Goblin Toboggan is continuing to develop. The scoring system has worked well and I am now exploring some new mechanics related to the 4 goblin roles (driver, mage, engineer, and bombardier). Specifically, I am testing a system that allows players to target each goblin individually, which impacts their opponents ability to play cards of that type. This has caused some alterations to existing cards and a few additions. Playtesting is on-going with the new set of mechanics to determine how it impacts the gameplay experience. |
Recently I connected with another San Diego area game designer, which has led to a fairly regular meet-up to playtest our projects. As a result things are moving along nicely with both Goblin Toboggan and Fabregé Chickens, and I have enjoyed testing his current prototype and giving feedback as well. For Fabregé Chickens the playtesting has supported the addition of a rainbow gem that serves as a wild. Additionally, the board was reworked to reduce some confusion and to add additional ramps so the players would have more options when entering the pen from the coop. Jim and I are now working on getting the right balance with the farmer mechanic so that it fits the number of players (2, 3, 4).
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2015 is off to a great start in a lot of ways. Here is a brief update on where things stand. Goblin Toboggan with all of the most recent updates is in the hands of a publisher for review and play-testing. Meanwhile Jim's concept Fabregé Chickens continues in development. We are getting closer to the right balance to make the game fair, exciting, and the right length. Today's run through has me optimistic that we are very close to achieving the right balance, which will allow us to explore some of the other ideas for adding on to the game that have come up along the way. We still anticipate having a great game ready in time for GenCon 2015. A picture from today's game is below. It was fairly close in the end, and a four player game ran just under 40 minutes which felt about right. Speaking of GenCon, Pat, Jim and Tristan will all be attending along with some other friends of ours. This will be Tristan's first GenCon and we are excited for him to experience all the amazing community and games the Con has to offer. We are also starting to meddle about with some other projects. All three of us have some ideas in the very early stages of concept development that we hope will be evolving soon.
Goblin Toboggan at Metatopia
Working Title: Fabregé ChickensSpeaking of UnPub Mini San Diego...I will also be testing, for the first time publicly, an alpha version of game that Jim DiCamillo and I have been designing together. Currently, the working title is Fabregé Chicken's, though we recognize that this will need to change due to trademarks on the name Fabregé.
What is it about? Before the famous jeweled imperial eggs could exist there had to be famous imperial chickens who consumed just the right combination of seed that has been fortified with precious metal and gems. Players (the chickens) must strategically roll their dice, and use their actions to navigate the field collecting seed (resource cubes) to make sets that will adorn their eggs for maximum value. After 6 days of feeding the chicken who lays the most valuable egg will win the day, and avoid being Sunday dinner! How it works: The game involves frantic, timed, dice rolling and re-rolling. The outcome of the dice rolls determines which actions are available for you to take this day. Actions include movement, activating rows or columns of the board, and pecks. The chicken with the most pecks moves first (i.e. pecking order), and peck dice can be spent to push other chickens around. Each player has an egg board where they place the feed cubes they collect into spaces indicated to make matched color sets. A complete set is worth points, and a cube that cannot be placed is worth negative points. 6 rounds of play are completed before the final score is tallied. Goblin Toboggan continues to move forward in a very exciting way. Keep an eye out for it at Metatopia this weekend (11/6 - 11/9) and the San Diego UnPub Mini 11/15 at Pair a Dice in Vista. The card deck is better than ever with some new ways to stick it to your opponents. The most exciting change is that the toboggan's now feature 4 specific goblin riders, a driver, a bombardier, a mage and an engineer. The cards feature categories based on which goblin activates them, adding to the thematic elements of the game and offering new opportunities with the mechanics. Goblin Toboggan is now in the hands of a publisher for review and should be making an appearance at Metatopia in NJ, November 6-9. Things are starting to move along quickly and it is very exciting! Of course sending out the prototype meant it is time to focus on one of the other project ideas that have come up during the Goblin Toboggan design process. At the moment I am having a lot of fun working with my brother Jim on a concept that he generated and that we are currently calling Fabergé Chickens (because the famed Fabergé Eggs had to come from somewhere. I hope to have a playable prototype ready to go for the UnPub mini happening here in San Diego in a few weeks. On the topic of new projects I have connected with designers who have a backlog of ideas that they never seem to have enough time to get to, but I also know there are other designers who get stuck (by which I mean all designers at some point). If you are in need of a design challenge or some inspiration I made a quick excel file that pulls the mechanics and themes from BoardGameGeek.com and randomly generates 1-3 mechanics and a theme. From there your challenge is to develop a concept using those mechanics in that theme. It is completely random and sometimes the combinations it generates are absurd, but I find that a few clicks through (recalculating the formulas) usually generates at least one interesting starting off point. Feel free to download the file below and use it. The columns to the right contain all of the data (it is just white text to remove the distraction). I took out a few themes that just never appeal to me, but I also added some and encourage you to do the same.
I had a great trip to GenCon, and met some incredible people. It never ceases to amaze me what a great community there is among 56,000 gamers. This was not my first time attending, but it was my first GenCon as a game designer. In order to break into that side of the convention (which it turns out was not too hard) I participated in the First Exposure Playtest Hall (FEPH), organized by Double Exposure, and the Publisher Speed Dating event organized by James Mathe of Minion Games. Both events were a huge success, and I would recommend them to other designers. The folks at FEPH did an incredible (seriously incredible) job promoting everyones prototypes and ensuring each designer had a full playtest group that matched their desired demographics. In each round I had a great group of six players who fit Goblin Toboggan and gave me great feedback on both theme and mechanics. The speed dating event also helped me to make connections to 20 different publishers in a short amount of time and provided an opportunity for me to get my sell sheet out into the world. The response to Goblin Toboggan was beyond my expectations. As a new designer I left for GenCon with the expectation that I would learn a few lessons and make a few mistakes; but prepared for a learning experience. As it played out I left feeling that I had been well prepared, and while I brought home lots of new connections and ideas, I did not have a single regret about how I shared Goblin Toboggan. The most exciting part is that FEPH and Publisher Speed Dating allowed me to meet some great game designers (Luke Laurie, Tom Jolly, Randy Hoyt, and the guys who created Hogger Logger to name a few) as well as making contacts with many incredible game publishing companies. Both groups offered both encouragement and feedback to help me get Goblin Toboggan to the next level. The highlight of the whole convention for me was running a demo for a publisher and group of their designers and fans. The gameplay itself and the feedback session that followed was a priceless experience! I returned home to the busiest part of my work year, but as that settles down I am diving into next steps. This will include making a few minor tweaks to some of the cards (a process that has already begun), and updating the rulebook to reflect some adjustments that were made during playtesting at GenCon. That will of course be followed by some playtesting and polishing before I will be passing the prototype along to a publisher who has requested the updated version for further review! I am ecstatic about how things are progressing and greatly appreciative of GenCon, Double Exposure, and James Mathe for creating opportunities for me to share Goblin Toboggan, and for helping me get one step closer to publication! June Update: The Road to GenCon 2014Goblin Toboggan Sell SheetThe one page 'sell sheet' is ready to be shared with publishers. The goal is to simulate information that would be shared on the back of the game box to give a potential buyer a summary of the game to help them determine if they are interested. In this case, it is helping publishers determine if the game could be a fit for their product line. For those interested, the next step is to share demo copies for their review. The latest version contains new boards, and new Goblin Toboggan pawn pieces for a more complete look. More importantly the gameplay has been improved with a new tile type and several new mischief cards with advanced options for manipulating the board and changing players luck. The new tiles add impassible barriers. Play-testing revealed some minor issues with the last version of the mischief card deck leading to a few rules clarifications and corrections. In addition, I noticed that there were a few cards that players used very rarely, and have replaced those cards with some new additions that better fit the commonly used strategies. I am also excited to share that I will be running a series of playtests in the First Exposure Playtest Hall at GenCon 2014. I am looking forward to collecting a wealth of feedback from dedicated gamers from across the country. I will also be making my first attempt at pitching the design to publishers at the Publisher/Designing Speed Dating Event hosted by James Mathe of Minion Games. Play-tests, play-tests, and improventsThere has been a string of breakthroughs thanks to a series of intense play-tests run by new design partner Tristan Rios. First there have been some rule/format modifications. Player intuition kept reverting to moving the toboggan that a player had 'bet' on and so the bets did not stay secret long at all. As a result we have changed this format so that each player publicly chooses their toboggan at the start of the game, and can only move that piece. From there a play-test with some gamers who play collectible card games revealed opportunities to increase player strategy and interaction through the addition of more cards, the ability to play card combos, and a reduced focus on tile placement (now the order drawn is the order played, though a player can still rotate each tile as it is placed). This helped speed up the more individual aspects of a players turn and put more focus on the interactive and competitive elements. We are currently on version 0.5, which includes updated boards, a heavily enhanced card deck, and even a new tile type. Current progress has us on track to start pitching version 1.0 at GenCon in August. Boards are being printed as I type so I hope to have an updated photo set posted soon. Conversation with Tristan has also planted a seed for a sequel (not an expansion) that will bring the characters and mechanics to a new setting with a new set of challenges for the players. Once things slow down with current projects I will be posting some updates on that concept. Goblin Toboggan UpdateVersion 0.2 is now complete. The play-mat is complete, new hex-tiles have been added, the spell cards were created and tested, and then recreated to function better, and the win conditions were modified to make game play more engaging and strategic. A few additional rules changes have been made. After the next round of public play-testing I hope to post a print and play (PnP) .PDF version of the game for others (who have the patience to cut out 105 hexagons) to demo. Project Update: Goblin TobogganA special thanks to those who participated in the play-test of Goblin Toboggan on 10/1/13 and to Game Empire in San Diego, CA for hosting the event. The feedback collected has been very helpful, and updates are in progress.
Goblin Toboggan: The BeginningGoblin Toboggan is a hex tile laying game for 2-6 players designed by Pat Marino. It is currently in play-testing phase with a goal of kickstarting a final version within the year. Story: The annual Goblin Toboggan race is about to begin and thousands have shown up to watch and to place bets on their favorite racers. Among the crowd are a group of wizards (the players) who are down on their luck and in need of some extra gambling winnings. In order to change their fortunes they will use every spell they know to manipulate the mountain and maximize their payout. Objective: The objective is for players to manipulate both the board and the individual toboggan's in an effort to have their wagers pay out the largest amount. Jim and I have a great new project in the works called Small Town Zombies. Players take on different character roles representing the unlikely last survivors (Policeman, Farmer, Nun, Grandma and Scientist) of a zombie uprising in their small town. Players must work cooperatively to collect elements of a cure for the zombie infection in order to save the town and the world.
As an added twist players who are bitten too many times fall victim to the infection themselves and convert to zombies. When this happens the infected player must take control of the horde and play competitively against their former allies. The remaining humans must choose whether to treat their fallen friend, or press on fighting to create the cure. The game features 5 unique boards, with 5 unique buildings that fit into them. Each character role includes special human and zombie abilities and stats to create unique strategic opportunities. Stay tuned for prototype images and play-test results. Imagine a world where aliens had already invaded the earth, only to be met by the fierce and fearless huns! In this game players take on the role of huns defending their camp against a continuous onslaught of alien invaders. The board features random tile and marker placement to create a virtually endless number of combinations for a continually unique game experience. To add variety Alie-Huns can be played competitively, where the last Hun standing, or the Hun who defeats the most aliens wins; or competitively, where players must work together to outlast the invaders. This makes the game accessible to a variety of gaming groups from the family friendly co-opers to the competitive winner take all crowds. Dice are used to determine which rows of tents are invaded and which rows receive extra support each turn, while players must use strategy to determine their position, share (or not) equipment, and fight off the aliens in the combat phase. The layout of the board changes each game as tents are set randomly throughout the map, and rows are assigned random numbers, so the experience is never the same twice. This game is currently in draft form, but is gearing up for heavy rounds of public play-testing. Project Update: Alie-HunsA complete demo version was assembled and informally play-tested. As anticipated this highlighted some game play issues related to strategic choice of players, and game difficulty. Modifications to increase the difficulty, while also improving the balance between luck and strategy are underway. Also, special thanks to the folks at MeepleSource.com for some great information on large quantity orders of meeples, including custom work. The image to the right shows a sample of their product that we are using in the demo version, and hope to include in a final product if and when we reach that point. December UpdateIn a moment of unexpected inspiration this game has begun to evolve into a deck-builder. The board an its mechanics are remaining, however the combat process will be deck based, with players having an opportunity to strategically develop their deck throughout the game, all while the alien invasion grows in strength! We are very excited about the new options this has created for the game and are developing prototypes in order to make balanced decks. We are continuing to develop rule sets for both co-operative and competitive play as well. Stay-tuned!
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