Keepers and bleepers

So here's what happened.

In early 2016, a publisher that has previously shown interest in the game expressed interest in potentially licensing the game, but felt it needed a cycle of development.  The publisher sent it out to a developer, who felt that it needed a significant redesign, and wanted a design credit to undertake this effort.  The publisher agreed with the developer's assessment, but I decided to have a whack at the redesign myself.  This was made difficult by a lack of specificity from the publisher.  They wanted something different, but weren't sure and couldn't say exactly what they wanted.

2016 and 2017 were the result of this, and a flurry of frenetic design activity, as amply documented in this blog.  I tried a lot of different things, and came up with what I feel are some genuinely nice ideas and mechanics, and in addition "re-discovered" some things that we had previously done in v7 and before, that I think were worth preserving or reintroducing.  The problem is that it didn't all fit together, and after two years I was burning out and spinning my wheels.  Some of the pieces seemed right, but I couldn't make them fit together.

After six months away from the game, I wonder if maybe enough time has elapsed that I'm ready to jump back in and see if a fresh perspective and renewed energy can get this to completion (or at least, to the point where the systems are in place and it's just a matter of balancing).

Things that I like and that I think are keepers:

- Hubris.  This was the coolest new idea, because it works so well thematically.  Mechanically, it should in some ways mirror unrest in my other game, Sands of Time:  it's something you take on, usually voluntarily, as a way to get some benefit but it puts you at risk in the long run.

- Linear temple.  This is all the way back from v4, I believe, but at this point it's either this or a paragraph book.  The 2D temple crawl just has too many problems and needs too many rules.  A single temple, explored one card at a time, keeps the group all involved and engaged in the end game, and makes the action about how well we are prepared relative to each other.  There may be tweaks needed but the concept is correct.

- Time track.  A time track that represents your film's running time is thematically nice and makes a nice 'currency' that you can draw against.  It's a bit muddled that in the last few versions it also determined your score.  Probably need to get away from that.

- Adventure cards.  The last cycles have used more complex arrangements of adventure card effects, special effects, player mats, and special character roles.  I think the next version needs to go back to basics here and just have simple adventure cards, maybe with a twist.

- Shared semi-cooperative encounters.  Everyone likes the encounter cards, where you read a description of the scene you face and then some randomizers are used to resolve the encounter.  These are strictly better than the v7 method.  But too many of them drags things out.  So, shared encounters seem vital if this system is to be preserved.  Seven or eight max.

Maybe-keepers:

- Resolution cards not dice.  These have only seen a couple of run-outs and I think they basically work, in that they represent the "story-boarding" of the scene and are probably cheaper than dice as well.  Down side is a need for more decks, to reflect the different challenge categories.  So they're in the maybe category for now.

- Hubris challenge.  At the end of the game, face a final challenge to see whether you purge all your hubris.  Doing this with resolution cards hasn't been as much fun as it was with dice, and doing it simultaneously is efficient but isn't as much fun as watching each person attempt their hubris challenge while everyone else watches.  It might just be more fun to go one at a time, and the rest of the game's length will have to be built around this.


Bleepers:

- Player mats.  I think these are taking a leave of absence for now.  I like the thematic idea that you have a character mat that starts with some attributes, which you further populate with additional cards to flesh out more attributes.  But in practice this kind of asymmetry may not be something the game needs.  I'm not 100% sure but we'll see.

- Encounter penalties.  Previous versions had encounters be the way that you get information, but also they deal out penalties when the enemy catches you, thus heightening the suspense of the enemy arriving in your city.  Except, it's just one too many things that encounters can do.  I think encounters need to be about solution card lookups, and only that.


I think that this leaves us with a core set of ingredients, and the next post will talk about how to mix them together into something coherent.