One of these days, I'm going to make you (yes, you) some chickpea masala. You'll say, "Starkey, this is heckin delicious. Why have you been holding this out on me for so long?" And I'll say, "I tried to tell you!"
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Scott Starkey
@ScottStarkey@tabletop.social
mastodon 4.7.3+glitchI'm a #game designer, but I'm also a #magician / #mentalist, #Clojure / #Groovy / #JavaScript developer, and I speak #Esperanto.
This is my #gamedev & #Protospiel account.
My main account is @ScottStarkey@hoosier.social
Esperanto stuff at @Jekrac@esperanto.masto.host
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151 Following
8 Posts
Joined November 06, 2022
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Over the whole weekend I contributed 12.5 hours of my own time, and used 8.25 hours of playtester time, achieving Protospiel Karma.
#ProtospielKarma
Live today from #ProtospielChicago! If you're into #GameDesign, you will benefit yourself by the #Protospiel series of design conventions which are mostly clustered around the Midwest, but slowly spreading beyond that. I will attempt to give updates periodically about the games I play here, with permission of the designers.
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After that I played a short game idea by Richard Baltzell, Hurricane Debris. (Sorry, no photograph.) Basically, players circle around a table without looking, and toss cards at targets - trying to knock them down - or into a central box. I suggested the game be cooperative rather than competitive - after all, we're all part of the same storm!
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Finally, I finished up with a game of my own Vroom Zoom Boom. The game was over too fast, but I got more great advice from my playtesters.
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As has been the case this Protospiel, I played another Ian Winningham game to start things off. However, this game was scheduled just for me and anyone else who showed up.
Here is Favored by Gray Detrick and Ian Winningham. I've played this at previous Protospiels and really liked it. We were testing out a new series of cards.
It's a deck-builder in the spirit of Dominion, about building favor with 4 gods, and them granting you powers and points to win. My moving on a track and achieving the highest, you get usage of a special power, HOWEVER once you get too high, you are granted a one-time bonus and your track is reset to the bottom. This keeps the special powers moving around, and it's a great balancing mechanism. The game also has "culling the deck" as a free action at the end of a turn, and the culled cards accumulate over time to grant further powers.
This expansion also adds a military and empire track expansion. It works.
This sort of game is normally more complicated than I want to play. My brain can't completely grok all of the complexities, so sometimes I end up missing a step. Not only that, Grey and Ian have invented dozens of god powers to the game. This is one of those games that, once published, you'll be able to explore nearly forever. And even though I feel inadequate at this sort of mental-weight game, I can marvel at all of the metaphorical knobs and dials and levers of the game rules working together so nicely...
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... It reminds me of a well-oiled machine. Dominion is a good game, and they've taken it and pushed into lovely directions.
My notes on the game were mostly UX suggestions, to make things flow quicker/better. Because of the complexity, they need to be as user-friendly as possible with the UX. I also suggested they start undirected playtests, and get a sell-sheet together and start shopping this around to publishers. It's a heavyweight deck-builder, but it does that very, very well, and gives so much replayability with so few components.