Author: Yeei

I am. You are. We be.
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Bigger, the further away you are from it.

The entry for the 9-cards design contest went out, lived its life abandoned and died. Without surprise it had no tests and I believe no volunteer assigned. But I don’t think about it – wasn’t it the point? Yes: Get it out. After publication, I received a notification on Board Game Geek from a very nice tester who let me know that he couldn’t access the files. As I was working (like both working on a new design for the other contests and working to eat plus some other things on the side) plus preparing a hackathon for my company, I didn’t see it. I really need to learn how to use the BGG web site but even more I really need to self-motivate: this board game designer stuff is hard. Plus I don’t have the time to write anymore – actually it’s even worse than that as all I can think about is the story of my new design rather than just a story. Anyway the results are out for the first contest I engaged into and I congratulate all participants and the winner (their game won nearly every category). I am patting myself on the back too because self-disqualification shouldn’t be a reason to not appreciate the fact that you were able to try. I pat you in the back too if that helps, Sweetheart.

Obviously one thing to retain is that I should be more present on the forum but also on every communicate channels I engaged into these last months.

So as I was saying I decided to enter several contests and with the aforementioned new design, “Four Tides of Stardust”, I joined two contests (in that order):

They both required a video.

Have you ever “done” a video? Not recording random stuff but like properly “done” a video? It’s hard and you need some time to prepare. I recorded the video for the first design using my phone, on my knees and looking down at the game set up in a red carpet. I had to restrain myself from breathing as my belly pushed my headphones’ chord on the way and I couldn’t get the angle right. And did it about 40 times because I had no text prepared and kept stuttering (English is not my first language as you already know). You can see the last version here and it’s awful. Poor judges.

I recorded the second video with the game setup correctly on my diner table. I used a chair (yes, on the table) and a fold-able laundry drying hanger (yes) to keep the image steady while I recorded game play. I then edited the video using Splice and added the audio after checking the time I took to do certain things, writing down what I will say. It still took me most of my night, I started at 9pm and I finished exhausted at 4am.

This awful but defining moment is here. It’s better than the first one but if you clicked on both link I need to tell you, Pumpkin, that you are a masochist.

The second contest also required a sell sheet. I clearly screwed that up too. The issue is the same: my obvious lack of preparation. I tried to be clever but I cannot really use the tool, Gimp. Good name. Anyway that one is here.

Both contests required a payment of 5 US Dollars and considering the garbage I sent them I fell like I should add ten times that to both my entries, hoping it will help with the medical bills. These poor people.

So here are the insights found when preparing this month’s contests:

  1. Prepare your video
    1. Start preparing your video long before the entries deadline
    2. Learn how to use a video tool
    3. Have an idea of how it will unfold
    4. Prepare your visuals
    5. Prepare your speech
    6. Separate recording of visuals and of speech
    7. Join visuals and audio in the video tool you chose
  2. Prepare your Sell Sheet
    1. Start preparing your Sell Sheet long before the entries deadline
    2. Look at other sell sheets for inspiration
    3. Write your texts early
    4. Organise the layout early
    5. Start playing with a graphical tool early

Morality: whatever you plan to do, start early.

Ah… Wisdom.

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To Take Part.

Oh my. After days of roaming the BGG website, I think I will rename it the GBBBG, the “Goddamn Bloody BGG” but I cannot complain too much: it exists for a long time, does the work of compiling the outpouring of any woman and man even remotely connected to board games and it was created in 2000. I am not sure computers existed at that time so kudos to the admins for completing this herculean task. I know UX didn’t exist then though, that’s for sure, and Jacob Nielsen is just a figment of your imagination.

Anyway and more importantly, GBBGG hosts the first contest we agreed to join. I mean, you did, Lovely Star, really. My design is so-so and you can find it here, if you feel so inclined as to have a laugh today: Zelazny’ Stairways.

The contest is the 9-cards (and 18 generic components) design one. “9” reminded me of Zelazny’s Amber cycles in which you follow a prince of the Amber’s kingdom battling his siblings to regain his crown while trying to end the spread of Chaos which threatens to destroy the world as he knows it.

Brothers and Sisters. BFFs.

The members of this loving and caring family are able to voyage through shadows of the only real world or kingdom, Amber. Earth as you know it, is only one of these shadows. As they walk, princes and princesses of Amber can alter their environment and little by little, arrive to a new shadow. Some shadows are deserts, empty of life. Others are full of diverse beings, some human-like and many not, but also of resources of various types. Zelazny uses this constraint to create conflicts in his books. For example, in Amber, gunpowder doesn’t work, but the prince we are rooting for found a shadow which produces the only powder that works as expected in the kingdom. An interesting point is that the path they use to move from Amber to one shadow must always be the same so in order to go back to that, for example, best-ever-pancakes-shadow, our hero and his family better have a good memory.

In the game, a competitive one for two players, you win by completing one of these two conditions:

  • You bring back the crown to your base
  • You remove every evil contamination from the game

The game is divided in two parts – first you create the world, second you complete one of the objectives. In the first phase, players mainly use cards. In the second phase, they use units they collected in the first phase (the cards do not move).

Mad World.

In Zelazny’ Stairways, 8 of the 9 cards are divided in 4 areas (representing road, field, prairie, water, sand, mountain and forest). Players add cards to the table (the game’s universe) by connecting them through common areas. So if a card on the table shows a “sand area” (simple picture of a pathway in the middle of a dune), you can connect to it a card you have in hands with the same “sand area”. You simply put the new card on top of the previous one so that they overlap on that common “sand area” only. The 9th card, the Castle, is an area that can connect to and be connected to every other area.

In essence, I wanted the (two) players to create a new game’s universe with each new game. Each of the images I used for the 7 areas (which I repeat semi-randomly on each of the 8 cards) show a path. The goal here was to show to players that they were not semi-gods able to sprout new worlds at will but that they were following a track leading to a discovery of existing places (that I called “Alternates”). Bonus point is that the units players will be able to collect in phase one will change from game to game.

To represent Chaos, each player receive 2 “fixers” and 2 “transponders”. Each time a player plays the first card of the two cards they receive (two is only possible as long as there are enough cards) for their turn, either a fixer or a transponder must be played on it. Fixers are the evil contamination of the world. The transponders allow players’ units to move faster and you can use yours’ or your opponent’s indistinctly. The first phase of the game ends as soon as every fixer and transponder as been placed.

I hope players will consider that as a source of engagement: how do I get the Castle closer to me? how do I allow my units the largest jump and ensure I can access any part of the game’s universe fast enough to counter my opponent’s actions? Am I making sure the fixers are closest to my enemy’s base than mine?

‘Source it.

Save for the Castle, each card shows one or more icons representing resources: soldiers, carriers, weapons, the Justice and the Crown. If a player puts down a card that shows icons on any other area than the one using for connecting, they can pick-up one resource represented by the icon(s) on the card. So if I connect a new card to a card with a “sand area”, and that “sand area” shows a weapon icon, I cannot take a weapon. However, if the weapon icon is displayed on any of the three others areas of the card I just played, I can take that weapon.

So once again I reached to the source. The mechanism described above for resources ties back to the books as different worlds give you different resources and you can only get so many resources by shadow/alternate. My Beautiful, please know that this limit is another (I hope) source of the players’ engagement: How to get a specific resource once these other cards have already been played on the table?

One unit of despair.

In the second phase, all players’ units start from the player’ table area. Yes, I mean where they put their hands when they rest them on the table. Units enter the game by the two areas closest to their owner’ seat. Again, that ties to the books and marching orders start somewhere in the shadows.

As usual in such games, different units move differently. Some units can carry other units making them more powerful, slower or allowing them to remove fixers. I am not interested by one player annihilating the other so the hope is that both players will aim for different things and, use the combat resolution system to set back the other while they pursue their own plan by either good tactic analysis or opportunities.

Losing combat means losing time: units drop what they carry and are sent back to their owner’s base. Hopefully, the transponders (if placed cleverly in phase one) allow the player to only lose that battle but still stay competitive. Dropped items can be picked up by your opponent’s units or yours if they move smartly and fast.

There are two special units or resources of importance:

  • The Crown – bring it home and and win the game
  • The Justice – walk through any area and remove fixers

Short-sightings and short-comings

I learnt a lot in a very short time. I’ll go with my list first. I know your game is already perfect as you are.

1 – Not starting early enough – one week working on this was not enough and it definitely shows in the rules, the realization, the testing. I have until tonight to check for typos in the rules but I would love to be able to change other things and make them at least clearer.

2 – Tests – A lot of prototype-testing (I tested alone). Definitely something I did a lot in the last days and I think the game rolls but it can be bumpy at times in phase two.

3 – Mechanism – I like the idea of recreating a new world each time. The more games you play, the better you will know the cards and what world works for you. However I am not that happy with phase two as it doesn’t flow as much as I wanted. I am not even sure how to make it better.

4 – Rules – I am clear when I explain it to other people. I am unable to translate it correctly in the written world. This is sometimes a struggle when writing a mail or a short-story but the systematic nature of a game didn’t seem that hard to write down. It is. Just check some of the content on GBBGG. Hard.

5 – Units differentiation – All units are common to both players, and they all have the same color. So if you have a courier and I have a courier, one of us might forget which is yours and which is mine. Probably me, ô Well of Wisdom.

6 – Inelegance – some game’s notions and concepts are not that clear and could have been cleaner. For example, where is each player’s base is a bit weak in my opinion.

7 – GBBGG and GDCR – I definitely find the site hard to use at times. At the same time some fellow board-gamers went through explaining what you have to do to enter a contest and why this and why that. Love them geekers.

Three wishes.

1 – The game is out!
2 – The game is out 🙂
3 – The game is out 😀

On top of that I have one like on GBBBG. From a very nice person who will not play the game. I got a like! I am so happy I feel like rolling on the floor and rubbing my belly with me nails.

Wonder. Wonder? Please tell me you got yours out in time too? Please paste the link here and I’ll have a look. I know how difficult it is to get someone to even only read your rules and even more to get someone to test. Currently, my game is untouched.

If you didn’t that’s fine. We got 4 more contests to aim for.

You and me, my anonymous sibling, you and me!

Trauma Work.

Let’s get things real.

Throughout my life I have been failing to create games. Each failure was separated from the next by a hiatus of several years. Each of these designs spawned from a story. Save one. The very first one. I still cry when I remember the context of its release as well as its first review.

My inspiration led me to create a masterpiece revision of Stratego. No story, just Stratego: reduce the randomness, simplify the type of units, allow for deeper strategic analysis, divide the play time by two and replace the childish art by Monet-like illustrations. The critic quickly put it in his folder (a backpack) for review later and he diligently completed it by throwing the game in a bin that very evening. He didn’t understand what it was, why he had received it and he wasn’t so much into games anyway.

Call that a friend, you? I don’t.

Still. A very important reviewer looked at my work and decided No. Taken his knee-jerk reaction for the only one I will get for my creations, I did nothing in pursuing this line of work for years. Never again! Today, we start the work of unraveling trauma.

New Rule: Do not let an experience become a reference.

Easy, huh? So now that we trashed this reviewer’s work down the bin, what do we do?
As you know already, Peaceful Purple Horizon, the problem with every Grand Openings, is really all the following-up, very many and less than extraordinary, regular openings.

Years of habit of not completing a design cannot be erased by deciding to not-not complete the next one. We have a goal but how to get the motivation to go to the end?
Harsh self-critic, procrastination, lack of motivation… I am afraid to lose hope again at the first hurdle: a strange smile from a play-tester, a magisterially tangled rule, a misspelled name, a missing component, required sleep. We need something that pushes us or pulls us towards completing that goal, ô Pebble From The Sun.

I know at least one area of life where we all tend to start something and complete what we start, no matter what, and that’s the professional life. And the professional life is defined by deadlines. Something to keep us moving throughout. Always. And where do we find deadlines in board games? Yup. Contests.

Benefits:

  • Get the current game out of your brain
  • Learn to boost your creativity and see if you can adapt to a theme
  • Meet a very supportive community
  • Discuss with fellow co-designers
  • Receive soft and comprehensive judgement on what you deliver
  • Money
  • Feedback and progression

6 out of 7 is good. After days looking online, I found five contests coming up. In closest deadline order:

1 – BoardGameGeek 9-cards – 31st March
2 – Boardgame Workshop 2019 – 21st April
3 – BoardGameGeek 54-cards – 31st May
4 – GameCrafter Elegance – 17th June
5 – GameCrafter Social deduction – 12th August

Five contests. Five months. Nothing in a lifetime, Bicentennial Alpha. Shall we shall take the oath to try our best to complete one design for each of those five contests? Yes? At last, give me your Pinky!

The first contest is soon, very soon, so we are disengaged from completing a short-story for it. Best case, if you must have a background: find inspiration from a favorite author.

9-cards. 9 characters. Amber seems like the way to go for me.

Have you decided which direction your game will go?

OK. Have a look. Think. I’ll be back in few days. I promise.

I just need to find tutorials about how the BGG site works first.

What a peculiar idea.

Ideas do not exist by themselves. Stories do and whatever their core ideas, those can only exist when surrounded by contexts, means and goals. Weirdly, they can sometimes themselves be the context, the mean or the goal. Developing an idea means focusing on what you want it to become or how to integrate it to what it is, what you already know, or what you already have. What it is by itself means nothing.

Funny thing, some people sell themselves as “individuals who have ideas”. Have you ever found someone deprived of imagination? Yes, that doesn’t exist, and the funny paradox is that by contesting to everyone else the ability to have constructive day-dreams, the aforementioned exceptional thinkers automatically display a certain lack of it.

Anyway – “why are you here” was your question, yes?

First. Because you are very smart, clever and imaginative. You probably came here by mistake and so adding “lucky” to the long list of qualities already associated with your beautiful self is justified.

Second. This blog is about writing and board games as it says at the top. If it doesn’t, consider the writer for the bear he is, just coming out of hibernation, inexperienced in WordPress and anything social (but mainly WordPress). One precision though: this will not necessarily be writing about board games.

Ideas, we said. Let’s share some.

Here is one: write a book.
Here is two: build a board game.

Yes, as your magnificent eyes have read, those are ideas devious of any context or mean. Two simple examples of “why don’t I”. No story to sugar-coat them so they are, for now, simple goals. Worthless. Let’s add some contexts and see if yours match mine. Please repeat out loud, especially if you are in a public place and that one concerns you:

“I want to write a book because I got a bloody embryonic idea of a book years ago and it’s still here so I might never get rid of it if I don’t write it down. And too bad if it’s bad: I just want it out.”

Spiteful self-critic is my curse so I will probably never complete a book. I don’t mind the work but I end up trashing everything I write (how do the others do it?).

Please state out loud the following one if it’s closer to your muse:

“I want to build a board game because I got a bloody embryonic idea of a board game years ago and it’s still here so I might never get rid of it if I don’t build it out. And too bad if it’s bad: I just want it out.”

According to some reviewers and critics of the board games world, you need to be a board game designer to design a board game. You must be born that way. Damn it. I fail again despite my best intentions. More over, you need others to confirm the validity of a design and I am surrounded by isolation so I have very few potential testers in my area (how do the others do it?).

Alas. Pearl of the World, I am afraid if you repeated one of these statements, you are mistakenly imagining yourself unworthy. Be strong and tall in your head and so shall you be for the others. You are already such for me. What are you for yourself?

If I bring no comfort remember to seek the more clairvoyant writers and helpful board game designers ready to share their own journey… they will help more than me. I am, after all, only a encouraging voice in your ear, a soft pat on your back, a sweaty hand on your knee and a probable slap in my face.

Now let’s review. What do we lack? A mean, of course! And thank you for reminding me, Ô Blinding Flame of the Galaxy.

So, here is three: build board games as a mean to write stories.

A clever idea. So smart that I still remember when it emerged in my mind because of two improbable reasons: it was a Monday and someone else was saying it at the time.

So there: this blog aims to document the effort of writing and building board games (in this order) and tie them together if such thing is possible. Other areas will be explored as they relate to my peregrinations on my self-inflicted endeavor. They are pell-mell: comparisons of anything board games (reviewers, games, web sites, podcasts, etc) and my discoveries in crowdfunding (methods and resources).

(Yes using the anglicism of the french word pêle-mêle was not necessary when listing only two items but it was a way to tell you something).

So shall we start?

If you are already gone, Drop of Rain from Water-less Horizons… Bah, well, alright then. I get it. My blog-writing skills hide a desire not to look pedantic and it’s easier to write here when I add some non-sense. After all, writing is, as Terry Pratchett wrote once: “Bugger”. Or maybe he said: “Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself”. And so do I intend to do and you are welcome to stay and share your own thoughts, efforts and progresses.

Here we go.