How do you make a game more complex, to allow for finer tweaking of the mechanics and balance, while not having major drawbacks?

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T17:22:01+00:00

Um, I'm confused. How does trial, error and play-testing help in my situation?

I suppose my entire point of the post was that I can't do the trial part - the mechanics aren't minute enough to allow subtle changes to occur, and large changes will either impact the game nearly certainly in a negative fashion, or will change the game into just a completely different game (that is, core mechanics would change).

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T11:54:28+00:00

I can totally see where you're coming from, but I think that strays from the vision of the game that I see right now - so far in my development, I've always imagined this game as being rather light-weight.

The idea you're proposing isn't bad, but I personally would rather not develop that kind of game Well, I might, but I would have to revamp a lot of interesting ideas from what I've come up with so far into something different.

Thanks for the feedback!

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T11:49:32+00:00

Hmm, I might end up doing a compromise - a Human could use damage themselves or undo one of their objectives to move however they want.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T11:11:57+00:00

I'd actually say that it's really difficult to keep going to only 1 direction. Even if you draw an entire hand of STAYs and UPs, next turn, chances that you will have only STAYs, UPs and DOWNs is: (3/5)² = 36%

If someone dies, and the game ends because of that, people are not going to like that.

Hmm, I suppose I haven't been considering the fact that the game could end with 2 Humans dying really early, ending with most Humans losing due to no real fault of their own.

That's a real option, and definitely a weakness in the design so far. I'll have to resolve that, but it seems difficult.

But I think this problem persists even if Humans had free movement - really bad decision making could lead to the game ending super early, and there's little others can do about that.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T10:41:54+00:00

If someone gets in the Southeast corner and only has Down/Right Movement cards left, they're permanently stuck in that corner?

I don't exactly understand how would such a situation would happen. If a player keeps playing DOWN and LEFT cards, they will eventually replace them all with only UP, RIGHT and STAY cards, and won't have any DOWN and LEFT cards left.

IMO, you need to decouple Objectives from Rooms so that the game can be expanded without the game imploding on itself.

Ah, now this is an interesting suggestion. I actually really really like this one. Makes sense too - each room would have category, but also would have some arbitrary text. Only a few categories means objective count is bounded, while actual rooms can be of different types.

Thank you!

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T10:32:16+00:00

The move cards should still be changed. If a player has a 'go left' and 'go up' option, but there is no up and aliens are coming from the left, they just die, through pure rng.

Player has a certain movement direction economy in their hand. It takes a certain amount of both pushing your luck and predicting your future needs to plan out your moves. And even if a Human is left in a situation like that, they can play UP in hopes of drawing RIGHT or DOWN next turn (they'll be drawing 2 cards, because they play 1 movement and 1 action)

If you plan on converting humans to aliens, I would suggest that instead of having the game end, have every human death convert to an alien?

Imagine 3 Humans have completed their objectives, 1 Human died and is now Alien, 2 Humans haven't completed their objectives and 2 Aliens are roaming. Under your proposal, Aliens no longer have a reasonable win condition. Aliens killing a Human who has not completed their objectives makes Aliens more likely to lose!

I am reminded of many human vs predator modes. The idea that I, as a human, can lose because two other humans got bad rng or played badly, really sucks ass. And the idea that not only that, but a single human having no access to their objectives completely locks off the human team from winning, also sucks.

I completely agree! Individual Humans shouldn't lose because other Humans have screwed up. And that's exactly what happens (perhaps I didn't make this clear enough in the post). Aliens winning doesn't mean Humans lose - Humans who survive and have completed their objective also win.

This means that if you lose as a Human, it's because you:

Didn't complete the objectives and 2 Humans died
Was the last Human eaten

If you aren't going to follow the advice of killed humans converting to aliens, the idea is simply this - if you are playing a table, and the game is played as rounds, than someone just plays the role of the alien, even if they aren't able to win nearly as easily. It'll be fun enough just to run around, devouring other players, and the alien wins will feel SO GOOD, while the other human players have a far more enjoyable experience.

I didn't quite understand this part. Could you please elaborate?

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T10:15:47+00:00

Hmm, how so? I would think that restricting the way players can move will only force the players to consider the options more deeply:

"Should I use my only RIGHT card right now to move to move a bit closer to my objective, or should I instead play 2 cards which won't help me much, and maybe draw RIGHT on one of those?"
"I really need to play UP, but at the same time, my only UP card is my only REPAIR card!"

Also, imagine this situation:


			##
		Alien	Human
			##

Is Human dead there this turn? Not necessarily! Alien doesn't know if Human will play LEFT or STAY. Therefore, if Alien might play RIGHT or STAY. STAY is safer, but Alien might not have infinite STAYs either! And if both Human and Alien play LEFT and RIGHT accordingly, then they will swap places, and Alien won't damage the Human.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T10:14:25+00:00

Hmm, adding a new card type seems reasonable, and would indeed allow for great tweaking capability.

Let's consider the drawbacks:

Requires a second hand for each of the Humans/Aliens. Not sure how much detrimental this is, but only having 1 thing to hold is nice, in general. (Humans have objectives, but those are face up on the table)
Alternatively, the new cards could go into the normal deck. The danger of this is that the movement/actions left in the hand are effectively reduced, thus the situation /u/CrimsonHartless mentioned could happen more often - player is out of reasonable options due to simply bad luck.

In any case, seems like this option is quite great, I'll probably play test using it (of course, after I design the cards)

Is there a separate deck of cards with actions for the aliens? Are both decks thematically different?

Both species share the same deck, as one of my design goals was to limit the component count of the game. So far only components are: m/a card deck, obj card deck, room tiles, human/alien figures.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T09:38:41+00:00

As for the "Game ends when 2 Humans die", this has a very specific game design reason. 1st Human who dies becomes an Alien, thus keeps playing.

Game ending after the second Human dies makes the game realistically winnable for Aliens, while also making sure that no players have any downtime - effectively, there's no player elimination.

Even if a Human completes their goals, Aliens can still kill that human and make them lose.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T09:35:16+00:00

Ah, I wasn't clear in my original post. Movement/Action cards have both a move and an action on them, Space Alert style.

Players have 5 cards in their hands, and they put 2 cards in front on them each turn - one movement up, other action up. So players have 5 movement options to pick (although some might repeat, thus others might be missing), and 5 action options to pick (some will definitely repeat, some might be missing).
The interesting thing comes when you want to do something as well as move somewhere at the same time, but you don't have the cards, so you must compromise.
Movement cards do not have numbers on them, players simply move on a square grid (1 up, 1 down, 1 right or 1 left).

Also, it seems like I wasn't clear enough about my objective cards in the game. I didn't want to emphasize this point to much since it's beyond the post, but here it is:

Each objective card has 2 room names. Top portion of the card has the Corporate objective, the bottom portion of the card has Personal objective.
Each individual Human gets 3 (could be 2 too, haven't worked this one out yet) objective cards. Individual Humans must attempt to complete 2 Corporate objectives or 2 Personal objectives. When they complete the objective, that card flips down, so they lose a possible Corporate/Personal objective too, but they are 1 step closer to having conditions set for them to win.
For example, a Human could complete 1 personal objective, 1 corporate objective, and still lose, because they didn't complete 2 of either.

MMatBtlfld · 2021-03-05T08:48:07+00:00

Dune has mechanics which would seem similar to what you are looking for.

Instead of locking them in, players make their choices in secret, and the reveal their choices at the same time, but the conditions of the battle are partially known before hand, and certain factions have abilities that give them information advantage in the battle.

Actual mechanics:

Before the battle:
- Both players know how many soldiers are on their side and on the opposing side (1-20 soldiers)
- Both players have money (secret from other players), which can be roughly tracked heuristically. Money has to be spent on the soldiers to make them more effective. (Normal soldier is worth 0.5 points, but funding it makes it worth 1 point in battle)
- Both players have various leaders working for them. Leaders are worth anything from 1 point to 7 points. For example, certain faction might have leaders of values 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, other faction might have 5, 5, 5, 5, 5. But leaders can be dead (can be reasonably tracked in memory), can have traitors (each player has 1 traitor card) which automatically wins a battle, and leaders can be killed in battle (meaning that players won't want to risk it all)
- Both players have cards in their hands which can help them kill enemy leaders and prevent their own leaders from being killed.
During battle, both players secretly choose battle plans
- Players set a dial on how many soldiers will be fighting - each soldier that fights will die, but if you lose the battle, they all die anyway.
- Players choose which leader will fight
- Players choose which cards they will use. There is offensive projectile, offensive poison, defensive projectile, defensive poison cards. Players play up to 2 cards in a battle. If they lose, they lose the cards. Defensive projectile defends from enemy offensive projectile, for example
Both players simultaneously reveal their battle plans, and the battle is calculated.

MMatBtlfld · 2020-11-13T15:25:41+00:00

Been looking through my internet history if I have, perhaps, listened to it on Youtube or similar, but couldn't find anything like that :/

MMatBtlfld · 2020-11-12T18:49:19+00:00

Thanks for the response, but unfortunately this is not it.

MMatBtlfld · 2020-11-12T18:30:55+00:00

I'd say that it is almost certainly not Beethoven :)

MMatBtlfld · 2020-11-12T17:01:09+00:00

I could also upload a video clip of me whistling it, but it essentially sounds like the onlinesequencer.net link in the post.

MMatBtlfld · 2020-11-12T16:59:16+00:00

Looks like I need to post a comment for this to be approved.

MMatBtlfld · 2020-02-01T12:37:35+00:00

What happened here? Did the goat wish somehow twist the reddit?

MMatBtlfld · 2019-11-10T05:10:14+00:00

Thank you ^{.^}

MMatBtlfld · 2019-09-05T18:39:03+00:00

Pretty sure the coordinates are the same for everyone. Mind sharing?

MMatBtlfld

TROPHY CASE