Tag Archives: comatose

Game Design Update #1

June 20, 2011 – 10:17 pm

I’ve picked ‘comatose’ back up. Going back over the last notes for the game reminded me of why I put it on the back burner. It needs goals. Player goals, character goals, and game goals. I need to answer a couple of questions. First, what do I want the game to do? I think I have a handle on that. Second, how does the game do that? The new Degeneration Mechanic speaks to that question some. Next, player goals and character goals are two different things. Don’t mix them up. I need to explain what the game is and how it does what it does.
More on the way…

By tomgurg | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments (2)

Latest Game Design News

February 4, 2011 – 3:07 am

Here’s what I’m working on game design wise.

The Survivor – this is a solo rpg that uses a standard deck of playing cards.  Drawn cards help you set scenes and determine outcomes of those scenes.  Suit, color, and value of the cards all inform different elements of a scene.  Elements at present will be located on matrices.

The Gold Rush – This game has gotten an overhaul.  I’ve pulled the mechanics from what was comatose and am working on a new system using a deck of cards. There is a card draft for aspects that you then use to build your character.  The deck is split into its suits with each player getting one suit.  Scene spotlight determined by a ‘War’ mechanic, high card gets the spotlight, second highest is also in the scene.  Low card sets the scene while the remaining card determines whether the scene will have a positive or negative outcome.  The fact that everyone has duplicate cards calls for some hard choices and strategy.

Comatose has a new dice mechanic.  I had been having an issue with the game not mimicking corruption and degeneration like I wanted.  I posed an early version of it to a couple of friends and one of them came back with a very nice version that was better.  It uses d4-d12 and does a very good job at getting that despiration that I have been looking for.

The Accused – This one will probably use the system from The Gold Rush.

The Interman – I’m revisiting this board game.  This is the first board game I designed.  It was pretty ok but didn’t stand out.  So I put it away.  Also because Photoshop wouldn’t run on my computer anymore.  So it goes into the fridge for a while.  This week I started thinking about it again.  Could I incorporate some of the neat mechanics that I have learned from other games that I have played this year.  So that is what I’m doing.  I’m looking at expanded the action point system and adding an auction.  We’ll see how it goes.

As you can see, I like the idea of using a standard deck of cards.  Or the idea of using things that everyone would have around the house.  I’ve also been very interested in the idea of information dense mechanics.  ‘Rich dice’ is an example of this.  Cards work too.  Cards are tactile and most people are comfortable with them.  And they are cheap.  They have at least three pieces of information on each card – color, value, and suit.  And in combination with one or more other cards you get an increase in information.  So I’m working with cards.  I’m also looking at Piecepack as a possibility.  More on that another time.

That’s it for now.  Please post a comment and tell me what you think.

Go Forth And Game.

That’s all for now.  Hopefully

By tomgurg | Posted in Game Design | Also tagged , , | Comments (4)

Bits And Pieces

March 20, 2010 – 2:02 pm

I’m trying to catch up on feedback today so here are a few things that have been going on or that I will expand on later.

Game Design update:

  • Comatose is coming along well.  I solved a major issue that I didn’t even know I had until playtesting and playing Fiasco – Story advancement mechanic.  I think I have a built in solution for this.
  • The Gold Rush – static right now as I concentrate on Comatose
  • The Interman Game – I may have Photoshop back up soon so this one will be  ready playtesting soon.
  • Becky Sharp/Lorna Doone DeLongpre – Lorna comics should be out soon according to Micah so I should jump on this one soon.

Gaming:

I’ve been attending Game Night at Hypermind in Burlington over the last few months.  I’ve played a lot of new games and met some really nice people.  Here are a few of the the games:

  • Tribune – I was surprised that I liked this one.  The theme didn’t grab me but the game play is great.
  • China – This was fun and surprisingly simple to play.  Scoring is complex though.
  • Thunderstone – My first time playing the hot new mechanic of deck building.  It was ok but I see that experience with the game would probably make it more fun.  I want to play Dominion now.
  • Endeavor – This was a fun area control/trading game.
  • Escalation – Lots of fun
  • Cuttthroat Caverns – Fun but a little long.  I need a replay of this with some house rules I think.
  • Witch’s Brew – This one needs another play.  I think I may like it but I don’t know.
  • Roll Through The Ages:  This one is on the Buy List.  It’s fun and challenging.  And you can play solo.
  • Descent – Road To Legend – This one is great.  We started it this past week.  It’s fun and dungeon crawl-y.
  • Pandemic – 3 plays of this so far.  What a fun game!  I’m setting up a solo game today to play during the day.
  • Finally the gem so far – Macao.  Wow!  Do I like this one!  Simple yet challenging.  I could not stop thinking about how I could play differently and about strategies this week.   It is definitely on The Buy List at the top.  I can’t wait to try out my strategy.

Feedback update:

  • lots of feedback pending for Pulp Gamer – you can actually hear me on the show now!
  • two episodes of Cody and John
  • an episode of Fear The Boot
  • The Spiel‘s last two
  • two shows of The Dice Tower – really hitting a groove right now, this is the link to TDT from the Funagain website,  the server was down for the home site when I wrote this.
  • Listened to:

Need to listen to:

That’s it for now.

Go Forth and Game your sock off.  Buy Macao.

By tomgurg | Posted in Feedback Frenzy, Gaming, The Buy List | Also tagged , , , , | Comments Off

RPG or Die!con

March 2, 2010 – 12:36 am

GamerChris had a game day at his house this past Saturday.  He was calling it RPG or Die! reflecting the fact that it had been postponed several times.  But I’m very happy to say it went off without a hitch this time.
The participants were: husband and wife team Britt and Carol, Kenny, Chris, and myself.  Britt and Carol were not arriving until about noon so Chris, Kenny, and I went through a playtest of character generation for Comatose.  It went well.  They helped me identify some issues and see that I had some parts working well.  Several questions and suggests came out of this that will help me move forward.  The most important of these is that this is a horror game and I need to focus on that.
Britt and Carol arrive in perfect timing as we finished the playtest.  Lunch was served and we got to know each other.
After lunch Chris had a game of Dread planned.  He had even purchased the Onyx version of Jenga to be more in the correct mood.  And he had created a soundtrack for the game also complete with sound effects!  It was pretty cool.  Chris built a fantastic scenario with werewolves and army types and innocent victims.  I was a homeless Army interrogator and I ended up sacrificing myself so that Carol’s character, Mary Jo, could escape.  There was much self-sacrificing in the game.  Mary Jo was the only one to survive.  That is one of the interesting things about Dread.  Characters will die.  It is unavoidable.  Either the tower will fall or you will go out in a blaze of glory but someone is going to die in this game.  And Chris brought out something about it that I hadn’t really realized – it is pure role-playing.  There is barest minimum mechanics using the Jenga tower.  The rest is Role Playing.  And there was a lot of excellent role-playing.  Kenny is very creative and quick minded.  He came up with some neat stuff.  And Britt was amazing.  He stayed in character pretty much the whole game except when he needed to make a pull.  And he is the Jenga King.  Carol was really good with her character and added a lot to the game.  I didn’t know until after the game that this was her first rpg.   Much fun and very tense.
We  played Fiasco next after supper.   WHAT A BLAST!  You have to play this if you haven’t already.  This is such a great game.  It builds very interesting characters, a fun and catchy story, and the collaboration in it is sweet.  We played ‘In a Nice Southern Town’ playset, of course.  Boy did it rock.  We had two thieves Tick (me) and Red Apple (Kenny) who stole copper and worked out of a cheap motel.  Red was part owner of the motel with his cousin, Kandee Apple (Carol).  Kandee was the daughter of Louis Apple (Britt).  Sargent Nate (Chris), Tick’s parole officer, rounded out the group.  In the end, Louis and Nate were in jail for various reasons.  Red and Tick were dead.  We learned how Louis’ wife and Red’s mom died.  And Kandee ended up running a cheap motel in Atlantic City.  Much hijinks happened between.
This will probably become our go to rpg.
The only down side was we didn’t get to chargen for Diaspora, which would have been cool.

RPG or Die! con was crammed full with awesome.  Chris and his wife were excellent and gracious hosts.  The group meshed well and I hope we are able to get together again soon.

UPDATE: Chris has posted on the first two sessions here and here.

Go Forth And … you know.

tomg

By tomgurg | Posted in Gaming | Also tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Quick Design Update

February 22, 2010 – 1:00 am

My recent request for critique of Comatose’s premise had been very fruitful. As I mentioned before, three different games have developed from it. First, Comatose continues with some slight modifications. The original game, Twisted Rhymes, is reborn probably as a hybrid rpg/boardgame. More on this in another post. The last, tentatively called The Gold Rush, has most of my attention at the moment. This is because I’m using it to explore some old and new mechanics ideas. Like limited roles or characters. Gold Rush will have only a few character types available. I’m also toying around with random characteristic generation. I like the idea of random generation of some aspect of the game, either with characters or setting. Or both. My current favorite is blind draw but I’m also working on several matrices for cards and dice. I’ll keep posting here.

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Comatose Update Update

February 2, 2010 – 11:59 pm

I’ve gotten some very good feedback on my two premises for Comatose.  The dark fairy tales/nursery rhymes version is still viable but may spawn or morph into a board game.  I like the original premise I had from the sight and sound challenge several years ago.  I had stopped because there seemed to be an influx of this same theme into the market.  But my take is different than the others so I’m going to develop it further.

The Comatose premise is still alive but will be scaled back some.  And at the same time opened up.  Jason Corley of Pulp Gamer suggested allowing the Adversary to affect the protagonists in their REAL world as well as in The Dream.  I like this.  It could be one of the adverse effects of time in The Dream and a symptom of Turning.  I’m worried that I may be flying too close to Don’t Rest Your Head though.  I’ll work on this and see.

Another game has emerged from all this.  Jason Morningstar gamve me some extremely valuable feedback and it suggested another game or at least setting for Comatose.  It’s either The California Gold Rush of 1849 or pre-Colonial America.  I’m leaning to the latter.  This game will take a look at slavery of various kinds in those eras.  I’ve started researching each of these and there is some really neat history there.

Another result of this exercise is that the game(s) will be GM-less.  This just works better I believe.

An ancillary product of the research is a Go Forth And Game ‘logo’.  Here are the ones I’m considering:

If you know of some other Lewis and Clark or similar images (especially if they are royalty free) shoot me a comment.

Let me know which one you like best.

tomg

By tomgurg | Posted in Game Design | Also tagged | Comments (2)

Comatose Update

January 30, 2010 – 8:35 pm

I’m seriously considering changing the premise of Comatose back to my original idea or some variation of it. The Dream where Comatose takes place seems way too open ended. The other idea is more bounded and I actually like the idea better since revisiting it. I have the two premises out for feedback right now. I’ll update when a decision is made.

By tomgurg | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
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