Another New Game Design: For Goods and Honor

  February 12, 2013 - 9:32 pm | For Goods and Honor
Leave a comment

Example worker tokens from "For Goods and Honor" PrototypeThe other new design that I have started to work on in order to test at Protospiel-Milwaukee is something I started a number of years ago called “For Goods and Honor.”

It’s an odd game that I’m not exactly sure how to give a short description for.  It has chit pulling, bidding/negotiation, worker placement, and something (that I think is) novel where you are forced to give something of value to another player.  You’re likely to gain something valuable for you from the transaction though, so it’s all good, hopefully.

The game story starts like this …

“Goodferd Valley is peopled with kind, productive folk that value a good day’s work and a helping hand from a friend. The valley’s elders look for the best way to put people to work in order to produce the most goods while gaining the most honor from their peers. They also strive to keep their people safe from the evil Nastigans who live over the ridge.”

The main gameplay is that you draw 2 worker tokens (as pictured above and to the left) from a bag … you get to keep one, and you have to give one away.  Meanwhile, players get to offer honor chips, goods, and workers in trade for someone giving them a particular type of worker using this “offers” board:

"Offers" board from "For Goods and Honor" prototype

The “Negotiable” space allows players to put some things that they can add to any of the other spaces at the point-in-time when another player is offering up a worker that player wants.  Then, when it’s your turn, you gain goods based on how you’ve assigned your workers on your “Worker Assignment” board.

"Worker Assignment" board from "For Goods and Honor" Prototype

The threads are still very loose on how it all ties together … but I have a couple of weeks to get it into shape for testing with other designers.

Share

New Game Design: Cosmic Critters

  February 12, 2013 - 9:29 am | Cosmic Critters
Leave a comment

Cosmic Critters Card Examples - Early Prototype(Click on the picture to the left to see a full-sized version.)

I wanted to get a couple of new designs worked up to the point of being able to test them at Protospiel-Milwaukee in March.  So, I’ve taken a couple that I had back-burnered over the past couple of years and put them back in my work queue.

The one pictured here is “Cosmic Critters” … a simple family card game about being a salesperson at a store that sells pets from outer space.  The graphics on the example cards are just a placeholder … I have a good friend who is working on some illustrations that I’ll use as I update the prototype.  For now, the icons I’m using will be functional.

The basic gameplay is that there will be several customer cards (the ones shown in the bottom row) out in the middle of the table. You play pet cards (the ones shown in the top row) from your hand covered up with your player offer card so that no one else can see what you’re offering.

When it gets back around to being your turn, you reveal all of the bids for the customer that you made an offer on and the player that best meets the customer’s wants collects all of the pet cards offered for scoring.  Once players are out of cards, everyone scores their collection.

Each pet has a species, a color, a cost, and a “likability” score … customers each want a specific species in a specific color and then either want the cheapest one, or the most likable one.  The players who best match the customer’s wants for species/color then compare their cost or likability to determine whose offer is chosen by the customer.

There’s a bit more too it (each player can have 2 offers out at a time, for example), and a few variations on rules that need testing this early in the cycle … but so far this looks to have something to it.

Share

Status Update on New Editions of Castle Danger and Jump Gate

  January 23, 2013 - 9:45 pm | Castle Danger, Jump Gate
Leave a comment

Castle Danger, 10th Anniversary Edition, Rules Booklet CoverIn addition to the new 10th Anniversary edition of Castle Danger that I’ve been mentioning, I am starting to work through a new smaller-box edition of Jump Gate via TGC.

The final proof pieces for Castle Danger have been ordered and should be here by this time next week.  Once I’ve had a chance to see it all together (and probably put together a quick game-play video), I’ll get the shop page updated on TGC and release the new edition.  As part of the launch celebration, I’m thinking of including the King of Danger deck with it for a limited time. :)

In the meantime, I’ve posted a couple of images of updated Jump Gate art on the Facebook page over the past couple of days. My plan is to use the new “Small Pro Box” that TGC announce last month, reduce the max. number of players to 5, tweak a few rules, and use smaller cards for everything … it’ll sort of be a “travel edition” without being called that specifically.  Here’s the early art — some planet examples and resource card examples:

Jump Gate, 3rd Edition, Early Planet Card Examples  Jump Gate, 3rd Edition, Early Resource Card Examples

:)

Share

Latest King of Danger Tweak Uploaded

  January 17, 2013 - 11:04 pm | King of Danger
Leave a comment

King of Danger, Main Deck Back, January 2013

Another week of playtesting has gone by, and I think we are getting close with King of Danger.

I don’t expect the deck to change much now … just tweaks around in-game rules and score and such.  This time around, I tightened-up the rules around matching the lead suit and restricted when you can play a King a bit more.  I also switched to the term “castles” for what you are gaining and losing throughout the game (it was confusing to have a Walls suit, and then be building/destroying walls as a separate thing), and I’ve adjusted who gains/loses them and how many. It’s starting to feel just about right.

The new item I’ve added-in is the ability of the Wizards to morph into Walls or Cannons on occasion.  For example, they are now treated as if they are a Wall on a Wall-lead trick, or as if they are a Cannon on a Cannon-lead trick.  When the Wizards are lead, the first Wall or Cannon played on the trick switches the castle gain/loss rules over to as if that suit had been lead. Not sure if that’ll stick … but so far I like it.

So, download again (only the rules have changed since the last post about the game), and let me have your feedback: King of Danger Rules (with Print and Play cards) (69)

Thanks! :)

Share

The Plates, They are a-Spinning: What I am Working on – Jan 2013

  January 16, 2013 - 10:36 pm | Castle Danger, Castle Danger 2013 Computer Game, King of Danger, Magistrate, Matt Worden Games, SharkBait, Talking Shop
Leave a comment

SharkBait Token Board Setup ExampleWhen it comes to creative projects, I always seem to have a ton of plates spinning at the same time … and just when I have a good grove going on something, a new idea pops into my head.

And that always leads to the struggle of how much attention to pay to the new thing. A lot of times I want to just jot down some of the ideas, maybe sketch out a few things physically, and then put toward the back of the line so that I can keep working on the things in the front.  And, sometimes, those new things cut to the front of the line and take up more of my time than is probably healthy.

With that said, I’ve always found my creative process to be rather feast and famine … so, when the surf’s up, it’s time to ride it and see how much stuff I can get done.  So, here’s my current list of things at the front of the line … (more…)

Share

King of Danger Updated [Updated 17-Jan]

  January 11, 2013 - 10:57 pm | Castle Danger, King of Danger
Leave a comment

 

King of Danger - All Cards, January 2013

 

I have just updated the rules and PnP files for King of Danger, my Castle Danger themed trick-taking game.

Besides a major graphical update, the card distribution is different now, and the rules have had some major tweaks.  In fact, if you downloaded the original file, I would highly (highly!) suggest you delete those files and download these … it’s aleady a much better game.

Here is the new download: King of Danger Rules (with Print and Play cards) (69) (updated to v3.2 on 17-Jan-2013)

Let me know how it plays for you.

 

 

Share

Castle Danger, 10th Anniversary Edition, Rules Booklet Draft [updated 11-Jan]

  January 7, 2013 - 8:21 pm | Castle Danger
Leave a comment

Castle Danger, 10th Anniversary Edition, Rules Booklet Cover

 

As I announced last month, I will be updating Castle Danger at TheGameCrafter.com to a new edition in celebration of it having been 10 years since I put out the first edition of the game.

One of the updates will be a new rule booklet, using TGC’s new Jumbo Bookets, which are 8×10 and saddle-stiched.  This one will be an 8-page booklet.  I actually only need 5 pages for the rules, so I’ll use one for some advertising and have purely graphical covers.

Here is the first draft of the rules booklet: Castle Danger, 10th Anniversary Edition, Rule Booklet Draft (107) {updated to v1.3 on 11-Jan}

I’d very much appreciate anyone who would be willing to give it a read and let me know what needs fixing.  Thanks! :)

Share

Website Update #2: Over the Hump

  January 7, 2013 - 6:38 am | Matt Worden Games
Leave a comment

Matt Worden Games Logo - 2013Almost there. :)

I was able to get the image map (mentioned in my previous post) working … it was a little tedious, but not terribly tricky once I figured out how the header information is handled in WordPress.

Now, I need to clean-up the existing game pages, add in a couple new ones, and then add information on my current projects.

Had great help over the weekend from Chevee Dodd, who turns out to be something of a CSS guy (he coded his own website). He helped me to tweak borders and colors and such to make the site all come together.

Share

Website Update: Starting to Come Together

  January 5, 2013 - 1:17 pm | Matt Worden Games
Leave a comment

Matt Worden Games Logo - 2013

Well, things are progressing with the website update.  I’ve done most of the big things — installing a new theme, changing major colors, background images, etc.  I’ve also done most of the medium and smaller things … although I’m not locked-in on the font shape/size/colors yet. So, I’ll continue to tweak those.

One thing that seems to be trickier to do with WordPress is to setup an image map for your header image.  (For those that aren’t website techies, an “image map” is setting up different areas of a picture as clickable links … such as separate links for each of the “nice folks saying nice things” area in the upper-right.)  For now, I’m putting up a header full of place-holders and then I’ll work out the tweaks to make it happen.

I also plan to go through the site page-by-page and redo each of them to make them better looking and easier to read. And I’ll reorganize them a bit to have the menus make a bit more sense.

As you might get from the way the header is starting to shape up, I will have areas across the top for both accolades and published games.  My current in-process projects will be shown in the right column.  This should make everything cleaner and tidier.

If you happen to see anything that is missing, is hard to read, or is otherwise broken, please send me an e-mail.

Share

Happy New Year … Expect a New Look

  January 3, 2013 - 9:25 am | Matt Worden Games, TheGameCrafter.com
Leave a comment

Matt Worden Games Logo

I will be updating this website to a new look-and-feel over the next few days … I haven’t done a full site revamp before with WordPress, so I’m not sure how long this will take.

There will likely be things out-of-place, or looking oddly, or downright broken while things are in-process … please be patient with me.

My focus in 2013 will be to ramp-up the sales for the items I am self-publishing (mainly through TheGameCrafter.com) and to land a number of my current designs with traditional publishers.  I also expect to improve on my 2012 focus of getting to cons and designer get-togethers.

In the meantime, you can still find me on Facebook and Twitter if you need more real-time updates.

Share