[GDS] FEBRUARY 2014 "From Nothing, Something" - Critiques

Firstly, congratulations to Bike for taking home the gold.
This was an interesting concept and great use of the parameters of the challenge. And aside from spelling errors, I enjoyed this entry. It was not addressed in the explanation but; are there two pools of sticks (one for money and one for building)? Because, after you build with a stick, you can’t use it again. I wonder if the attack is necessary for the game as it provides a way for the rich to get richer. If a player only has one stick in their buying pool, someone with a tower can win the attack by placing a bid of zero, taking the stickman AND a free stick.

Angry stickmen

This was my silver medal choice. I was really taken with the idea of matchsticks being used. I think you could do a lot with it. I would probably end up burning peoples towers down. That's pure awesome. Very creative idea well within the constraints of the challenge. I can't be sure that the combat system works, seems some more development there might help? But love the concept. Nice work.

Congratulations, Bike. Spot on with the challenge and really hits a nice balance.

I can see some interesting play emerge from the simple components. It has enough compexity that it could be packaged for sale or played from memory using toothpicks at a bar or such.

The big tunable standout is the combat mechanic. I'm not sure if your storage needs to be hidden or how to handle the selection of qty so that the number selected isn't obvious. But that's really a playtest question as this game seems ready for playtesting.

I was a big fan of the concept (gold) for two reasons:
1. A multiplayer mancala overhaul is something that needs to happen
2. The game was thematic, which is something you don't see a lot in mancala-like games, or game mods

As many of the others have said, I would have to play this to actually feel how it holds together.

The joint lose state could work, but as is always true with joint lose states, they offer one big benefit when designed correctly (rubber banding through forcing the players in the lead to keep the game from ending before they win), and have one major flaw when designed incorrectly (grimming due to players who think they are definitely going to lose forcing the game to end).

Thanks for the votes. I never thought I would win a gold medal during the Olympics... (being dutch does seem to help)

I intended angry stickmen to be a short game. However I do think that starting with more than 14 sticks is a good idea (like 20/25). A player only needs to go wrong a couple of times and he is out of the game. I guess the strength of the tower should be somewhere between 3 and 5. I played once with 5, that was huge, but not impossible.
All sticks are used for both bidding or building. Not breaking a building that is finished also means the game will end at some point.
I can see the combat system might need some work, to make it more tactical and less bluff.
What I liked is changing what you build during building. Start with the roof of a house, but change it into a stickman, if needed. I would like to explore some more into that direction.

The number of sticks is limited, there will not be very often 3 sticks available in the middle. Maybe a stickman should be worth 2 attack/defense.
Suppose I build a stickman with 7 sticks in 1 action. I am left with 7 sticks and 3 men. Another player (with still 14 sticks) can now win one of my stickman. To be sure he has to bid 8 (my 7 + I have one more stickman). If I bid nothing, this was good for me. However, if he thinks I will bid 0, he might bid 1 and get a cheap stickman. But... if I bid 2, I get a cheap stickman, in anothers players turn!

If I want to expand this game to a more strategic version, this mechanic is too harsh. For a quick game it works. Once you are short of sticks, you are in deep trouble.

Thanks for the votes, everyone!

Obviously I focused on the mancala-esque sowing mechanic for this game and thought that making the "cups" in front of each player would add a meta-element to your choices as you try to guess what the other players are going to do in reaction to how other players moved the corn.

I think MaxGamesSeidman is right on with the all-lose mechanic and I'm hoping that this is an example of use to "rubber-band" as he put it. I wanted players to really judge the risk in causing people to pull from the center pile and losing the game. I did get a chance to play this and while it needs work the scores were very close consistently, which hopefully puts people in the mindset that they can still win at any time and not throw the game.

Angry Stickmen received my Silver Medal. It incorporated the limits of the challenge very well and I liked how you used such a common item and gave this particular item multiple functions within the game. I also liked how you could use shapes to build out into multiple final builds depending on how you approach your strategy.

Sure, the numbers can be optimized and you probably need a bigger starting supply of matches to allow for enough gameplay before a beginner paints themselves into a corner without any moves left, but the challenge doesn't require you to iron out all the details, since there's little to no time for playtesting. In short: lots to like. Please develop this one further.

Sorry, I wasn't ready to vote Sow That All May Eat because commanding other people's stuff confused me. But that's only my problem. An eatable game is a great idea. Maybe you should test it and publish Sow That All May Eat with a chocolate candy theme?

This was my gold medal choice. It used one component and had an interesting set of mechanics which while obviously inspired by Mancala seemed quite interesting to me.

I had to read through the directions once or twice. I found the win conditions to be interesting and while I'm not a big fan of the everybody loses outcome for a game, I thought this game was interesting enough that I let it slide.

As I said in my previous critique all of the games that truly used one component in my opinion were really close in design, but what pushed this one ahead was the rules seemed much more straight forward. I could read these directions and explain them to someone with very little effort. I do think there is probably a mathematically optimal strategy to winning the game, but I think it could be fun.

I also liked the previous suggestions to actually make this game an edible game.

In fact you could sell a bag of M&Ms with the rules for this and M&M poker. (smile)

Congratulations on your strong finish.

For future entrants, I will make this note:
**If you make a game about zombies, pirates, Cuthulu, space or to a lesser extent – agriculture; you better have a phenomenal, new and exciting game mechanic that draws me in.**
There are just too many of these types of games. If I see them I usually squirm and am less likely to open the box. Sometimes these themes are necessary, but it seems like most of the time the theme is pasted on because manufacturers know they can sell that theme. Other people may vote differently, but I am just letting everyone know that if they want my vote you need to give me something original.
All that being said, the actual game (minus theme) was decent. You started off with an interesting drafting strategy. I don’t know how secretly a planet can be removed though, as the other players can count the number of each color to figure it out. The flicking game sound kind of fun, depending on surface area and the coefficient of friction. I guess the basic strategy is to select the color of which there are most, close to you. This sounds like a fun family game that can be played with a wide range of ages. Here’s an idea, instead of finishing the game after one round, the ‘planets’ that remain are placed back on the table until only one color remains. Whoever had claimed that color wins (possible 2 player win).
I’m not sure how the theme fits though. I guess most planets are round? To my knowledge, planets don’t bounce around in space – flicked by god – like billiard balls. So in conclusion, drop the theme and I’ll give you higher marks. Other flicking game names: Shuffle Board, Crokinole, Tumbling Dice, (even lawn bowling or boche ball). Notice that none of these games has a theme. Pitchcars, Angry Birds and table top football are similar but have a need for theme.

This looks like a fun dexterity/stacking game. I didn't think it met the one component criteria, the fact that all the pieces were made of wood notwithstanding. Having special pieces like 'The baseplate' and 'pillar', in my mind those are components. As for the game, I liked the theme. I can imagine what kind of cobbled together towers would be produced and to attribute these constructions to prestigious universities is a good chuckle. Well played.

Not really one component... the baseplates and the pillar are different than the building blocks. By making them all white it is not that obvious ;-) Nevertheless this was my gold medal. I liked the clean white look of the buildings, and I really liked the bidding mechanic. Some more suggestions:

• Do to the bidding with only one hand. I will need the other to hold my drink or chocolate.
• It might be that two average pieces is better than the first pick, and the leftover piece. Why having a second pick in the reverse order? The whole idea of bidding is that you get the best piece.
• Get rid of the baseplate. With this plate there is enough room to stick unwanted pieces like pawns, while making a stack of usefull pieces. See http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1231/bausack for a good example to build on a single piece.
• Instead of the pillar you could measure the size of each hand between spreaded thumb and indexfinger. Giving kids an advantage.
• This is a quick game, if a tower falls, you are out!

Though a solid seeming game, I didn't consider this one as qualifying for the contest. Since shape is a critical bit of information for the building, having the pillar that measured height was a distinct second bit of information. I find the finger bidding mechanic awkward in concept, not sure how well that can work out. I'm not familar with all the stacking games out there; so, I'm not sure what distinguishes them. I'm pretty sure I've sat in my son's room playing our own variation of this with stuff in his room.

Whoops! I forgot to do Angry Stickmen yesterday!

The good: I really liked the mechanic incentivizing players to take small incremental actions. That was definitely my favorite part of the pitch. I also liked the dynamic of being able to half build things and then switch them over if the game state changes.

Needs testing/could use work: I'm not a big fan of games with no randomness. I fear for lack of replayability, although bidding helps mitigate deterministic play.

(Also, thanks for all the feedback on Ivory Tower!)