Yes, I may, after all, it is May! Taxes are done with, (including my wife's business), next winter's firewood is partly stacked and partly too wet to stack and Huzzah is only a few weeks away. That means...... hobby time!
I went down some pretty strange roads hoping to solve the conundrum of making the game fun, simple but engaging, original and neither too slow nor too quick, with an emphasis on player decisions rather than luck. However, finally, yesterday, I metaphorically whapped myself in the head and stopped trying to be clever and original and went back to OS basics. One hour in, its very encouraging.
There will be time in the next 2 weeks to play test both scenarios and to convert and paint the last score or so figures. There is yet hope!
First rule: If it works, leave it alone. The basics tend to be more fun anyway - went to Salute, took part in a game with my son and it was boring. Very complicated, not much happened. Took ten minutes at one stage to go through something to get to a point we had both decided would happen within seconds!
ReplyDeleteIts a Goldilocks situation. Always disappointing to gather 6 players, have a 4 hour window, and have the game over 1/2 way through, not even time to reset and play again, and almost as bad, running out of time with both sides talking about all the great and crushing attacks they were just about to make which would have decided the game, if only there was time for one last move.
DeleteHope springs eternal, Ross! And it's all good fun!
ReplyDeleteH
In its own way.
Deletere: not finishing in time, possibly a benefit is that there are no definite losers, leaving those who 'weren't doing terribly well' with the thought that they could have turned it round 'with one more turn'!
ReplyDeletere: Rob Young's comment, I've no idea why people use complicated mechanisms for participation games at shows where you really want things to zip along smoothly. Have they never thought about it from the player's perspective or conisdered their own experience of taking part in participation games? (That's rather rheotorical as the answer is clealry 'no')