New Game Design: You Design

[Ry Vor]

Imagine a game, say five players, on an Alamaze like map.  You pick your race from among five races, but everyone could be the same race if they wished, just with a different name.  Each has advantages ala Alamaze traits, but you have, say 10 points to customize your kingdom, where 1 point moves you one on a scale, and to move 2 in the same scale costs you 3 more points, to move 3 costs you 5 more points.   So, for example, you could, probably not wisely, go from magically disadvantaged as Giants, to advantaged and gain a secret capital, and perhaps an additional Giant brigade.  Or spend your points to start with 3 more Giant brigades and move an adept to Power 1.

No sea power, no complicated transfers, no high council, no ESO, no skeletons in the closet, no carry-over orders.  Basically, a simpler Alamaze under a different name. 

So say the base is Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Rangers and Giants. Each has the base strengths and weaknesses you would expect, but can mutate into something unexpected, or augment its strengths. Orcs, seen on the surface as weaker and less attractive might have 13 points to spend instead of 10. Keep that Alamaze Power 4 Wraith. There might be a game with five Elven kingdoms called by different names, etc.

Would this open it up to 1000 new players, or just irritate the players we have?

[Hawk_]

Imagine a game, say five players, on an Alamaze like map.  You pick your race from among five races, but everyone could be the same race if they wished, just with a different name.  Each has advantages ala Alamaze traits, but you have, say 10 points to customize your kingdom, where 1 point moves you one on a scale, and to move 2 in the same scale costs you 3 more points, to move 3 costs you 5 more points.   So, for example, you could, probably not wisely, go from magically disadvantaged as Giants, to advantaged and gain a secret capital, and perhaps an additional Giant brigade.  Or spend your points to start with 3 more Giant brigades and move an adept to Power 1.

No sea power, no complicated transfers, no high council, no ESO, no skeletons in the closet, no carry-over orders.  Basically, a simpler Alamaze under a different name. 

So say the base is Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Rangers and Giants.  Each has the base strengths and weaknesses you would expect, but can mutate into something unexpected, or augment its strengths.  Orcs, seen on the surface as weaker and less attractive might have 13 points to spend instead of 10.  Keep that Alamaze Power 4 Wraith.  There might be a game with five Elven kingdoms called by different names, etc.  

Would this open it up to 1000 new players, or just irritate the players we have?

I think it is a cool idea and sounds like a game I would like to play. 

I think to open it up to 1000 players it would have to have a true map interface that was integrated into the game software. 

Ideally it would be something people could play on their phones.  I think there is definetly a market for this type of game.  Probably would require free trials to get people started.

[Ry Vor]

Yes, ideally full GUI and ready button (turns advance when all players are ready with a maximum time to be ready).  So you could set up a game with four buddies and play it over a weekend or two.  A setup condition could be on Saturday no more than 30 minutes per turn for 6 turns, etc.  

Additional kingdoms could be added sequentially, like two every three months. 

There would have to be more thorough design thought but I don't think we are that far away from this if this is where we want to go, other than the GUI aspects, which I haven't discussed with Mike.

[IMPERIAL_TARK]

For me, a lot depends on what you mean by "simpler". If you mean smaller in scale but still lovingly nuanced and complex like the original game, then yes, I'm going to love it. But if you mean dumbed-down for the masses, then it will lose its appeal quickly. Of course, I'll play it many times when it first comes out to give it a fair try, but how much I stay with it vs. devoting more time to the original game will depend greatly on its fun and complexity.

But if this is meant to just hook more people in to the Alamaze pipeline with the goal of migrating them over to the full game (as opposed to just another variation for us already devoted to Alamaze), then do what you need to. I know there was a huge following for Axis and Allies on GameTableOnline before they shut down about a year ago, so something of that complexity which handled 5 players can fill a niche.

I would also consider having the ability to make it a 2-player game, where each player controlled 3 kingdoms as being even more palatable to me because now I just need to find one other player. Or you could have two stronger kingdoms against three weaker kingdoms (like A&A). So in essence, allow for a game to be anywhere between 2-6 players (and perhaps your solo version against the computer as a completely free game so they can learn the basics).

[Ry Vor]

Good ideas.  We probably do need to have the ability to offer a 2 - 6 player game.  A tutorial solo as well.  We had that for Centurion in Fall of Rome and most would be surprised how the AI could be effective without being a major development area.

I'd like to find an icon artist: the one I had for Fall of Rome has gone absent.  And "real" artists like Michael Komarck and Ryan Barger who did our king portraits and then now have become famous (D&D covers, MTG cards, etc) do not want to work on icons such as we would have for groups and characters.  I think to attract a broader audience, we have to have the map auto-update.

Generally, yes, we would want to use the Alamaze design just slimmed down and eliminate the most complex, confusing or superfluous (like High Council) parts to make it more accessible to new players.  And yes, we would hope they would migrate to the full Alamaze engine at some point.  Alamaze is my baby, so I'm not looking to ditch it, I just need to find ways to attract players to it, and things like Google ads are not very effective and print or online ads are expensive and also ineffective. I still don't really know how many players are out there playing the other PBM games.

I probably missed my window for the board game design offer, but the sketching I did had me thinking of simpler designs, like trying to have 10 pages of rules instead of 100. That expression stayed with me about a design is complete when there is nothing left to eliminate, rather than what there is to add.

Just to quell any misgivings: we will still have some adjustments to The Choosing, now likely implemented the end of January instead of the beginning, and then a new release with two new maps, likely one with a large central sea and another with no seas.  And with stars aligned, then do this game.

[Avantar]

I would rather see a Human game of this nature. Every Kingdom has the exact same resources but allow points for customization.

[Ry Vor]

I would rather see a Human game of this nature. Every Kingdom has the exact same resources but allow points for customization.

The most common criticism I got for Fall of Rome (did win Origins Game of the Year) was the perception that the kingdoms were similar, and the lack of magic beyond artifacts and the High Priestess.

This game will be more intimate with 5 players the norm, so players could agree to all choose Elves or Orcs, and then do the customization to differentiate themselves, without requiring that in the design.