WARP Update – Shiney New Prototype

WARP is continually developing to be a solid piece of work! Better icons, more clarity, class guidelines and an action board! I had a chance to play it a couple of weeks ago at a designer colaboration event called Protospiel in Madison Wisconsin with nearly 200 attendees.

The most exciting part of playing it there is that players did not complain about the main things they used to. No feedback is often the best feedback! I’m excited to show you the main changes!

Card Update:
A lot of love has gone into the card’s appearance. The core of the game-play revolves around card use, their development is of utmost importance. Here you see a lot of color has been added to the new card (on the right).

Reading the card is a lot simpler using the icons and colors. A lot of squinting from across the table is mitigated by this.  You may have noticed that the icon regarding ammo has been removed entirely. While thematically having limited ammunition for items made sense, time and time again I was finding players struggling with the reloading mechanic, and sometimes if the issue comes up too consistently; the best solution is the clip it out entirely! Probably the thing that had the most impact is that the initiative (C:2 on the old card) has been changed to be much more visually prominent, so there’s less time wasted on determining the next player! Streaming player actions has been a struggle for me, so the success of the Action Board is most encouraging!

After players choose their actions, they now place them in order on the action board, so all players can easily see which actions belong to who and who will be acting next. Eliminating this downtime of asking around the table to find who is up next dramatically increases how quickly each round progresses.

Better game aids are great! On the action board above, you’ll see listed actions that anyone can make without playing a card. Having them on the main board, once again creates a focus of attention during the action phase, so everyone has their heads up together.

Speaking of Aids, the new player mats have the reference sheet condensed on them:


along with tokens to match the Hand and mobility points a player spends for each phase. This encourage easier tracking of player resources and more condensed rule explanations since all of that is together!

The are some other substantial changes that I’d like to share (especially with game setup), but this post has grown long enough! I will most definitely be talking about how setup went from overwhelming to being enjoyed by players. I feel most accomplished from that compliment from a first time player!

I’ve recently put up a facebook page for WARP, please click here to like the page and see progress pictures of WARP!

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Thanks for reading!
~Andrew Voigt

Follow me on Twitter! @gamestothetable
Facebook.com/andrewrvoigt
Youtube

 

The Dark Forest: An Overview.

The Dark Forest is a Narrative Horror game where you experience the story of your character, influencing it based on what objectives you complete or fail. Through the night, when you unlock the listed prerequisites, you’ll unlock additional pieces to your story. Below is an example of Theodore’s Character page. The event text for each event is in the character’s booklet.

Each character has several endgame resolutions they can achieve. Most of which include one where they’re successful in their quest, and two others, sometime resulting in an unpleasant end, other times ending up being something that’s worse than death for the character

Game play:
Players will be wandering through a map of disappearing forest tiles, trying to locate the landmarks they seek for their character’s objectives. Working together to help clear paths and explore the dark corners of the forest. These woods are untrustworthy though!

The night seems to shifts the paths in the dark. Every Time a player steps too far away from an explored tile, it disappears from the board. Making it so no path is entirely reliable! As unreliable the forest is, it’s even more dangerous! Each tile corresponds to a different difficulty of encounters that the poor lost players must navigate through.

These encounters set up the situation and require the player to choose how they want to address the challenge, using their character’s skills to test against what is brought before them.

 

As the night goes on players are pressed with dropping stats and ticking time to strain for their objectives before the dawn comes.

It is my goal to evoke the feeling of being lost in the woods, and your mind creating its own fears about what could be lurking behind every shadow!

I’m revamping a lot of my encounter mechanics and making them tie into the forest map better. Stay tuned, I hope to have that together by the end of November.

Thank you for reading! Please visit my Facebook and YouTube channels if you want to be kept up to date on the development! 

Follow me on Twitter! @gamestothetable

 

Facebook.com/andrewrvoigt

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCklJwa7TroVLxd25ODLFYlA

Blend Off! is on Kickstarter

 

Blend Off! is now live on Kickstarter, for only $19! Check out the campaign, which includes how-to-play videos, reviews, a rulebook, and more. Then, head onto Facebook and Twitter and show your colors. Me? I’m #TeamStrawberry!

Perspective is Out to Backers with New Ways to Play!

It’s been so exciting watching people respond to getting their copies of Perspective! I have really enjoyed the tweets, posts and messages people have been sending as they are breaking open their games. There’s been a variety of posts of pictures and praises, and it’s truly excited to see that so many people are enjoying my design! Above is the pile of copies I had the joy to sign for backers. I am truly honored by all of the support from backers, friends and family!

NEW MODES!
– 4 player without partners
– 5 player
– 6 player partners

During the KS campaign, one backer (Rachad) had asked if we could play with more players if you had 2 copies of Perspective. Because of this, I have been working around and have found good ways to do this. For those of you who got the 3 pack, try these out and let me know if you think of ways to improve the larger player count ways to play. I’ll list the cards you need to add in order to play each mode.

4 player without partners:

Cards to add: (6 cards total)
Red/Blue, Red/Yellow, Red/Green, Blue/Yellow, Blue/ Green, Yellow/Green.

Set up goes as pictured, and the game plays identical to the 2 player game. The only difference is that the center card belongs to both sets of cards in the center. All 5 cards count as part of a single shared hand.

ADVANCED: simply remove the goal cards and each player’s goal is determined by the 3 card hand parallel to them.

5 player:

Cards to add: (10 cards total)
Red/Red, Blue/Blue, Yellow/Yellow, Green/Green, Red/Blue, Red/Yellow, Red/Green, Blue/Yellow, Blue/ Green, Yellow/Green.

Set up is as shown above with each player sitting at the base of one of the cards, like the 3 player game. Each player will have a goal card in front of them (not pictured). If the game feels to short, you may want to play for 2nd or 3rd place.

ADVANCED: Each player’s goal will be determined by the 3 cards in front of them. From the perspective of the picture the goal would be Blue, Red, Yellow. OR whatever is on the bottom side of those 3 cards.

6 player with partners:

Cards to add: (10 cards total)
Red/Red, Blue/Blue, Yellow/Yellow, Green/Green, Red/Blue, Red/Yellow, Red/Green, Blue/Yellow, Blue/ Green, Yellow/Green.

I don’t have an image for this one, but setup will be like the normal 4 player partner game, but with 6 players. Distribute the 6 goal cards from one set. There will be 2 teams of 3 partners. Be sure to have people sit so that players on opposing teams sit next to each other, so that the teams will alternate turns. Play continues until one team has had all 3 players claim their goal.

(note: you could play this with 3 teams of 2 as well, feel free to decide that based on your group.)

Please try these modes out and let me know what you think about them! I would love to hear your feedback. I’m excited to watch this game grow. As always, reach out to me on twitter or facebook!

You guys are great! I’m glad you love Perspective!
~Andrew V.

@gamestothetable
Facebook.com/andrewrvoigt
Email: gamestothetable@gmail.com

The Divine Wind Available Now

Hello, all. The Divine Wind has attracted the attention of a publisher, and there is a very good chance that a market release will be available by the end of this year. However, many of you who have played have requested a copy sooner rather than later. So, I have put together an $11.99 version on The Gamecrafter, a print-on-demand website. Check it out!

Landed is now on Kickstarter!

The year is 008 Post Galactic Colonization. Humans have developed the technology to terraform planets, and it has become a very lucrative business. Terraforming companies now race to newly discovered planets to mold them in the most profitable way possible. They will stop at nothing to satisfy their wealthy investors.

Landed is a competitive tile-laying game where players take control of rival terraforming companies that have simultaneously reached the same newly-discovered planet. All players will sign unique contracts with investors to terraform this new world and claim use of the land. The player who fulfills the most valuable contracts and scores the most points is the winner.

The Divine Wind Blows In

In an earlier post, I introduced a game called Making Wind: The Game of Making (and Breaking) Wind. This title was for the purposes of entering a contest where the mechanic and the name had to be the same. The true name of this game is The Divine Wind: A Dexterity Battle of Martial Farts. Today, I’ll show you some photos of the game in action, as well as highlighting the amazing printing that The Gamecrafter did.

Welcome to Marcin Zarycki

There’s a new member of the Polaris Collective. Marcin Zarycki has been a part of the Polaris Collective design group for around a year, but we finally convinced him to join our blog!

Marcin has 2 games that are in the process of being published. Guild Builder has been signed by Floodgate Games, and Landed has been signed by Argyle Games. Expect to see some information on these games in the coming days.

Landed, in particular, just launched its Kickstarter campaign. Click the link to find out more!

 

Introduction to Classix

It has now been over a year since I created the Hoyle’s Six (renamed Classix in 2017) project, and in that time, 6 games have been created for it, and almost a dozen have been adapted. Because of that, I am combining two of my earlier posts to create a one-stop link for this project.

Hoyle’s Six Rules Updates

All games within the Classix collection have had revisions to the rules to reflect the last year of playtesting, and the addition of a 0 (zero) card. Most of the edits are extensive. The edits are listed in the following format:
Game Name (Game Genre) – summary of edits

Rummycross (rummy) – added rules for 0s and Jokers, did an extensive overhaul of scoring
Gambit (trick-taking/comparing) – changed actions for card/dice combos for balance
Damsels & Dragons (dungeon crawl) – V2 of the rules, extensive changes throughout
Jacob’s Ladder (shedding) – V2 of the rules, changing most of the gameplay and adding a draw mechanic
Klondike Six & Sudoku (solitaire) – No rule changes, but reformatted to Hoyle’s Six standards
This Side Down (4-in-a-row) – Removed from the Hoyle’s Six kit, as the game works better with custom components.