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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 21:05
sedjtroll
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I thought I'd provide a reminder/introduction about the Game Design Workshop for the newer members who weren't around when these submissions were 'active'. The GDW is an opportunity for us to submit the rules to a game and get feedback from the rest of the community. This works both ways, as a community we get to see what each other are working on and offer ideas to help games along.

I'm providing links to the GDW Archive, and the upcoming GDW Schedule so interested people can read through past games that sound interesting and think about signing up to submit a game themselves.

You may notice spaces in the schedule marked "open". This means noone in particular is signed up for that week, so feel free to contact jwarrend about signing up for those weeks if you have a game to submit, or use the Open weeks to revisit older GDW entries with a fresh perspective.

And for those that have submitted games in the past, those open weeks are a great opportunity to revisit your game and let us know how it came along, what great help we were, or what new problems you've run into since.

Enjoy what's probably my personal favorite feature of this site!

- Seth

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Mon, 09/27/2004 - 18:35
#1
Anonymous
Re: Game Design Workshop (GDW)

sedjtroll wrote:

Enjoy what's probably my personal favorite feature of this site!

- Seth

Probably? Are you kidding? 8) This IS the best feature on the site IMO.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 03:20
#2
Anonymous
Game Design Workshop (GDW)

I agree; it is a privelege to be able to read and discuss other peoples' games, and hugely helpful to have so many good minds look at one of your own.

The only shame is that we aren't geographically close to actually get together to playtest these games each week, and discuss reactions to that too.

Best wishes,

Richard.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 12:26
#3
Trickydicky
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

I think that reviewing others games is great. What really excites me about this site, though is seeing someone's game get seen by a publisher. I can imagine it is even better if you've been around long enough to have seen the development of that game, and given ideas and critiques to the designer. This is my favorite part of the site. HOPE!

Richard_Huzzey writes

Quote:
The only shame is that we aren't geographically close to actually get together to playtest these games each week, and discuss reactions to that too.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all new enough about computer programming that we could turn our baord games into electronic board games. That we could play them online, i.e. Brettspielwelt.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 13:27
#4
RookieDesign
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

Trickydicky wrote:
Richard_Huzzey writes
Quote:
The only shame is that we aren't geographically close to actually get together to playtest these games each week, and discuss reactions to that too.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all new enough about computer programming that we could turn our baord games into electronic board games. That we could play them online, i.e. Brettspielwelt.

Computer is my work. I know how to program. I was thinking about this but... I was planning to port my game to computer so I can do more tests and adjustments quickly.

Sometime the mechanics isn't so bad to port, but the special rules and graphics are a pain.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 14:26
#5
emxibus
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

I'm new to the forum, but this has been something I've been thinking about as well. A few years ago I wrote a board game interface (java application) for stratego legends. It doesn't enforce the rules, but it allows you to move all the pieces, perform actions, and chat. I still use this program weekly, if you're interested here is the URL (shameless plug to find new players):

www.strategolegends.com/sli.html

Anyway, I would be very interested in helping write this thing if it was done it java (I'm thinking as a stand alone application). I have a hard time getting out to a game shop and to be able to playtest online would be awesome.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 15:04
#6
phpbbadmin
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

emxibus wrote:
I'm new to the forum, but this has been something I've been thinking about as well. A few years ago I wrote a board game interface (java application) for stratego legends. It doesn't enforce the rules, but it allows you to move all the pieces, perform actions, and chat. I still use this program weekly, if you're interested here is the URL (shameless plug to find new players):

www.strategolegends.com/sli.html

Anyway, I would be very interested in helping write this thing if it was done it java (I'm thinking as a stand alone application). I have a hard time getting out to a game shop and to be able to playtest online would be awesome.

Wow! Would you be willing to write such a thing? There are several programs available that do 'virtual board games' but none that really hit the mark square on the head (One is intended for wargames, the other for card games). It'd be nice if there was a dumb interface available for us to play/test our games in.

What do you think?
-Darke

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 15:58
#7
emxibus
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

I think this project is too big for one person, but I would be willing to help.

I see this project having three parts: an editor, meeting/chat room, and board interface.

The editor would be used to create a template for your game.

The chatroom would be where everyone could discuss, join, and start games.

The board interface would load the game template (previously downloaded) and allow the players to chat and interact with the template.

This is just a high level look at the project. The hardest part being the editor. Lots of work there!

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 17:44
#8
Zzzzz
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

Though my time as everyone is always limited, I could help in this area (once I get the wiki info ported). I think we would want to approach this from a very simple and minimal direction. Think about all the different types of games you have very seen. Now think about working all of that into a virtual board.

If we concentrate on what I will call a "dumb" board shell. It would not be hard to create a simple UI that allowed for board image loading and a variety of different game components (cards, pawns, money, tokens, counters, spinners in multiple colors ) to use on the UI.

But, if would be up to the players to be orderly, since I would suggest not building in any type of rule validation (such as moving a pawn the specified spaces). The UI would need a way to display some type of rules document. It would be useful for players to have the rules handy and look up rules as needed furing playing a game (and I dont think we want to send players off to another location to read the rules).

The template file is a good idea for setting up a board with the "required" game components and layout.

My only concern would be how many different components do we implement at first?

And there is still potential for not being able to support a "new idea" or "new component". But that is something that we would have to live with..... because you cant always have everything.

Anyways I think it would be a great idea, and would allow for all of use to playtest games together online, and it would open up the potential for more playtesting of all of our games.

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 18:02
#9
phpbbadmin
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My thoughts.

We have considered this before and the project never got off the ground...

Here are my thoughts.

You don't really need that many components... A component could have a name, then it could have any # of states. Each of the states could have a graphic. The graphic for each of the states could be rotated also if necessary.

For example, a 'card' component could have two states, face up and face down. Now because the software would be 'dumb', the different states would be irrelevant to the software; it's just another state. You could assign user meaning actions to the component (such as flip or rotate), but again the game software wouldn't really care.

You would probably also need the ability to group like objects, to make things like decks, pools, etc. It would also probably be necessary to have certain areas that hide components from other players...

I would love to help with such a project. I have to admit that I haven't programmed in a very long time, but I would learn again in order to work on something such as this.

-Darke

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 19:49
#10
sedjtroll
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

For inspiration one could look at Thoth (which I never got very far with, though I nearly finished getting All For One components and board input- I just don't know how to use the darn thing!) and also Apprentice, a shareware program which enables Magic the Gathering. The program doesn't play for you, it just displays the cards on the board and manages the decks (keeps track of which card is where). You click draw and it puts the top card in your hand. It says "sedjtroll draws 1 card" so your opponent can see if you're cheating.

- Seth

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 20:22
#11
Anonymous
Game Design Workshop (GDW)

Darkehorse wrote:

There are several programs available that do 'virtual board games' but none that really hit the mark square on the head (One is intended for wargames, the other for card games).

What "virtual board game" creators have you found? I did a quick search and found this one that looks promising:

http://www.vassalengine.org/

Has anyone used VASSAL? Are there other tools that people have used to create a quick online prototype game?

Jonathan

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Tue, 09/28/2004 - 21:20
#12
phpbbadmin
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

jhager wrote:
Darkehorse wrote:

There are several programs available that do 'virtual board games' but none that really hit the mark square on the head (One is intended for wargames, the other for card games).

What "virtual board game" creators have you found? I did a quick search and found this one that looks promising:

http://www.vassalengine.org/

Has anyone used VASSAL? Are there other tools that people have used to create a quick online prototype game?

Jonathan

Yes I tried Vassal. It's more of a wargame engine. Pretty cumbersome too.

-Darke

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Wed, 09/29/2004 - 08:24
#13
Anonymous
Game Design Workshop (GDW)

FYI, there's also Cyberboard, which also appears to be wargame-centric, but I've only seen a few games made for it (and, oddly enough, they happened to be wargames) Edit - not to say there aren't more, just I've only actually opened and perused a few, that's all. Whereas VASSAL, as I understand it, is online (both players connected simultaneously), Cyberboard seems more geared towards PBEM. It allows for two-state counters ("top" and "bottom") and the ability to change that state, as well as counter ownership. I can't say for certain, but I also thought I remember reading in the included help files that it has the capability of doing cards/shuffling/etc.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. Oh, and "duck!"

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Wed, 09/29/2004 - 10:56
#14
Trickydicky
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

I would be very excited about a feature (perhaps on this site) that would allow individual designers to create their game and have it playtested on the forum. I could see obvious advantages for the GDW.

That being said, I know so little about computers that I could not help. In fact one of my concerns would be that the designers of said program make it simple enough to understand that even someone as computer dumb as myself could create my game on it.

None the less I think it would be awesome if we could all help each other playtest without the expense of commute, mail, etc. This sounds very exciting.

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Wed, 09/29/2004 - 11:47
#15
RookieDesign
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Game Design Workshop (GDW)

First,
Should we take this tread in another forum ?

Second,
I started yesterday putting some basic objects together. .NET provide a very quick way to create object oriented project. Game are very object oriented (Think the material list). My plan is not to make any rules in this and be able to prepare the game through XML file. Show be simple enough. I can see the great help this kind of project for designer. I don't know what happen to the other discussion as Darkehorse stated.

I think for a community project to work, you need a leader that make some decision. He can hear what the suggestion and comments are, but finally it is decision that get implemented. There's frustration for the contributor, but it's the only way to get thing started.

I say that we start another thread and state a list of needs see who can help design, help program, contribute ideas or lead the project.

Have a good day.

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