Headless Horseman Sightings?

So tonight as most of you know I usually write about the game we played earlier this evening. However, my game night was canceled and I do not have a game to report on. So instead I will do my first review! I know I am supposed to save those for Review Wednesday but, I have not been able to find the time to do so and I am thinking about scraping the whole Wednesday post idea. We will see how that works out in the future. So for my first review I will be doing the Flying Frog game: A Touch of Evil.

A Touch of Evil is a post-revolutionary war era game of hunting monsters. Players take on the role of a character who is visiting the small town of Shadowbrook to investigate some strange murders. These murders are linked to some kind of big bad monster pulling strings behind the scenes. Eventually when player feels they have gained enough power through use of items and allies they can challenge the big monster to a final Showdown where one will come victorious or very injured.

On their turn a player rolls dice to determine how far they may move within the town. If a player ever rolls a 1 they get to draw the powerful Event cards. After moving their distance and depending the space you occupy you will either draw a Location Card, Event Card, or Mystery Card. These usually have a small narrative that gives the character a challenge roll to complete in order to gain some items or Investigation. (This is the currency of the game) Once a character has enough power behind them and is on a space matching a Lair Card (Cards drawn that tell the player where the monster is hiding) that player may initiate a Showdown in an attempt to face the monster one on one and beat them. The player to do so first wins the game. However; if evil progresses to far all players will lose.

            I love this game. I think it has all the elements a good adventure game needs; solid characters with an array of abilities, a unique setting and story, and an easy game system that allows for deep strategy and the story reflects its rules well. The game encourages a pseudo role playing aspect by making the cards in the game narratives and even giving some of the cards lines for the players to read. Not to mention Flying Frog uses actors and actually scenes for their art. Every picture and piece of art is a photograph and it is fantastic!

So I suppose I should do some hard numbers for this right? I think a scale of one to ten will work.

Replay: 6/10 while the game is random enough with cards and dice rolls it does get predictable after the sixth or seventh play though.

Theme: 9/10 they do a great job of keeping with the theme of being in post-revolutionary war setting and it is reflected well in the art, items, and characters.

Play Time: 5/10 some games take one hour and some games take four it really depends on how nice the decks are to the players.

            I hope this turns out OK for my first review. I would love feedback on this one guys especially in what categories I should use for my numbers. Thanks for reading all

Good Gaming Everyone!

Story and Math!

            Alright, it is time for another Design Monday! If you missed my last one these are the posts where I talk a bit about making games and game design. So, if you got a game you want to get done but are unsure of how to do so then these are the posts for you.

            So today’s topic is Story versus Rules. This is one of the first things I asked myself when I first got into game design was “Do my rules reflect my story or should my story reflect my rules?” I am sure I am not the only one who thought this.  I suppose to really answer this question we should examine something else.

            Every game has rules we know this. That is the point of a game right to gain victory in a controlled set of circumstances? So I suppose we can ask ourselves why we need story.  Let’s look at my favorite game Arkham Horror, in this game player’s run around a town collecting things to fight an ancient evil and save the world. It is very similar to the game Elder Sign I talked about in my first post. Now what makes this game fun? Is it that I get some number that tells me to roll some dice against other numbers? No, the fact I am an average guy fighting against the forces of evil makes this fun. When you boil it down yes, I am just doing simple math and it’s no more fun then homework. It’s this overlaying story that keeps my interest.

            So, back to our first question, does story reflect rules or does rules reflect story? With my first game I started with a full blown out story and all these characters and world and it was the most amazing thing I have ever done ever! Then the rules part came. I became very frustrated because I could make rules to fit everything in my story. So I went the other way and I ran into the same problem. I could not make story to fit all the rules I had wanted to put in. So I suppose in a nutshell the answer is: a bit of both. You need to build your story and rules at the same time.

            This has a lot of advantages I have discovered. If you have a cool rule you come with it is usually pretty easy to incorporate it into your story and vice versa. If I were to attach a metaphor to this it would it is easier to insert new bricks while building instead of after it is done. Those of you with Legos know how this one goes. So I urge you all if you are starting a game build it a piece at a time. Don’t fully flesh out the story and don’t fully lay out all the rules.

            I suppose that it all I have to say on this subject tonight. Check out next post this Wednesday for my first full on review!

Good Gaming Everybody!

Haunted Houses!

Well it’s time for another Thursday Report! I am sorry I missed my first Review Wednesday yesterday. Sometimes life gets in the way you know? So let’s get on this this shall we?

            Tonight we gathered to play our usual Role-playing game but yours truly forgot his character sheet. So instead we broke out another favorite board game: Betrayal on House on the Hill. This is a board game of haunted houses, mysterious events, and Scooby Doo like antics. The game has a tile laying mechanic that simulates the players discovering the layout of this house they have the misfortune of being in. Each turn you move your Speed and lay down new tiles to further explore the mansion. Most rooms will have you draw some sort of a card upon entering. The most common is the Event which narrates a creepy scene and gives your character either or choice or challenge that would hinder or help them. Other cards you can draw are Items and the dreaded but useful Omens, these cards give you a major benefit but cause the player to make a Haunt Roll which may reveal one player as a traitor.

            So, we started our game and begun our exploration of the mansion. The first three turns we had Omen cards drawn and nearly started the event known as the Haunt which as I said earlier points out one player as a traitor. Luckily we got up to a good solid seven Omens drawn before the traitor was revealed. My character had stepped into a room and found the Kitchen which caused me to draw an Omen. My card was a girl that was lost in the mansion. I failed my roll and the player to my left was revealed to be the traitor.

            The Haunt we played detailed the traitor as the master of a phantom kidnapper that had taken the girl. It was our job to get her out of the mansion. The tricky part is, that there was also a bomb planted somewhere in the house. On top of that the phantom could vanish if you failed to injure him. Each turn the traitor got to roll a few dice to see if the bomb exploded and, each turn more dice were added.

            My character managed to get the front door of the mansion open while the others tangled with the phantom in the basement. After one or two rolls the phantom fell and the girl was saved. However we still had the bomb to worry about. To disarm the thing we needed to roll a massive seven or higher success. (The game uses special dice with 1, 2 and blank sides.) We figured bolting to the front door would be our best bet but on our sixth turn, we had got caught in the explosion.

            Winning or losing this game is a blast. With over fifty different stories to play and with the mansion being different each time it continues to be a favorite of mine. Try this one with your gamer friends or even your non gamer friends its simple to learn the themes are easily picked up by anyone who ever read a Goosebumps book. Check it out and I will see you all on Monday for my next design post!

Good Gaming Everybody!

The heart and soul.

Well everyone it is time for my next post my first Design Monday! In these posts I will be discussing things about game design, making games, rules structure, and so on. These are the posts for those of you with great ideas for games but our unsure how to get started or where to go with it. Before anyone starts going up in arms about what or what not I know about this I reassure you. I have been in game industry for four years, two of those being design and play testing.

            So let’s start at the beginning. You have an idea for a game and want to know the next step? I suppose I would ask you to ask yourself a very important question. What is your game about? This question I first heard from a man named John Wick who is behind such games like Houses of the Blooded, and Legend of the Five Rings. He has been my go to for design help and tips. If you are not already subscribed you need to check out his YouTube channel which I will link at the end.

            Back to the question what is your game about? Most people will answer with something along the lines of “It is a post-apocalyptic tactics game with aliens.” No that is not what your game is about that’s where your game happens and what is in it. So I ask again, what is your game about? To which the answer once again would be “It’s about how the humans and mutants team up to fight…” No that is once again something that happens in the game. One last time what is your game about? “It’s about survival.” There you go! The game is about survival! Now the surprise part two of this question. Do you have a mechanic to reflect that? How can you make game about X if you don’t have a mechanic in the game to simulate X?

This is a really common step missed by a lot of amateur game makers. If you skip this step then you end up with a game that doesn't really hold up. It is almost like the game lacks soul or feeling. The game will end up bland and boring and not really very exciting. So, before you begin to write out stats or rules or settings. Figure out what your game is going to be about. On the other side of things though if you focus too much on your one thing in the game it may lack the variety a game needs to be interesting. If your game is about survival make sure that while it remains the heart of the game to throw in some fun things you think are cool and fun.

In a nutshell I will say it one more time. You got your cool post-apocalyptic game idea where mutants and humans fight aliens. You got a cool idea for setting and some rules for guns and powers. But what is going to make your game stand out? Right now it’s just another tactics game right? Don’t forget your game is about survival. So maybe throw in a roll, or a stat, or even a big rule about making sure the big theme of the game stays apparent.

 Like I said earlier I will link John Wicks YouTube channel here.       (http://www.youtube.com/user/LordStrange?feature=watch)

 I hope I helped a lot of you take your next step toward your design goals. Now go out there and get your games going!

Good Gaming Everyone!

Bootlegging and Ancient Ones!

            Well I suppose I am going to christen this blog with my firs Thursday Report! Every Thursday a few friends and I get together to play a game or two. Usually we break out one of our long winded Role-Playing campaigns but on nights like tonight we change it up and play a board game. Tonight we had the chance to play one and I will give you a rundown of what happened. I am going to try not to make this a review as I am saving that for Review Wednesdays. I want Thursday Reports to be more of taste of what my games are like. Expect short easy to ride but hopefully exciting stories of my endeavors here so here it goes.

            Our first game tonight was the Fantasy Flight game Elder Sign. This is more a less a lighter version of the bestselling game from the same company Arkham Horror. In Elder Sign you take on the role of a prohibition era average Joe or Jane who must use every tool available to stop an ancient evil being from gaining access and devouring our world.

            With the game in place we selected our character. We had Monterey Jack the Archaeologist who can attain the sought after Unique Items with ease. Joe Diamond the private eye with special hunches that tip odds. Sister Mary a nun whose faith protects her from the guile of evil and yours truly as Dexter Drake a stage magician with more than just a card up his sleeve. And standing against us was the powerful Yog-Sothoth the ancient god who watches over the passages between worlds.

            In a nutshell we had this game beat by turn two. The object is to collect Elder Signs (represented by tokens) before the ancient being awakens lest we have to face him in battle. We take turns going around a museum completing various tasks and adventures by rolling special six sided dice or d6. These dice have symbols on them which the players must match to the symbols on the adventures and tasks. Doing so yields items, spells, and the powerful Elder Sign. Failure usually harms the characters sanity, stamina or even bringing the ancient one closer to awakening in our world.

            So by turn two we had over half the signs we need with only two of the dreaded Doom Tokens on the ancient one’s track. Toward turn three though we ran into some trouble. Nearly all the adventures on the board had monster upon them. These tokens present additional challenges added to the ones we must already conquer to gain Elder Signs. Luckily with a clever play of few spells we were able to manipulate the dice to our favor and ultimately come out on top and victorious.

            Absolutely one of the most exciting games I have played of Elder Sign. The game presents a unique kind of tension that it hard to explain to incredibly addictive. They do a really great job of making you feel like average people with the potential to do great things, when you see that last Elder Sign laid down you can’t help but to cheer. This is a game everyone should try once. I wish I had more time to go into more depth but I plan on hitting more of that in my review. Look out for more of this in the near future.

Good Gaming Everybody!