[GDS] JUNE 2015 "The Enemy of My Enemy...." - Critiques

Imagine you've already collected 8 wenches.

And there's a fresh quest with a wench reward which was just put in play. So it's not urgent. However, there's another quest which will fail next turn. You are faced with a decision - do you pursue your own goal - and complete a quest with a wench reward, or do you complete that other quest, which doesn't bring you closer to victory, but which might lead to everybody losing, unless you do it. That's scenario 1.

More complicated scenario is when there's some super-nasty quest, with lots of monsters. So players have to go on a quest and defeat _some_ monsters, so that the next player had a chance to complete it.

Play-tests showed that it's impossible to win without at lest some cooperation.

You are, essentially, leading a group of loosers, instead of heroes. I`m not aware of a game with similar theme.

There are heroes which put additional quests in play, heroes which advance quests of particular color, heroes which force you to discard rewards or other heroes etc.

So each turn you have to compromise. Sometimes you have the right set of heroes to do the quest you want, but you chose a different one, because the combination of the hero effects would be too devastating and lead to everybody losing.

Well, wasn't it clear from the intro and even the name itself?

The choice of name 'wenches' instead of 'NPCs' or 'Captives' or something else, as well as making them nothing more but a victory point, was an informed decision.
The very theme of my game is making fun of the objectification of women and other tropes in the sword and sorcery genre.
Have you ever read any of the Conan stories, for example?

I was testing this game with female gamers. And there was no problem with it. Since most of the female gamers I know, have this thing called sense of humor and can draw a line between a game and reality.

To illustrate: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=korgoth+of+barbaria

I would really ask you to act maturely and not judge a person you don't know, based on the concept of a game he have posted on the forum. This is ridiculous.

Bottleton Prize Garden

In Seattle where I live we have things called "pea patches" which are essentially a community garden. I could see this scenario taking place in one of those community gardens. This game would probably sell well at the boutique shops here in the northwest where the local hipsters shop. I do think more emphasis needs to be put on the cooperation needed to get rid of pests for it to truly fit the theme but this was by bronze medalist.

Loot & Wenches

I could not for the life of me figure out how this fit the contest premise. What was the reason the players were forced to work together? And the example wall of text was so hard to read that it really turned me off to this one. I personally love the politically incorrectness of making wenches a commodity. I know that many game companies out there make a point of staying away from something like that. Light hearted or not you will alienate some portion of the game buying audience. I am not one of those people and I would like to see this idea pursued further.

Great job to everyone this month.

I look forward to July.

=M=

Thank for the comments. I appreciate the feedback on this. I seem to have failed explaining why pests move around on the board and are equal troubble :)

For loot and wrenches:
Well written theme and a fun example. I also have a hard time to see why it is really competitive / the individual goal. Soo I see on your post above that you don't understand why all fail to see the coop part. When I read your game I see there is corporation but I don't feel it is very motivated.

I don't think it's ridiculous but I do think the tone of my initial response was too reproachful.

Wenches aren't objects they are people. Your title is the early modern equivalent to; Money and Bitches. If I had sensed that the game was a satire that somehow twisted the objectification of women, I would have taken the theme as satire, but I don't feel that it was presented in that manner in your entry.

I'm not judging you as a person. I'm judging your game idea based on the brief you delivered and the anti-female message it appears to convey. If my response came across otherwise, then I apologize.

Also, having a sense of humor doesn't preclude having concerns about how our community welcomes people.

Regards,
Gary

Lonebluewolf: Thanks for your comments!

Debiant:

You are right, it does seem tacked on. It would be better if the disasters was more interconnected with the game. Perhaps, adding to my idea of making the action spaces produce more resources the more meeples there are on them, this would sometimes trigger a disaster. Example: it is safe to place up to four meeples on the "gather wood" action space, and each meeple gathers an amount of wood equal to the number of meeples on the action space. The fifth and sixth and so on would gather four wood, but have a chance of triggering a flash flood due to having cut down too many trees that would have stopped it? But then there would be an element of luck in my euro game...

Thanks for the feedback on Race for the Remedy guys. Sorry I haven't had time to get involved in critiquing this round but hopefully I will next month.