Cult Of Games XLBS: Game Design; How On Earth Do You Get Started?!
June 6, 2021 by brennon
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It’s the XLBS Show………….Happy Sunday Fellow CoGs!
What the heck was that opening video?
Love the RedGrass painting handles. I’m glad I backed that KS. I do have the GW handles and a 200 count bag of wine corks. Many things work, just matters what I feel like using that day.
I’ve not bought into Moonstone. I may have to give that a look-see.
@brennon you Wrath Guard are looking the shiznit! Well DONE. I bought into the Contrast Paints but have yet to crack a single paint pot open. For something that is supposed to make painting easy and fast, it seems to have intimidated me.
Love the Pulp City game. Well DONE with the ‘Battle Report’. I’ve come close to buying into Pulp City. It did change hands, didn’t it? I agree, it has always reminded me of “City of Heroes”.
Well DONE to the Otter Pup! 🙂 Nice paint on those minis. I think my first minis were painted with fingernail polish that I snuck out of my mother’s room, (as we were dirt poor). Also, those minis of mine were 4-inch tall minis of presidents of the USA. I used an old, small, wood chisel, to cut and work the plastic and then modeling clay to mod those minis. After getting them to look fairly good, my dad then showed me how to use automobile body filler to replace the clay. It was fun and there was a little bonding with my dad. Mind you, mom was mad as heck that I used her polish!
Well DONE to all the Golden Button Winners! 🙂
An interesting discussion on Game Design.
Have a Good TWO WEEKS OFF Team OTT!
Contrast was pretty intimidating but it was a lot easier to use than I thought.
The same guys are involved with Pulp City. The webstore was changing to a new server, but issues cropped up that are still to be resolved leaving no easy avenue to purchase at the moment. Plans for a Kickstarter reboot (last rulebook was 2015-ish) were pushed back due to Covid and Brexit. The last update a few months ago talked of Q3 2021. Hopefully things all get back on track. I’ve had a blast with the game.
Thanks for the info!
HAPPY SUNDAY!!
Good on Free for getting into Lord of the Rings, that was what first got me into the Hobby all those years ago.
@brennon I’m certainly no games designer but I have written one game (and really should finish it) but I started with what I wanted it to be. I love the old TV Show Combat! and I hate complex skirmish games so I wanted a squad level skirmish game that wouldn’t take hours to play with complex cards. The idea was the start.
Then I came up with a few things that would make the game unique, for me it was a basic system of wounds, when your buddy goes down you don’t just roll a dice and pass a moral test, you’ve got to deal with your wounded buddy before he bleeds out. Sometimes the mission doesn’t come first.
For me it’s all about having motivation, if you aren’t motivated you’re not going to give it your best.
Very true – I think motivation is key towards getting you to the end.
Hope Freudians aren’t watching Free’s ‘What hobby have you done this week ‘ section
@brennon all the Fantasy Warrior rules seemed to gave disappeared off the Mirliton site but you can find them here
https://www.fysh.org/~katie/wargames/downloads/fantasy_warriors/
Will give them a look!
Happy Sunday!
There are several game concepts that need to coalesce into a whole we call a game system. There’s the soft aspects like setting, backstory… fluff. Then there’s the gameplay concepts that then need to be combined into a logically consistent whole. This is where the mathematical/ number-crunching system design element can be tested and adjusted on paper, different gameplay mechanic patterns can be tried and discarded. Playing lots of games to learn and identify these patterns is invaluable. Does the system fit the narrative concept?
Then, after a lot of work you can take it to the table and present it to real people for feedback. Games clubs are a good start point, and most games never go beyond that community (think of all those clubs at Salute… ahhh… Salute). Be prepared for those who want you to personalise the game to them – that’s not testing, ignore them! Do be prepared to strip the system back and reconstruct.
When it’s 80% there (maybe a year or so later) then look for that external audience. I’m sure professionals are fed-up with 10%-20% thought through ideas – but something of substance where you can demonstrate how working through the process has improved the original concept, expect a more interesting conversation!
Happy Sunday!
A few weeks without XLBS ?
How are we supposed to survive that ?
At least we’ve got the Discord channel to keep us sane(-ish)
Lol the Chile panpipers XLBS’ers.
Bad game it’s the dice’es faults Sumplessssss.
Some game design links
Board Game Designers Forum http://www.bgdf.com/
Board Game Design Lab https://boardgamedesignlab.com/getting-started/
Game Makers Guild http://www.gamemakersguild.com/resources/game-design/
Thanks for the handy links!
Free does 50 shades of Brown?
Good show all.
If you good people wanted to start a discussion on game design I’d be happy to contribute.
One of my problems with the Games Developer forum has been the lack of feedback, so if we are going to improve this we need to get people to read it and feel able to contribute.
Cheers,
Craig
great point, another thing is that people often don’t know how to give good feedback.
Are there pointers that you give playtesters to look at and respond with?
When I first began developing the games that became Forge of War, In the Emperor’s Name and FUBAR, I set myself some rules for working with play testers:
• First thing is to treat your play testers as collaborators.
• Be clear on what you need to know.
• Set both specific and general questions for each round of play testing.
• Keep them in the loop as you develop the game. Nothing is worse that being left in the dark for months.
• Put your ego in a box and listen very carefully to what they have to say.
• If you are not sure that you, or perhaps they, understand something then ask for clarification.
• Thank each one personally for their input.
• Give each of them a named credit, in your game, for their efforts and their contributions.
• If you can, reward them with free copies
• In the past I have set up private forums in which we can be open with each other.
• These have now been replaced with private Facebook groups, but you could do the same on Discord and other services.
Following all this means we now have a group of people we can go to assist us. Several of them now participate as game presenters at shows with us.
A roll of grease proof paper is around a quid from the shops.
Cheap as chips. Oh
Lol.
“Dr Strangepaint, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the contrast.”
Great show, Millie would like to say thank you for the golden button. She is very proud to get one.
Ooh how many times can you use Zap, Pow, Capow, an the like Gerry.
Being British one prefers Biff! and Bop!
Ha?
Stop press Ben loves Dwarfs? Lol.
Great button winner’s guy’s
First laugh of the day – “it’s hot here, 20 degrees”. It’s 20 degrees in Sydney Australia and we are all wearing 3 layers of clothes.
Ben you’ve discovered the secret of Ultramarine contrast – rubbish with 1 coat, great with two.
Happy Sunday.
How about an OTT themed game. “Co-op” with a Set number of turns to “complete” the weekly show.
Characters would all have unique abilities. LLoyd with a video editing skill set, Warren with his radio show ability. Gerry as the knowledge of miniature producers. Ben with his ability to write stuff. Justin with 3D printing….,
Could have to complete tasks like “indie of the week” “3D printing” “news” “golden button”
Could have random events like “big company drops new range of miniatures” “painting dead line for a video” “let’s play” “sever down”
Nice one Guy’s.
Awesome, show guys
I could listen to you lot ramble for hours
I thought you did
I only got halfway through this before I had to stop for chemo and bed. I’m glad I got my project updated.
I got all the hobby done over the weekend, through the weekender, and a battle report today.
Something that we don’t always consider – the satisfaction of rolling particular dice.
Over the last 3-4 years I’ve been helping a friend refine a skirmish wargame ruleset they’ve been developing. Originally it was a d10 game but over the course of play testing, he decided that the d10 spread wasn’t quite needed, so he switched to d8. I’m not sure if you’ve ever rolled a handful of d8s but, for me, it’s nowhere near as satisfying experience as rolling the same number of d10s because they don’t actually “roll”. They just land on the table and you see the results immediately. There’s none of that anticipation of the die still spinning/rolling for that incredibly important roll. It might be particular to me, but it was something that heavily impacted my level of satisfaction with the gaming. My suggestion to any game designers using dice? Avoid the d4 and d8.
Ben mentioned a resource for components. As far as board gaming goes, there’s this product from Atlas Games, called The White Box:
https://atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG2903
As far as organizations/events go for designers to meet other designers and playlets their games etc, in the US (pre-pandemic) there were a number of annual events (at least on the East Coast) called Unpub. No doubt once we reach the Beyond Times, they’ll fire back up again. They would also be a great place to learn about other similar organizations around the world, I expect.
https://unpub.games
I think you’re overthinking but it’s the kind of overthinking I’m here for
On the d8 vs d10 thing? No doubt 😉
I must admit it really surprised me when I felt it.
We all come here to overthink 🙂
D10 gives a better range than D6 and it’s easier for people to turn it into percentages in their head. Had games like Warhammer or 40K been D10 based as Rick Priestly has said he intended it would have been easy to present attack rolls as % to hit. eg 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound = 45%
Congratulations on a very good shoe. Enjoy your holiday.
Thanks all really enjoyed the hobby time and the discussion on game design! Hope everyone has a great week of gaming!
I think this might be the first time I manage to listen to a complete XLBS episode on the day itself. I was very interested in the game design theme. I’ve been working on a game for about a year and a half now. Progress is slow, since early fatherhood only allows the occasional half an hour of designing. I got at the stage now where the basic mechanics and fluff of the game are there. I now need to think of the balancing and tweaking and it’s quite intimidating. I was hoping to make a project for it soonish and/or pester the community for tips on the forum. Before I do, though, I want to make sure that it is more or less playable, because I feel/fear that it will be quite marmity/controversial game mechanic wise…
As far as getting games made, check out thegamecrafter.com. I haven’t actually bought anything from them, but I found and bookmarked the site when I was considering making myself a random events deck for skirmish games.
Hmm… must throw in more old mini project stuff and monkey wrenches at the presenters. Please stand by….
Great show this week! Although, I think I’d trade a Justin for either a Loyd or Warren 😉
I’ve been working on a game for the couple of years. I struggle with maths and I’m very dyslexic so I’ve not been able to play games “smoothly”. Ive always just been focused on painting and modelling.
I’ve been making a system that cuts out the amount of reading, maths and its just a way to resolve outcomes on the tabletop (without dice). I’d love to share my PDF with someone if you some wants to check it out and let me know that it is actually playable?
For making a game people should think about what their building
1 Format: Miniature Mass Battle, Miniature Skirmish, Card, Board Game
2 Mechanics: How actions are resolved, what is used to resolve the action
3 Objective: How does the game end,
4 Setting: why does X exist in the setting
And Justin needs to release his game in the project systems!
@brennon @avernos This really is a great topic. I’d love for the show to get some of the game designers from Warcradle to come on the show and explain the process they went through for WWX and Dystopian Wars.
In regards to writing rules I think the best way to start is work out who you are writing them for. If it’s just you and your friends then ask for your friends help. Here’s a bunch of questions that tell you about a game that should help define your game;
• What genre they would like the game set in?
• What scale is the game at (mass combat, warbands, individuals, etc?
• Is the game played against another player/s? Against a game AI? Players co-operating against a game master?
• Is the game balanced or asymmetric?
• How much of a role does luck play in the game?
• What will players need to play the game?
• How do you win the game?
Genre is important. You may love Sci Fi but all your friends love historicals. It will always be easier to work with friends in a genre they like. As it was said in the show, having an interest in the story or narrative gets people invested in the game.
Scale is pivotal as the bigger the battles, the more time and money they cost. Skirmish games, like Saga for example, are popular because they have lower model counts (often a single box of miniatures will cover a warband) and players have a wide variety of manufacturers to choose from.
Your opponent always matters. If you have the same opponent every game it can get old quickly. A game AI can be good but they need to work really well to be a challenge. Groups that don’t enjoy killing each other or competitive play may prefer to have a gamemaster.
Game balance can make or break a game UNLESS it was designed to be uneven from the start. It’s regularly been discussed that real-life warfare and battles are rarely asymmetrical, so is that balance necessary? If one side keeps winning, is it the faction or the person playing them?
On luck Napoleon famously said “Great men become great because they have been able to master luck. What the vulgar call luck is a characteristic of genius”. If you have too much luck in your game it will flop, too little and you might as well play chess. Another way of making luck dynamic or at least different is you use a different luck device to normal. For example using 10 sided dice instead of 6 sided dice. Using playing cards instead of dice, etc. Does your game have a way to mitigate luck?
Components are a thing. Gamers love bling. Does your game have good components? Does it require players to spend big $ to play? How much hobby time is this going to take up? Has the game creator done all the hobby for me?
Knowing how to win should be clear at the start of every game. Scenarios should alter that to make the scenario count. Playing until one of you has nothing left on the board is rarely enjoyable, nor is unlimited turn count. Knowing when the game is over is a good definition to have.
Finally I’d say be prepared to “kill your babies”. Some times an idea just doesn’t work, and if it doesn’t, drop it.
Marco is living in Dublin, he does some great stuff and as Gerry says a happy fella
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKCXiyi3kwELyFpPKq2RgLw
yes he does and I think it’s a testament to me that I haven’t tried to find his house yet, despite being shown the view from the balcony.
…also haven’t been allowed to travel cause of covid
Lol, so didn’t try that, not…… ?
Late to the Sunday party…. and I had an idea…. since Irish don’t like the heat *and* they are all very pale from a skin tone perspective…. AND we have a global warming because the snow is melting and not reflecting enough sunlight back into space…
Undress all the Irish! Let their skin reflect all the sun to space and within a week global warming is a problem of the past!
I’m so good at this! XD
It has been my limited experience game designing is very hard. Especially once you got the rules written and the testing begins; there are just so many variables and trying to balance it out that it gets very daunting for someone new to rules designing to do solo.