On Saturday, my son and I went to the wonderful Labyrinth Games to participate in their "Taste of Savage Worlds" event. Labyrinth Games is a terrific game store on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The owner, Kathleen, has let the store host a series of "Taste of" events that showcase different games with a free session of play. So, several weeks ago I signed Ian and I up to go and play Savage Worlds.
Savage Worlds is a table top role playing game (RPG) published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group and the basic rulebook costs about $10, which is hard to beat. I had never played Savage Worlds before, though I had heard of the game. I did no research before we went to play. My son, on the other hand, found a lot of information online and created one or more characters ahead of time.
We had a really good time (which I will go into in detail below), but first, one gripe. Transit on a nice day in May in Washington, DC SUCKS. We got to park for free at the end of the Red Metro Line, which was all well and good, and we gave ourselves an hour and a half to arrive from our end of the Red Line to Eastern Market on the Orange/Blue line, and we arrived in good time (we had maybe 15 minutes to look around the shop, talk to people and then get down to play). Getting home was pretty much a royal pain. We did dinner in town, and then had to wait a long time for a ludicrously full train to stop and not have room to pick us up, and then wait a longer time to get a train to go to transfer at Metro Center. There, we waited about half an hour with a LOT of people for a train to finally come. On a Saturday night. And then, when we finally got to get on a train and stand for most of the trip, they were doing track work, which meant we had another 15 minute stop in limbo while we waited our turn to pass through the single track area. Now, I am a big supporter of public transit, and I think, in general, Metro does all right. However, when going to a four hour event takes almost four hours of transit, that makes deciding to take transit over driving or some other alternative (like not going and spending money in DC) more attractive.
Still, even with transit woes, we had a good time. I do wish that the market made sense to have a branch of Labyrinth Games in the little mall across the street from my neighborhood, but that's never going to happen, so I just have to be very happy that such a great store is reasonably close to me at all.
So, as far as playing Savage Worlds, there are two things that will make or break the event. First, of course, is whether or not the game and its rules, in and of themselves make sense and are fun. I can report that Savage Worlds appears to be a very solid and fun game. It is advertised as "multi genre" (rather than generic), which means that it is flexible enough to be used in lots of different settings with an emphasis on fast and action packed play (so it could handle anything, to use some cinematic References, from the Silverado, to Raiders of the Lost Ark, to Lord of the Rings, to Terminator, or Mad Max). The second ingredient is the people. We did well in this regard too. At our table, besides Ian and I, were Paul, our Game Master, Bob (who apparently helped organize the event, and he did a great job (and brought cookies)), and Chris. Everyone was very nice, very relaxed, and there to have fun.
There were two other tables with different games. If I have a regret, it is that we were not able to play all the games being run, because they all sounded and looked pretty fun. Of the games we did not play, I don't know which one was better, because both looked pretty awesome. One was apparently something like Sam Spade meets Inception meets Call of Cthulhu. The other was something like the Wild West with Witchcraft (maybe Cowboys and Wizards instead of the forthcoming "Cowboys and Aliens" [which is something else Savage Worlds could probably handle)). Both those talbes were packed and people had lots of loud fun dealing with the stories told.
Ours was great as well, and thus I save the best (because we were playing it) for last. Our setting was "Darwin's World" a post apocalyptic survival game with mutants and radiation. Our GM Paul had pre-made characters ready, and we got to customize them with our mutations, as we were all mutants. Ian ended up with a vigilant guard who had toxic skin and a lethal sting. Bob was the other warrior and was some kind of huge, winged reptilian. Chris was, I think, slightly glowing and immune to radiation. I had the healer of the group, and I was both mute and I stank and I had underdeveloped lung capacity so I was not good at certain survival things, like running. Not all mutations exactly gave you superpowers. Anyway, I named my mutant Red Cross (which Paul wrote down as Redd Xross) and indicated that he had a big red cross painted on his shirt so he could point to it to indicate his name (being mute and all).
It was a fun mix.
We were told to report for a little job. The feel was like a frontier town, so a bit of a Western, with mutants and radiation thrown in. Of course, just getting the job was hard as some kind of "bad guy" group was already trying to steal the packaged we were supposed to deliver. We had a big fight and got to learn how combat works in Savage Worlds (pretty well). It turned out that Chris and Ian's fortes were marksmanship with rifles. Bob was one terrifying killer with a katana. I got lucky with my pistol once and thought I was a gunfighter (turned out later, I was wrong and just got lucky once). We rescued our erstwhile boss and he gave us the package to deliver.
We did have a vehicle, so it started to turn a bit more like Mad Max, but we did not actually have any vehicle combat.
Instead, we found the village we were going to almost empty, except for a few kids left on guard. They volunteered to go with us to look for their families, as some big bad group (again, think the marauders from Mad Max) was out after everyone trying to get some prize piece of technology. Turned out there was an old weapons lab nearby. We went and checked it out. We were not finding the adults from the village, though we spotted the bad guys flying mutants chasing something far away on the ground.
Our next big fight was in the parking lot of the lab. It was a long complicated fight. The best result was that we managed to keep the over enthusiastic kids from getting hurt. However, we had to fight a huge flying poisonous snake/worm thing that could turn invisible. In the end, it wrapped around Ian's character and tried to fly off with him. Chris shot it out of the air and Bob caught Ian (remember, Bob could fly) and managed to make sure they both did not die in the fall. I was mostly useless, and in the middle of the fight, a bunch of radioactive zombies showed up and had me surrounded. We were running out of time for the game, so after managing to kill the big flying creature, Paul narrated the ending.
The villagers showed up and polished off the zombies. They were gratified that the kids were still alive and explained that the big marauder guys had killed the original recipient of our package (she sacrificed herself by drawing them off, riding a motorcycle). So, we presented the package to her sister who said it was a key to get an atomic bomb.
We broke into the research lab, got into the vault and repaired the equipment to load the bomb onto a flat bed truck. Of course then the marauder guys showed up, and they seemed to think the bomb belonged to them.
A narrated running fire fight ensued, but with our brave mutant characters' help, the villages would get the bomb back to the frontier outpost where they traded it for protection and incorporation and we got made special citizens.
All in all, it was quite fun. I though Paul did especially well in taking us through how the game worked without belaboring anything. The game was all in all, fast paced and fun.
If I had any disappointment, it was that the second combat got bogged down, and that we had to have a narrated rather than played through ending. However, Paul drove a very long way to come run the game, and on the whole, he did a great job, so I can't fault the pacing too much, as he was dealing with three out of four players that had never done the game before.
It was really a good fun for an afternoon. It also made a long day because of the transit issues, so we can't do too many of these. Still, we will watch to see what more Labyrinth has to offer because the store runs a great event.
Now I have to think about what in future I might run with Savage Worlds.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Playtest: Zeppelin Armada - Phase 3 (Some Explanations)
Fred Hicks, one of the guiding lights at Evil Hat Productions, has a good post about the game that I and my family have had a chance to play test, giving some evocative quotes and summaries about the game from some of the other play testers. I wanted to take a moment to post again about the game, but from a slightly different perspective.
The other day, a neighbor who had seen some of my playtest posts asked me what it was I was doing. The idea of this kind of game and the design process, including play testing, was outside of his experience, and, as I looked through his eyes and his questions, I could see that my writing was completely in a foreign language for him. Whether or not it is coherent enough for people more on the inside of gaming is not for me to say, but I though I would do my best to, as a post script to the whole experience, try to more expansively describe what the playtest experience was about and what was this game we were playing.
I won't claim that I am such a good communicator that anyone will be able to understand from what I write, but I hope that I can be more clear and more detailed in this capstone to allow this to be more accessible and more understandable.
And maybe it can, in some small way, bring people more towards the world of game playing that I enjoy and that the game, Zeppelin Armada, represents.
So, let me define first what my role was in the game design process, and then explain what the game itself was about (while protecting the still in development intellectual property of the game).
Games and the Design Process:
Games are part of almost every human culture throughout time. Many games have been with us for a long time and they take lots of different shapes. Some are games we play as children with various amounts of rules, such as tag, Red Rover, Sardines, hopscotch, 4-square, etc. Some of these games require a certain number of people of equipment, but the knowledge of these games are pretty much passed down on the playgrounds of the world, if not from parent to child. Other games like Chess, Checkers, and a million card games (poker, bridge, spades, hearts, canasta, pinochle) are more formal in their components (a board, chess pieces, decks of cards, etc.) and rules. Many of these games are hundreds or even thousands of years old in their origin.
Then, we also have more modern games that we have grown up with. Their age may be measured in perhaps a century or decades, but we know them well and love them. These are games like Monopoly, Risk, Sorry, Stratego, Clue, Life, etc. Generally, they are considred "board games" because their central feature is that there is a board that is the center of the game's action, and while there may be cards, dice, and game pieces to move around, the board definse the game for us.
If you think about how many games there are (maybe how many are just stuffed in your closet or on a shelf in your basement) you begin to realize how many games have come and gone.
And yet, we love games, and creative people love to make and sell games and new ones continue to appear. Some are destined to be classics, many are destined to entertain for a play or two and then gather dust.
Yet, how is a game made today?
While I don't think there is a single "scientific" process, there are definite phases of development which a successful game has to go through. It starts with an idea from an individual or group of designers who want to do something through a game. The idea may start as a particular mechanic (way you play a game) or theme (what the game is about, like Clue is about solving a murder mystery or Monopoly is about making money) or some combination. From the basic idea, you have to come up with the medium of play (a board, cards, dice, hand gestures, whatever), determine the goal (have the most money, capture the king, get around the board first, etc.) and form the rules (who goes first, how are pieces moved, when is it somebody else's turn, etc.).
That can be, you might expect, a lot of work. There can be, I think, a lot of trial and error. From moving from the starting idea to a rough outline of why you play (goal), how you play (rules) and where you play (medium [e.g. on a board]) is a lot of work. And, of course, once you have all that done, the designer can think that it all makes perfect sense. But, until the game is explained to and played with other people outside of the design group, there is no way to know if the game really works and really is fun.
So, you have to start testing the game, and thus, the playtest.
Typically, I think a game goes through an "in house" playtest. That is, the designer or design group plays with people they know and explain and guide the play. This is good, because the designers can be challenged to explain and clarify issues about how the game is played and to start to deal with design issues which they may not have thought of (what happens if two players are in the same space?). The down side of this, is that because the game is still under the direct control of the designers, it is hard to tell if the game will work out in the real world.
Have you ever noticed how many times you learn a game because someone explains it to you, rather than reading the rules? Games often are transmitted much more easily from an experienced player to a new player. Rules are looked up in novel situations, and to settle disputes, but often, most players never read through the whole rule book.
However, with a new game, the game will not spread far if the designers have to go and explain the game play to you personally. Instead, they have to be able to write rules and provide components (board, cards, dice, whatever) that are sufficiently clear and self-explanatory so that someone whom the designer will never meet can buy the game, read the rules, and play and (most importantly) have fun.
So, that is why an external playtest is important. The external playtest releases the rules and components to one or more outside groups to review and play on their own. Then, as they run across things that don't seem clear or that don't seem to work in a game, they can give feedback to improve the rules, or to improve how the rules are written, and to improve and hone the game.
Some games will go through multiple external playtests, so that the game play and written rules can be really polished and ready for eventual marketing.
And that, of course, is the next move. Once playtest is over and the game is "done," then the work begins. You have to figure out how to manufacture the compoents (rule book, board, cards, dice, etc. etc.), How to assemble those components. How to package the game. How to pay for the labor that goes into all of those things, and establish a market, and figure out storage, shipping, and pricing.
And eventually, people have to learn about the game, play it, like it, and most importantly, buy it. That is, if you are doing this commercially.
And, since I am not actually either a professional or amateur game designer, I probably left out some steps, but, I think you get the idea. The process of creating a game is pretty complex, time consuming, and potentially costly.
So, where did I fit in as far as this new game, Zeppelin Armada?
Me and the Playtest
My family and I were selected to participate in the initial external playtest of the game.
How did this happen? Well, I keep tabs on a few blogs by smart people who do interesting things. One of them is Fred Hicks, whom I mentioned above, and one day he mentioned that he was looking for playtesters for this new game in development by Evil Hat. On impulse, I responded with my interest, and I was one of the first five who responded in the manner he requested. We got added into a google group which was created to manage the external playtest process, and within days, I had access to the draft rules and the files from whcih I could create the essential components of the game to try it out.
This was my first time as a playtester, and it was exciting to be part of a creative process which is going to result in a game that goes out to the public.
So, what we had to do was, of course, play the game. We also had to record how things went in the game and respond to a questionaire each time we played. In it, we addressed specific questions the designers had about how the game went, and also had an opportunity to give opinions and observations about what we liked and did not like about the game.
We sent all that in (by e-mail) and our input, along with the other testers, is all be considered in a redraft of the game.
We will be participating in a second round of testing which will examine the revised game.
And let me just say, as an aside, that the information super highway really makes this process a lot easier than it has ever been.
And what do we get paid? We get credit and thanks in the printed materials when the game comes out. For a small game company like Evil Hat, the reward is really to participate in the creative process. If successful, we might get a copy of the game, but that is not really the point. The point is to do something fun and constructive with interesting and fun people.
All in all, it has been a good experience.
The Game Itself
So, what is the game?
It is not a computer game. Nor is it really a board game.
It is a game centered around a fun theme: Zeppelins and villains.
Zeppelins were, for a short time, an important civilian and miliatry form of air transport. During the 1930s especially, they fueled people's imagination and romantic sense of travel, adventure and scientific progress. While the Hindenburg crash did not end the Zeppelin era, per se, it took the shine off of it. Still, many look back to that time and cannot help but imagine wild and amazing adventures centered around Zeppelins. This is especially true because the Zeppelin Age was also the age of the pulp fiction hero. From detectives (think Sam Spade) to masked vigilantes (like The Shadow, or The Green Hornet) to space heros (like Flash Gordon), this era of pop culture burst with amazing adventures of derring do and mad science.
So, the idea of the game is to take your flagship and fleet of Zeppelins and rule the air. You play not as a hero, but rather as one of several competing villains, the kind who would have given Flash Gordon or Doc Savage a run for their money.
Each player gets to choose a villain and his or her flagship, and then builds an armada to take down the other players and rule the skies.
The game is a card game, in that the play centers on cards, but not from a traditional deck, with traditional cards in suits (hearts, spades, etc.). Instead, the cards are a combination of game pieces, like those you might use in Risk or Battleship, and game effects, like the Chance or Community Chest cards in Monopoly.
Besides cards, there are a few other things needed which come, not with the game, but from things you are likely to have around the house. Some dice (traditional cube, six sided), a coin, and some counters (could be beads, stones, or other coins), just some things to help keep track of stuff that is going on in the game.
After choosing a villainous flagship, each player gets a number of Zeppelins with which to start an armada. Rather than a board, each player has a formation of Zeppelin cards. They have to be around the flagship, so that, at any one time, the most there can be down is a three by three square of Zeppelin cards, centered on the flagship. Each Zeppelin has different qualities that help define how good it is in battle.
Each player then also gets a hand of cards. These cards may include additional Zeppelins that can be played, as well as weapons with which to launch attacks on rivals, characters that can be played on Zeppelins to make they work better (for yours) or work worse (for your opponents), conditions that change the way the game is played, and events that can help you or hurt your opponents.
The game proceeds in turns, and each player gets to make decisions about how to play cards, discard cards and draw cards. Attacks against fellow players are frequent, and really, the ultimate point of the game. You are trying to be the last one standing, just like Risk, for example.
The game, once you get the rules and understand the different qualities of Zeppelins, etc., plays pretty fast. Still, a whole game goes, generally about a hour and a half.
It is a very directly competative game. You are trying to directly beat the other playes by eliminating them (again, like Risk or Battleship). If you play in the spirit of fun, it can be great to blow up your opponent's vessels, play a card to escape certain destruction of your own airships, and to try to be the most daring and merciless villain to cut a swath of destruction through the skies.
We are very much looking forward to trying out the new and improved game and doing what we can to suggest any additional changes that will help bring it out of testing and into production so that someday, not to long from now, anyone can pick up a deck, pull together a few things that are around the house, and engage in a battle royale for control of the skies.
I hope, in my long winded, way, I have explained what I have been up to and why.
Play on!
The other day, a neighbor who had seen some of my playtest posts asked me what it was I was doing. The idea of this kind of game and the design process, including play testing, was outside of his experience, and, as I looked through his eyes and his questions, I could see that my writing was completely in a foreign language for him. Whether or not it is coherent enough for people more on the inside of gaming is not for me to say, but I though I would do my best to, as a post script to the whole experience, try to more expansively describe what the playtest experience was about and what was this game we were playing.
I won't claim that I am such a good communicator that anyone will be able to understand from what I write, but I hope that I can be more clear and more detailed in this capstone to allow this to be more accessible and more understandable.
And maybe it can, in some small way, bring people more towards the world of game playing that I enjoy and that the game, Zeppelin Armada, represents.
So, let me define first what my role was in the game design process, and then explain what the game itself was about (while protecting the still in development intellectual property of the game).
Games and the Design Process:
Games are part of almost every human culture throughout time. Many games have been with us for a long time and they take lots of different shapes. Some are games we play as children with various amounts of rules, such as tag, Red Rover, Sardines, hopscotch, 4-square, etc. Some of these games require a certain number of people of equipment, but the knowledge of these games are pretty much passed down on the playgrounds of the world, if not from parent to child. Other games like Chess, Checkers, and a million card games (poker, bridge, spades, hearts, canasta, pinochle) are more formal in their components (a board, chess pieces, decks of cards, etc.) and rules. Many of these games are hundreds or even thousands of years old in their origin.
Then, we also have more modern games that we have grown up with. Their age may be measured in perhaps a century or decades, but we know them well and love them. These are games like Monopoly, Risk, Sorry, Stratego, Clue, Life, etc. Generally, they are considred "board games" because their central feature is that there is a board that is the center of the game's action, and while there may be cards, dice, and game pieces to move around, the board definse the game for us.
If you think about how many games there are (maybe how many are just stuffed in your closet or on a shelf in your basement) you begin to realize how many games have come and gone.
And yet, we love games, and creative people love to make and sell games and new ones continue to appear. Some are destined to be classics, many are destined to entertain for a play or two and then gather dust.
Yet, how is a game made today?
While I don't think there is a single "scientific" process, there are definite phases of development which a successful game has to go through. It starts with an idea from an individual or group of designers who want to do something through a game. The idea may start as a particular mechanic (way you play a game) or theme (what the game is about, like Clue is about solving a murder mystery or Monopoly is about making money) or some combination. From the basic idea, you have to come up with the medium of play (a board, cards, dice, hand gestures, whatever), determine the goal (have the most money, capture the king, get around the board first, etc.) and form the rules (who goes first, how are pieces moved, when is it somebody else's turn, etc.).
That can be, you might expect, a lot of work. There can be, I think, a lot of trial and error. From moving from the starting idea to a rough outline of why you play (goal), how you play (rules) and where you play (medium [e.g. on a board]) is a lot of work. And, of course, once you have all that done, the designer can think that it all makes perfect sense. But, until the game is explained to and played with other people outside of the design group, there is no way to know if the game really works and really is fun.
So, you have to start testing the game, and thus, the playtest.
Typically, I think a game goes through an "in house" playtest. That is, the designer or design group plays with people they know and explain and guide the play. This is good, because the designers can be challenged to explain and clarify issues about how the game is played and to start to deal with design issues which they may not have thought of (what happens if two players are in the same space?). The down side of this, is that because the game is still under the direct control of the designers, it is hard to tell if the game will work out in the real world.
Have you ever noticed how many times you learn a game because someone explains it to you, rather than reading the rules? Games often are transmitted much more easily from an experienced player to a new player. Rules are looked up in novel situations, and to settle disputes, but often, most players never read through the whole rule book.
However, with a new game, the game will not spread far if the designers have to go and explain the game play to you personally. Instead, they have to be able to write rules and provide components (board, cards, dice, whatever) that are sufficiently clear and self-explanatory so that someone whom the designer will never meet can buy the game, read the rules, and play and (most importantly) have fun.
So, that is why an external playtest is important. The external playtest releases the rules and components to one or more outside groups to review and play on their own. Then, as they run across things that don't seem clear or that don't seem to work in a game, they can give feedback to improve the rules, or to improve how the rules are written, and to improve and hone the game.
Some games will go through multiple external playtests, so that the game play and written rules can be really polished and ready for eventual marketing.
And that, of course, is the next move. Once playtest is over and the game is "done," then the work begins. You have to figure out how to manufacture the compoents (rule book, board, cards, dice, etc. etc.), How to assemble those components. How to package the game. How to pay for the labor that goes into all of those things, and establish a market, and figure out storage, shipping, and pricing.
And eventually, people have to learn about the game, play it, like it, and most importantly, buy it. That is, if you are doing this commercially.
And, since I am not actually either a professional or amateur game designer, I probably left out some steps, but, I think you get the idea. The process of creating a game is pretty complex, time consuming, and potentially costly.
So, where did I fit in as far as this new game, Zeppelin Armada?
Me and the Playtest
My family and I were selected to participate in the initial external playtest of the game.
How did this happen? Well, I keep tabs on a few blogs by smart people who do interesting things. One of them is Fred Hicks, whom I mentioned above, and one day he mentioned that he was looking for playtesters for this new game in development by Evil Hat. On impulse, I responded with my interest, and I was one of the first five who responded in the manner he requested. We got added into a google group which was created to manage the external playtest process, and within days, I had access to the draft rules and the files from whcih I could create the essential components of the game to try it out.
This was my first time as a playtester, and it was exciting to be part of a creative process which is going to result in a game that goes out to the public.
So, what we had to do was, of course, play the game. We also had to record how things went in the game and respond to a questionaire each time we played. In it, we addressed specific questions the designers had about how the game went, and also had an opportunity to give opinions and observations about what we liked and did not like about the game.
We sent all that in (by e-mail) and our input, along with the other testers, is all be considered in a redraft of the game.
We will be participating in a second round of testing which will examine the revised game.
And let me just say, as an aside, that the information super highway really makes this process a lot easier than it has ever been.
And what do we get paid? We get credit and thanks in the printed materials when the game comes out. For a small game company like Evil Hat, the reward is really to participate in the creative process. If successful, we might get a copy of the game, but that is not really the point. The point is to do something fun and constructive with interesting and fun people.
All in all, it has been a good experience.
The Game Itself
So, what is the game?
It is not a computer game. Nor is it really a board game.
It is a game centered around a fun theme: Zeppelins and villains.
Zeppelins were, for a short time, an important civilian and miliatry form of air transport. During the 1930s especially, they fueled people's imagination and romantic sense of travel, adventure and scientific progress. While the Hindenburg crash did not end the Zeppelin era, per se, it took the shine off of it. Still, many look back to that time and cannot help but imagine wild and amazing adventures centered around Zeppelins. This is especially true because the Zeppelin Age was also the age of the pulp fiction hero. From detectives (think Sam Spade) to masked vigilantes (like The Shadow, or The Green Hornet) to space heros (like Flash Gordon), this era of pop culture burst with amazing adventures of derring do and mad science.
So, the idea of the game is to take your flagship and fleet of Zeppelins and rule the air. You play not as a hero, but rather as one of several competing villains, the kind who would have given Flash Gordon or Doc Savage a run for their money.
Each player gets to choose a villain and his or her flagship, and then builds an armada to take down the other players and rule the skies.
The game is a card game, in that the play centers on cards, but not from a traditional deck, with traditional cards in suits (hearts, spades, etc.). Instead, the cards are a combination of game pieces, like those you might use in Risk or Battleship, and game effects, like the Chance or Community Chest cards in Monopoly.
Besides cards, there are a few other things needed which come, not with the game, but from things you are likely to have around the house. Some dice (traditional cube, six sided), a coin, and some counters (could be beads, stones, or other coins), just some things to help keep track of stuff that is going on in the game.
After choosing a villainous flagship, each player gets a number of Zeppelins with which to start an armada. Rather than a board, each player has a formation of Zeppelin cards. They have to be around the flagship, so that, at any one time, the most there can be down is a three by three square of Zeppelin cards, centered on the flagship. Each Zeppelin has different qualities that help define how good it is in battle.
Each player then also gets a hand of cards. These cards may include additional Zeppelins that can be played, as well as weapons with which to launch attacks on rivals, characters that can be played on Zeppelins to make they work better (for yours) or work worse (for your opponents), conditions that change the way the game is played, and events that can help you or hurt your opponents.
The game proceeds in turns, and each player gets to make decisions about how to play cards, discard cards and draw cards. Attacks against fellow players are frequent, and really, the ultimate point of the game. You are trying to be the last one standing, just like Risk, for example.
The game, once you get the rules and understand the different qualities of Zeppelins, etc., plays pretty fast. Still, a whole game goes, generally about a hour and a half.
It is a very directly competative game. You are trying to directly beat the other playes by eliminating them (again, like Risk or Battleship). If you play in the spirit of fun, it can be great to blow up your opponent's vessels, play a card to escape certain destruction of your own airships, and to try to be the most daring and merciless villain to cut a swath of destruction through the skies.
We are very much looking forward to trying out the new and improved game and doing what we can to suggest any additional changes that will help bring it out of testing and into production so that someday, not to long from now, anyone can pick up a deck, pull together a few things that are around the house, and engage in a battle royale for control of the skies.
I hope, in my long winded, way, I have explained what I have been up to and why.
Play on!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Superman renounces U.S. Citizenship or how to write badly
So, in the historic Action Comics 900, which invented in many ways the Superhero genre when it introduced Superman in 1938 with Action Comics 1, one of the short pieces has Superman declaring that he will "speak before the United Nations . . . and inform them that I am renouncing my U.S. Citizenship." The story was written by David S. Goyer and titled "The Incident."
There has been all kinds of reaction all over the net and cable TV and plenty of stupid things have been said. The analysis has been shallow on both sides and focuses on the act, rather than whether the story itself holds together.
My thesis here, is that it is a bad story that does not hold together. My thesis can also be summed up as "you don't pull on Superman's cape." Superman is a character with a lot of history and who is quite embedded in the American psyche. He exists in a imaginary universe where by dealing with larger than life issues, he illuminates things about our real world from kindness, to humanity, to heroism, to sacrifice. Superman has been done well and done poorly over his run. Superman seems to work best when his stories are told in the world of fantasy of the DC Comics universe. Bringing in more of the real world has to be handled very carefully. When you just throw in "real world" elements without carefully considering how to integrate such elements into a fictional universe you end up with a discordant and quite possibly silly outcome.
It can be done, but you can't just throw it out there. I would cite Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman, which focused as much on her role as Ambassador to the U.N. from the island of the Amazons, Themyscira, as it did on her role as a superhero. If you read those stories, you see how carefully the stories are plotted to blend the gonzo universe of superheroes with mythic, alien, magical, super science, etc. etc. orgins, with a discourse about political, ethical and religious beliefs. Not easy, but, when approached carefully, very satisfying.
I have to say that Goyer utterly fails. The central plot revolves around Superman flying over to Iran (not one of the DC Universes made up countries, but a real country where things are really happening) to witness a protest. He does not do any intervention other than appearing on the ground. This then supposedly causes an international incident as Iran accuses the U.S. of an act of war by sending Superman. Superman is confronted by a member of the U.S. administration who chides him, and he responds that he is going to announce that he is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in order to work more on a global level.
Dumb.
In my opinion, just dumb, unearned and poorly thought out.
Why?
When you write any iconic character, you have to serve the character. You don't bend it to your will to make your point. That does not mean that you can't make your point, if it is in line with the character, but you have to be subtle and respect the source material. Goyer fails.
If you are talking about having Superman intervening in real world events, you start down the road of wondering where Superman is for all the real world events. Why didn't he stop 9/11? Why hasn't he seized Gadaffi. Why wouldn't he disarm nuclear armed countries? You have to live with the conceit that Superman exists to deal with out sized threats to the earth, but he does not exist to solve all of the world's problems. He is not our dictator or ruler or supreme interventionist. He is Earth's protector and servant, but we all still have to do the hard work of making and not breaking our world.
Goyer story paints a Superman who has decided to start meddling in messy, complicated international affairs. But he does so out of the blue. No ground work, no development, no thought. And then, he delivers the punchline, sure to churn the news cycle and to go into reprints, but that makes no sense, the vow to renounce U.S. citizenship.
Superman is a genius, he would have thought a few things through and remembered his history. Goyer is clearly not at his best here, and has not done his homework.
For Superman to renounce citizenship, you have to go through the gyrations of figuring out what citizenship he has. That opens another can of worms that Goyer just doesn't consider. Lots of versions of Superman's origins exist. In some, he is born on Krypton and then sent to the Earth, crash landing in Kansas to end up in an orphanage, or to be taken in by the Kents, or found by the Kents, taken to an orphanage and then adopted by them. At least one version had him in a "birthing matrix", which did not actually "birth" him until it landed in the United States (thus Superman is "born" on Earth in the U.S.). If there is going to be citizenship to renounce, Goyer has to settle which story of Superman's origin gives him any citizenship of the U.S. in the first place. Interestingly, there are considerations of this our on the internet -- link.
A number of legal theories could give Clark Kent, the person that Superman really is, U.S. Citizenship. And that is another thing that Goyer has forgotten. Greg Rucka (one of my favorite authors), has cogently said that Superman is the alter ego, but Clark Kent is the real person, who Superman really is. Whereas for Bruce Wayne, Batman is who he really is, and Wayne is just someone he has to pretend to be to do his job. So, if Superman is renouncing his citizenship, what about Clark (not to mention Mrs. Superman, Lois Lane)? Now, maybe, Goyer could have salvaged this by dealing with the "honorary citizenship" route. At one point, I believe, Superman was granted honorary citizenship in all countries who were part of the United Nations. His story could have had Iran revoke that honorary citizenship and still be provoked by Superman as a tool of the West and the U.S. and then Superman, for a more global perspective, might renounce all his honorary citizenships before the UN, to say that he, as Superman, would always act as some sort of "world citizen." Still not the best, but not nearly as dumb and in the weeds as this story.
Further, Superman can't renounce his citizenship without Clark Kent renouncing. And, it is not a straight-forward process. Generally, you need to leave the U.S. and renounce before a consular official of the U.S. Just making a speech before the UN has no effect. There is paperwork and there are interviews, and there would be a confirmation of identity and a confiscation of any passport.
Well, does Superman have a passport? Clark Kent probably does, but Superman? Would Superman out his secret identity to renounce? What really could happen? Why is Goyer dragging us into the bureaucratic weeds? Superman filling out paperwork and having us ask whether he has a passport is lame.
Goyer not having thought this through when Superman, who is brilliant and extremely well-informed, has failed the character.
Epically failed in my estimation.
The whole thing falls apart.
And after the news cycle churn and the second and third run of the comic happens, then, I expect that it will be mostly forgotten or soon taking out of continuity as if it had never happened.
Because it is dumb.
A smarter more careful writer might, just might have made something of this, but there are better stories to tell and a way to make the points without miring the Man of Steel in the messiness of real world immigration paperwork.
Superman is American, and born of dreams and imagination that happened in America. But he represents the best in humanity, and the irony is, of course, that he is not human, but a "strange visitor from another planet." Superman stories have to capture the strength, the brilliance, and the vulnerability of a person who can move planets, but who knows he cannot do it all alone. Goyer lost Superman's sense of wonder and power and moral authority in his story. And, for Action Comics 900, that is a shame.
There has been all kinds of reaction all over the net and cable TV and plenty of stupid things have been said. The analysis has been shallow on both sides and focuses on the act, rather than whether the story itself holds together.
My thesis here, is that it is a bad story that does not hold together. My thesis can also be summed up as "you don't pull on Superman's cape." Superman is a character with a lot of history and who is quite embedded in the American psyche. He exists in a imaginary universe where by dealing with larger than life issues, he illuminates things about our real world from kindness, to humanity, to heroism, to sacrifice. Superman has been done well and done poorly over his run. Superman seems to work best when his stories are told in the world of fantasy of the DC Comics universe. Bringing in more of the real world has to be handled very carefully. When you just throw in "real world" elements without carefully considering how to integrate such elements into a fictional universe you end up with a discordant and quite possibly silly outcome.
It can be done, but you can't just throw it out there. I would cite Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman, which focused as much on her role as Ambassador to the U.N. from the island of the Amazons, Themyscira, as it did on her role as a superhero. If you read those stories, you see how carefully the stories are plotted to blend the gonzo universe of superheroes with mythic, alien, magical, super science, etc. etc. orgins, with a discourse about political, ethical and religious beliefs. Not easy, but, when approached carefully, very satisfying.
I have to say that Goyer utterly fails. The central plot revolves around Superman flying over to Iran (not one of the DC Universes made up countries, but a real country where things are really happening) to witness a protest. He does not do any intervention other than appearing on the ground. This then supposedly causes an international incident as Iran accuses the U.S. of an act of war by sending Superman. Superman is confronted by a member of the U.S. administration who chides him, and he responds that he is going to announce that he is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in order to work more on a global level.
Dumb.
In my opinion, just dumb, unearned and poorly thought out.
Why?
When you write any iconic character, you have to serve the character. You don't bend it to your will to make your point. That does not mean that you can't make your point, if it is in line with the character, but you have to be subtle and respect the source material. Goyer fails.
If you are talking about having Superman intervening in real world events, you start down the road of wondering where Superman is for all the real world events. Why didn't he stop 9/11? Why hasn't he seized Gadaffi. Why wouldn't he disarm nuclear armed countries? You have to live with the conceit that Superman exists to deal with out sized threats to the earth, but he does not exist to solve all of the world's problems. He is not our dictator or ruler or supreme interventionist. He is Earth's protector and servant, but we all still have to do the hard work of making and not breaking our world.
Goyer story paints a Superman who has decided to start meddling in messy, complicated international affairs. But he does so out of the blue. No ground work, no development, no thought. And then, he delivers the punchline, sure to churn the news cycle and to go into reprints, but that makes no sense, the vow to renounce U.S. citizenship.
Superman is a genius, he would have thought a few things through and remembered his history. Goyer is clearly not at his best here, and has not done his homework.
For Superman to renounce citizenship, you have to go through the gyrations of figuring out what citizenship he has. That opens another can of worms that Goyer just doesn't consider. Lots of versions of Superman's origins exist. In some, he is born on Krypton and then sent to the Earth, crash landing in Kansas to end up in an orphanage, or to be taken in by the Kents, or found by the Kents, taken to an orphanage and then adopted by them. At least one version had him in a "birthing matrix", which did not actually "birth" him until it landed in the United States (thus Superman is "born" on Earth in the U.S.). If there is going to be citizenship to renounce, Goyer has to settle which story of Superman's origin gives him any citizenship of the U.S. in the first place. Interestingly, there are considerations of this our on the internet -- link.
A number of legal theories could give Clark Kent, the person that Superman really is, U.S. Citizenship. And that is another thing that Goyer has forgotten. Greg Rucka (one of my favorite authors), has cogently said that Superman is the alter ego, but Clark Kent is the real person, who Superman really is. Whereas for Bruce Wayne, Batman is who he really is, and Wayne is just someone he has to pretend to be to do his job. So, if Superman is renouncing his citizenship, what about Clark (not to mention Mrs. Superman, Lois Lane)? Now, maybe, Goyer could have salvaged this by dealing with the "honorary citizenship" route. At one point, I believe, Superman was granted honorary citizenship in all countries who were part of the United Nations. His story could have had Iran revoke that honorary citizenship and still be provoked by Superman as a tool of the West and the U.S. and then Superman, for a more global perspective, might renounce all his honorary citizenships before the UN, to say that he, as Superman, would always act as some sort of "world citizen." Still not the best, but not nearly as dumb and in the weeds as this story.
Further, Superman can't renounce his citizenship without Clark Kent renouncing. And, it is not a straight-forward process. Generally, you need to leave the U.S. and renounce before a consular official of the U.S. Just making a speech before the UN has no effect. There is paperwork and there are interviews, and there would be a confirmation of identity and a confiscation of any passport.
Well, does Superman have a passport? Clark Kent probably does, but Superman? Would Superman out his secret identity to renounce? What really could happen? Why is Goyer dragging us into the bureaucratic weeds? Superman filling out paperwork and having us ask whether he has a passport is lame.
Goyer not having thought this through when Superman, who is brilliant and extremely well-informed, has failed the character.
Epically failed in my estimation.
The whole thing falls apart.
And after the news cycle churn and the second and third run of the comic happens, then, I expect that it will be mostly forgotten or soon taking out of continuity as if it had never happened.
Because it is dumb.
A smarter more careful writer might, just might have made something of this, but there are better stories to tell and a way to make the points without miring the Man of Steel in the messiness of real world immigration paperwork.
Superman is American, and born of dreams and imagination that happened in America. But he represents the best in humanity, and the irony is, of course, that he is not human, but a "strange visitor from another planet." Superman stories have to capture the strength, the brilliance, and the vulnerability of a person who can move planets, but who knows he cannot do it all alone. Goyer lost Superman's sense of wonder and power and moral authority in his story. And, for Action Comics 900, that is a shame.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Playtest: Zeppelin Armada - Phase 2 (Game 2)
Continuing my family's playtest quest with Evil Hat's card game in development, Zeppelin Armada, I, my son and my father (retired mathematician born in the 30's) sat down to play a game. Dad is a good game player and a good sport, but a game with this many different bits is not generally up his alley. Nonetheless, for his son and his grandson, he was willing to give it a try.
We decided this time, at my son's demand, to choose our flag ships. He really wanted to play Der Blizmann. My dad chose the Mathmagician, Dr. Mathuselah, and I chose Kahn, Gorilla Kahn!!!!!!
It was no problem to explain how the game starts and getting dad to lay out his Zeppelins. My son and I got our armadas arranged and we started with our dealt hands. We rolled a die to determine who would go first, and the die came up with my dad's numbers. I took the lead in helping him sort through the different kinds of cards. We each took a fairly conservative approach to our opening game, but I got a card that forced me to attack every turn or lose a Zeppelin, so I started blasting away fairly early and the rounds of back and forth attacks never really ceased.
I was able to play more strategically this time, often using my ability to yoink attack cards (due to fast fleet speed) to just get attacks I did not want to see used against me off the board and then discard them in favor of trying to draw cards that were of more help.
My dad was fairly even handed in his attacks, pounding both my armada and that of my son. However, he did (properly) assess that my son was the more dangerous opponent, and soon began concentrating more on him.
On the other hand, my son pretty much concentrated on wiping me out. I was able to pull a few tricks, such as pulling one of his best Zeppelins from the "dead" Zep pile with a reaction card to put in my fleet, but in the end, I went down in flames. The thing about the game, though, is that playing is plenty entertaining, so losing, for me, does not have to terrible a sting. I was out for about another 20 or so minutes as the regular game finished up.
Naturally enough, I became my dad's advisor, and pretty soon we had taken my son's armada down and finished his flag ship off with an Event that does non-attack damage to any Zeppelin. That was a clean and clear win for my dad.
My son, however, always the designer and never without an opinion of how a game can improve, felt that he should have been able to use a special power of his damaged flag ship to shift damage to his other remaining Zeppelin. The text on the flagship pretty clearly forbids this, as it only works on attack damage and the Even card was specifically non-attack.
However, he persuaded us to continue to play a "what if" scenario. If he had been able to shunt damage over, then what. Well, we exteneded our play out another 15 minutes to find out. He staged a little bit of a comeback, but by the end of the 15 minutes, he was down to just his flagship, which my dad decisively took down again.
So, much to my son's chagrin, the what if was answered that, after 15 more minutes of suffering, he still would have lost. Still he believed that the change would be a good one. This I dutifully included in the formal playtest report.
One other "new" think for us in this game was that we used cards (probably because of our more aggresive discarding) much more rapidly, such that we had to reshuffle the deck after we ran out of attack/event/reaction/character cards. The Zeppelins, once out of play, don't, as a rule, come back. So we did reshuffle the non-Zep cards and created a new draw pile. I am not sure if this was specifically covered in the draft rules, but it seemed to make sense.
The bottom line was again that the game was good fun. It is a lot to track for a card game, and one thing about some cards that stay in play is that they all seem to have different triggers for leaving play. One will have to be discarded when a new Zeppelin is played, another if you play a Reaction. This can get to be a lot to track and remember. I think we may have had at least one instance where a card did not get immediately discarded when it was supposed to because of the complexity.
Still, this is not the most complex game out there, and if, as my son has suggested, the final version has something like a checklisted "reminder card" included for each player, that would mostly eliminate these issues for the casual or beginning player.
Though my dad won, he was a bit amused and bemused at the whole process. He definitely participated in and enjoyed the game, but it was not his kind of game. I would not want to pidgeon hole anyone based on age or any other characteristic, but I think there is going to be only a narrow slice of my dad's contemporaries who will have much interest in Zeppelin Armada as a regular game to play. Still, the playability and fun of the game ought to appeal to a broad spectrim of game players.
Hopefully, our responses back to Evil Hat will assist in fine tuning the game and getting it to market that much quicker.
I want to thank Fred and Jeff and all the other hard working members of the Evil Hat team who made it possible for us to play. It has been a very interesting experience.
So, it is possible there will be no more playtest posts, but, stick around. I might have one or two other things to say, and they might even be interesting.
We decided this time, at my son's demand, to choose our flag ships. He really wanted to play Der Blizmann. My dad chose the Mathmagician, Dr. Mathuselah, and I chose Kahn, Gorilla Kahn!!!!!!
It was no problem to explain how the game starts and getting dad to lay out his Zeppelins. My son and I got our armadas arranged and we started with our dealt hands. We rolled a die to determine who would go first, and the die came up with my dad's numbers. I took the lead in helping him sort through the different kinds of cards. We each took a fairly conservative approach to our opening game, but I got a card that forced me to attack every turn or lose a Zeppelin, so I started blasting away fairly early and the rounds of back and forth attacks never really ceased.
I was able to play more strategically this time, often using my ability to yoink attack cards (due to fast fleet speed) to just get attacks I did not want to see used against me off the board and then discard them in favor of trying to draw cards that were of more help.
My dad was fairly even handed in his attacks, pounding both my armada and that of my son. However, he did (properly) assess that my son was the more dangerous opponent, and soon began concentrating more on him.
On the other hand, my son pretty much concentrated on wiping me out. I was able to pull a few tricks, such as pulling one of his best Zeppelins from the "dead" Zep pile with a reaction card to put in my fleet, but in the end, I went down in flames. The thing about the game, though, is that playing is plenty entertaining, so losing, for me, does not have to terrible a sting. I was out for about another 20 or so minutes as the regular game finished up.
Naturally enough, I became my dad's advisor, and pretty soon we had taken my son's armada down and finished his flag ship off with an Event that does non-attack damage to any Zeppelin. That was a clean and clear win for my dad.
My son, however, always the designer and never without an opinion of how a game can improve, felt that he should have been able to use a special power of his damaged flag ship to shift damage to his other remaining Zeppelin. The text on the flagship pretty clearly forbids this, as it only works on attack damage and the Even card was specifically non-attack.
However, he persuaded us to continue to play a "what if" scenario. If he had been able to shunt damage over, then what. Well, we exteneded our play out another 15 minutes to find out. He staged a little bit of a comeback, but by the end of the 15 minutes, he was down to just his flagship, which my dad decisively took down again.
So, much to my son's chagrin, the what if was answered that, after 15 more minutes of suffering, he still would have lost. Still he believed that the change would be a good one. This I dutifully included in the formal playtest report.
One other "new" think for us in this game was that we used cards (probably because of our more aggresive discarding) much more rapidly, such that we had to reshuffle the deck after we ran out of attack/event/reaction/character cards. The Zeppelins, once out of play, don't, as a rule, come back. So we did reshuffle the non-Zep cards and created a new draw pile. I am not sure if this was specifically covered in the draft rules, but it seemed to make sense.
The bottom line was again that the game was good fun. It is a lot to track for a card game, and one thing about some cards that stay in play is that they all seem to have different triggers for leaving play. One will have to be discarded when a new Zeppelin is played, another if you play a Reaction. This can get to be a lot to track and remember. I think we may have had at least one instance where a card did not get immediately discarded when it was supposed to because of the complexity.
Still, this is not the most complex game out there, and if, as my son has suggested, the final version has something like a checklisted "reminder card" included for each player, that would mostly eliminate these issues for the casual or beginning player.
Though my dad won, he was a bit amused and bemused at the whole process. He definitely participated in and enjoyed the game, but it was not his kind of game. I would not want to pidgeon hole anyone based on age or any other characteristic, but I think there is going to be only a narrow slice of my dad's contemporaries who will have much interest in Zeppelin Armada as a regular game to play. Still, the playability and fun of the game ought to appeal to a broad spectrim of game players.
Hopefully, our responses back to Evil Hat will assist in fine tuning the game and getting it to market that much quicker.
I want to thank Fred and Jeff and all the other hard working members of the Evil Hat team who made it possible for us to play. It has been a very interesting experience.
So, it is possible there will be no more playtest posts, but, stick around. I might have one or two other things to say, and they might even be interesting.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A short word about a great shop!
Today I had the chance to go by Labyrinth Games on Capitol Hill (near Eastern Market) in Washington DC. This is a fabulous store. I met the owner, Kathleen, and one of her staff and they were fantastic. They were totally helpful, interested in games, in the games I played and in what I was looking for. This is a local business for DC that deserves support and success. Though it is out of my way, I will do what I can to go by because it will be a great place to find out about and try out new games. If you like games, give this place a try. It is a gem!
Playtest: Zeppelin Armada - Phase 2 (interlude)
Here's a link to see Ian and Fiona playing the game when they were getting along. Thanks to Fred Hicks for posting.
Playtest: Zeppelin Armada - Phase 2 (Game 1)
Monday night I, my 11 year old daughter, Fiona, and 13 year old son, Ian, sat down and played a full game of Zeppelin Armada. We decided to add an additional 10 damage counters to our supply (I had started with 20) based on Ian's experience when he yoiked the game the other night. Our experience was different, however, and we did not need them all. We had few wounded Zeppelins, but lots that got just blown out of the sky. Also, we added a coin for a coin toss as well as the miniature golf arcade token, which we used as an indicator of a bonus a particular Zeppelin flagship could apply.
Every player starts with a flagship, and each flag ship is commanded by one of the pulp villains in Evil Hat's Spirit of the Century (SotC) RPG univerese (two male characters, Dr. Methuselah and Der Blitzmann; two female characters, Rocket Red and Princess Cyclone; and one non-human, Gorilla Khan(!!!)).
So, with our full kit assembled, we set to play. We randomly dealt our flagship cards and Ian got Dr. Methuselah, Fiona got Princess Cyclone, and I got Rocket Red. As a quick diversion, we consulted one of my copies of SotC and checked out the stats and pictures of Dr. Methuselah and Rocket Red. Princess Cyclone appears to be a new creations, and had no picture we could find. However, Fiona set to remedy this, splitting time between the game and drawing her own illustration of her Martial Weather Witch.
We each got to draw our starting Zeppelins, and Fiona and I each had very fast fleets, which put us on top for the card capturing mechanic of "yoinking." We rolled to see who started first, and Ian started us off. Position and order are important in this game, as, for one thing, it determines who can attack whom and when. Clockwise around the table, there was Ian, then me, then Fiona. I could attack Ian with my right (he could retaliate with his left). I could attack Fiona with my left and she attack me with her right. Her left was posed against Ian's right.
We began with good natured table talk and helpful advice to each other as cards were getting played for the first time. Ian, after having carefully absorbed the game already, was the clear person to beat. Fiona and I had a lot of tit for tat attacks against each other, especially after Ian got an early card that blocked all attacks from my right against his left. Strategically then, I made the fateful decision to try to take out Fiona (yes, picking on my little girl) to try to get to Ian). Fiona, concentrated a lot of attacks on me, although she also split and hit Ian too. All in all, though, the battle was one sided from the beginning, because as Fiona and I blew each other out of the sky, and Ian jumped in and caused us problems, Ian built a bigger and bigger armada.
Strategically, I would have done better to try to encourage non-aggression with Fiona, and in fact should have figured out how to support her as a proxy against Ian, since he was immune pretty much to my attacks. Well, it was fun just blasting away with big Zeppelins and explosive, electrical, kinetic, etc. attacks, and to pull out Events and Reactions that helped frustrate and confound your opponents. Late in the game, we started seeing some Characters (basically special "crew" that can get placed on Zeppelins, though not all are actually helpful (and you can play them on your opponents)) appear. Too late for me. Between Ian and Fiona, I was crushed a little over an hour into the game. However, I had crippled Fiona pretty bad, and Ian, as Dr. Methuselah seemed triumphant.
Then, the fact that it was after 9 pm and a brother and sister faced off against each other began to show. This is a very personally competitive game. There are no abstract winning of tricks or lucky cards. You decide to do things (like attack) to specific opponents. Tired and grumpy kids turn out to be frustrated by the course of such a game, and Fiona felt that her brother was smugly unbeatable, and decided, after a couple of turns of playing with me as advisor, that she no longer was interested (and that Ian was mean, and he always wins games, etc. (she is, after all, 11)).
So, I took over Princess Cyclone. I gave Ian a run for his cards. I even made his flagship "flip" first. This is another mechanic where instead of being destroyed, the first time a flagship takes a certain amount of damage, it transforms into a weaker version of itself, but keeps on fighting and commanding the fleet. Despite this satisfying outcome, Ian had my, now borrowed, flagship flipped the next turn, and soon, my defenses were spent and he blew me out of the sky.
So, this write up is not about the formal technical aspects of the playtest, though I have hit upon a few points. This is more about how things went and what social (and emotional) impressions we had. In general, everyone had fun. Ian, as winner, had a lot of fun. I had fun, despite being the biggest loser. Fiona, had some fun. She liked the theme, and early on, when it was anyone's game, she enjoyed it. However, there is a lot to keep track of, and as the game grew to be one sided, with things falling Ian's way again and again, she had less fun. This was, of course, impacted by the fact that she was tired and the game was going late. Normally, she would not walk away from the table, but, as you all probably know, siblings are often simultaneously best friends and bitter rivals. This is true for my kids. They have a lot of congruent interests and can get along incredibly well. They also can fight like cats and dogs, use inappropriate words and inappropriate force with each other, and generally drive each other (and their parents) crazy.
So, mixing that with a new and highly competative game, was a little explosive.
That aside, the test went well. The game proved to be very playable and fun. The theme is imaginative and goofy and exciting. The mechanics work well. There are important mechanical and social issues to consider in building your tactics and strategy in the game. We have a few observations to share with the designers, and hopefully, our thoughts, with those of the other testers, will make it an even better, polished and exciting game.
Now, my next planned test would be to include my dad, who arrives with my mom tomorrow, in a test this weekend.
We shall see.
Every player starts with a flagship, and each flag ship is commanded by one of the pulp villains in Evil Hat's Spirit of the Century (SotC) RPG univerese (two male characters, Dr. Methuselah and Der Blitzmann; two female characters, Rocket Red and Princess Cyclone; and one non-human, Gorilla Khan(!!!)).
So, with our full kit assembled, we set to play. We randomly dealt our flagship cards and Ian got Dr. Methuselah, Fiona got Princess Cyclone, and I got Rocket Red. As a quick diversion, we consulted one of my copies of SotC and checked out the stats and pictures of Dr. Methuselah and Rocket Red. Princess Cyclone appears to be a new creations, and had no picture we could find. However, Fiona set to remedy this, splitting time between the game and drawing her own illustration of her Martial Weather Witch.
We each got to draw our starting Zeppelins, and Fiona and I each had very fast fleets, which put us on top for the card capturing mechanic of "yoinking." We rolled to see who started first, and Ian started us off. Position and order are important in this game, as, for one thing, it determines who can attack whom and when. Clockwise around the table, there was Ian, then me, then Fiona. I could attack Ian with my right (he could retaliate with his left). I could attack Fiona with my left and she attack me with her right. Her left was posed against Ian's right.
We began with good natured table talk and helpful advice to each other as cards were getting played for the first time. Ian, after having carefully absorbed the game already, was the clear person to beat. Fiona and I had a lot of tit for tat attacks against each other, especially after Ian got an early card that blocked all attacks from my right against his left. Strategically then, I made the fateful decision to try to take out Fiona (yes, picking on my little girl) to try to get to Ian). Fiona, concentrated a lot of attacks on me, although she also split and hit Ian too. All in all, though, the battle was one sided from the beginning, because as Fiona and I blew each other out of the sky, and Ian jumped in and caused us problems, Ian built a bigger and bigger armada.
Strategically, I would have done better to try to encourage non-aggression with Fiona, and in fact should have figured out how to support her as a proxy against Ian, since he was immune pretty much to my attacks. Well, it was fun just blasting away with big Zeppelins and explosive, electrical, kinetic, etc. attacks, and to pull out Events and Reactions that helped frustrate and confound your opponents. Late in the game, we started seeing some Characters (basically special "crew" that can get placed on Zeppelins, though not all are actually helpful (and you can play them on your opponents)) appear. Too late for me. Between Ian and Fiona, I was crushed a little over an hour into the game. However, I had crippled Fiona pretty bad, and Ian, as Dr. Methuselah seemed triumphant.
Then, the fact that it was after 9 pm and a brother and sister faced off against each other began to show. This is a very personally competitive game. There are no abstract winning of tricks or lucky cards. You decide to do things (like attack) to specific opponents. Tired and grumpy kids turn out to be frustrated by the course of such a game, and Fiona felt that her brother was smugly unbeatable, and decided, after a couple of turns of playing with me as advisor, that she no longer was interested (and that Ian was mean, and he always wins games, etc. (she is, after all, 11)).
So, I took over Princess Cyclone. I gave Ian a run for his cards. I even made his flagship "flip" first. This is another mechanic where instead of being destroyed, the first time a flagship takes a certain amount of damage, it transforms into a weaker version of itself, but keeps on fighting and commanding the fleet. Despite this satisfying outcome, Ian had my, now borrowed, flagship flipped the next turn, and soon, my defenses were spent and he blew me out of the sky.
So, this write up is not about the formal technical aspects of the playtest, though I have hit upon a few points. This is more about how things went and what social (and emotional) impressions we had. In general, everyone had fun. Ian, as winner, had a lot of fun. I had fun, despite being the biggest loser. Fiona, had some fun. She liked the theme, and early on, when it was anyone's game, she enjoyed it. However, there is a lot to keep track of, and as the game grew to be one sided, with things falling Ian's way again and again, she had less fun. This was, of course, impacted by the fact that she was tired and the game was going late. Normally, she would not walk away from the table, but, as you all probably know, siblings are often simultaneously best friends and bitter rivals. This is true for my kids. They have a lot of congruent interests and can get along incredibly well. They also can fight like cats and dogs, use inappropriate words and inappropriate force with each other, and generally drive each other (and their parents) crazy.
So, mixing that with a new and highly competative game, was a little explosive.
That aside, the test went well. The game proved to be very playable and fun. The theme is imaginative and goofy and exciting. The mechanics work well. There are important mechanical and social issues to consider in building your tactics and strategy in the game. We have a few observations to share with the designers, and hopefully, our thoughts, with those of the other testers, will make it an even better, polished and exciting game.
Now, my next planned test would be to include my dad, who arrives with my mom tomorrow, in a test this weekend.
We shall see.
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