August catch-up

 I've been letting the blogging slide quite a lot recently but, although I've not been working at high speed on anything, I have been making progress on a number of projects over the last month or so, so here is a quick summary of what has been going on.

Scurvy Crew

There isn't a lot I can say about this right now, as this is being turned from my pirate card game into a product with a load of cool stuff going on in it, but most of that is still not finalised. There are now a couple more, very talented, people involved in the development team (and another incoming), and there are some elements being worked on that I am very excited about. Hopefully in the coming months I'll be able to start sharing some of the details.

Snails and Grails

This collaboration with Alan Paull and Dave Mortimer is chugging along very nicely. We've mostly been playtesting it online, but Dave was able to get a physical prototype to the table with some "new blood" players who were pretty much in the target audience, and it's looking like we're really getting somewhere.

The Castle War

This has been chugging along too, gaining somewhat in complexity but also, I think, in depth. The interface (wordings, iconography, layouts) is causing some trouble though, so I need to spend some time on cleaning that up.

The Castle War mid-game. This play was about the tensest I have had yet.

The Vinyl Age

This is actually a game created by Phil Tootill, which we played together the other day (my first face-to-face playtest with someone not in my family for months), and it's pretty damn good, but I have taken on the challenge to experiment with simplifying the game (we felt it either needs to be a bit lighter or a bit heavier than it is) and see what I can come up with. No guarantee I can improve on what is there, but we can at least try out some options and feed that into the game development.

Grab Bag Zoo

This is another collaboration, this time with Mike Harrison-Wood, and is unfortunately utterly unsuitable for online testing, relying as it does on tactility. We received some really useful feedback from a remote playtester, suggesting that we need to address issues of frustration that can ruin the game, particularly for younger players -- and this is so clearly a family/kids' game that we need to work on that. I think we had been too busy working on this providing a decent challenge for gamers that we had lost track of the heart of the game. We're moving in a slightly different direction now that is looking promising.

UK Games Expo

Finally, last weekend was the rearranged-date-turned-virtual-con for UK Games Expo, which was a bit of a weird experience. At the physical event I would normally spend a good chunk of my time volunteering at the playtest zone, some more running my own playtests, and a bit more having some meetings, with the rest of the time generally prowling and chatting to people I meet, with a little gaming in the evening. This time, I played one demo game and one early prototype (both via Tabletop Simulator), and spent most of the rest of the time watching panels and seminars, something I almost never get to do. I think the event as a whole felt a bit disjointed, with lots of jumping around between different technologies and Discord servers, but it did feel like an actual event with things to see and discover. And the food and beer were cheaper this way, with shorter queues!

Four Fings in February

I seem to have four game projects on the go at the moment, all of which are either collaborations or in development under external guidance, so here's a quick outline...

The one I have just spent a day working on has the working title of "Snails and Grails", and is inspired by 13th and 14th century manuscripts that show images of snails, monkeys and hares (as well as all manner of other bizarre beasts) in combat (and other) situations. My collaborators, Alan Paull and Dave Mortimer, and I had a few hours discussion about this a few weeks back, and each constructed different parts of a prototype, which we just stitched together, Frankenstein-like, into a somewhat creaky, but basically operational whole. Over three plays, which included a load of on-the-fly rules changes and writing on the components with Sharpies, we managed to refine the game into a magnificent, slightly less clunky version that we were really enjoying playing.  OK, so a long way to go on this one, but I think we are off to a good start.

Our third play of the day, with a load of scribblings on components.

Then, of course, there is Scurvy Crew, which you may remember is signed for publication with Braincrack Games, and we are slowly building into a campaign game, where you play a series of games, each of which introduces some new elements to change the focus of your strategy and, it looks like, you will be keeping a "captain's log", recording some of your achievements and earning power-ups as you go.  I'm really excited about where this is going now.

Next up we have something else new, which came out of a conversation with Mike Harrison-Wood at Dragonmeet at the end of November, and in early January turned into a physical thing. With the working title "Grab Bag Zoo", this is a real-time game that involved pulling wooden animals from bags in order to collect sets, and leans heavily into tactility (you have to choose an item by feel only). The game generally works, but there is a lot to tighten up about it, and we are both trying out assorted variations at the moment that we can compare and use to find the best way to play the game.

Finally in this little batch, we have a game about the history of popular music through the second half of the 20th century, which I am working on with Phil Tootill. I say "working on", but this is his baby so far and he has done all of the initial work, so only time will tell if this turns into an actual co-design or if it is his and I have just helped a bit. It looks like it could turn out really interesting though.

Of Snails and Grails

I was vaguely aware of this in the past, and I don't know what reminded me of this recently (I think it was just some surfing the web for cool pictures), but medieval monks seem to have had some bizarre ideas when illuminating manuscripts.  In particular, there was a period around the late 13th and early 14th centuries when a significant number of manuscripts were decorated with images of knights doing battle with giant snails.  Don't believe me? Here is a great blog post at the British Library (check out their Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts for a wonderful resource of medieval stuff) with a load of examples and some context.

I have a personal challenge running at the moment to draw something every day
and this is my approximation of one of the snail battles depicted on a manuscript.

This is golden stuff for game inspiration.  There really need to be games about knights doing battle with snails.  I've been chatting to a friend who came to the same conclusion some time ago, so maybe we will be able to come up with something cool between us but I have also, after a few nights of weird dreams come up with a first attempt at a prototype of a light, trick-taking game based on the idea of knights fighting snails combined with a suggestion from a Twitter friend that grails would fit well with this.

This game involves simultaneous play of cards, tricks being played to collect sets of knight cards in assorted suits, get bonuses for collecting grail cards, and penalties for snails. We tried a three-player game of it today and it kinda worked, but it felt maybe a bit too chaotic.  I think I would like to play it a few times and with assorted player counts, as often trick taking games need everyone to get a feel for the game before it really shows its character.  The character of this game may be deeply flawed, but I need data to find that out.  On the plus side, as it is the game takes maybe ten minutes or so to play a hand, so it shouldn't be too hard to get more testing.

And here's what my quick, sharpie-scribbled first prototype looks like.

I don't think I see myself pitching this game to a publisher, but I think it could be a good exercise and if game play holds up after a bit more testing, working towards making it into a nice print and play game could be a good objective.  I just need to work on making medieval illumination style artwork.

And, of course, there is the possibility of a meatier game with the same thematic inspiration...