My Dad gave me a single word last Sunday and asked me to design a game around that word. The word was the name of a modern artist. I spent a decent chunk of my train journey back from Bristol last weekend thinking of a game inspired by the artist's work. It was the birth of Codename: Artist an abstract tesselation game.
Last night, before a trip to the pub with some friends I started to knock up a prototype of Artist. Because of its abstract nature (and a short list of simple components) it should be much quicker to construct than Sennon, so it's snuck up the prototyping list. I hope to finish the prototype tonight before we go back down to Bristol again to visit The Wife's family.
The Wife's family are gamers, so I hope to get some games in, possibly even of my prototypes. Mission: Red Planet is another strong contender as we bought it as a birthday present for Matt.
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I just bought Mission Red Planet too (last night at Shire)... though it's been on my list for ages. Still haven't played it yet though!
Let me know how Matt goes on storing the components!!! After punching all the cardboard it's a nightmare to get back in the box (I had to store the spaceships UNDER the insert.. though one could throw the insert away I guess).
Your new artist game sounds interesting. Good luck finishing the prototype.
I've just looked - he had difficulty! I'm not a big fan of inserts, I consider them wasteful, both of plastic (although the alternative - baggies probably uses just as much plastic), and of card as the box needs to be bigger to accomodate them.
I didn't get Artist finished last night in the end - about to finish it this morning...
Actually I do like well designed inserts, for example if they hold the components in such a way that they don't fly about when storing or transporting the game (for example turning the box on it's side. I do tend to put game components in baggies anyway though.. even cards, as I find using a rubber band can damage the cards when it perishes. (You'd probably cringe at the number of baggies in my copy of Border Reivers now ;)
On the face of it the insert for Red Planet looked quite good, with two different sized slots for cards, and two for the different sized boards.. but the storage for cardboard and wooden tokens just simply isn't big enough, and could easily have been, given the amount of space in the box! Of course it was perfect while the cardboard was still on the sheets, as they fitted neatly on the top.
And wasteful... Yes, you're right, but the box is likely going to be the same size whether it has an insert or not... partly that's down to marketing, and partly to do with the standards that seem to have developed.. (the classic being the kosmos-big-box type).
Yeah, I know what you mean about standard box sizes. But its soooo wasteful. I'm going to change the whole industry to be more eco-friendly, by shaming them with the tiny boxes I make - stuffed to the gills with components.
Or not.
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