most of the initial tests were done with a few friends. There have also been times when folks play the game without me, but I haven't done any blind playtesting (unless you count the publisher playing it, but the intent there for both sides was different from playtesting).

Quote:
There are two things that I missing in the game (maybe it is in the cards):
- Planted news (false news or twisted information).
- News that continues for several days (new information is added to old news and gives it a new angle).

The first is a frequently-suggested addition, and in light of the whole scandal on unreliable sources, seems like it should be in the game according to the theme. My hesitation is that I don't want it to have a huge negative impact (even though it does in real life) without there being some sort of way for the player to mitigate the risk. I don't want the game winner to suddenly become the loser over drawing a single unlucky card.

The second one is sortof covered by the information credit derived from already-published stories. This is sort of a way of handling follow-up stories. It's not intuitively obvious, though. Maybe an enhancement in this area would help.

Quote:
Good luck with your game

Thanks again!

Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

Another random set of thoughts sparked by this discussion. This is a bit more extreme of a change from what I have now.

Currently, the roles are:

    Network (trade and share information, hire reporters) Research (get new information)
    Reveal sources (show more sources of information)
    Dispatch (move reporters out to sources)
    Publish (write and publish stories)
    Advertise (get money)

With this version (described below), this would be reduced to:

    Network (trade and share information) Dispatch (move reporters around)
    Reveal sources (combines dispatch and research)
Then Publish happens automatically at the end of each round

First part of each round could be "set budgets." That could include:

    Determine income. Income could be determined by:
      number of stories already published player's current score
      previous round's advertising expenditure
      etc.
    Pay expenses:
      fact checkers reporters
      ace reporters
      advertising

Hiring a new reporter (increasing your number of reporters) costs $5.
Getting the Ace from a normal reporter would cost $5. <- this may still be at publishing time to have some qualifications on it.
Keeping reporters you already have costs $1 per reporter ($2 for the ace).
Reporters are bought/paid at the beginning or end of each round.

If you pay for a fact checker (or more than one?), it could modify information reliability (new concept).

Keeping reporters helps you get information, publish stories. The more reporters you have, the more places you can cover (and the more information you can retrieve). The more reporters, the more stories you could publish in a round, theoretically.

Paying for advertising helps increase your income for the following round.

So the things that you would do on your turn would be:

    Get new information (like reveal sources + research) Move reporters among locations:
      Streets to get information office to write stories
      press conference
    Share information (like trading in Settlers but with sharing)

Turn sequence:

    New starting player Reveal stories
    Each player takes a turn and can do one of three things:
      Get new information (from reporters who are out doing research) Share information (like trading in Settlers)
      Move reporters to one of three locations (limit to 2 reporters moving? One space at a time?)
    Press conference happens
    Publishing phase

Get new information - instead of having sources laid out for reporters to go to, the cards can be flipped (one at a time) and the information from that source gathered by the one doing the research. This would change the nature of the source cards - they'd have a lot less information on them under this. I'm thinking two or three. An alternative to this would possibly be to get one "wild" information token instead of two or three random colors.

You can publish a number of stories equal to the number of reporters you have in the office.

This would really change the complexion of the game.

Addition of fact-checkers to your payroll can prevent badly-researched stories or unreliable information from getting through. This goes into the whole "bad research or unreliable source" aspect of the game that I haven't really gone into yet.

This is starting to more resemble Ticket To Ride than Puerto Rico now.

Oh, one other idea comes to mind - instead of information tokens, players can have a player mat that shows the 7 different types (colors) of information and little boxes. They get a marker that tracks how much of each they have. This would help reduce components, and eliminate the whole part of the game about watching how much is in the bank - the bank would essentially never run out. Something else that this would help with is information credits (for follow-ups). Players could have a second set of cubes of a different color that they use on the tracking mat to show information credits. The player can't go below this, and could advance it based on stories published.

Geez, it's a whole new game that way. I'm not saying it's better - I'm just spouting ideas here.

[/][/][/][/][/][/][/][/][/]
Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

theicemage wrote:

First part of each round could be "set budgets." That could include:
    Determine income. Income could be determined by:
      number of stories already published player's current score
      previous round's advertising expenditure
      etc.

Something to watch out for here would be a runaway leader problem. Although this happens in real life, especially in the field of newprints, look at companies like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek. You don't want a runaway leader problem in your game, because it just isn't as much fun to be losing and have no hope of coming back.

Quote:

If you pay for a fact checker (or more than one?), it could modify information reliability (new concept).

This sounds to me like you are exchanging one rules complication for a different one that you have no familiarity with in the game as the designer

Quote:

Keeping reporters helps you get information, publish stories. The more reporters you have, the more places you can cover (and the more information you can retrieve). The more reporters, the more stories you could publish in a round, theoretically.

See runaway leader above

Quote:
Turn sequence:
    New starting player Reveal stories
    Each player takes a turn and can do one of three things:
      Get new information (from reporters who are out doing research) Share information (like trading in Settlers)
      Move reporters to one of three locations (limit to 2 reporters moving? One space at a time?)
    Press conference happens
    Publishing phase
This looks like a long list. If you as the designer can not remember it without notes, then maybe it is too long of a list.

Quote:

You can publish a number of stories equal to the number of reporters you have in the office.

see runaway leader again

Quote:

This is starting to more resemble Ticket To Ride than Puerto Rico now.

this is not necessarily a bad thing

Quote:

Oh, one other idea comes to mind - instead of information tokens, players can have a player mat that shows the 7 different types (colors) of information and little boxes. They get a marker that tracks how much of each they have. This would help reduce components, and eliminate the whole part of the game about watching how much is in the bank - the bank would essentially never run out. Something else that this would help with is information credits (for follow-ups). Players could have a second set of cubes of a different color that they use on the tracking mat to show information credits. The player can't go below this, and could advance it based on stories published.

Geez, it's a whole new game that way. I'm not saying it's better - I'm just spouting ideas here.

I am always a fan of less components in a game. Keeps confusions and clutter down, which in turn (I think) improves enjoyment of play

[/][/][/]
Anonymous
Game #57: News by Brett Paul

DrMayhem wrote:
Something to watch out for here would be a runaway leader problem.

Quite true. I was thinking of something like a basic income of 5/round, to facilitate paying bribes, hiring and keeping reporters, etc. There would have to be a built-in max of 10 including other bonuses, I suppose.

Quote:
(information reliability) This sounds to me like you are exchanging one rules complication for a different one that you have no familiarity with in the game as the designer

I haven't thought of a good way to incorporate it yet. If I find a way that fits, I'll give it a shot. :)

Quote:

Quote:
The more reporters you have, the more places you can cover, information you can retrieve, and stories you could publish in a round, theoretically.

See runaway leader above

Again, good point. Some things mitigate this - max of 4 reporters (at a cost of $15), information flow versus stories available, but you are right - it's something to watch out for.

Quote:
Quote:
Turn sequence:
    New starting player Reveal stories
    Each player takes a turn and can do one of three things:
      Get new information (from reporters who are out doing research) Share information (like trading in Settlers)
      Move reporters to one of three locations (limit to 2 reporters moving? One space at a time?)
    Press conference happens
    Publishing phase
This looks like a long list. If you as the designer can not remember it without notes, then maybe it is too long of a list.

Another way to help simplify it is to reveal a story at the start of every player's turn rather than revealing a number of stories equal to the number of players once a round. So basically, everyone gets a turn. It consists of 1) add a new story to the story pool, 2) one action (share, dispatch, get info). When the starting player is up again, publish. That's not bad.

[/][/]
Anonymous
Thanks, all!

Well, my week in the spotlight has come to an end, and there is much work (and play) to be done. Thank you to all who read and posted feedback on my game. I hope to do the same for you in the future, and look forward to my next opportunity to put a game under fire here. :-D

Anonymous
Re: Thanks, all!

theicemage wrote:
Well, my week in the spotlight has come to an end, and there is much work (and play) to be done. Thank you to all who read and posted feedback on my game. I hope to do the same for you in the future, and look forward to my next opportunity to put a game under fire here. :-D

Sure thing Icemage.

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