Jump Gate

On page 74 of the issue, John J. McCallion — the magazine’s editor-at-large for the “Traditional Game Views” section of the magazine, and author of most of the board game reviews — gives a nice, detailed description of the gameplay and ends on a friendly tone:

“We salute independent designer Matt Worden for family-friendly explanatory cards that welcome casual players, while offering plenty of card management and set-collection challenges to seasoned explorers.”

If you’re not already a Games subscriber, please look for it in the magazine rack of your local bookstore and buy a copy.  Not only are there reviews of traditional and electronic games, but there are tons of word, math and logic puzzles to strain your brain on as well.

Thanks, again, to Mr. McCallion, for taking the time to play Jump Gate with several different testing groups and writing up the review for the magazine — it’s definitely appreciated!

He’s got nice things to say about the game, and I’m happy to see that he’s enjoying it quite a bit.  Click through to his review and give it a read … feel free to give it a thumbs-up and leave a comment too!

While Matt seemed to like the game, and gave a pretty spot-on assessment of the game-play, I think he was way over-the-top harsh on The Game Crafter.  (I left a comment on Matt’s blog about it too.)  I gave my own hit-and-miss views about TGC in my prior post, so you know that while I’m a fan, I do have some areas I’m hoping for improvement on.

In any case, give Matt’s review of Jump Gate a read and let me know what you think.

As a game designer, I am able to upload any graphics needed for custom cards and game boards, and then select a collection of bits needed for a game, and TGC makes that set of materials available as a game in their shop.  I can choose to keep something unpublished — just for me to order — such as prototypes, or personal game versions … or I can publish a game, which makes it available for anyone to order.

This is all done on-demand … when an order is placed for a game, the cards and boards are printed at that time and all parts are picked.  The whole set is then packed and shipped to the buyer.  The advantage of on-demand fulfillment is that I don’t need to pre-print and store a few hundred copies of the game.  The disadvantage is that the costs can be higher since things are not being produced in large quantities.

I am very happy that such a service is available … and I am happy that the TGC team seem to be quite focused on delivering great customer service.  I thought I would take a post to spell out my own personal opinions on the good and bad points around The Game Crafter.

I should start by saying that the staff at The Game Crafter are very interactive with the people using their service.  They monitor and respond to posts on their forums, and are quick to reply to e-mails as well.  I have already expressed my takes on the things I like and don’t like at TGC directly with the crew there.  They are aware of the things that still need improving, and have done a nice job of already making improvements for a business that is less than a year old … and I expect they will continue to improve as time goes on.

What I Like …

• Bits Selection – TGC has a nice selection of bit available — pawns, rockets, airplanes, rings, stones, cubes, meeples, cars, boats, tanks, dice, etc.  While there are always things I can think of that aren’t available, I can usually figure out a way to use what they do have.  Some of the items are more expensive than I would like to see them … but, again, I can almost always find a way to use the less expensive components.  So, overall, I’m happy with the selection.
• Cards — I think the best thing that TGC does is their custom cards.  The pricing seems quite good for a print-on-demand product, and the quality is very good for a digital print shop.  The weight and feel of the cards is very nice for handling.  They do start out a bit rigid, but they soften as they are shuffled a dozen-or-two times.  There are some quirks around the printing and cutting process that a designer needs to work around.  For example, the cutting of the cards may shift around by a millimeter or two, which can be quite visible when using outlines and borders.  Their card design templates make the “safe zone” very clear — so, paying attention to this will have an impact on the quality of the way the cards look.
• The Publication Model — I really like the potential of TGC’s publication model.  First, when I am prototyping and testing a game, I love that I can upload my card and board images and pick bits that I need and then order a rather nice looking prototype to test with.  Most of my games are smaller and only cost $10-$20 … that’s quite a nice price, I think.  When a game is ready for a public reveal, I like that I don’t need to worry about the production, stocking, sales processing, picking-packing-shipping, etc.  I can just work on promoting the game and pointing everyone to the game’s TGC shop page for people to order it.  (Not to mention that I’m not shelling out a few thousand bucks to get the ball rolling.)  I’ve done the make-it-by-hand self-publishing route, including responding to orders, packing and shipping, etc. … I’m very happy to let someone else take care of those parts of the deal.

What Needs Improving …

• Game Boxes — My main pet peeve is the plain white boxes that TGC uses to pack all of their games in.  It is a sturdy shipping box, but does nothing to make the game seem attractive while sitting on a shelf.  They also only provide a small, low-res, black-and-white label with the game’s title graphic on it to be put on the outside of the box.  If you only order a single game from TGC, then that white box *is* your shipping box, which I really don’t like.  (It does give the buyer an incentive to buy multiple games — since 2 or more games on the same order are each packed into their own white boxes, which are then put into a larger box for shipping — but that’s a negative “incentive”, which isn’t cool.)  Providing some sort of traditional game box with outer graphics printing would add a ton of value to the games produced by TGC, and allow for more careful packing for shipment.
• Rules Printing — TGC only offers a single method for printing rules documents:  They print 2-sided to letter sized paper in black-and-white.  These papers are *not* bound in any way … and they usually just fold the stack of papers in whatever manner makes it easiest to fit in the box with the rest of the bits.  This doesn’t give a designer much help in presenting their game rules in the best possible way.  They do host files for download from the game’s shop page, though – so, the best option available is to produce a full-color PDF of the rules and post them as a link for players to download and print themselves.  I am hoping to see this improve soon.
• Game Boards — The game boards available through TGC are made from the same paper and use the same printing process as their cards.  While this means that it allows for full-bleed, nicely-printed graphics, it means that the boards are thin and do not resemble traditional chip-board-backed game boards.  They are also only available in a few sizes (4×4, 10×4, 10×10, and 16×10) and are not folded.  This can usually work okay (such as when having a bunch of small 4×4 boards like Jump Gate does), but it means that bigger games will suffer from not having a nice, solid, folding board to play on.
• International Shipping Costs — While the US shipping costs are pretty standard USPS Priority package shipping, the shipping costs determined for non-US destinations — including Canada — seem quite high compared to what I’ve had when shipping something myself at a US Post Office.  They have stated that they are using an integrated software package from the USPS, but I think they will need to continue tweaking things to improve in this area — or it will greatly reduce any non-US orders.

As you can see, I don’t consider TGC to be a perfect service yet … still a number of important things that need improving.  However, I do consider it a pretty good service already, and plan to continue using it to publish my board game designs.  They take care of the things I don’t really want to spend my time and money doing, so that I can spend my effort on designing and promoting my games.

It’s in my best interest to wish them nothing but success — so that’s exactly what I do.

In addition to what you normally get when you buy Jump Gate from TheGameCrafter.com, the special copy that I will be sending to Duncan also includes a box with color cover artwork, color printed rules, and 6 rubber spacecraft miniatures.  (Click the picture to the left to see a larger version.)

To the right, is a close-up of the special box cover and the spacecraft miniatures.

Congratulations, Duncan — enjoy the game!

On Wednesday, April 21st, I will randomly draw a winner from everyone who has registered for the give-away and send them a full copy of Jump Gate (plus a little extra bonus).  To register for the contest, you need to first sign-up a user account on my website (yes, a blatant attempt to increase the number of registered users on my site), and then follow the instructions on the contest page.

I am already enjoying the entry comments from those who have registered so far … you have a week and a couple days left to join in the fun.

He is the designer behind Pocket Civ, a viral print-and-play hit.  The player response to this game has been quite cool, and I wanted to ask him some questions about what went into designing it.

Here’s the Q&A …

Q1> When/how did you first come up with the initial idea for “Pocket Civ”? What was your original intention for the design?

A: Due to the wonderful world of blogging, this answer is fairly easy with a bit of research.

The roots of the project started with the about.com’s game design contest that included dice. I don’t think that the contest was ever completed or judged, but I managed to whip up a little Civ-style game using dice and chess parts, which I called Cradle:  http://meeplespeak.blogspot.com/2006/05/aboutcom-contest-cradle.html

Now, I had never playtested it; primarily I was off having little kids, and I didn’t have any time to play games, and the sleepless nights really prevented any desire for that to happen. But I submitted it anyway.

One of the blogs that I read (at the time) was Greg Costikyan, who I find to be pretty interesting. He’s worn a lot of different types of hats across different types of games. Designer, portal-master, publisher, video, tabletop, whatever, I think he’s done it. I’d still read a blog of his if there was one, but as far as I can tell, it kind of morphed into playthisthing.com (for various reasons), which right now is basically a review site for independent games.

Anyway, the other spark for PocketCiv came from this post on his site, back in July 2006: http://tajmahalfred.blogspot.com/2006/07/unknown-civ-true-to-my-word-i-printed.html

…which leads to this game: http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Culture.html

…which leads to my blog post about it: http://meeplespeak.blogspot.com/2006/07/inspirations.html

And that’s pretty much the whole history of it. I was already in a Civ-style mind frame from the About.com contest, and then the idea of trying to create an “epic” game that was also portable and playable enough to play on an airplane became an interesting design challenge.

Q2> What mechanics were in the design from the start? Were that any significant parts of the game that were removed as you worked through the design?

A: Obviously, when you start with the idea of a Civ game, there are certain mechanics that required just because that’s what defines a Civ game. You need to have some representation of little guys running around in the world. You need to have some challenges for the little guys to overcome, whether its random disasters or the environment of the world in which they are in. And then you need to have some kind of representation of how your civilization is growing and advancing, and how those advancements are making life “easier” for your little guys for dealing with those challenges.

To my knowledge, there was nothing really removed from the game; sure, things were altered as the design went forward. But the skeletal structure of the game is actually pretty light; most of the game involved hanging more stuff on the bones to flesh it out than trying to build a complicated structure that need to get weeded out.

Q3> There is a lot happening in the multiple uses for the cards … how did you develop that part of the game?

A: The multi-use card idea is just a solution to a problem of dealing with all the wacky random events and things that you need to resolve in the game is a simple, compact manner, without having countless lookup charts. The first pass of the game actually all the descriptions of what each Event did in tiny, tiny text underneath the heading: “VOLCANO!!! Do this, and do this….” But that was pretty harsh to read. I just had to move all of that stuff to the rules. Granted, this ruined a bit of the portability part, but at some point I realized I probably wasn’t going to be doing EVERYTHING on the cards anyway, and that a player would be needing some amount of reference sheets.

And even though I’m quite fond of dice, at least I still didn’t need to be rolling countless amounts of dice everywhere on an airplane.

Q4> What other parts of the game are you particularly proud of as a designer?

A: That’s kind of an oddball question. (Matt’s Note: Um, thanks, Scott!) But as a game designer, there are really only a couple of moments that I think one can be happy with.

The first is when “the game works.” A game is just a collection of data, components, and rules, all of which can be combined in 99,999 of different ways that don’t work. But that last single time when it actually does work is a pretty defining moment, where you just stop for a second and say “hey, ok, this works.” That’s pretty special. At that point, it feels like you’ve stopped banging your head against a wall, and then you can start refining it.

The second time would be when other people, people who don’t really have any vested interest in the game itself, play it and enjoy it.

But as far as individual parts, I don’t think there’s anything really special about those in this game. Maybe the fact that I was able to come pretty close to making the epic-game-in-a-tiny-package-come-true part. But then again, I like wacky design challenges. I’d rather try and create a wholly new experience that’s flawed than try and create simply a more refined game than what is already available.

Q5> When did you first reveal the design to others?  Who were the early audience members and what sort of feedback did you get from them?

A: I don’t really remember having a “reveal” moment at any given time. Luckily I was in the process of finishing the game up when a now-defunct gaming blog (Gone Gaming) had a contest for “best of year” submissions. I submitted the game for “best print and play game,” and then it won. At which point, the game got put on the radar by several people.  http://boredgamegeeks.blogspot.com/2007/01/gone-gaming-2006-board-game-internet.html

At this point, I didn’t even put it up on boardgamegeek yet, so it’s not like it was a known entity or anything. Also, I’m not sure how many other entries were involved, so it might’ve been one entry out of two.

Really, aside from various “bugs” in the game, the only major thing I’ve changed in response to people’s comments was what happens at the end of an era. In the previous version, the game would just kill you if you didn’t have the right requirements at the end of an era, which is pretty mean if you get sucker punched by a bad event to end your current era. That got updated to a scoring round at the end of every era, and a screw at the end of an era just means you don’t score points, but at least your game continues.

One other thing regarding the point system. Initially, I didn’t really have any points in the game. It just seemed kind of silly to be awarding points to a solitaire game where you can “cheat” a bit here or there. The game pretty much existed as a Civ experience; your “score” was building your little world and surviving all the way through 8 eras.

At the end, I decided to add some scores, “just because.” In the end, I was surprised to see how many players took the scoring to heart as a rating of how well they did in the game. So, when I went back and changing to the scoring system, I was a bit more careful with how the scores were balanced.

Along the lines of what kind of feedback I really wanted, I was sort of hoping that the game would take on a certain life of its own, with people creating their own scenarios for it, and let the game be very open source (much like a train game system), and have the game thrive somewhat from a community based around it,; creating new technology type, new maps, goals, etc. Alas, that hasn’t happened.

Q6> What was the path for the game going from being posted on your website to 300+ BGG Ratings?  What sort of feedback have you gotten from the gaming public on it?

A: I’m not sure that there is an easy path, aside from trying to scratch an itch that the community has. In this case, a quick playing Civ game. Clearly, one of the keys is that the game in its most basic form doesn’t take a lot of work to build. Then if you like it, you can build a nice set of parts for it.

As a comparison, with a totally different design goal, but also following the “less is more” approach to print and play, I’ve posted this game (Epic Solitaire Notebook Adventures) up:  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/51199/epic-solitaire-notebook-adventures

…which I think is much more of an interesting design. But, it doesn’t get the eyeballs, and it doesn’t get posted into any list or anything (seeing that PocketCiv gets posted once in a while to the appropriate list). Not that I’m complaining as I really don’t “market” either game. I guess it just doesn’t scratch an itch that’s been missing. Or I lucked out on PocketCiv popping into the geek consciousness at the right time.

Otherwise, the feedback has been great, otherwise the game would’ve disappeared into the musty halls of the database there. Unfortunately, I don’t reply back to all of the comments I get occasionally. But the fact that there’s a whole line of “…In My Pocket” games that, while not wholly inspired, but that genetically trace back to PocketCiv is pretty cool.

Q7> How did the computer version come about?  Did you have much interaction with the Jack Neal (the author of the computer game) about it?

A: I had no interaction with him whatsoever, (well, aside from granting him the ok to do it). That was done all on his own. Surely, a brave project to work on.

Q8> Are you continuing to develop the game, or planning anything about it for the future?

A: No, I’m not developing it anymore. There’s a couple of reasons for that.

One, I’m lucky enough to be paid to design games at work. And this has taught me that constant development and tweaking and “trying to get it just right” is a chore. The fun part for me are the first few steps in design: the initial concept, and then getting it to a point where it “works.” In other words, getting it to a point where whatever goals you’ve set are finally playable and you can see the monster you’ve created come to life. So, my limited hobby game design time is spent on that part of the process.

Additionally, I have all these other little design ideas I want to work on, and I’d rather spend my time bringing those to life than trying to perfect or expand on something previously created. Again, I had sort of hoped that a community would develop around the game due to its open- ended-ness.

Of course, if someone came along and said “Hey, we’d love to publish your game if you made a few changes!” I’d probably go back to it and see what I could do.

Q9> What did you take away from the experience that will stick with you in your current and future game designs?

A: People care more about points and a gauge to determine “if they won” than I thought they did. My mindset is more about the exploration and the narrative I guess when I play games. “Winning” is secondary for me.

That’s something I’ve gotten away from a lot with stuff I’ve been prototyping now. It’s easier just to award everything some amount of victory points, and then balance a game that way. I’m really into trying to come up with more thematic ways and conditions in game designs now. So while they might not actually end up that way, at least I start from a position that “this game isn’t about a random collection of victory points.”

Actually, a game that I’ve been working on for some time now, I’ve removed the whole victory point collection aspect of it, and refocused the game into a “first player to get condition X” and its made the game much better.

Q10> Anything else that you would like to share about the game?

A: Not really. I mean, it’s almost a four year old game at this point. It’s kind of impressive that I get an email now and then about it considering that there’s no real hype or marketing behind it, it’s a print-and-play game, etc.etc. How many real published games were there in 2006 that have pretty much faded into obscurity at this point? The internet is a funny place how things are kind of stuck there forever if you poke around enough.

—–

(I will on occassion post about Others’ Works — a look at games and other creative works by other people.  Also, watch for me to spotlight some of my own games with “Spotlight On…” posts as well as my “Fellow Designer” posts, which will look at other board game designers and computer game developers.)

Today we had to put our Siamese cat, Cinder, to sleep.  We think she was around 19 years old.  We adopted her as a 2-year-old from a vets office that was looking for a home for her.  I think she probably would have been put down if we hadn’t taken her home with us that day.  That was nearly 17 years ago.

She was a great cat for our family, but had really gotten old over the past 5 years.  The past couple years, especially, saw her greatly reduced … but she was still very affectionate and talkative.  Her kidneys were failing and she was having a lot of trouble the last few days.

The vet said that while we could do some things to make her more comfortable for a short period of time, there really was no cure for what was ailing her, and she would continue to go downhill.  She was already doing pretty poorly … had problems walking straight, among other things.  So, we had to let her go.

Her name — and colors — will live on in the planet I made for her in Jump Gate.

Rest in peace, Cinder.

Current Version of the Half-Court Board

As I’ve been contemplating changes needed for the 3-on-3 basketball game that I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve decided to change the way space is handled on the game board.  The picture to the left is the new version of the half-court that the game takes place on.  Each section will hold 2 players at a time.  A defending player needs to be in the same section as an offensive player to be directly defending that player.  This simplifies an issue on the previous board (detailed below).

The colored bands indicate which shooting skills a player will be using.  Guards will have better shooting skills further out from the basket, while Centers will be better inside.

Older Attempt at a Half-Court Board

My first pass at the board (shown to the right), has individual spots that would each hold a single player.  The triangular arrows would point at the spots that can be defended from that position.  This created some locations up the alleys and down the baseline with spots that can only be defended from 1 position.  While this made for some interesting positioning, it was a little hard to explain — and it changed it from a basketball sim to something more like an abstract strategy game with some favored terrain.

With that said, the court setup is something of a minor change compared to what my plans are for the cards and the dice.  I still need to get some of the details worked out before I can post about that though.

Jump Gate

Jump Gate is a board game about space exploration in the far future.  The Jump Gate is a device that lets a spaceship immediately jump into orbit around a far-away planet.  Players explore these newly-discovered planets by jumping to them, scanning them for resources, and landing on them to stake their claim as the first to set foot on them.  Ultimately, the game is about collecting resources in a way to maximize your score.  However, some resources cause a player to put a marker on the Black Hole Board … and too many markers on that board will cause problems for some players.

There is hand-management, multi-use cards, exploration & discovery, set collection, and some racing elements in the game.  The game can be played casually, but requires good decisions and efficient use of actions for a player to really excel.  The theme is family friendly and would make a great family-game-night game.

As part of the launch celebration, I’ll be giving away a copy of the game in a couple of weeks.

Check out the game’s page both here and at BoardGameGeek for images and more details.