Page: News.News201312210738AM - Last Modified : Sat, 21 Dec 13 - 1806 Visits

OK, here are the results. The selection has been very very hard. It has been dropped from 5 to 3 considering that I am also working on the wizardry legacy video game. IN 2013, I roughly followed the plan, I had a few ideas for other games that made me work on those game instead. I cannot prevent myself from having ideas for other games, but I think I should restrict them to writting them on a single page and don't devellop more the concepts.

The selection has been made according the to following criteria:

• User interest in the game. Using the number of stars as a rating
• Personal Interest in the game. Do I really like this game idea
• Mechanics completion level. How much do I still need to design? Is there still mechanic to find or everything is there.

The objective would be to release a game this year and at the start of 2015. With the selection I made, you'll see that at least 1 game might get released. So here is the selection, only 1 game passed from the old to the new list. I decided to select 1 heavy, 1 medium and 1 light game. Well will see how it goes and I might do the same in the following years.

1. Ratcraft: Lot of interest from users, and myself. All mechanics are there, but lot of design to do. In theory I should have a playable prototype with the temporary replacement combat system. But I somehow never had the chance to play the game. Since it has been 1 year since I last playtested, I might have the interest to play again.
2. Deep Space Colonisation: A light space conquest game which has the same complexity level than fallen kingdoms. That is one of the game that I got many ideas and made some development in 2013. All the mechanics seems there and the game is pretty innovative with it's hidden information. I need to do a more complete prototype, rewrite the rules and start playtesting.
3. Speculative Bubbles: This is a sort of remake a Stock Ticker by using cards instead of dice and with a few added twists like dept and speculative bubbles. My friend Simon with who I have been podcasting with might be interested to co-design this game with me. So this game might progress faster because if I get blocked he can help me out. The game is simple, and the mechanics I need seems all to be there. I guess I'll need to do some testing with copy of the original game. That is the game that I expect to get out this year.

Now consider that I am still moving in a new appartment, so that will take time and a the beginning of 2014, I should be working on my wizardry video game to change my mind. I would like to make a new version release for 2014.

Why the 2013 ideas were rejected

So let's explain a bit why the other project were rejected.

Spellcraft rise of the sorcerer: This game had many turn around. One day I wanted to exclude and another day I wanted to include it. The idea of using cards as the main components while not making it a only card based game seem to make the idea very interesting due to the flexibility and variability that cards can bring. But since since it's partially new, I currently don't have an idea of all the mechanics in the game even if some older mechanic could be transfered in hte new game. Second, I already had ratscraft as an heavy game, so I did not want to have 2 heavy games and I picked the game most likely to get completed.

Dracula's Castle OR Nightmare Hunter: Even if some of the character development mechanics seems nice, I still have no clue of how the map will look like. The map is a big issue here since it will influence a lot the game play. I might try to use a map more focused on the castle. The idea of a talisman like man seem to be a solution but I did not really like it. So this game demands much more exploration of mechanics and I might have to play must more adventure games for inspiration.

Pacific Storm: The main issue here is the design of the map. I have a nic hex pattern, but I need to find the right scale for gameplay and historical theme. Even if I do not want to make it a 100% historical accurate game, research is still necessary and I do not have the time for that right now, so I put the project on hold or now.

Spellcraft: Designable Card Game: The game made a lot of progress in the recent month. The biggest issue is that the dual spell/ monster use of cards seem to make the game convoluted and hard to analyse. I explored various other possibilities, but that would require additional test. I prefer to have more game design experience before releasing a LCG and this is why I set the game aside.

Other ideas that were in the race

I reviewed all my ideas in the list on this website and checked if some of those could have been used instead. Here is a list of the most important ones.

A few blasters in the snow: The battle for Hoth: I really like the idea but the mechanics does not seem to work. Seem it could work well as a single player game. Would have to do more exploration, but considering it's a licensed theme, it is not one of my priority.

The adventures of Rajo Lopez: I had new development ideas for this game where the ship movew around a board similar to monopoly and the crew member place the worker around the ship to face various challenge. Seem interesting, but too few has been designed so far to know how it is actually going to work.

Another 19th century train game: No new development has been made for this game, but even if not tested, the mechanics seems to be complete and puerto rico system looked awesome on this game.

Big Trouble in Japan: New development solved the issue of the map by using a system similar to dune express where all territories are easily accessible. Still, need more experience with deck building especially if I want combo and strategy.

Dragon Realm: I thought of making it a single dragon controlling game, but Dragon Clash already does that. So it somewhat killed the idea, might need to redesign the old one.

Drakian War and Erician the card game: I had new ideas for those games, like drakian war could use a deck building games which would solve many issues. But the biggest idea would be to merge both games together. I am still trying to see if it could still be possible.

Erician: With the new spotting mechanic to similare fog of war, this game seemed to be playable as a board game. I thought of using this game as my 4th active project, but even then, I think this game would be much better suited as a video game even if it could be entirely playtested as a board game, which is a good thing.

Nightshade: The idea to use a plot system like "Middle earth quest" is awesome for this game. Still, I though dracula's castle was easier to design. This is why last year I placed this game behind. But eventually, I could reuse the character development system I made for Dracula's castle and use the middle earch plot system and work on this game instead since the map issue is much less problematic here.

Pocket Fairy: That is another adventure game that could inherit fromt he dracula's castle character system. But I think the big problem with this game is that being as some sort of piece pack, how do you design and test multiple games. I'll have to do more research on how to develop piece packs.

Spellcraft Early wars: I made a quick prototype using old components for my other spellcraft game and using movement mechanics from 1812. THe playtest went OK, but it was not that awesome. Still for a small/micro game it was OK. I found it a bit bland and boring and I wanted to add a bit of magic to the game. The unit design was nice, but I think there is still a lot of development to work even if I am aiming for a micro game.

Wrath of th Dark Sorcerer OR Lord: Interesting ideas, but still not solidified. I recently continued to read the star wars bane trilogy, and I might be more interested in making it an aventure/influence game where the Master and the apprentice raise it power to control the galaxy. Could be a much more challenging single or 2 player game.

So this is it. I might sort out some ideas from the list. Still, sometimes even dead ideas could be reused later in another game so I am not too open to delete them. We'll see. So I hope you enjoy my choices, and strongly hope I could release a board game this year. If I ever get a working prototype, I'll post here and on BGDF and BGG for playtesters.

Enjoy and have fun!