Try Me! An Update on my Witch Trial Themed DBG

Last night's design/prototype efforts, brought to you by Crayola.

I've made some interesting progress on Try Me! lately, so I wanted to put my thoughts down to see if others had insight or thoughts to guide me further. I'm referring to Witch Trial as Try Me! because Witch Trial is already taken. Obviously, the name still needs work.

Initially, Try Me! was a deckbuilding game based on a witch trial in colonial Salem. It's a two player game with the players comprising the roles of the defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney. I love the deckbuilding game mechanic and the theme has been a huge hit with everyone who hears it, so the two seemed like a natural pairing. Plus, I've wanted to design a more focused two player experience.

Brainstorming the Witch

I've begun pondering my new game! Farmageddon is in a bit of a holding pattern as I wait and see if anyone wants to publish it. Frontier Scoundrels is finally, finally entering a playtest phase. I know that the game is far from complete and will probably still require an overhaul or two, but the time between playtests can be long and I hate sitting idly. This means I have the time and bandwidth to think about what I want to create next.

I've been watching a lot of Law and Order at night before bed, plus Beth and I tend to watch CSI: Miami on Sunday nights. Crime dramas are fun and I started thinking about the fun of being a detective. I love being the good guy and many of my favorite games are ones that let me feel clever. Unfortunately, the detective genre is jam packed for pretty much every form of entertainment. Every other show on television is a crime drama. LA Noire recently came out. Everyone's talking about Elder Sign. I want to do something unique, so instead of modern crime I shifted my thinking to an alternate setting.

And so, our Adventurers Set out on the Grand Expedition...

After about a month and a half of brainstorming, rule writing, content creation (and cutting), tuning, scrounging for sweet antique dice and pawns, swapping out components to lower the cost of the eventual game, writing flavor text, designing card layouts, cutting the cards, I finally have a playable prototype of my latest game.

I originally called it The Adventures of CLEB, CLEB being an acronym for the name of the characters (Clark, Lewis, Ethel, and Buford). I then briefly settled on Corps of Discovery, which was the name of the organization to which the explorers belonged. Finally, I decided upon Frontier Scoundrels, which is the name of one of my card types and a name that I feel has a bit of a punch and a ring to it.

Plus, I think Scoundrels are funny and the Frontier is such a good noun.

I'm immensely pleased with the progress so far, but now the real work begins. I've done a great deal of early tuning, balancing, and mechanic re-design. In fact, far more so than any previous game. This is my fourth board game and I'm really starting to get a knack for spotting bad ideas before I go through the effort of testing them. Sometimes, bad is just bad and you can spot imbalance from a mile away.

I'm pleased with how I've simplified the game, while at the same time creating a richer experience. A core mechanic is that the player who is the Expedition Leader (title passes each turn) can order other players to do certain things. Initially, this was very limited (3 choices), always the same, and the design had an incredibly overwhelming play phases that just weren't intuitive or elegant. After stewing over it for a week (and taking in some feedback from a colleague), I created a new small deck of cards called Command cards. There are about 6 different cards, each with a unique role that can be assigned to a player by the Expedition Leader. However, the Expedition Leader can only use a limited portion of the cards.

This does a few things:

• I've removed one confusing choice and given the player an easier, but also broader one
• I've dramatically cleaned up the turns and  phases of the game
• I've added more content that's more interesting
• Each turn will now be different, but still within a familiar range of possibilities

I'm also pretty excited by quality of the current rules; I've edited them at least 50 times. They are 10 pages total (or 5 pages front/back), but the game can be learned in the first 5 pages. The last 5 go deeper into content and provide examples for some of the mechanics. The other reason the rules went from 6 to 10 pages is that almost every concept has a visual component or diagram to help explain it. After reading Pandemic and Forbidden Island's rules, I knew that was the way it had to be for Frontier Scoundrels. 

I'll play a few games with myself this week to pound out the early bugs and flow issues. Then I'll bring my friends over. If all goes well, I'm hoping to send prototypes to colleagues in a few months. This will coincide perfectly with the website for Hyperbole Games going live and the Christmas holiday season. 

Let's be about it, shall we?

"Ocian in view! O! the joy!"

-Captain William Clark, upon reaching the Pacific Ocean

The Chronicles of Rodiek

My younger brother, Dylan, is a football coach/teacher in Texas. He works really hard and has made a name for himself and is doing quite well. Last year, he was working the sidelines at a high school football game when the player (and its players) came crashing into where Dylan was standing. Dylan acted quickly and bolted out of the way before fully-padded youth crashed into him.

A fellow coach caught the entire thing on camera. Dylan's intense look and hardcore action pose was funny enough by itself, but in true meme fashion, the coaches kept using the photo again and again. Dylan sent me the photos last night and I'm posting them here. I realize I'm biased, but I think they are utterly hilarious.

Dylan at the running of the bulls

Dylan and Forrest, Forrest Gump

Dylan entering the brawl at Fenway Park

Dylan shoots for the gap!

Dylan in the New York City marathon

Dylan in Iraq

Dylan at Tiananmen Square

Our 3 AM Adventure

Our 11 month old Corgi Peaches decided to destroy our rug last week. I'm not sure how long it's been on her list of things to do. Perhaps the final catalyst was when the rug called her short, and pointed out that she lacked a tail (both true).

The rug is placed underneath our bed, but extends about 2 feet beyond the frame to provide a warm and stylish contrast to the wood floors upon which it rests. Peaches began her onslaught with the corner and only dug a few inches into it the first day. After all, Rome was not built in a day.

Awkward, stumbling mess

Typically these events would be rare enough that I could justify a single post per incidence. Unfortunately, I've been quite inappropriate lately in several back-to-back instances, so I think it's best to condense and combine. Let's get started then!