Two weeks again, and it’s mid November already… But, celebration time: this is the 10th post of this blog! Now it’s time for some reflections.
First of all, we still haven’t caught up with the latest events – just for some little splinters – but I’m not really sad about this, as the posts were regular, deep enough and I haven’t lost my enthusiasm. Also, from now on, I’ll try to include a bit from the current events to every post, as starters here.
Second, we are not deeply in the testing phase, actually we haven’t even started. I am a bit sad about this, but it is only my fault, or at least my perfectionism’s. I wanted to have a great game to test with; heavy, plywood elements, laser cut figures, color cubes, nice player boards, etc. Obviously everyone advised against this, but as I stated earlier, I try to visualize things from the beginning and I think this is where the game is right now. Also I am confident enough to state that the game will be enjoyable, so if nothing else, it will be a fresh game for our group to play with in the long run.
So we haven’t started yet, as I’m still waiting for a new machine to be ready, as with that these figures will be easier and a lot cheaper to cut. I haven’t pushed this a lot lately, as work is a bit overloading me right now, but next wednesday I should have the test cut, and from that I hope we could agree on the price and the time.
These were those splinters about the current events. Now, let’s go to the time machine.
So, while still working on the factions, I’ve started to have a parallel thread about the game mechanics. Or rather say, my ideas about the factions led me to think – how could I put, shape these into the game? My central requirement was (and is): keeping the rules simple, elegant, minimal. Of course here I encountered the main problem: this requirement (or rather just desire yet) a bit contradicts with the rich lore. I’ve wanted to keep both.
There were a few questions emerging, like: What is the winning condition for this game? Every faction has their own? Is it “just” scoring points? When will the game end? When the first player is eliminated? Is there elimination in the game at all? Does the game need cards? Maybe some deckbuilding as a mechanic?
I’m a big fan of cards, so I’ve played with the thought of having them:
- Nemesis-like: every faction has a basic deck, maybe they could buy a few additional ones to it, cards as the main resource – every action is with cards
- Root-like: a lot of actions are with cards, cards as a resource – usable in various ways
- Dune-like: there is a yet undefined main resource and there are some additional cards
- GoT-like: multiple mechanisms, complex game engine, influence/power tracks
From these, some thought-chain emerged, that I’ve noted: There could be some resources for sure, and everyone collects the one that is in the characteristics of their chosen faction. Apart from this, cards that are useful for everyone. Or rather there is one resource, “credit”, that everyone collects differently: forest spirit with wisps every round (Oh so there is a forest spirit faction yet? – wait until the next post to figure out! Bait over.), beavers by cutting trees, the emperor’s elite gets it regularly, carnival with selling information and the crows don’t need it at all. With this credit you could buy cards – devices, weapons, heroes – or rather just the first two, and every faction has a hero on the map to make special actions with? Or do the fights require cards? Oh, and about fights… But let’s keep the fighting for next post, rather speak about the EPIC scale: so the original conception 
definitely contained these grandiose effects, requiring long preparation. It’s unique by faction, everyone has it and everyone could activate it in different ways. Is it obtainable with time? With collecting pieces? Are these epic elements requiring specific strategies to get them? (Like in my first game concept, ‘27’, or the Hearthstone “combo decks”?) Or are they coming from high luck/risk factoring mechanics?
And going like this on and on, until I run out of time. Or out of ideas that I could keep in mind – if I don’t have my notebook with me. But mostly time.
While here and later on I’ve had to cross out a lot of ideas of course, I’d like to keep an “escape path” to those ideas – they will definitely be included in an expansion later, somehow, sometime…
Last fun thought here: later, when I’ve done that part, I’ve figured out that those epic scale elements, which I always wanted to include in the game, just realized in the monument cards, from the Zarelid-vom relics.
So next time we will cover some fighting! Hiyya hua – these were some martial art movement sounds ofc. See you!