The second set of DANGER! Expansion cards for Dicey Curves are those that modify the dice being used by the current player — taking dice away, adding dice, or making it seem like there are more dice than are actually there.

While sometimes you will want to use these cards on yourself, you will definitely find times to use them on the other players.  Can’t get much more “direct-interactiony” than this.

Nitro Boost gives the player an extra die on their initial roll, while Critter Crossing takes away a die from that initial roll.  Super Size lets you treat a Combo (or a Single) as if it has two extra dice in it — very handy when trying to get past a Dangerous Dicey Curve without taking damage.

Click the image for a bigger version:

In addition to the final touches on Subtilla, I’ve been working on the graphic design of the cards in the up-coming Dicey Curves, expansion that I will launch in February.

First up have been the five track modifier cards, pictured below.  Minor Debris and Major Debris add a little hurdle for cars to get over when travelling between two track cards … they can either add an extra die or two to the Combo used to move across that location, or they can take some Damage.  Lane Closed shuts down one of the lanes on a Straight-Away or Wide-Open! track card.  Repair Shop will give players a way to get rid of all of their damage (although this may delay them a bit).  And, Dangerous Curve will increase the Gates on a curve track card by one (or the player can take Damage instead or using an extra die).

Next up will be the “messin’ with the dice” cards, the “instant damage/repair” cards, and one card that stands alone in its own category … I’ll probably need a whole post to describe that last one by itself.

Here’s how the track modifier cards look so far (close to final, although there may need to be some tweaks yet) … click for a bigger image:

As I get closer to having Subtilla ready for the TGC shop, I’ve recently decided to put the game board onto one of their new 18-inch quad-fold boards.  Originally, I designed the game to be played on a 10×10 mat … but having the larger board made it easier to provide some extra information as well as give it a nicer look and feel.

The main play area takes up the middle 10×10-inch space on the board, and now there is some extra subs-in-the-water artwork, an attack results table, a “power box” and a place to put your Sub when it’s “Hidden”.

In the middle of the main play area is a rocky island that serves as an obstacle for movement and Torpedo attacks.  The four stylized stars mark the players’ Bases.  And, you can see the indicators where all of the Boats and Subs are setup along the edges of the board at the start of the game.

I’m also writing up the formal rules document for the game, and find myself continuing to tweak the board as I find something else that would be helpful to keep in front of the players during the game, or as I change the specific term I use for things in the game.  For example, originally Subs were said to be “on the surface” or “submerged” … but I’ve decided to use the terms “on the board” and “hidden” instead.  Those types of changes mean tweaks to the board as well.

While I don’t enjoy the rules-writing so much, I do enjoy this final phase of tweaking things to make a game ready for production.

ADDED: A special thanks to Toren from IcePack Games, who helped me work through the idea of converting over to the 18×18 quad-fold board.  He’s often on chat at TheGameCrafter.com and is always willing to talk shop on designs, mechanics, presentation, etc.

There are a couple of neat mechanics that I really like in Subtilla (click for original sneak peek), which I hope to have out via TheGameCrafter.com before the end of December.

My favorite is how the Sub can move around while submerged.  The spark for this idea originally came from my son, Seth, who has been my main tester and idea man with this game.  During an early test, he said “what if the submarine could actually go below the surface of the board and you didn’t know where it would come up again.”  And that was all it took for me to get the idea of “stealth markers” going.

When a Sub is submerged, its potential position on the board is indicated by Stealth Markers — little peg pawns.  More of these markers can be added to the board to grow the number of possible positions that the sub could resurface at.  When it’s time to resurface, the Sub can be placed anywhere there are markers on two adjacent spaces.

The Sub is able to move more quickly underwater, and usually gives you more possibilities than your opponent can cover with his Boats.  However, the Stealth Markers can be removed from the board by Boats and the other Sub moving onto the space a marker occupies.  If all of the markers are removed from the board, your Sub is forced to resurface and its location is chosen by your opponent.

Also, you can’t fire Torpedoes while in stealth mode.  Oh … the Torpedoes are pretty cool too — but I’ll save that for another post.

Today, I had the honor of being inducted into TheGameCrafter.com’s Hall of Fame.

Primarily, this was due to having first published Jump Gate at TGC, and the success that has followed for that game.

However, if you click over to the article, I think you will agree that my best hopes are for my freakishly-huge logo to take over the world!

Thanks to Tavis, JT, Jamie, and the rest of the team at TGC … it’s a great crew, and a great site for a guy like me to make some games!

Anna Makes a New Friend by Giving a Gift

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I signed-up to sell games at the “Unique Boutique” in St. Boni this past Saturday.  Outside of having done a smaller in-home boutique in our neighborhood a couple of weeks ago, the only other time I setup to sell games has been at gaming events, such as Con of the North.

I really enjoyed myself, met a lot of very nice people, had a great time hanging out with my daughter, and even sold a few games in the process.

One of the things that Anna and I were able to do, was to get a handful of games of Dicey Curves in. Read more

“Dice Hate Me” has put together a neat little article with quick blurbs about games that have been making it onto his extremely crowded game table.

There are some really cool games mentioned there, including Seth Jaffee’s well-received deck-builder, Eminent Domain.

But, I was very happy to see that the list also included Jump Gate.  He has some very nice things to say about it … so, go read the whole article.

Just wanted to take a quick minute and remind everyone that I will be at the St. Boni Unique Holiday Boutique, from 9am to 3pm tomorrow, selling Jump Gate and Dicey Curves.

There’s a good chance my lovely daughter will be there with me for at least part of the time.

And there’s 40-some other vendors there as well … come get your holiday shopping done!

When I first launched Dicey Curves, I intended it to be the “base game” that could work as a light party-game style filler, highlighting the main dice-combo and movement mechanics.  There are 2 expansions planned to add-on to the game and make it more and more of a “gamers’ game”.

The first one will be out in February, in time for Con of the North, and will be called “DANGER!” (or, “The Danger Expansion”, or “Dicey Curves: Danger!”, or “Dangerous Curves” … pick your favorite nick name ).

It will add-in a new deck of “Danger” cards that will be a collection of track-modifiers, play-modifiers, “immediates”, damagers, and defenses.  It will also add-in the concepts of car damage (and ways to fix it) and side bets.

All-in-all, it will greatly increase the player interaction and reduce downtime when it’s not your turn.

Scott Nicholson — a familiar face to folks who spend any time at BoardGameGeek.com, and the man behind “Board Games with Scott” — did a few dozen quick reviews of games being played at BGG’s big convention in Dallas a couple weeks ago.

In one of these ambush-style interview, he talks with some folks playing Space Mission.

While I won’t comment on Scott’s fun-but-condescending tone (or did I just?), I thought the gentleman being interviewed seemed rather positive about game, which is targeted at Schmidt Spiele’s prime market — German family gamers.  I’m pretty sure the game (especially with the Black Hole removed) will be too light for most BGG-type gamers.  But I think it works very well as a gateway game.

In any case, Scott sums it up with the not-completely-negative phrase: “Mostly Harmless”.

Ah, pride.