[GDS] NOVEMBER 2013 "The End is Near" - Critiques

Thanks, really appreciate the feedback so far. I was worried I made it a bit too garbled in crushing it down to 500 words. In the process, I did lose one key concept: I see this as a storytelling game with the onus on the players to explain to each other why Cow links to Church (two cows getting married, cow has gas and it is a Sunday morning, dress the cow as a preacher... etc.)

I am sorry. I did not get, and still don´t get how this game works. It kind of sound like a fun idea, but I don´t understand the concept. I have read through it several times, but gets lost every time.

I will read it again if the designer posts a new edition of the game.

So basically there will be a card that has a result with multiple ways to get those results. You must play those cards from your hand to get the points (hits) from the outcome card?

There has to be a way to fit the Darwin Awards into this.

Unique idea, put me in mind of AFV & various TouTube videos of course.

But, because of that, the "death" end condition kinda took me aback. Thinking along the lines of AFV, you don't generally see people actually get greivously injured. But this is a card game, and if the artwork, etc is more cartoonish than photo-realistic, I guess that would be just fine.

The link and end conditions seem to be quite specific. It would be quite difficult to come up with an exact match to end the hand. Seems like if the Guess What cards were more card-class based rather than specific card based, there would be more possiblity for a match.
On re-reading just now with some info from earlier discussions today, I think I can see more clearly how this mechanic might still work out alright. Again, this is probably some confusion due to the rules length limitations.

It was not very clear how chaining would work between cards. What works and what cant.

It also seemed like the players are not really working towards an end, but just playing cards and talking about them until a win condition suddenly comes about. Sort of like a game of Quidditch, the points in a Whose Line Is It episode, or even the first 3.5 periods of an NBA Basketball game.

There is definitely room for improvement of this game, or possibly just more clarification of the rules. It sounds like there are some who are quite interested in what this could become, and it could infact become an interesting party game with the right group of people. For me personnally, I would have to pass. I am just not very interested in story telling type games.

The best part about friends is that you can have fun doing almost anything, including games like One Clip Wonder. Clearly the fun isn't in the simple chaining of cards, but the crazy combinations. If you develop this, it probably will be at the same crowd as Cards Against Humanity more than Apples to Apples - although a kids version with cat videos and uplifting messages about humanity people might sell well....to some.

The Housing Bubble: 4th Place

The Housing Bubble drew 4th place for me. It was one of the better games out there but as said for the last few games, I judged the games through elimination rounds, eliminating all the games that didn't really follow the criteria. The Housing Bubble just barely missed the Bronze. I want to iterate that this doesn't make this a bad game.

Now to the review. This game sounds great. The rules are clear for the most part and the game seems straight forward. It's sort of a push your luck kind of game where you want to buy houses in the early part of the game, sell some off later to be able to afford better homes, and then hopefully sell them all off before the bubble bursts. The mechanics for the game are great, they seem to work well and they fit the theme.

The only problem I had, and this is the only problem, was I didn't feel like the contest criteria was followed 100%. The way I read it is that players draw these cards and have a hand of them and play them. If the limit at which the housing bubble happens is known, then I felt like this had just a tad too much player control (yes I know there are more price increase cards but a player would know at the beginning of his turn if he was going to end the game and could plan on it). This took the game out of the running because I was looking for the best game that followed the criteria, BUT I think I'd enjoy this game far more than my Bronze pick! I know I'm weird! XD

Congrats on the win though, you have a great game on your hands!

The Housing Bubble (I gave them the bronze)
My personal scores didn’t make any sense so I won’t inflict them on you.
Notes:
The mechanics are well designed and balanced. I was biased against it because it makes me want to stomp around in circles yelling “You idiots!” at real world home buyers.

Comprehensibility: I couldn’t figure out the mechanic of how the luxury goods come into play. I assumed that 4 are laid out for all to see and refreshed when sold. This wasn’t a huge problem, but it does set up the winning conditions, which is important to make clear.

Playability: I can see why many people rated this one at the top of their list. The outrageous luxuries and enthusiastic suspension of disbelief in the inevitable will create a thrill or maybe an “Aaaaaauuuuugggggg!” towards the end of the game. This effect is really, really well done.

On the other hand, some people who were too close to the real world housing debacle might find this painful and not entertaining. I don’t think this game will start any fights at a party, but it might lead to uncomfortable silences and strained expressions.

Theme: This models the recent housing bubble very well, except for the part about everyone seeing the inevitable.

I do wish the purchase of luxury goods was worked into the theme more tightly - possibly the only way to purchase them would be through loans based on the difference between the standard value of the property and the inflated value? Add to this a rule that loans may be paid only at the beginning of a turn, before luxuries can be bought, so that loans must be held for at least one turn. This would force players to take more chances with the inflated price. In the real world a lot of people got in trouble through taking loans backed by imaginary property value.

Marketability: It looks like the components are simple and off the shelf except for the cards. I would think highly stylized, iconic graphics will help pull the players into the fantasy, and hiring a high level art director good enough to pull this off might be costly.

You may have to do some research to get truly insane luxury cards, which is what this game demands. Not just a car, but a diamond studded car. Not just a swimming pool, but a pool adapted from a Roman bath imported from an archeological dig in Italy.

This game would be a great learning tool, but it shouldn’t be marketed as such as that is dull, dull, dull. Of course, in time people will find the crash more entertaining. If you try to market this and fail don’t throw it out. Bring it back in 10 or 12 years as a nostalgia piece and it may do surprisingly well.

I guess I should have explained this part a bit better, though the game-design is not 100% finished.
Explanation: At any time players have 2 market-adjustment cards in hand. When the phase comes to playing those cards, the players must pick a card from the revealed market-cards. Then they either have to play this or one of the cards from hand. If they choose to play a card from hand, the picked card stays in hand. This way, I would say that the players have some control over the market, but eventually they will have to play a market card that is not "good for them"
Also I want to say that players don´t know during their round if the bubble will burst or not. In the buying/selling phase the players don´t know which cards, nor how many market-adjustment cards that will be played in the market-phase.

No, I did not mean for the money to be hidden. I would say the extra tension in the end is more should I risk a new loan to buy more houses now, should I risk to buy more luxury-items, or should I sell everything before the bubble bursts and I get stuck with a lot of unpaid loan?

Good suggestions. It might work in this concept.

Yes, d4+ the number of players. In a 4 player game this would be 5-8 cards per round. My thought was that players in clockwise order with alternating starting player chooses a card to buy. Not refreshed when sold. These cards gave points according to how expensive the luxury was, but also the combination of cards should matter. For instance: If you bought a lot of expensive cars, this would give more points than just buying random luxury.

Thank you!

This might feel different for people in US. I live in Norway. The bubble has not yet bursed. People have threatened us with this for several years. The prices are still rising. (well, maybe not the two-three couple of months)
But one day I guess........:-(

You are right about this part. My original idea was that players could take as much loan as they would like during the game and buy as many properties and luxury items as they would like, but this might not work so well because of the fact that the prices probably will rise throughout the game. So maybe better if the players can spend only their "profit" on the luxury-items. After all it is not a game about making the most money, but a game about making enough quick money every round to live a luxury-life until the bubble bursts. And then try to be the one to come better out of it than the rest of the players.
I need to find a good way to do this.

Thank you!

Yes, if I could find a way for the bidding to be the factor to alter the market it would be great. I will try this. Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot guys for the feedback. It´s been a great experience. I love this GDS thing. A bit hard to write everything in english, but very good practice.

OK, completely off the wall but relatd to the dice rolling direction: what if it was literally a bubble bursting?

Picturing a pump apparatus in the middle attached to a small balloon and everytime a market moves or total loans exceed a certain level you push the pump. Then eventually POP!

Yes it will raise the price of the game but you have to look also at the value of the game. If I add a component that adds $10 cost to the game, and it only adds $5 worth of enjoyment, find something else to use. If the component adds $30 to the cost of the game, but adds a $50 value of enjoyment to the game, go ahead and put it in. This has to be balanced of course with looking at who you're marketing to. The baloon very well might turn off more hard core gamers who will get snobby and shun shuch a "childish" game. I personally would love it, but you must take all these factors and more into account.

This game was at the top of my list, mostly due to what I saw it could become. I did think there was some clutter in the current rules though, and perhaps a few unclear points.

I really liked the whole stock-market aspect of the game, and look forward to a game which captures that excitement in a fun and interesting way. This game doesn't have to just be about the housing market though, but could instead include other types of investments just as well. I do like the use of districts to sort out which items raise/lower and how fast. But that could also be accomplished with various commodity types and classes. (Electronics, oil, ... top-of-the-line vs economy-class items, etc.)

I did not like the random d4 aspect to the game. It seemed kind of tacked on to an otherwise straight forward game. I think the randomization of the card decks would be enough randomness in a game like this.

Vacations are not really Luxury Items. After a vacation is done, you don't have anything permanent leftover to show for it. Perhaps instead a Personal Island, or a Yacht, or some such. However, I am not certain whether you would even need Luxury Items in this game. Final cash value of each player could be enough. Unless you want the Items to be another source of tension where player need to determine if they should lock some of their money into a Luxury Item (which then cant be sold), or to retain it as a liquid cash to be availabile for further investments, etc.

As others pointed out, the game-end condition did fall a bit flat as far as the competition rules went. It also seemed just a bit contrived. Perhaps some other end condition might fit in better, even if it does not retain the constraint from this competition.

This game may need quite a bit of playtesting and fiddling with values to make the game fun and to playout well. But that is what designing games is all about, and what each of us is here to do.

Best wishes with this, and congratulations on the win.

I think one of the reasons The Housing Bubble got so many votes is the simple, straightforward way the rules are written. By reading them you get a sense of the gameplay (it also helps we're all familiar with a lot of game mechanics). Although Dagge might feel a lot is left out (for instance, do the Market cards do ANYTHING other than increase or decrease the market?), the rules did what they needed to in the space given.

My questions

1. Why play so many Market cards if all it is doing is adjusting a single number, and players can potentially cancel out what they don't like with cards from their hands? I don't think there is a compelling enough reason in the market to really fight for how much it rises, since it's going up anyways.
2. What is the order of play when it comes to adjusting the market? Do players keep going around until everyone has played 1, or can you play again if you are replacing a card? That matters a lot if you get to play last. Then again, if the market is probably going up anyway, then it most likely doesn't matter.
3. Gameplay is simple, as you bid on properties. How you work this out can make or break this game. Will you be able to bid on more than one property at a time? How many? Is each property bid on by everyone and then you move on to the next, and so on? That could take a while and with no apparent difference between properties that affect gameplay I don't see bidding being interesting either.
4. The scoring at the end; which criteria is more important? Luxury points or Debt? It's okay if you use the same scale like this:

In this case, my brains just adds the Luxury Points and subtracts the debt to give a score and they all tie. But why not just say "Subtract Debt from Luxury Points?" unless they are on completely different scales.

Now I have to wonder which is more important, the Luxury, or the Debt.