Meeplesburg design changes

So here are some of the changes to Meeplesburg I play tested last Monday

• Play testers liked incremental cost of getting a Mason disc ($3, $4, $5 and $6)
• Limited spaces for Masons for the Action spots made players add Tenants early in the game. (2 spots for Bridges per round, 3 spots for Monuments per round, 3 spots for Tenants per round)

Potential Issue:
The following units now generate income: Building tiles, wall segments, Monuments (no more cubes now), Bridges and Tenants. So this means there is more money in the game. A player with 4 building tiles, 2 walls and a Monument could make $7 with a single Income Generation action. A new player--Jerome?--ended the game with $25 which got him 5 victory points. So my concern is perhaps there is now too much money in the game, at least at the end. I might cut Tenants and Bridges from list.

Thoughts?

What I have left was a challenge from Paul Saxberg to make the game playable with 2 players, and I figure I might as well make sure it is playable with 5 players, since the 2-5 Players is the sweet spot for Euros.

To make it a 2 player game I would have to make the game boards double-sided. In a 2 player version the players would remove all the yellow meeples from the game. 

• So the City Map board would have no yellow worker row or column, making the board grid 4x4 instead of 5x5. 
• There would be 12 squares for placing buildings and 4 river spaces. 
• The players would also remove all the building cards/tiles with yellow meeples on them: 10. This would leave 15 buildings/tiles for a 2 player game. 
• 3 Building cards would be available each round instead of 5.
• 8 Meeples would be drawn from the bag each round, so each player would have 4 workers to use.
• One less Mason spot for each action space: 1 spot for Bridges per round, 2 spots for Monuments per round, 2 spots for Tenants per round
• One less Mason added per round (Round 1: 3, Round 2: 6, Round 3: 9)

I feel I am getting close to a finalized designed game.

The question is about having too much money in the game. At the end of the game every $5 is worth 1 VP, and the new player ended up with $25 at the end of the game, which made him 5 VP. Money used for the following in the game:

• To place a building on the city map board costs $1, but if it is adjacent to one of your own properties then it cost $1 for every building in the group, including the new one.
• To purchase a building it requires 1 worker and $1
• To use a Mason it starts at $3, then $4 for the next one, then $5 and finally $6
I was worried money would be tight in the game, but for some players it wasn't

I myself tried to construct a building I needed and put it on the board, but then I discovered I had no money to place it. So I spent that turn generating income, at which point the next player bought the building I wanted.

So how do you find the right balance of money in a game? Is it based on how much is left at the end of the game? Or players complaining about not having enough money, or complaining that they don't have enough actions to spend their money on?

Another successful play test session at the Sentry Box

Another great play testing session last night with the GAC gang at the Sentry Box. I feel very comfortable with all the changes I have made and I feel I am just about ready to commit those changes to my rules document. 

What I have left was a challenge from Paul Saxberg to make the game playable with 2 players, and I figure I might as well make sure it is playable with 5 players, since the 2-5 Players is the sweet spot for Euros.

Yet more changes for Meeplesburg

A new design suggestion which I want to implement before the next play test:

Each wall section will have two spaces next to it: 1 for Income Generation and 1 for Wall Construction.

So instead of having only 1 spot for activating Income for a row, you would now have 2. This change would make these actions more intuitive, more elegant and work better thematically.

Here are some more suggestions that will not be implemented, but are sitting in the hopper and may be used depending on how the changes above affect game play:

Instead of the Monuments being worth Victory Points at the end of the game, the player gets a  card from a bonus deck

Every time a player builds a new Monument and places it on one of their buildings, they get to draw 2  cards from a bonus deck, keep one and place the other at the bottom of the deck.

Bonus Cards:

• 1 VP for every black meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every orange meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every blue meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every red meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every yellow meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every Construction building you own
• 1 VP for every $3 building you own
• 1 VP for every Income Generation building you own
• 1 VP for every Wall Construction building you own
• 1 VP for every Mason/Worker building you own

So at the end of the game, players would announce the bonus Victory Points they received because of the building tiles they owned that matched the Bonus card. The player who bought the last Monument would not have choice of bonus cards. So another incentive to buy Monuments early because they could buy building tiles that matched their bonus cards.

To make the Purchase Area make more sense thematically, the player needs to supply a worker and $1 to get a building from this area.

This means it will cost a player a minimum of $2 to place a purchased building tile on the city map board: $1 for the purchase, and a minimum of $1 for the Land Levy to place it on the board.

More design changes for Meeplesburg

So I had another great play testing session last night for my game Meeplesburg. We played a 3 player game that lasted 68 minutes, which included a quick rehash of the rules--so it looks like this came can come in under an hour for experienced players. w00t!

Here are some the key changes from the last version:

1. Get rid of the remaining 60 white and instead make the Monuments worth victory points at the end of the game.

So in the last version of the game I got rid of 120 coloured wooden cubes and replaced them with money tokens (40 $1 tokens and 12 $5 tokens). And that was a great change. It reduced the component count of the game and gave players more action choices during their turn. It was easier to figure out what you needed to perform a given action.

Well now I was given a suggestion that would eliminate the 60 white cubes, which were generated by the Monuments during the Income Generation action, and instead make the Monuments themselves worth victory points at the end of the game. So here  the changes:

·         Instead of generating cubes, each Monument would generate an additional $1 during the Income Generation

·         Monuments at the end of the game would worth the following incremental victory points (the more Monuments you have, the greater the victory points!):

o   1 Monument = 1 VP

o   2 Monuments = 3 VP

o   3 Monuments = 5 VP

o   4 Monuments = 8 VP

o   5 Monuments = 13 VP

o   6 Monuments = 21 VP

A player with more than 6 Monuments would not make any more points after that.

2. Limit the number of Masons that can be placed on Action spaces during a round.

In order to tighten up the game and build more tension, it was suggestion that I limit the number of Masons that can be placed an action space during a round:

·         Construct a Bridge: There will be only 2 spots available per round to use a Mason to build a bridge. There are 5 bridges in the game.

·         Add a Tenant: There will be only 3 spots available per round to use a Mason to add a tenant to another player's building tile. Each player has 3 tenants in their colour.

·         Erect a Monument: There will be only 4 spots available per round to use a Mason to erect a Monument. There are 10 Monuments in the game.

In previous play sessions, players would leave adding tenants and constructing bridges till near the end of the last round since there was no sense of urgency to build them earlier. Now that there are limited spots available per round, players will have to consider building these in rounds 1 and 2 to avoid not being able to build them at all.

3. Add an incremental cost to available Masons

In the play test last night, all Masons cost $4 in order to use them on an action space. It didn't matter if the player used the first available Mason or the last one. So the change will be this:

·         In Round 1:

o   1st Mason: $3

o   2nd Mason: $4

o   3rd Mason: $5

o   4th Mason: $6

·         In Round 2:

o   1st and 2nd Masons: $3

o   3rd and 4th Masons: $4

o   5th and 6th Masons: $5

o   7th and 8th Masons: $6

·         In Round 3:

o   1st, 2nd and 3rd Masons: $3

o   4th, 5th and 6th Masons: $4

o   7th, 8th and 9th Masons: $5

o   10th, 11th and 12th Masons: $6

So the longer you wait to hire a Mason, the more expensive they become.

4. Having 2 walls in a row or column gets you $2 instead of a white cube

Since I am removing the white cubes from the game, owning 2 walls in either a row or a column will give you $2 during the Income Generation action.

Trying to find a theme for a new mechanism for my game Meeplesburg

Looking for some advice on theming a new mechanism in my game, Meeplesburg.

The game board is a map of a city laid out in a 5x5 grid. Players build buildings by placing a building tile on a square, then place a wooden house of their color on it to indicate its theirs. At the end of the game players will receive 1 victory point for each building by itself, and 3 VPs for each building in their largest contiguous group.

The new rule is that when you are putting down a new building tile, if it is adjacent to another one you own, then you gotta pay for it! When I put a building tile down on the map board, and it is not adjacent to own I already own, then I can put it down for free. But if it is next to one I do own (orthogonal), the it will cost me $1 to do so. If I put one down and it creates a clump of 3 adjacent buildings I own, then this will cost me $2, and so on and so on.

I love this mechanic, but now I need to create a theme for its existence in the game.

Here some ideas. Let me know which one is best or if you can come up with one that is better.

Builders Guild Fee

We could say that each player belongs to the Builders Guild, and they have to pay a fee when they build a property next to a property they already own. Perhaps the Guild likes builders to spread out throughout the city when they build and charge you a fee to dissuade you bunching up.

King's Taxes

King Meep (king of the meeples, don't cha know) wants his new capital city of Meeplesburg to spread out and have lots of variety in the various districts. If a player is constructing buildings next to ones he already owns, then the King is charging property taxes.

These ideas for theme are very satisfying to me, but maybe I just need to improve the wording. I really like the mechanism, so I want to find a way to make it work with the game.

Thoughts?

Renaming/retheming The Fractured Lands as Meeplesburg

So I had an idea yesterday to change the game I have been designing for about 2 years from The Fractured Lands to Meeplesburg.

I would describe the game play as light Euro, so I was thinking a retheming was in order to match.

So as a description, I am going from this:

In The Fractured Lands, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents each play a commissioner belonging to one of five races. You will be rebuilding the great city of Unity and vie for control and influence. As a commissioner you will direct workers from five different races: Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Minotaurs and Trolls. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Can you reunite The Fractured Lands and rebuild the mighty city of Unity?

To this:

In Meeplesburg, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents are building the great medieval city of Meeplesburg, vying for control and influence. You will direct worker meeples of five different colors: black, orange, blue, red and yellow, plus the white mason meeples. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Will you be remembered as the greatest builder of Meeplesburg?

Here is the definition of a Euro according to BGG:
http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Eurogame 

Thoughts?

The Fractured Lands - Playtest

I was soooo excited with some of the changes in my game I just had to share it with you all!

Game: The Fractured Lands

Playtesters: John Gibson (designer), Paul Saxberg, Tom Sarsons and Marty  

Play Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

I had a great play testing session yesterday at the Sentry Box. It was what I would call a breakthrough, and I was told that will all the changes I had made to the game since the last iteration, there was no downside.

So just a quick recap about what Fractured Lands is about:

In The Fractured Lands, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents each play a commissioner belonging to one of five races. You will be rebuilding the great city of Unity and vie for control and influence. As a commissioner you will direct workers from five different races: Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Minotaurs and Trolls. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Can you reunite The Fractured Lands and rebuild the mighty city of Unity?

Number of Players: 3-4

Playing time: 60 - 90 minutes

Age Range: 12 and up

The game board is a 5 x 5 city map that you can put building tiles on. 5 of those squares are river hexes running diagonally through the map. The map is also surrounded by 20 wall sections. Players use 5 different coloured meeples (representing the 5 races) to construct and place building tiles on the board, and to build wall sections. Each building card has 2 meeples pictured on it, and so these are the meeples you would need to construct that building. Each wall section has a meeple beside it as well, indicating which meeple you need to build that wall.

How do players get these meeples?

There are 25 meeples dumped into a bag; 5 of each colour. At the beginning of each round, the starting player reaches into the bag and draws out 12 meeples at random. Then in counterclockwise order, beginning with the player to the right of the starting player, each player drafts one of the meeples, continuing until all the meeples have been drafted. In a 4 player game each player should have 3 meeples; 3 player game: 4 meeples.

I don't want to bore you guys with the rest, so let's get down to the changes I made before last night's game, and that should clear up some stuff.

1. Replaced 120 wooden cubes (24 cubes for each of the 5 colours)  with 40 $1 tokens and 12 $5 tokens

I have been working on different versions of this game for about 2 years now, and up until yesterday one of the key components was the wooden coloured cubes for each race. Players would get cubes by generating income on the map board. Each building tile would generate 2 cubes, 1 for each of the 2 races that you needed to originally construct the building. So for example after generating income a player might receive 2 black, 2 red, a blue and a yellow cube from 3 building tiles.

So what are/were the cubes for?

Players would use the cubes to buy actions on the action board. There were 10 spots on the action board, 2 for each cube colour. In the first row of 5 action spots, you could perform that action for the cost of 3 cubes of a specific colour, and the 2nd row it would cost 4 cubes.

For example, if you wanted to build a bridge to place on one of the 5 river tiles, it would cost you 3 blue cubes. If a player couldn't manage to generate 3 blue cubes because of the buildings they constructed, then they would never be able to purchase a bridge. Also, once all 5 bridges were built, then blue cubes were not as useful anymore.

I also had to limit how many cubes of one colour players could have at any one time (6) in order to keep hoarders from hurting those who were trying to generate income.

So I scrapped all the cubes and replaced it with money. Each building tile produces $1 when generating income. I then reduced the 10 actions spots down to 3: Building Bridges, Monuments and Tenants. Each spot costs $4 to perform that action.

So if we look at the example I mentioned before, the player would receive $3 for generating income instead of 6 cubes of various colours.

2. Players share a pool of Masons instead of each player having their own set of 3 Masons each.

Remember the actions spots I was referring to in my earlier comment? Well in order to use them you can't just have $4; you also have to have a Mason (They were called foremen, but now I am calling them Masons).

In a previous version of the game each player had 3 mason discs which they could use to perform actions not requiring a worker meeple. When a player ran out of their colour of discs, then they could no longer perform any of those actions. The reason for this was that when a player performed the generate income action, they might also end up generating income for other players. This became a sort of death spiral of actions in a 4 player game where a player might run out of cubes in one turn, only to have the next player generate them a bunch, thus allowing them to do more. So I gave each player 3 masons discs so they could perform only 3 actions per turn (they could turn a meeple into a mason with a special power, but let's not get into that right now).

But after trying different combinations of rules and components I (or one of play testers?) came up with idea of a pool of masons that can be accessed by the players. In the first round there would 4 available, 8 in the second, and 12 in the third and final round. What this means is that some players could end up playing more than 3 actions in the final turn, which also means another player might end up with only 2--you snooze, you lose! As to the incrementing number of masons, in the first round players are still working on building their economic engine so they will not have as much money to spend on actions anyway. So if one player can manage to squeeze out 2 actions in a turn, the somebody else is gonna get screwed!

I felt this added an extra element of tension to the game we played last night as players kept an eye on the dwindling supply of mason discs and considering the opportunity cost of performing a mason action versus an action requiring a meeple worker.

3. Got complete rid of the Blight Attacks mechanism.

As this game was evolving from version to version, at one point I found that players were not building walls because they were just not that interesting or compelling an action. So I added a mechanism where one or more times a round the city would be attacked. Using either dice which were rolled after a certain number of turns or flipping over a special card, the players would have to deal with an attack by the Fractured Lands most horrid enemy: The Blight!!1!

So players would have to build walls to protect the city. If the players won, then maybe the player who contributed the most would get a reward, and if they lost, then a player might lose a cube or even a building tile.

But my players found this to not be a good addition to the game and what was lost was too much dependant on luck (a die roll). This game is almost a solid Euro, so the dice weren't jelling with that style. So I scrapped it and the game went smoother.

4. When you are putting a new building tile down on the map, if it is adjacent to another one you own, then you gotta pay for it.

I haven't decided how to theme this rule, but I sure love the mechanic! When I put a building tile down on the map board, and it is not adjacent to own I already own, then I can put it down for free. But if it is next to one I do own, the it will cost me $1 to do so. If I put one down and it creates a clump of 3 adjacent buildings I own, then this will cost me $2, and so on and so on.

This does a couple of things: a) Now there is another use of money that will be competing with a player using it to perform Mason actions. b) Players will be not so quick to clump their buildings together at the beginning of the game because it will be too expensive (players get extra victory points for their largest group of buildings). This gave other players the opportunity to stick one of their buildings between an opponent's squares to mess them up.

Finally all these changes made for the fastest, most satisfying game of The Fractured Lands ever! We played it in 75 minutes and I am sure after a few more plays with experienced players that the game will come in at under an hour.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading and I would be happy to respond to any questions, comments, suggestions, etc.

Cheers,

John Gibson