[GDS] MAY 2014 "I Believe" - Critiques

Who is your God now?
The rules are straightforward and it sounds like it could make for a quick and fun game. I do worry though that some of the card effects while adding theme could bog the game play down. For example Loki's effect means that the game stops while all players pore over their cards to select two to give up.
The backstory felt a bit contrived and like it had been written to match mechanics rather than vice versa. I could see how this could work well well with similar, but more familiar cultural tropes, such as playing as members of the royal court of a mad and fickle king who keeps changing his faith.

The Fickle Masses
If I have understood the rules correctly I like the way masses flow between players along commonality of aspects of faith. This is a nice little sociological/historical simulation mechanic. The marketing theme jarred with me and seems like a bit of a stretch of the religion challenge. But with some further clarification of the rules and development of the theme, this is the basis for an excellent game.

Confession Booth
The combination dexterity (dice grabbing), competitive story telling (confessions) and the religious theme are solid ingredients for a party game. But the example cards sounded a bit generic and I agree with the previous comments about 18 cards not being enough. My concern would be that the cards will not provide enough unexpected and interesting starting points for players to really exercise their creativity.

This was an interesting spin on the Apples to Apples framework that I'm sure many people would enjoy. However, I am not one of them. It's just a personal preference thing, but that sort of game has zero appeal to me. I did think this was a very creative take on the challenge.

Dare to Defy:
I think I would enjoy playing this game no matter what the theme. The press your luck mechanic looks like it would work well. This lost my vote simply because I felt that the mechanics themselves were a little distant from the theme. If there had been some mechanical difference between Miracles, Healings, and Teachings I think this game would have become much more interesting to me. For the sake of brainstorming, what if three of the same card in a row has some happy effect?... three Miracles lets you view the next draw without risk, three Healings allows you to remove one flipped over card, three Teachings lets you covert one villain card to whatever type you want. I think the game would be fine as is but I would probably add some house rules to my copy. :-)

#7 Dare to Defy

A fairly straight forward press your luck game that has the religion theme in there somewhat lightly, but that’s OK. Choosing which category to score makes a nice decision, but in this case, you always need to get two scoring rounds for each deck, so the degree to which you’re pushing luck is diminished (three of a kind is probably a bit too easy to get to be the ideal stopping place in the first rounds which I think it is now.)

#9 Suspicious Souls

This game gave me more trouble than most when I read through it and tried to figure out how it would play. I guess I think this is for 3 players? It seems like the bluffing doesn’t matter with 2, but the number of gates in the game (and out of the game) only leaves 3 as another option. If that’s the case I suspect that there would be many cases where the public questions should give full gate information to some or all of the players. I’m also not sure how the passing mechanism is supposed to work for the first soul. If a player does pass a card how are they sure to get one back? I guess player order does that in some way? If a player with the limbo gate has one card face up and one face down do they just not score? Can scores drop below 1, and if so, can you choose which order to score your two scores in? There are some interesting ideas here, but I don’t fully understand how they fit together I don’t think.

#3 ReligiousCity

Starting player seems to have a big advantage as attacks seem to have a decent chance of success and players only start with 3 worshipers (taking one away is tough.) I’m not sure I see the point in excommunicating given that you need 12 cards to win (which strikes me as high.) Indoctrinate also seems less valuable unless it lasts till the end of the next turn or some such; it can only be used to boost defense, and then only by one as I’m reading the rules. I think that the component limit probably hurts this game as it looks like it would probably play well with larger card counts or a way to keep track of more permanent changes to the traits on the cards.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

*** Dare to Defy And dare you did with both card count and dice count. The description lacks a gameplay overview, which in this format is highly useful (imo, in any format.) I just couldn't quite grasp what the game is. I kinda see the flip card, but not sure I get the effect of it.

*** Suspicious Souls Another big need for an overview. Diving into setup leaves me very lost. I like the attempt to embody knight or knave into the game, but it isn't clear this would be fun to play.

*** Religious City This was my wildcard bronze as scores were pretty close. Good presentation structure, totally lays out the concept upfront. The play has interesting sense of depth in both theme and strategy, nicely done. I do think this is needing more than 18 cards to sustain and the goal will need fine tunng as twelve seems too extreme. Combat, building, luck, nice set of features. Definitely take it to the next level, maybe use 18 for your first playtest and see what happens.

Theocracy
This sounds like a fine two player game, but lacks thematic depth. The naming of each game mechanic after a biblical verse or phrase did not help to convey theme, and instead just made the rules harder to follow. I would suggest cleaning up the rules using more straightforward language and providing a bit more of a backstory about our prophet kings to hook us in.

Sancti et Malum
To me this felt like a push your luck combat game with a biblical theme rather than a game about religion. The re-roll mechanics and card stats sound solid (but would obviously need a fair bit of play testing for balance). Game play could get a little repetitive though, and it may be that (freed from the component constraints of the challenge) it could be more engaging as one mechanic in a bigger game (i.e. area control or skirmish).

Wrath
Again thematically this game seems to be a combat game with a "gods" theme, not a game about religion. That gripe aside I like the creation in the setup of unique gods using a a combination of elements. As a combat game it sounds interesting - particularly having to blindly choose whether to defend or attack each round, which with multiple players could make for a range of different strategies being pursued. The many power combinations could be great, but will be a massive job to get balanced!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. To be clear, I used only 18 cards, not 21. That was a formatting error that I expected would end up causing problems for me. The last three cards listed were describing the 3 Authority cards.

But it looks like my adding an extra die per player caused me more problems. Fair enough.

I hope this doesn't come across as sour grapes, it's not. I had a lot of fun entering my first game design showdown and look forward to entering many more.

The thing I love about my little game is there are so many themes that could be applied to it. The religious theme won't get bought by anybody, but this could be themed fantasy, farming, fireman, space, sci/fi, pirate and many others, even zombies :)

#Theocracy:
This was my game. Thank you for the feeback guys and sry for my english (Idk how bad it is). The game is a tweak of goofspiel with a second dimension linked to the first (material resources linked to human resources that must support their existence), trying to represent the power of faith to obtain power (as a pharaoh). Next time I will try to put more attention to theme in the weakest parts and, ofc, I will try learn a bit of english :D

My own critic about my game, that I noticed after the prices were given, are:
1) The draw of 2 dices is redundant cause the probability with 2 dices is 6/36=1/6, what is the same that drawing only 1 dice.
2) I dont knew the mechanic of use dice as counters so I could change the resources to dices (instead of cards) and I could increase the number of resources, powers, believers and turns by 1 (cause this I may change condition to stop the game x2, i.e., 54 points).

#Sancti et Malum:
It seems a fine party game for childs (maybe not just for childs). Its ok but I liked more other games more complex and with less presence of randomness.

#Wrath:
Funny tweak of a CTG. It is ok but for my taste I prefer other type of game... I would did a tweak to make the potential less hidden (potential is the plays that you can do but the opponents dont know what they are) so opponent can figure a bit more what you can play and what you cannot (opponent can figure what cards you hold in this case). This would lead on a deeper game imo.

P.S.: there is a place where submit games that someone has created?

Theocracy

Decent on the theme. I did not like the game, or I did not understand it. It seems that players must make a prophecy without any information beforehand. There are simplere games that do just that. (It could make a nice oracle-theme.)

Sancti et Malum

Good game, just outside my medals. Since I looked a lot at the depth of the theme (is that the first time I say this?) I would prefer another mechanic than using dice to decide the outcome.

Wrath

Some of the comments of the previous entry apply here as well. Nice on the theme, good game but too many dice rolls for a medal.

Suspicious Souls

Thanks to the people that left comments.

I think Andy grasped the core of the underlying principle that fuels the game very well, but the players don’t answer heaven, hell or limbo. They simply answer yes or no when questioned, whatever gate card they have. Although as Andy quite rightly deduced, if a limbo player answers yes to “Are you the devil?” they would give themselves away. So no player in their right mind should ever admit to being the devil, but that’s sort of how the devil works.

The first stage is centered wholly on a “cold calling” mechanic. When a player answers can they convince you they are telling the truth or are they a convincing liar. However, the attention is firmly focused on each player as they answer.

The second stage is where the deductive process starts to develop. Based upon their observations the players begin to form opinions of what the other players may or may not have. When the players reveal information about what they think the other players have their restrictions determine the accusations they can make. However, the discussion is more free flowing and less focused so it’s harder to devote attention to one player.

The devil players are trying to obtain information and influence the opinions of the other players by telling lies while the angels are doing the same by telling the truth.

Naturally, the limbo players are free from any such restrictions. Their restriction is probably the most difficult. They have the greatest scope for saying what they want to influence the opinions of the others, but it comes at a price. If they shift and change too much, and without reasonable cause, they can easily give away the fact that they have a limbo gate. Too many poorly supported reasons for changing the direction of their accusation at the drop of a hat can give them away.

The opinions the players form have a direct bearing on the cards that they subsequently give to the others and whether they give them face up or face down. Giving a card face down means only the giver and receiver have access to the information. However, a face down card can earn the receiver more points, so it’s a risk.

Face up cards risk giving an opponent fewer points, but everyone has access to the information. More importantly if a player is given a face up card they are forced to play their next card face down.

If a player ever has 2 face up cards their subsequent revelation of a gain or loss in respect to their overall score will highlight the gate they have. This can result in a person playing a face down card that negatively affects their score when the combination of the two cards is considered, just to protect the secrecy of their gate.

Although the option always exists for a player to deliberately sustain a loss in order to deceive the other players and increase the mystery around what gate card they have.

This situation also results in another choice for the players, do I play my first card in front of me to avoid exposing myself to the card allocations of others.

If a player chooses to do this they will probably play a card that matches their gate in order to increase their chance of scoring, which is information the other players can exploit. Suspecting this another player can probe by playing a card on them face down, to gain the information alone, or face up for everyone to share.

If a player chooses to leave themselves exposed and wait, giving them more opportunity to scuttle another player, they place the choice in the hands of others.

Finally, they could choose to play a card face up on themselves, but this isn’t likely to happen because it’s akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

The increase/decrease score reveal is probably the most important part of the deductive element.

This simple declaration, in combination with the cards a player has in front of them, can provide a great deal of speculative information that can be carried into the next round.

At heart its social/deductive a game about influencing what the other players “believe” about you, what they “believe” about the other players and forming your own “beliefs” about the other players.

It’s a subtle game that doesn’t shout out its theme or provide the players with obvious roles. The theme doesn’t reveal itself through the components but through the social experience the players are exposed to. They experience a quick 15 minutes of being a devilish liar, a truthful angel or an indecisive soul playing both sides of the fence.

The key to winning is protecting the secrecy of your gate while being the first to work out what the others have, so you can give them cards that hinder their score instead of helping them.

The comment about the scoring being dependant on the players honor and integrity is a valid concern.

It’s a quick game, but no record of the score exists so players can easily cheat if they want too. Ideally the players would have 6 tokens (or cards) each and they would select 2 of them to place in the draw pool at the start of each round (influencing the draw odds and providing a further way of manipulating the information flow).

The players would keep the tokens they receive and reveal them at the end of the three rounds as a check and balance.

Unfortunately the 18 card limit scuppered this, requiring the less than ideal play and take back plaster. It was a risk entering a subtle game of intrigue with a theme that only reveals itself through the type of experience the players are exposed to during play.

In answer to Zorblag, its def a game of the more the merrier, 2 players wouldn’t really work. Each player has two soul cards to give and no player can be given more than 2 souls, so each player ends the round with exactly two souls (face up or face down). The addition of a rule that prevents the players from giving the same player more than one of their souls is a good idea.

The score can’t drop below 1 due to the use of a dice for scoring, with a different marker record it could. In respect to the scoring the souls a player receives each round work together in pairs to determine the score. The limbo players can only score if the souls they receive are different. So while the heaven and hell players are attempting to attract souls that match their gate the limbo players are trying to attract a pair of souls the differ from each other, which provides them with a different experience.

In my own opinion the weakest part of the game is the “cold calling” in the first stage and the restriction of one answer per player. That certainly needs addressing along with a couple of other things that could be improved on. The main change I would probably make is the theme. With a different theme the issues with the game would be a lot easier to correct.

All told I’m really happy with the result I got in a showdown that featured so many excellent designs. Deciding which three to award medals to was probably the most difficult part of the challenge, because every submission had something in them worth voting for.

I’m a bit pushed for time this week, but I will certainly provide feedback for the other entries. 22 is a lot to get through so they will probably be quick and short.

I like the idea of what's going on here. It seems like an interesting head to head battle. The biggest thing that stopped me from voting for this was the game end conditions. I didn't understand why the dice were added. I think it might take a while to get to 27 points. Maybe each round could simply have a winner and loser and then it is just a best of 5 rounds. I was also a little concerned that since you know half of the equation it might not be too hard to correctly prophecy, but I could be wrong on that. Playtesting would sort that out I'm sure.

I really like the title and the introduction, but I wasn't sold on the roll-off co-operative game. The theme might play better as a two player head-to-head conflict between the Sancti and the Malum.

I always like to hear responses and clarifications from the designers. Though, this one might have been a little long winded. I just found it funny that in such a long spiel, the only word that was abbreviated was definitely. I don't know why, but it made me laugh.
I look forward to having you in the next comp.

Well... the dice was added just for fun. I tried they had a little effect on the game, wanting a probability of 1/6=16.6%. In a binomial distribution the probability to end is about 34% on the 3rd round and 40% on the 5th. Maybe I must try with a probabilty of 10% or so... Idk. This just was ambiental to reproduce the effect of end of the days with no advice (like a thief in the night) and, at the same time, preventing the game was too long. In a first time I was searching for a numeric condition that stop the game with a 666 involved :p

27 is the quarter of 108, that is the sacred number of many asiatic religions that are based or have the wheel of karma as concept. So I said even a quarter stop the wheel on reference to budism (samsara being stopped by nirvana, or something like this). Why 27, why a quarter? Because I think this number fit for a non too long number of rounds... knowing that at maximum, per round, a player can score a amount of 4+3+2=9 points (at maximum, what is not the normal with a mechanic that let people with no resources play with no risk). 9x3=27... in 3 rounds, for a very fortunate or good player (I think is near impossible to do 9x3, no matter how good you are), the game ends. A way to evade any need to surrend if there is a big difference on score.

With a profecy you can win a human resource (believer) and, at the same time, lose the material resource on play (on the bid). The prophecy can work as a bluff too, or to neutralize the profecy of the first player (copying him, by example). I tried let some "good" probabilities on the game leaving one degree of freedom as minimum...this is why a round have 3 turns but resources and power cards are 4... so last turn isnt completely determined... at least not completely determined by definition. A tweak to add more freedom is to do that the value 1 beat the value 4 (something like a ouroboros) but I dont know exactly how this can work so I preferred simplicity and, anyway, I had only 500 words :p

#12 A short history

Theme is a bit light here, but that’s pretty par for the course. Going first seems to be a big advantage here to either take advantage of the 7th die or spoil someone else’s advantage. It looks hard to stop the first player from getting 2 cards down within the first two turns and they never seem to lose momentum after the start. I think there could be a fun back and forth game in here with slightly modified costs for having the cards up. Maybe I’m not thinking through the penalties for returning dice quite enough.

#1 On Earth as it is in Heaven

I worry that there’s not so much play as clear correct choices each round, especially after the first though I like that no one will start with the perfect ruler match on turn 1 (everyone needs to move at least 1 condition to support something other than peace.)

Peace is tough as written as you’d only ever be able to roll 1 die (and I’d expect the other options to be rolling 3 dice most times.)

Wouldn’t you need 9 conflict dice?

Use of ascending to mean lower the die result and descending to mean raising the die roll was confusing, but easily cleared up in the future.

#13 Battle between Good and Evil

The ability to pass instead of playing a card makes this a much more interesting game than it would have been otherwise. I don’t know that I love the first player staying first for the entire round; that seems to make a huge difference in how playable some hands are going to be. The theme is light, but I like the interaction between guardian angels and the possibility that fallen angels will be played.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh