Taking a step back, here's a quick overview of how v10 of the game, the latest version, works.
Lost Adventures is an Indiana Jones-themed relic hunt, and like a good Indiana Jones movie, the action is divided into two principal phases. In the first, the players traipse around the globe, trying to gain information about the whereabouts of a lost artifact, which is hidden in a lost temple somewhere. In the second, the players discover and enter the temple, and try to be the first to traverse its twists and turns (and traps) to locate the lost artifact in the temple.
Along the way, the players will be harried by the Enemy, who seek the artifact for their own nefarious purposes. In the first phase, as players travel around the board, Enemy Operatives (pawns) will chase them from city to city, disrupting the players' ability to acquire information. Inside the temple, the Operatives race the players to the artifact, or try to steal it from the players if possible. The enemy's overall progress is measured on a track, and when it reaches the end, the game ends and all players lose.
The main "innovation" in the game is its information system. Simply put, the game "knows" what city the temple is in, and it "knows" where in the temple the artifact is hidden. There are three solution categories that contain hidden solution information, and each has a corresponding deck of solution cards, one of which is chosen from each category at the start of the game. There are three levels of clues for each, and players gain access to these by visiting "theme cards", representing people and items that provide information. So, for example, you go see Henry Jones if you want information about the temple's traps; you seek the Knight's Shield if you want to know where to find the temple, etc.
To access a theme card, you have to go to the city it resides in and face an Encounter card, which includes a challenge and, possibly, moves an enemy Operative to the city as well. If you fail the challenge, the Operative gets to use his special ability, but if you pass you get to interview the theme card, which consists of checking off boxes on your notepad. Every 3 boxes you check in a category unlocks the next level of clue in that category.
The turn mechanic is simple and clean. You resupply (draw action cards), take up to 4 actions, and then draw event chips from a cup and resolve them. This turn structure persists across both phases, but the details of the available actions change a bit inside or outside the temple.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Re-purposing the idea about visual encounters
The idea I previously discussed about having encounters work "visually" (ie, the illustration shows a scene, and you pick a "response" -- the category you think will enable you to pass the challenge based on the illustration) didn't make a big splash with a certain influential playtester, and I think the most recent version will work fine with the simpler approach to challenges that we settled on. (The game is currently with that influential playtester, and we'll see what feedback his sessions produce).
However, in brainstorming this week, I had a thought for a micro-game concept with a Sherlock Holmes theme that could use this idea in a slightly different way. There would be three "decks" of cards (~4 cards in each), which show illustrations of three aspects of a crime -- e.g. the victim, the scene, and some locale that is in some way connected with the crime. To set up the game, you'd select one card from each deck. There are 8 "suspect" cards, and the game consists of examining the illustrations on the three "scene" cards, and deducing which of the suspects is responsible for the crime, what was his/her motive, and what weapon was used. This is done by identifying a common visual element that the three cards share, and connecting it to some aspect of one of the suspects. For example, maybe the three "scene" cards show fingerprints of soot, and upon examining one of the suspect cards, you see that he has soot on his hands, pinpointing him as the culprit.
The trick is that there's one and only common element for any three cards, so there's always a unique solution. And, the solution wouldn't always have to be as direct as having the same element on all three cards; there could be more difficult cases, perhaps, e.g. one card shows a train ticket, another shows a train schedule, and a third shows the train station, and you have to infer that these are all connected in a single chain.
To aid the investigation, something like "the interrogator" from this game would be used: it would be a "sleeve" (really two cards connected at their bottom edge), with an image of a magnifying glass on the top card with a hole in it; you place the magnifying glass over the item you want to examine, close the back card to make a "sandwich", then flip the whole thing over, and, through a hole in the back card of the sleeve, you get to read some text from the scene card describing in more detail what you see; e.g. it tells you the fingerprint that you're examining is made of soot, possibly suggesting the "chimney sweep" might be the suspect to focus on.
The game wouldn't need many rules, and probably would be reasonably quick to play, depending on the difficulty of the case.
Another idea that springboards off of this could be an actual Indy-themed microgame that's sort of a temple run, with the cards depicting obstacles in a lost temple. Maybe there are different pieces of equipment you can carry or acquire -- a pistol, a rope, a whip, etc -- and each has a sleeve. To attempt to solve a card, you select the equipment you want to use, take the corresponding sleeve, place the opening over the element on the card you want to target, then flip the whole thing over and the card tells you what happens. For example, targeting the sinister street tough with the pistol may work better than with the whip, whereas trying to cross the chasm by targeting the low-hanging branch with your whip will work better than the pistol. (And based on the construction of the sleeves, you could target the same feature with different cards and each can have a different effect).
I think microgames built around this visual mechanism may make more sense than trying to include them as an element of a bigger, more complex game. I think the latter would be easier for a non-artist like me to develop than the former, since the Holmes game depends so heavily on the artwork on the cards, and on the player being able to scrutinize it to solve the mystery. But I think that both could provide fun and unique gameplay experiences.
However, in brainstorming this week, I had a thought for a micro-game concept with a Sherlock Holmes theme that could use this idea in a slightly different way. There would be three "decks" of cards (~4 cards in each), which show illustrations of three aspects of a crime -- e.g. the victim, the scene, and some locale that is in some way connected with the crime. To set up the game, you'd select one card from each deck. There are 8 "suspect" cards, and the game consists of examining the illustrations on the three "scene" cards, and deducing which of the suspects is responsible for the crime, what was his/her motive, and what weapon was used. This is done by identifying a common visual element that the three cards share, and connecting it to some aspect of one of the suspects. For example, maybe the three "scene" cards show fingerprints of soot, and upon examining one of the suspect cards, you see that he has soot on his hands, pinpointing him as the culprit.
The trick is that there's one and only common element for any three cards, so there's always a unique solution. And, the solution wouldn't always have to be as direct as having the same element on all three cards; there could be more difficult cases, perhaps, e.g. one card shows a train ticket, another shows a train schedule, and a third shows the train station, and you have to infer that these are all connected in a single chain.
To aid the investigation, something like "the interrogator" from this game would be used: it would be a "sleeve" (really two cards connected at their bottom edge), with an image of a magnifying glass on the top card with a hole in it; you place the magnifying glass over the item you want to examine, close the back card to make a "sandwich", then flip the whole thing over, and, through a hole in the back card of the sleeve, you get to read some text from the scene card describing in more detail what you see; e.g. it tells you the fingerprint that you're examining is made of soot, possibly suggesting the "chimney sweep" might be the suspect to focus on.
The game wouldn't need many rules, and probably would be reasonably quick to play, depending on the difficulty of the case.
Another idea that springboards off of this could be an actual Indy-themed microgame that's sort of a temple run, with the cards depicting obstacles in a lost temple. Maybe there are different pieces of equipment you can carry or acquire -- a pistol, a rope, a whip, etc -- and each has a sleeve. To attempt to solve a card, you select the equipment you want to use, take the corresponding sleeve, place the opening over the element on the card you want to target, then flip the whole thing over and the card tells you what happens. For example, targeting the sinister street tough with the pistol may work better than with the whip, whereas trying to cross the chasm by targeting the low-hanging branch with your whip will work better than the pistol. (And based on the construction of the sleeves, you could target the same feature with different cards and each can have a different effect).
I think microgames built around this visual mechanism may make more sense than trying to include them as an element of a bigger, more complex game. I think the latter would be easier for a non-artist like me to develop than the former, since the Holmes game depends so heavily on the artwork on the cards, and on the player being able to scrutinize it to solve the mystery. But I think that both could provide fun and unique gameplay experiences.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Ongoing progress
Just ran a 1p solo playtest. I was able to finish the game, including setup and put-away, in 45 minutes total. I still think that 100 minutes for the 4p game is pretty realistic. A few observations:
First, in the last couple of sessions, the temple has been a bit too easy, because the grail room happened to be in very close proximity to a font room. I think that either the rooms all need to have the same back-printing, or the temple setup needs to be more scripted so feature rooms are further apart, or there need to be 5-6 features instead of 8, or some combination of these. It's just a bit too easy to get lucky -- in this game, the player had good temple location and true grail knowledge, and no features knowledge, but the 2nd feature he tested was the grail and the third (right next door) was the font. And of course, the grail he picked on a 50-50 shot was the true grail! It's just more exciting when it's a bit more of a nailbiter.
The enemy progress track doesn't quite get all the way down in the 1p and 2p games, so it may be necessary to shorten that track a bit for those player counts, which is easy enough.
There still isn't quite as much globe-hopping as I'd like; it's usually easiest to just visit cities more or less in order. The removal of the "relics" from the game, and the mini-race element they brought, is probably most to blame for this. To be sure, the possibility of cards disappearing due to the action of operatives creates some urgency that motivates movement, but still, it's rare that you revisit a city you've previously visited, and it's rare you go screaming across the globe to get to a theme card ASAP, because chances are it will still be there by the time you get there.
It may be advantageous to split "receive a reward" and "visit a theme card"; maybe receiving a reward can simply be an action unto itself, so it still has a cost.
The enemy operatives, who go around removing stuff from the board, don't exactly work in the 1p game, because they're always chasing the players around, so chances are they removed a reward token or theme card that you've already used. Not sure how to make them move ahead of you, but it may just be that we need to add a reason for you to want to go back to visit a theme card a second time.
One simple way would be this: most theme cards give you bonus check marks if you discard the correct Item card, but if you don't have it, you can't get the check marks. If this changed to "the bonus check marks are only available the SECOND time you visit the card, but you don't have to pass a challenge when you do it", then this would give you a reason to move around more, particularly if you're limited to only carrying one item card at a time. I don't really like this rule, it's kind of fiddly and annoying. But something like it might be a good idea.
Another mechanism we can use is Event cards; these can be thematic, and they don't add extra rules. What triggers an event? Probably drawing an "event chip" from the cup, or maybe certain spaces on the progress track. Maybe the events just move the operatives around a bit to shake things up, but maybe other things can happen as well, like moving theme cards around, although it's a short enough game that you don't want the route planning to become too chaotic.
First, in the last couple of sessions, the temple has been a bit too easy, because the grail room happened to be in very close proximity to a font room. I think that either the rooms all need to have the same back-printing, or the temple setup needs to be more scripted so feature rooms are further apart, or there need to be 5-6 features instead of 8, or some combination of these. It's just a bit too easy to get lucky -- in this game, the player had good temple location and true grail knowledge, and no features knowledge, but the 2nd feature he tested was the grail and the third (right next door) was the font. And of course, the grail he picked on a 50-50 shot was the true grail! It's just more exciting when it's a bit more of a nailbiter.
The enemy progress track doesn't quite get all the way down in the 1p and 2p games, so it may be necessary to shorten that track a bit for those player counts, which is easy enough.
There still isn't quite as much globe-hopping as I'd like; it's usually easiest to just visit cities more or less in order. The removal of the "relics" from the game, and the mini-race element they brought, is probably most to blame for this. To be sure, the possibility of cards disappearing due to the action of operatives creates some urgency that motivates movement, but still, it's rare that you revisit a city you've previously visited, and it's rare you go screaming across the globe to get to a theme card ASAP, because chances are it will still be there by the time you get there.
It may be advantageous to split "receive a reward" and "visit a theme card"; maybe receiving a reward can simply be an action unto itself, so it still has a cost.
The enemy operatives, who go around removing stuff from the board, don't exactly work in the 1p game, because they're always chasing the players around, so chances are they removed a reward token or theme card that you've already used. Not sure how to make them move ahead of you, but it may just be that we need to add a reason for you to want to go back to visit a theme card a second time.
One simple way would be this: most theme cards give you bonus check marks if you discard the correct Item card, but if you don't have it, you can't get the check marks. If this changed to "the bonus check marks are only available the SECOND time you visit the card, but you don't have to pass a challenge when you do it", then this would give you a reason to move around more, particularly if you're limited to only carrying one item card at a time. I don't really like this rule, it's kind of fiddly and annoying. But something like it might be a good idea.
Another mechanism we can use is Event cards; these can be thematic, and they don't add extra rules. What triggers an event? Probably drawing an "event chip" from the cup, or maybe certain spaces on the progress track. Maybe the events just move the operatives around a bit to shake things up, but maybe other things can happen as well, like moving theme cards around, although it's a short enough game that you don't want the route planning to become too chaotic.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Failing a challenge -- what happens?
What happens when a player fails a challenge?
Outside the temple, the solution is simple: the player loses one
white chip (ie, one action), and if an enemy operative is active in that
city, the operative executes its power (problem alert: if there are
multiple operatives in the city, do they ALL execute their powers?
Maybe it's just "the leftmost in the row" of operative cards, since he's
the "senior" operative).
Inside the temple, to keep the action brisk, you face challenges at
the end of your turn, if you draw a "trap" chip from the cup (which are
added to the cup when you pass through a room having a "trap" icon).
So you can't lose a white chip -- you have already spent all of those.
And you can't just lose some adventure cards, since you don't have any,
or else you'd have spent them on the challenge.
Possible answers could
include:
- Lose an artifact (if you're carrying one)
- Return to the entrance
- Lose a turn
Sending you back to the entrance isn't always punitive, and if it
doesn't entail loss of the artifact, it can actually be helpful -- it
gets you away from all of the other player and operative pawns that may
have been hounding you.
Lose a turn may be too punitive, but it's thematically
appropriate. The only problem is, what if everyone fails a challenge?
Then everyone loses a turn and there's no net effect. And especially in
a 1p game, who cares about missing a turn? So a better punishment may
be "draw no white chips during the resupply phase next turn". That way
the enemy clock continues ticking, but you can still spend white chips
off of your item cards, so you may still be able to take a turn, albeit
an abbreviated one, and at a cost (my thought was that white chips on
item cards are worth VP at game end).
A related question that came up has been, what do you do when a
"noise" chip is drawn? I have it that ALL enemy pawns move one space
closer to you, and (i) any pawns in a room with a feature, instead of
moving, test it for the grail room or a font, and (ii) any pawn in the
same room as you steals whatever you're carrying. In practice, (ii) was
too brutal, so I changed it to "you must pay a certain number of fist
icons to avoid having something stolen", and if you can't, or won't, the
enemy steals an artifact, or if you don't have one, an item, or if you
don't have one, an ally card. Then that enemy carries the artifact
around and you can initiate a fist-icon challenge against the enemy to
take it back (or anyone else can).
It might also work better if it's that the first chip drawn moves
the closest enemy (you generated a little noise), second "noise" chip
moves the next-closest enemy (you generated a lot of noise), and so on;
maybe it's cumulative, so second chip moves closest AND next-closest,
etc.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
It works! Now for the balancing...
Solo playtesting of the changes suggested in the previous post shows
promise for the new system. Without the cubes, the game is easier to
set up and there are practically no fiddly things that you need to
remember to do, which will make the game easier to teach, learn, and
play. But to really evaluate its effectiveness, it needs to be well-balanced. To illustrate what a potentially daunting task this is, here
are all of the different variables that can be independently adjusted:
- Number of cards drawn at start of turn
- Reduction in cards drawn if operatives present?
- # of spaces to advance progress track for the two operatives that have this power
- If an operative is required to execute his power but can't, advance progress track?
- How much to advance progress if you read a clue in a city with an operative?
- If you pass an encounter, do you get the reward tile AND the theme card visit, or just one or the other?
- Can you draw a card as an action?
- How many fists must you pay to deactivate an operative?
- Must you discard an item card to receive bonus check marks?
But in practice, it's not so bleak, because the range of possible values for each of these is somewhat limited.
There are essentially two things we want to control for. The first is that players can accumulate check marks at an acceptable rate; my goal is something like 7-8 turns per player outside the temple. And the second is simply that the enemy track doesn't reach its end before the players have enough time to execute those 7-8 turns.
So, things like "# of cards drawn" and "how many rewards per encounter" affect how efficiently the players can acquire check marks (assuming a certain range of difficulties for the challenges). And the answer seems to be that getting 3 cards per turn, less one for each operative in the city, and getting both a reward and a theme card visit from passing a challenge, get players to a high level of information, but not completely perfect information, within 7 turns each.
Then it's just a matter of tweaking the functionality of the operatives, and the length of the track overall, to ensure that those 7 turns occupy the full span of the progress track. What's nice is that the operatives and their various powers, though simple, DO have the effect that v7 had, where the board is becoming a more difficult place late in the game, and you're eager to enter the temple, because your flexibility outside the temple is diminishing. But it isn't that challenges become more difficult, but rather that rewards become less generous (because many cities have lost either their reward token or theme card), and enemy operatives are more plentiful (so getting clues will be more likely to lead to movement on the progress track). I want to test this a few more times to confirm balance, but I'm close to being ready to call it successful from a desing standpoint, and then it's just a matter of tweaking. And of course the temple phase still needs to be calibrated with a similar process, but I'm optimistic there because it worked so well at Spielbany. The player who found the grail and font did so in about 4-5 turns, which is just about right.
Unrelated to this, I had a thought that probably doesn't really work, but I was mostly interested to see that it could work. We played the other day that when the group enters the temple we wipe the board clean, remove it, and lay out the temple in its place. But if instead the temple is built on the board, then there's room for a 5x5 grid of playing cards. AND, it could work out that the entrance to the temple could be placed on the city that contains the temple, meaning that the entrance to the temple is in a different location relative to the rest of the temple every time. For example, if it's in Cairo that's room (4,1), whereas in Constantinople it's (3,3). I tried it out, and sure enough, every possible point on the grid has exactly one (or zero) cities, with the exception of Odessa/Bucharest. In practice it's probably too swingy to let the entrance be in such different parts of the temple. I mostly liked the idea because it would't force you to clear the whole table to make room for the temple (if you have an average sized table), and woud feel give the location at least some influence over the temple phase.
- Number of cards drawn at start of turn
- Reduction in cards drawn if operatives present?
- # of spaces to advance progress track for the two operatives that have this power
- If an operative is required to execute his power but can't, advance progress track?
- How much to advance progress if you read a clue in a city with an operative?
- If you pass an encounter, do you get the reward tile AND the theme card visit, or just one or the other?
- Can you draw a card as an action?
- How many fists must you pay to deactivate an operative?
- Must you discard an item card to receive bonus check marks?
But in practice, it's not so bleak, because the range of possible values for each of these is somewhat limited.
There are essentially two things we want to control for. The first is that players can accumulate check marks at an acceptable rate; my goal is something like 7-8 turns per player outside the temple. And the second is simply that the enemy track doesn't reach its end before the players have enough time to execute those 7-8 turns.
So, things like "# of cards drawn" and "how many rewards per encounter" affect how efficiently the players can acquire check marks (assuming a certain range of difficulties for the challenges). And the answer seems to be that getting 3 cards per turn, less one for each operative in the city, and getting both a reward and a theme card visit from passing a challenge, get players to a high level of information, but not completely perfect information, within 7 turns each.
Then it's just a matter of tweaking the functionality of the operatives, and the length of the track overall, to ensure that those 7 turns occupy the full span of the progress track. What's nice is that the operatives and their various powers, though simple, DO have the effect that v7 had, where the board is becoming a more difficult place late in the game, and you're eager to enter the temple, because your flexibility outside the temple is diminishing. But it isn't that challenges become more difficult, but rather that rewards become less generous (because many cities have lost either their reward token or theme card), and enemy operatives are more plentiful (so getting clues will be more likely to lead to movement on the progress track). I want to test this a few more times to confirm balance, but I'm close to being ready to call it successful from a desing standpoint, and then it's just a matter of tweaking. And of course the temple phase still needs to be calibrated with a similar process, but I'm optimistic there because it worked so well at Spielbany. The player who found the grail and font did so in about 4-5 turns, which is just about right.
Unrelated to this, I had a thought that probably doesn't really work, but I was mostly interested to see that it could work. We played the other day that when the group enters the temple we wipe the board clean, remove it, and lay out the temple in its place. But if instead the temple is built on the board, then there's room for a 5x5 grid of playing cards. AND, it could work out that the entrance to the temple could be placed on the city that contains the temple, meaning that the entrance to the temple is in a different location relative to the rest of the temple every time. For example, if it's in Cairo that's room (4,1), whereas in Constantinople it's (3,3). I tried it out, and sure enough, every possible point on the grid has exactly one (or zero) cities, with the exception of Odessa/Bucharest. In practice it's probably too swingy to let the entrance be in such different parts of the temple. I mostly liked the idea because it would't force you to clear the whole table to make room for the temple (if you have an average sized table), and woud feel give the location at least some influence over the temple phase.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Possible further simplifications and removing enemy cubes (?)
I think I have a semi-coherent set of changes that further reduces
complexity from the playtest version and follows through on the removal
of the cubes in favor of the operatives.
First, no more sub-locations. Each encounter deck has different
illustrations, but the cards are functionally identical within each
deck. Instead, there are 12 "reward tokens" -- 2 for each solution
category, 3 "allies", and 3 "items". One is randomly placed in each
city. Additionally, the 12 theme cards are randomly placed in cities,
with each card indicated a type of city in which it can be placed. When
you pass an encounter, you get to either receive the reward from that
city's "reward token", OR visit the theme card in that city (or maybe
it's both).
When you face an encounter, everyone gets to look at the card, but
there's no Where's Waldo aspect, there are just icons, and here's what
they do:
- Phobia: Active player faces the challenge at +2 difficulty.
- Item: Anyone with that same item card gets a white token on the card.
- Operative: Move that operative to the current player's city, IF the operative is activated.
No more enemy cubes; instead, the progress track is divided into 5
sections; at the end of the turn, the number of chips you pull from the
cup is based on the section of the track the marker is on. (Chips
either advance the progress track or let an operative execute his
power).
There are several marked spaces on the progress track, at which
something happens. One is "activate an operative" -- flip over the card
from the card row. Another is "enemy attempts to dig for the temple";
but not sure where. Maybe another is "remove captured theme cards from
the board" -- e.g. if the Grail Diary has previously been captured, on
this space it has been burned.
So going back to the encounter cards, when you see an operative,
if that operative is activated but not yet on the board, you pull him
onto the board now, to your city, and you put his chip into the cup. If
his chip gets pulled from the cup, or if you fail a challenge in the
city he occupies, the special power indicated on his card is executed.
When you are in a city containing an operative, something happens; maybe
it's (a) you add a black chip or (b) if you visit a theme card or get
to read a clue, the enemy progress advances by 1. Or maybe it's both of
those. And maybe, as before, you can initiate a fight challenge
against the operative to knock him off the board (but he never
deactivates once activated?)
The operative powers include "advance enemy progress by 3",
"capture a theme card and bring it to the nearest stronghold", "remove
the reward chip from the city". Other possibilities include "move the
PLAYER to the nearest stronghold", "deactivate a theme card's 'bonus
knowledge'" (but this one may be too fiddly).
There are a few nice things that this does. First, it
keeps the operatives moving around, keeps them showing up at a somewhat
unpredictable but basically controlled rate, and most importantly, gives
a completely scripted way for bad things to happen to the players,
without the players needing to remember or police any special rules.
The bad stuff that happens is /entirely/ contained on the operative
cards, and the occasions on which the operatives get to execute those
powers are fully specified; there's nothing to remember. So it's a big
win in terms of reducing the number of rules the players must
internalize to be able to play. The removal of the sub-location system
(which I liked) also helps with this. Now, you face an encounter, and
you either get a reward or get to visit a theme card. (If you want to
do both, simply face another encounter). And if there's an operative
there, do this if you pass, do this if you fail.
I really, really liked the system where the operatives are
connected to encounter outcomes -- ie if you pass/fail an encounter that
gives reward X, and the operative that matches X is active, then that
operative gets to do something. But even with me not playing and simply
policing the game's bureaucracy, we forgot to do this constantly. I
think it's just too hard to remember, and it's highly preferrable if
it's simply that the operative gets to do something if he's in your
city, otherwise don't worry about it.
The other thing that's nice is that it should still organically
create "convergence" at certain locations. A city that contains the
more important theme cards is likely to be visited more by the players,
which is likely to result in more operatives being drawn there, which
makes it more likely that, e.g., that theme card will be kidnapped or
the enemy progress will advance. Maybe if a city has multiple
operatives in it, those operatives dig for the temple there?
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Spielbany session recap
Saturday's session at Spielbany went reasonably well. Four players, three of whom were completely new to the game, were able to understand the rules, acquire information, enter the temple and find the artifact before the enemy track ran out. Unfortunately, the game took quite a long time, and I had to give out some free check marks several times to speed the game up, but I know why that happened and will come back to it. First, the positive notes:
- The temple works pretty well. The turns are quick and you can move through the temple quickly, but it's big enough that there's some time required to explore. And the rooms having mostly three exits each means that you can get almost anywhere, but the route you have to take may be slightly more roundabout than you had hoped. And of course, the temple's enabling "technology"...
- ... The chips-in-the-cup system is very successful. It keeps the turns inside the temple short, and allows for a range of possible bad things to happen randomly, but in a mostly-predictable way, and all within the same framework. This prevents needing a different "trigger" for every bad thing.
- The enemy operatives system worked well as a way to let the enemy's presence grow, and to give players something concrete to struggle against.
There were a few things that didn't work due to balance, but that should be easy to adjust.
- The operatives were a little too easy to de-activate. The rule is that if anyone sees an operative on someone's encounter card, they can fight that operative, (difficulty = number of operatives) and deactivate it. This happened too frequently so by the time they entered the temple, all operatives were deactivated.
- Check marks were too hard to get. Unfortunately, this really smothered the game, but at its core it's a simple problem: most of the theme cards give 1-3 check marks, PLUS some "bonus" check marks, if you discard a specific item card. In practice, although players did acquire some item cards, only once did a player have the right item card to discard when visiting a theme card that called for it. The solution is probably as simple as either letting you discard ANY item to get the bonus check marks, or to make item cards easier to get.
And, there were a few things that players felt need to be adjusted.
- The enemy operatives should do something bad to the player in the temple when they "catch you".
- The theme cards should start on the board, instead of being pulled onto the board after successfully passing an encounter. But they should also be able to move around, or perhaps be moved around by the enemy.
- The need to go to a specific sub-location to visit a theme card was somewhat confusing, but would perhaps be easier if the theme cards all start on the board.
- The idea of a "where's Waldo" mini-game may not fit here; maybe, just make the actionable elements overt on the cards.
- The cube system may be superfluous.
It's this last point that I'd like to consider more fully. I wrote in a previous post about how the intent with the current system is that the cubes represent the enemy's reach on the board, with the operatives being a shadowy and gathering menace. But it's possible that the game could be simpler with a single enemy system, instead of two interlocking enemy systems. The argument in favor of this simplification would be that the functions that the cubes perform could be achieved another way, and that the cubes add fiddliness.
The rules for how cubes are added definitely due suggest some complexity: You add a cube to a city (a) when you arrive there, (b) when you add a theme card to the city, or (c) when you read a clue in a city. The number of cubes in the city determines the number of chips you pull out of the cup, and when a city reaches 5 cubes, you (i) replace the cubes with a big cube (locking the city at 5 cubes), and (ii) activate a new operative, and (iii) henceforth, whenever you're required to add cubes to the city you instead add black chips to the cup.
That's not an absurd number of rules to remember, and players didn't have a big problem keeping it straight, but it is a lot of bureaucracy to patrol, and the functions the cubes perform, activating operatives and controlling the number of chips pulled, can be achieved in different, simpler ways. For example, the number of chips pulled could simply be given by the position on the progress track. It could be split into five sections; in the first section you pull one chip per turn, in the second two, and so on. This could persist through the temple as well. This is not as variable as the current system but it's not obviously worse, and it's certainly simpler. And something similar could trigger the operatives being placed on the board.
In this scheme, the operatives are the enemy's entire presence on the board, both inside and outside the temple. That is, as the previous post discussed, more symmetric. And it could make the theme more concrete: when Operative X is in Cairo, he may be able to capture Sallah; when he's in Ankarra, he may be able to dig for the temple there. Connecting specific locations to the enemy's actions makes more sense if it's a specific "person" that's executing the actions. But it may also be more attractive from a playability standpoint. The cubes don't exactly act as a deterrent to actions -- if you need to visit Alexandretta to get the Grail Diary, you're going to go whether there are 3 cubes there or 5 or 0. But if there's an operative there, you may hasten your trip there (if you're afraid of the theme card being kidnapped) or delay it (if you're worried the operative will cause you some harm, whatever that might be). These considerations come more easily to the forefront of your mind if the operative is a pawn on the board, and the powers they possess may be easier to incorporate into your plans if you see explicitly where it can be executed.
I'd like to think more about this possibility; it's a bit of a departure but it's not completely different. It's simply a way to execute some of the same functionality we've always had, but in a different way. And most of the other changes are minor and will be easy enough to try.
I doubt we'll play the game again at today's Spielbany, but hopefully I'll get a chance to solo test some options for these systems soon, and will report back on how they go!
- The temple works pretty well. The turns are quick and you can move through the temple quickly, but it's big enough that there's some time required to explore. And the rooms having mostly three exits each means that you can get almost anywhere, but the route you have to take may be slightly more roundabout than you had hoped. And of course, the temple's enabling "technology"...
- ... The chips-in-the-cup system is very successful. It keeps the turns inside the temple short, and allows for a range of possible bad things to happen randomly, but in a mostly-predictable way, and all within the same framework. This prevents needing a different "trigger" for every bad thing.
- The enemy operatives system worked well as a way to let the enemy's presence grow, and to give players something concrete to struggle against.
There were a few things that didn't work due to balance, but that should be easy to adjust.
- The operatives were a little too easy to de-activate. The rule is that if anyone sees an operative on someone's encounter card, they can fight that operative, (difficulty = number of operatives) and deactivate it. This happened too frequently so by the time they entered the temple, all operatives were deactivated.
- Check marks were too hard to get. Unfortunately, this really smothered the game, but at its core it's a simple problem: most of the theme cards give 1-3 check marks, PLUS some "bonus" check marks, if you discard a specific item card. In practice, although players did acquire some item cards, only once did a player have the right item card to discard when visiting a theme card that called for it. The solution is probably as simple as either letting you discard ANY item to get the bonus check marks, or to make item cards easier to get.
And, there were a few things that players felt need to be adjusted.
- The enemy operatives should do something bad to the player in the temple when they "catch you".
- The theme cards should start on the board, instead of being pulled onto the board after successfully passing an encounter. But they should also be able to move around, or perhaps be moved around by the enemy.
- The need to go to a specific sub-location to visit a theme card was somewhat confusing, but would perhaps be easier if the theme cards all start on the board.
- The idea of a "where's Waldo" mini-game may not fit here; maybe, just make the actionable elements overt on the cards.
- The cube system may be superfluous.
It's this last point that I'd like to consider more fully. I wrote in a previous post about how the intent with the current system is that the cubes represent the enemy's reach on the board, with the operatives being a shadowy and gathering menace. But it's possible that the game could be simpler with a single enemy system, instead of two interlocking enemy systems. The argument in favor of this simplification would be that the functions that the cubes perform could be achieved another way, and that the cubes add fiddliness.
The rules for how cubes are added definitely due suggest some complexity: You add a cube to a city (a) when you arrive there, (b) when you add a theme card to the city, or (c) when you read a clue in a city. The number of cubes in the city determines the number of chips you pull out of the cup, and when a city reaches 5 cubes, you (i) replace the cubes with a big cube (locking the city at 5 cubes), and (ii) activate a new operative, and (iii) henceforth, whenever you're required to add cubes to the city you instead add black chips to the cup.
That's not an absurd number of rules to remember, and players didn't have a big problem keeping it straight, but it is a lot of bureaucracy to patrol, and the functions the cubes perform, activating operatives and controlling the number of chips pulled, can be achieved in different, simpler ways. For example, the number of chips pulled could simply be given by the position on the progress track. It could be split into five sections; in the first section you pull one chip per turn, in the second two, and so on. This could persist through the temple as well. This is not as variable as the current system but it's not obviously worse, and it's certainly simpler. And something similar could trigger the operatives being placed on the board.
In this scheme, the operatives are the enemy's entire presence on the board, both inside and outside the temple. That is, as the previous post discussed, more symmetric. And it could make the theme more concrete: when Operative X is in Cairo, he may be able to capture Sallah; when he's in Ankarra, he may be able to dig for the temple there. Connecting specific locations to the enemy's actions makes more sense if it's a specific "person" that's executing the actions. But it may also be more attractive from a playability standpoint. The cubes don't exactly act as a deterrent to actions -- if you need to visit Alexandretta to get the Grail Diary, you're going to go whether there are 3 cubes there or 5 or 0. But if there's an operative there, you may hasten your trip there (if you're afraid of the theme card being kidnapped) or delay it (if you're worried the operative will cause you some harm, whatever that might be). These considerations come more easily to the forefront of your mind if the operative is a pawn on the board, and the powers they possess may be easier to incorporate into your plans if you see explicitly where it can be executed.
I'd like to think more about this possibility; it's a bit of a departure but it's not completely different. It's simply a way to execute some of the same functionality we've always had, but in a different way. And most of the other changes are minor and will be easy enough to try.
I doubt we'll play the game again at today's Spielbany, but hopefully I'll get a chance to solo test some options for these systems soon, and will report back on how they go!
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