NaGa DeMon 13: One Last Hurrah

Yesterday I managed to get a lot of games of Zombology in. I had set myself a target of playing four games in this final week of the month. I'd played two on Tuesday lunchtime, and I was hoping for one more Thursday lunchtime, and then either one at Games Night or one at Newcastle Gamers tomorrow.

In the end we played three games at lunchtime (with Wilka who'd played several times before, and Steve, fresh back from his honeymoon, who hadn't played yet). We completed those three games and the rules explanation for Steve in 28 minutes. It's fast!

At Games Night we played another three games, so Steve and I played six games, Wilka, Hoops, Dave and Gav three games, The Wife two and His Nefariousness one. Everyone seemed either interested in playing several times or at least not averse to it. Obviously, these are all friends of mine, so there's a bias involved, but still that's really good. In addition, Steve said what must be any designer's favourite words during a playtest: "I'd buy that!"

At the end of Games Night, I got my first feedback from a playtest not involving me. Konrad (@pidaysock) who'd been one of my best customers during my Reiver Games days had printed a copy out and solo'd it a few times last week. Last night I got an email with feedback from his first three games with other humans.

Konrad's feedback was much more critical (and hence useful, five PIPs for you, sir!). His friends in Germany really didn't experience the theme in any meaningful way, none of them felt the game had anything to do with Zombies, and most of them didn't even get the science bit of the theme either. Our group (as well as others I've played with) really got the science feel, especially with the conference rounds in the newer versions, but we all agreed the zombie link is tenuous. I'm alright with that, the games I'm trying to compete with, things like 6  Nimmt! and Hol's der Geier are very quick games with very tenuous themes. I've no idea what the bulls have to do with 6 Nimmt! And while the cards in Hol's der Geier all feature mice or vultures, all you really care about is the numerical value of the cards played. A bit of zombie art will help here, but it's never going to be as thematic as most (shotgun heavy) zombie games.

The other major criticisms from Konrad's group were that the game was too short and too chaotic and there wasn't enough information early on for you to be able to plan a winning strategy. Again, that's definitely on the money, especially since I changed to the three different types of cards. Now you have no idea which suits will have the fours and fives until the fourth round - halfway through the game.

Konrad had a few ideas about how to address these issues, if I can make it along to Newcastle Gamers tomorrow, I'll see if an opportunity arises to try some of them out...

NaGa DeMon 12: Responding to Feedback

We played a couple of games of Zombology at lunchtime today, with Wilka, The Nefarious Doktor M and Mal (who hadn't played before). It went ok, Mal's major criticism was that he wasn't clear when the conference rounds were coming up. So here's yet another version of the rules. This time there's no changes to the cards, and only a couple of slight tweaks to the rules - when you get dealt extra cards has been changed slightly so that you always have two cards in hand at the start of a Conference round (and having two cards in hand can be used for working out whether or not it's a Conference round), plus a couple of improvements to the wording of the rules based on comments from Tiffany and Derek (though I've lost Derek's comments when reverting to Blogger comments, so I've fixed the typo he mentioned, but can't remember the other point he made :-( ). I've also incorporated Konrad's scoring suggestion, so cards score at most 1 or -1. This seemed to be a good improvement, preferred by Wilka, Dr. M and I over the previous version we'd played.

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

Version 5 - 26/11/2013

3-10 players, 20 mins

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

• DNA Retroviruses
• Stem Cells
• Herbal Extracts
• Vegan Diet
• Pharmaceuticals
• Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x Bad Science (value:-2 - flip 1-5)
• 3x Strong Rebuttal (value: -1 - flip 1/2)
• 5x Theoretical Framework (value: 1)
• 5x Petri Dish Proof (value: 2)
• 2x Works in Mice (value: 3)
• 2x Works in Monkeys (value: 4 - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x Successful Human Trial (value: 5 - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Separate the cards into their three types: Groundwork, Trials and Prejudice. Shuffle each pile separately. Deal each player five of the Groundwork cards and two Prejudice cards. The remaining Prejudice cards will not be needed and can be placed back in the box. Place the remaining Groundwork cards centrally as a face down deck and all the Trials cards in a deck alongside them, also face down.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card from their hand and place it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass the remaining cards from their hand to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Note: Do not pass on your Prejudice cards, they remain with you.

Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

The eight rounds are either Research or Conference rounds:

(Deal 5 Groundwork and 2 Prejudice cards to each player)

• 1: Research
• 2: Research
• 3: Research
• 4: Conference

(Restock up to 2 Groundwork and deal 2 Trials cards to each player)

5: Research
• 6: Research
• 7: Conference

(Deal each player 1 or 2 Trials cards, so they all have 3 cards in hand - excluding Prejudice)

• 8: Research

Research rounds

In Research rounds the players can only play the Groundwork (or later, Trials) cards from their hands.

Conference rounds

A Conference round occurs when the players have only two cards in their hand. In the Conference rounds the scientists get together to debate their progress. It’s your chance to debunk, rebut, lambaste or otherwise rubbish your opponent’s support of ridiculous treatments. You can either present new research (play a Groundwork or Trials card) or attack an opponent’s shoddy research by playing one of your two Prejudice cards.

• After the first Conference round, if any player only has one Groundwork card deal them a second Groundwork card and then deal each player two of the Trials cards.
• After the second Conference round, deal each player Trials cards until they have three cards in their hand.

Requirements

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless one of the required cards in the same treatment has been played in a previous round by any player. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

Prejudice cards

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card in any player's collection to target that was played in a previous round. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science (-2) card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys (4) in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

Repeated Experiments

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Players score one point for every positive card they have in the two most successful treatments and minus one point for every negative card they have in those treatments. In addition, they score one point for every negative card they have in the least successful treatment and minus one point for every positive card they have in that treatment.

The player with the highest score wins and can boast, brag and crow about their scientific prowess, while ridiculing the pathetic attempts of their fellow scientists.

Download

As ever, the new rules are available for downloading: V5 Rules.

Please let me know what you think, and for those of you who've downloaded and printed it out, let me know any comments from yourselves or your fellow playtesters.

NaGa DeMon 11: Entering the Final Straight

So there's just under a week to go until the end of NaGa DeMon. I've now created four different prototypes (including the first one which I didn't make available P&P, and played with five different sets of rules. All in less than a month. Next up are some changes to the scoring suggested by @pidaysock via email (that's two PIPs for you Konrad, congratulations, you've unlocked the MSc achievement!).

Determining the best treatments stays the same, but instead of each player scoring face value for the cards they've collected, they score one point per positive card and minus one point per negative card. These are reversed for cards in the least successful treatment. Because the scores will be lower and ties are more likely, there's now a tie-breaker: The player with the highest face value card in a successful treatment wins (further ties are broken by next highest card, etc.).

There's no Newcastle Playtest session this week, so I can only try it out on my lunchbreaks at work and at Games Night on Thursday, I'll let you know how it goes.

Because the game is print and play and will remain available after NaGa DeMon draws to a close at the end of November, I've been trying to think of a way to make the TGWAG prize of a signed and numbered handmade copy of the game from me more interesting. My mate Wilka has a friend who's a good artist, so I'm trying to see if he'll be interested in me paying him to do some artwork exclusively for the TGWAG winners (and me of course!). I'll let you know whether he's interested too.

Finally, if you have printed out a copy to playtest, please let me know in the comments, I'm interested to know how much interest there has been from people who aren't playing TGWAG. To make that easier, I've (hopefully) undone the change whereby you need a Google+ account to comment on the blog. That snuck in under the radar with linking my blog to my Google+ account. I don't want to force commenters to use Google+, nor restrict my commenters to only those with Google+ accounts.

TGWAG: League Table 4

The Game Within A Game (TGWAG for short) continues, trying to encourage people to give me the feedback I need to make Zombology. Since last week we've had a new Twitter based player Stuart Patterson (@spdesigntwit) and the other newcomers (@pidaysock and +Derek Hohls) have both climbed the table. With only a week to go there's finally some competition for the free signed and numbered limited edition copies. To make things more interesting, I'm speaking to a friend of a friend about getting some exclusive artwork done for the limited edition with pictures of zombie monkeys and everything! The three original players of TGWAG have been static this week, if they're not careful, they'll be overtaken!

Playtester	PIP Score	Level	Free Copy?
Tiffany Ralph	13	MSc	Yes!
@pidaysock	9	BSc	Yes!
Frugal Dave	8	BSc	Yes!
+Derek Hohls	8	BSc	Yes!
boardsandbees	6	BSc	Yes!
@spdesigntwit	5	BSc	No :(

NaGa DeMon 10: Rules Re-Write And Modified Cards

There's a new version available at the bottom of this post. It's pretty similar to the previous version, only six cards have changed. If you want to print it out for the first time I've included the A3 and A4 PDFs again, if you printed out the last one there's a couple of update PDFs (front and back) that just provide the six new cards. Replace the Groundwork 3s (Works in Mice with a green Groundwork back) with these new cards. It's a single sheet of A4 so not a big deal.

The rules for this version haven't changed from the corrected version of the last version, but the have been re-written in place to hopefully make them clearer. Anyway, here they are (I've excised the exposition and the acknowledgements for the web):

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

Version 4 - 22/11/2013

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

• DNA Retroviruses
• Stem Cells
• Herbal Extracts
• Vegan Diet
• Pharmaceuticals
• Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x Bad Science (value: -2 - flip 1-5)
• 3x Strong Rebuttal (value: -1 - flip 1/2)
• 5x Theoretical Framework (value: 1)
• 5x Petri Dish Proof (value: 2)
• 2x Works in Mice (value: 3)
• 2x Works in Monkeys (value: 4 - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x Successful Human Trial (value: 5 - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Separate the cards into their three types: Groundwork, Trials and Prejudiuce. Shuffle each pile separately. Deal each player five of the Groundwork cards and two Prejudice cards. The remaining Prejudice cards will not be needed and can be placed back in the box. Place the remaining Groundwork cards centrally as a face down deck and all the Trials cards in a deck alongside them, also face down.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and place it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

The eight rounds are eight Research or Conference rounds:

(Deal 5 Groundwork and 2 Prejudice cards to each player)

• 1: Research
• 2: Research
• 3: Research
• 4: Conference

(Deal 3 Trials cards to each player)

• 5: Research
• 6: Research
• 7: Conference
• 8: Research

Research rounds

In Research rounds the players can only play the Groundwork (or later, Trials) cards from their hands.

Conference rounds

In the Conference rounds the scientists get together to debate their progress. It’s your chance to debunk, rebut, lambaste or otherwise rubbish your opponent’s support of ridiculous treatments. You can either present new research (play a Groundwork or Trials card) or attack an opponent’s shoddy research by playing one of your two Prejudice cards. After the first Conference round, deal each player three of the Trial cards and if any player has one card less that any other player they draw an additional card from the Groundwork deck. After the second Conference round, if any player has one card less that any other player they draw an additional card from the Trials deck.

Requirements

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless one of the required cards in the same treatment has been played in a previous round by any player. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

Prejudice cards

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card in any player's collection to target that was played in a previous round. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science (-2) card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys (4) in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

Repeated Experiments

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Note: Do not pass on your Prejudice cards, they remain with you.

Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Each player adds the value of their cards in the highest two treatments together and then subtracts the value of their cards in the least successful treatment. Note that if you have played negative cards in the weakest treatment then they will score you positive points.

The player with the highest score wins and can boast, brag and crow about their scientific prowess, while ridiculing the pathetic attempts of their fellow scientists.

Downloads

If you want to print the game from scratch you need either the A3 files (5 sheets) or the A4 files (14 sheets), not both, plus the rules (2 sheets of A4). If you have already printed out the last version, then you only need the updated rules and the V3 to V4 updates (1 sheet of A4, front and back):

• A3 fronts
• A3 backs
• A4 fronts
• A4 backs
• V3 to V4 update front
• V3 to V4 update back
• Rules

NaGa DeMon 9: A Flaw, Corrected

Yesterday I go to try out the new version for the first time. I had hoped to try it out at work and then again in the evening at Newcastle Playtest, but I'd had Monday off work with a filthy cold and didn't feel up to a late night (just as well really, I've been up since 1:45am with The Daughter who's not right, so I'm wasted today even without the late night).

This was my third prototype and my fourth set of rules. It introduced some fairly major changes in an attempt to counter three items of critical feedback I'd received for the earlier versions. I'd separated the cards into three decks, the low valued ones (to play at the beginning of the game), the high valued ones (to play at the end) and the negative cards, which I'd introduced some special rules for.

We were playing at work on our lunch break, which is convenient but also particularly useful for Zombology since I work for a company who sell scientific software, and hence my colleagues have a good understanding of the scientific community that I am lampooning in Zombology. Three of the four people playing had PhDs and we had all attended scientific conferences and worked with scientists as they try to publish their results.

I started explaining the new rules and how there were now two types of round: Research rounds during which you perform your own research and Conference rounds where you can either present new findings or rubbish an opponent's research. Dave in particular got very excited (he's an excitable fellow!). It was nice to see them buying in to the slightly deeper theming. The rules explanation made it clear that these changes made things more complicated, and hence it wasn't that surprising that the game lasted slightly longer than our previous plays (just under 20 minutes I think). And the scoring was still difficult to clearly explain.

The game went fairly smoothly until after the first Conference round. Until then we'd been playing a card and drafting the rest in the same way as in previous games. In the Conference round you have the option to either play one of the cards you've been passed by your neighbour, or to play one of your two Prejudice cards: negative cards in particular suits that you have an irrational hatred of. Because you keep your negative Prejudice cards, whether you play them or not, suddenly everything was out of kilter. People who played a negative card passed on the two remaining cards in their hand (to which another three cards were added, making a hand of five for their neighbour), but people who chose not to play a Prejudice card, instead played a normal card, and only had one to pass on, leading to their neighbours only having four cards. Through no fault of their own, they had less options. So far, this felt a bit unbalanced, but I could explain it away as an attempt to undermine your opponent's research, so I was only slightly uncomfortable with it.

After the second Conference round, it all went Pete Tong. Now there was one player with only 1 card to choose from for the last round, one with 2 and two of us with 3 cards. Broken! We cobbled it together by letting everyone draw up to a hand of three cards. But clearly it was now a problem that needed properly addressing.

Last night, on the bus home from work I thought about it a bit more and came up with a proper solution:

• If after the first Conference round you have a card less than any other player, draw an additional card from the Groundwork deck.
• If after the second Conference round you have a card less than any other player, draw an additional card from the Trials deck.

That should fix it - I've updated the rules PDF accordingly.

NaGa DeMon 8: Another Version

Here's another version of the rules that I alluded to earlier. I hope that this version will address the major problems people have raised with the previous versions:

• Having a handful of cards that you can't play because of their requirements
• Seeing all the cards time and time again in a game with few players
• A nonsensical order of card play (low, then high and then low, low, low)

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

3-10 players, 20 mins

It finally happened. The Zombie Plague has arrived, decimating entire continents and turning the masses into drooling, stumbling, brain-munching hordes. You're not that bothered though, you live and work in a high security government facility, and for you the plague is an opportunity. It's your chance to finally prove that you're a world-class genius in the field of curing diseases, not like that chump Dr. Gimlet at the CDC, what a tool! Seriously, the guy's an absolute fool, as if DNA retroviruses are a credible cure for anything.

You've got a few weeks to come up with a cure before you run out of the test subjects needed to show that your cure is the best. Choose a method or a few different ones and then quickly gather the evidence you need to prove your genius.

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

DNA Retroviruses

Stem Cells

Herbal Extracts

Vegan Diet

Pharmaceuticals

Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x -2 (Bad Science - flip 1-5)
• 3x -1 (Strong Rebuttal - flip 1/2)
• 5x 1 (Theoretical Framework)
• 4x 2 (Petri Dish Proof)
• 3x 3 (Works in Mice)
• 2x 4 (Works in Monkeys - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x 5 (Successful Human Trial - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Separate the cards into their three types: Groundwork, Trials and Prejudice. Shuffle each pile separately. Deal each player five of the Groundwork cards and two Prejudice cards. The remaining cards from those decks will not be needed and can be placed back in the box. Place the Trials cards to one side for now.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and place it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

Rounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8 are Research rounds. Rounds 4 and 7 are Conference rounds. In Research rounds the players can only play the Groundwork (or later, Trial) cards from their hands. In the Conference rounds the scientists get together to debate their progress. It’s your chance to debunk, rebut, lambast or otherwise rubbish your opponent’s support of ridiculous treatments. In the Conference rounds you can either play one of the Groundwork or Trial cards in your hand, or one of your two Prejudice cards. After the first Conference round, deal each player three of the Trial cards. The remaining Trial cards can be placed in the box, they will not be used this game.

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless any player has already played one of the required cards in the same treatment in a previous round. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card played in an earlier round in any player's collection to target. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Do not pass on your Prejudice cards, they remain with you.

Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Each player adds the value of their cards in the highest two treatments together and then subtracts the value of their cards in the least successful treatment. Note that if you have played negative cards in the weakest treatment then they will score you positive points.

The player with the highest score wins and can boast, brag and crow about their scientific prowess, while ridiculing the pathetic attempts of their fellow scientists.

Downloads

As before, here are the cards and rules in PDF form. This time I've added card back files to make it easy to separate the Groundwork, Trial and Prejudice cards, in addition to the front ones, again in A4 and A3. You'll only need the A3 ones (5 sheets) or A4 ones (14 sheets), not both.

• A4 fronts
• A4 backs
• A3 fronts
• A3 backs
• Rules

NaGa DeMon 7: A 7 Player Game and Major Changes Afoot

On Saturday, I went to York for six and a half hours of gaming :): my friend Paul had hired a church hall for the day to celebrate his birthday. Attendance was good with about forty-odd people, a mixture of friends from his games night (that I used to attend twice weekly for four years so know well but see very infrequently), people from Beyond Monopoly the local games club (which I used to attend once a month or so for four years, so I know pretty well but in most cases haven't seen for years) and friends of his daughter and their parents, of which a recognised a surprising number.

I'd taken Codename: Vacuum and Zombology, plus a few rarely played sci-fi games from my collection. In the end the only game I'd brought that we played was Zombology: a seven player game with a bunch of old friends (plus a couple of new ones!). The game lasted slightly longer than I had expected, probably about 20 minutes. There were lots of rules queries, plus a few people were taking it quite seriously (it's a game about zombie science featuring the healing powers of crystals - it's clearly not a serious game!). Afterwards we discussed it briefly and the feedback was generally positive, though again the scoring proved a bit tedious and people struggled during the game to identify the strongest suits, which made their choices slower as they tried to determine what was their strongest move.

Two interesting bits of feedback were:

• Robert's suggestion to put a time limit on the individual rounds to avoid people over thinking their turns and to keep it moving quickly.
• John's disapproval of the way the mechanics didn't fit the theme, since people played the best cards in the second or third round and then after that your spend the last five or six rounds playing the dross cards that are left - why if someone has already run a successful human trial would you bother trying to prove it in a Petri dish again?

All this got me thinking, along with the feedback I'd had during my lunchtime playtest, and gave me an idea.

On the weekends I tend to take The Daughter on a couple of walks to get her to have decent naps (and hence be chipper for the rest of the day). During the morning walk on Sunday I spent the hour working out in my head a new version to address those points. I've got a new version now to try out that makes use of the existing cards (pretty much!).

I'll try to play this version at work again, and also take it to the Newcastle Playtest session on Tuesday, it will be interesting to see if it's any better...

The other games I played at Paul's party were Oregon, Dominant Species The Card Game and Homesteaders (all new to me) and Ave Caesar. Of the three new ones, Homesteaders was my favourite and seeing as I think it was one of Tasty Minstrel Games' first games I can see why they got off to a flying start. It's a great game with worker placement, city building and auctions set in the Wild West. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

TGWAG: League Table Week 3

The Game Within A Game (TGWAG for short) continues, trying to encourage people to give me the feedback I need to make Zombology. As mentioned here, the third league table of playtesters' scores follows. Remember, the top five (i.e. everyone at the minute!) will get a free copy of the finished game, signed and numbered at the end of the month. There's been some movement from the usual three suspects, their scores are up a bit, but I've expanded the eligibility now to anyone who gets involved, so Derek Hohls (who has given some feedback this week) and @pidaysock (who has printed out a copy and emailed me with some ideas and rules questions) are also in the running...

Playtester	PIP Score	Level	Free Copy?
Tiffany Ralph	13	MSc	Yes!
Frugal Dave	8	BSc	Yes!
boardsandbees	6	BSc	Yes!
@pidaysock	5	BSc	Yes!
+Derek Hohls	3	Intern	Yes!

NaGaDeMon 6: Local Minima

In my last post I made available a Print and Play version of Zombology. Seeing as NaGa DeMon is only a month long, I need to get the game playtested as many times and by as many people as possible, to find the wrinkles fast and iron them out, but also to crowdsource new ideas and incorporate them into the design.

For the first version I'd made a quick (though admittedly not quick enough!) prototype and taken it along to Newcastle Playtest. We'd played a couple of six-player games back to back. The feedback from the first game was that there were too many suits (each of which represents a potential treatment for Zombyism), so in the second game we discarded five of the twelve suits and it was much better. Of course this left me with only 70 of the original 120 cards, so I could only play with up to six players. I want the game to go up to ten players and be a quick filler like 6 Nimmt! So clearly, I needed to make another prototype. This one has only six suits, but with more cards per suit, so the game still goes up to ten.

With the limited opportunities available to me to try the game out myself, I posted this second version as a print and play game before trying it out, which I wasn't particularly comfortable with, but needs must - the clock is ticking. In fact this whole NaGa DeMon thing has taken me out of my comfort zone from start to finish. With my previous game design efforts (and in fact the games I published on behalf of others) I kept things fairly close to my chest while the game was in development. Of course, I tried to play them a lot, and with lots of different people, but I didn't widely publicise the theme or mechanics or anything until I was pretty much ready to go. With NaGa DeMon, I've been posting the rules (and multiple versions thereof), and making the prototypes available P&P which is a first for me.

To avoid wasting the time, expense and effort of my willing P&P playtesters (who has downloaded the PDFs, printed them out or played it? Anyone? ... Anyone?) I want to try to keep changes to the components to an absolute minimum, so they don't need to print out a new version (and cut it out, etc.) every few days. Because of the short window of NaGa DeMon I'm turning things around far quicker than normal. So I'm trying to limit myself to improvements that change the rules rather than the components.

Anyway, back to the point. I got a chance to try the new version out during my lunch break yesterday with a couple of my Games Night attendees. There were potentially eight of us, but three weren't in the office, one was prepping for a quality audit and one couldn't spare the time, so that left only three. In theory the game plays with 3 to 10, but until now it had only been played with six. A couple of the changes I thought would improve the game with fewer players, so I was interested to see how it would go.

The good news was that it worked as a game, nothing broke spectacularly and it played in the right sort of timeframe. We played two games, one lasted 12 minutes (including scoring) and the second eight minutes. Scores were 14, 13, 13 in the first game and 13, 6, 4 in the second.

The bad news was that both Dave (one of my core Codename: Vacuum playtesters) and His Nefariousness (my boss) didn't like the way that the cards went round so quickly. It's a drafting game played over 8 rounds, so with 9 or ten players you will never see all the cards in play. With eight players you'll have seen all the cards at the start of the eighth round and with fewer players you'll have seen them all sooner. With three players, you've seen all the cards in play at the start of the third round, and you'll see each card two or three times. They didn't like that. Dave also raised the point that it was possible to start a round with a handful of cards you couldn't play, since some of the cards have pre-requisites that might not have happened yet. It didn't happen in either of our games, but came pretty close at one point.

So now I need to think of solutions to those problems, ideally without changing the cards as provided in the P&P PDFs. One idea for the first one is to make the game 5 to 10 players instead of 3 to 10, another is to somehow get more cards into play as the game progresses if you're playing with fewer players.

Any ideas? There's PIPs for good ones...

NaGa DeMon 5: Second Version - Now P&P!

Thinking about things, and considering the feedback I've had, I'm going to try these rules next, and so can you! Print and Play PDFs at the bottom:

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

3-10 players, 20 mins

It finally happened. The Zombie Plague has arrived, decimating entire continents and turning the masses into drooling, stumbling, brain-munching hordes. You're not that bothered though, you live and work in a high security government facility, and for you the plague is an opportunity. It's your chance to finally prove that you're a world-class genius in the field of curing diseases, not like that chump Dr. Gimlet at the CDC, what a tool! Seriously, the guy's an absolute fool, as if DNA retroviruses are a credible cure for anything.

You've got a few weeks to come up with a cure before you run out of the test subjects needed to show that your cure is the best. Choose a method or a few different ones and then quickly gather the evidence you need to prove your genius.

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 19 each in the following 6 suits (treatments):

• 1) DNA Retroviruses
• 2) Stem Cells
• 3) Herbal Extracts
• 4) Vegan Diet
• 5) Pharmaceuticals
• 6) Crystals

Plus six additional Repeated Experiments cards.

For each treatment there are the following cards:

• 1x -2 (Bad Science - flip 1-4)
• 3x -1 (Strong Rebuttal - flip 1/2)
• 5x 1 (Theoretical Framework)
• 4x 2 (Petri Dish Proof)
• 3x 3 (Works in Mice)
• 2x 4 (Works in Monkeys - requires 1/2/3)
• 1x 5 (Successful Human Trial - requires 3/4)

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the two most successful treatments and low in the least successful treatment.

Setup

Shuffle the cards and deal ten to each player, place the rest back in the box they will not be needed this game.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and play it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added face up to their player's collection.

If the card played has a requirement (Works in Monkeys requires 1, 2 or 3; Successful Human Trial requires 3 or 4), the card cannot be played unless any player has already played one of the required cards in the same treatment in a previous round. E.g. Jack can only play the Successful Human Trial (5, requires 3/4) for Stem Cells, because Jesse has played a Works in Mice (3) of Stem Cells in an earlier round.

If the card played was negative (Bad Science or Strong Rebuttal), choose a face up card played in an earlier round in any player's collection to target. It must be of the same treatment type and have a value within the range shown on the negative card played. Flip the target card face down - it will not count for scoring unless flipped back face up. E.g. Tiffany plays a Bad Science card in Crystals, and chooses to flip a Works in Monkeys in Crystals that Dave played in the last round.

The Repeated Experiment cards let a player repeat an experiment that has previously been discredited - they flip one of cards they have previously had to flip face down back face up - it will contribute to their score at the end of the game.

Once all of the cards played have been resolved, the players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Another round is now played as before with the cards they have just received. In the eighth round, each player chooses one of the three cards they have been given and discards the other two - they will play no part in the game. After the eighth round the game is scored.

Scoring

Determine the two most successful treatments (these will score positive points) and the least successful treatment (this will score negative points). The most successful treatment is the one which has a Successful Human Trial (5). If there's a tie, then the treatment with the most Works in Monkeys (4) will break the tie. If still tied, then the treatment with the most Works in Mice (3) will break the tie, and so on. The least successful treatment is the one with the lowest high card, i.e. if Stem Cells has -1, -1, 1, 2 and 4 and Crystals has -1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 3 then Crystals is less successful since 3 is lower than 4.

Each player adds the value of their cards in the highest two treatments together and then subtracts the value of their cards in the least successful treatment. Highest score wins.

Download

You can get the files to print your own copy of Zombology here, you only need one of the cards options, A3 is more efficient, but few people have access to an A3 printer, so I've done A4 too:

• Cards on A3 paper (5 sheets)
• Cards on A4 paper (14 sheets)
• Rules (2 sheets A4)

Next Up

I'm going to try to get this played in a lunch break at work this week, most of my Games Night attendees work in the same office, so I'm hoping I can recruit some of them!

TGWAG: League Table Week 2

The Game Within A Game (TGWAG for short) continues, trying to encourage people to give me the feedback I need to make Zombology. As mentioned here, the second league table of playtesters' scores follows. Remember, the top five (i.e. everyone at the minute!) will get a free copy of the finished game, signed and numbered at the end of the month.

Playtester	PIP Score	Level	Free Copy?
Tiffany Ralph	10	MSc	Yes!
Frugal Dave	8	BSc	Yes!
boardsandbees	5	BSc	Yes!
You?	0	N/a	Yes!
You?	0	N/a	Yes!

NaGa DeMon 4: Rules and Revisions

I took the first version of Zombology to the Newcastle Playtest session on Tuesday night. We played with these rules (note, draft quality!):

Zombology!

The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse

3-10 players, 20 mins

It finally happened. The Zombie Plague has arrived, decimating entire continents and turning the masses into drooling, stumbling, brain-munching hordes. You're not that bothered though, you live and work in a high security government facility, and for you the plague is an opportunity. It's your chance to finally prove that you're a world-class genius in the field of curing diseases, not like that chump Dr. Gimlet at the CDC, what a tool! Seriously, the guy's an absolute fool, as if DNA retroviruses are a credible cure for anything.

You've got a few weeks to come up with a cure before you run out of the test subjects needed to show that your cure is the best. Choose a method or a few different ones and then quickly gather the evidence you need to prove your genius.

Contents

The game comprises of 120 cards, 10 each in the following 12 types:

1) DNA Retroviruses
2) Stem cells
3) Herbal extracts
4) Radiotherapy
5) Snake venom
6) Vaccines
7) Vegan Diet
8) Leeches
9) Pharmaceuticals
10) Crystals
11) Surgery
12) Chemotherapy

For each type there are cards numbered: -5 (forged results - flip 1-10), -3 (bad science - flip 1-5), -1 (strong rebuttal - flip 1-3), 1 (theoretical description), 2 (computer model), 3 (petri dish proof), 4 (works on mice), 5 (works on monkeys), 7 (successful small trial), 10 (successful large trial).

Aim of the Game

The aim of the game is to score high in the three most successful treatments and low in the two least successful ones.

Setup

Shuffle the cards and deal ten to each player, place the rest back in the box they will not be needed this game.

Play

The game is played over 8 rounds. Each round the players secretly choose a card and play it face down in front of them. Once all players have chosen a card, the chosen cards are revealed and added to the players' collections.
If the card played was negative, chose a face up card in play of the same type belonging to another player, it must have a value within the range shown on the negative card. Flip this card face down - it will not contribute to the total when determining the highest and lowest scoring types, but will contribute to that player's score.

The players pass their remaining cards to the player on their left and receive the cards from the player on their right. Another round is now played as before. Once eight rounds have been played, the remaining cards are discarded and the game is scored.

Scoring

Work out the total score for each type of cards across all players - do not include the values of any face down cards. The three types with the highest and two types with the lowest totals will score, the cards for the rest can be discarded.

Flip any face down cards back face up. Each player earns positive points equal to the total of their cards in the highest types and negative points equal to their totals in the lowest types. Add the positive and negative points together to get a final score. Highest score wins.

Revisions

The feedback I received was mainly to do with too many suits and too complicated scoring. We played another game with five suits removed, but what I really need to do is make more cards rather than just remove some, so that there are still enough cards to play with 10 players.

What I'm thinking is that I'll cut it down to six suits (DNA Retroviruses, Stem cells, Herbal extracts, Vegan Diet, Crystals and Surgery) and up the number of cards to 20 per suit. To make the counting easier I'm using a smaller range of numbers:

• 2x -2 Forged Results (flip 1-4)
• 3x -1 Bad science (flip 1-2)
• 5x 1 Theoretical framework
• 4x 2 Petri dish proof
• 3x 3 Works in mice
• 2x 4 Works in Monkeys
• 1x 5 Successful human trial

I'm still not sure how to simplify the scoring while keeping the concept of getting points for backing the most successful treatments. I think I'll cut out the negative points for the least successful treatments and just score the two most successful ones. I need to think on it more. Any ideas?

NaGa DeMon 3: The First Play

Before making Zombology available to the PIP-hunting masses I wanted to play it at least once first to give me a chance to iron out the worst of the problems.

I'd worked hard over the weekend to get the first prototype's graphic design done on the computer, then get it printed and cut out ready for the first of two Newcastle Playtest sessions in November, last night. I was excited to see how it plays, but a little concerned about the complexity of the scoring.

As people started to arrive it was easy to sell them on a ten minute game that we could all play, so we sat down to a six-player game. After a quick run through of the rules that made it clear that the scoring was too complex (lots of questions along the lines of 'run that by me again', 'so which cures score?' And 'hoojamawhatnow?'), we set off. The game played as quickly as I had hoped and was as chaotic and vicious as I had intended. People seemed to get their heads round the rules pretty quickly.

I had first had the idea for this game nearly two years ago, it was going to be themed around the science of proteomics and would be something that we could possibly have as a scientific conference giveaway for my employer. The initial idea was played once and really didn't work so it died a death and stayed that way.

However, I've been toying with how I could transform it into a working game and on my weekend walks taking The Daughter for a nap in her buggy I've occasionally considered Proteome as well as Vacuum. In the last couple of weeks I've thought that card drafting à la 7 Wonders might be a good fit for the science theme. As the game progresses you'll get to hear on the grapevine/at conferences what sort of things people are interested in and build up an idea of what's hot and likely to be successful. I ditched the proteomics theme and instead though of curing a disease. And that led to Zombology - curing zombyism.

I created a game with 12 different possible cures, each containing the same range of evidence (positive valued cards) and attacks (negative valued cards). Seeing as you'd never play with the full deck, even with the posited maximum of ten players, some of the cures would end up more powerful than others. The more powerful ones would change every game and at the beginning of the game you wouldn't know what would be best - it would be a journey of discovery that you could shape as you choose cards to play. Much like science.

I wanted players to score points for backing the most successful cures, and I thought it would make things interesting if they lost points for backing the least successful cures. So my initial scoring idea was that at the end of the game you would add up the total of each cure across all players and the ones with the highest totals earnt their players positive points and the ones with the lowest totals earnt their players negative points. The attacking cards earnt you negative points so if you attack the winning cures you lose points and attacking the losing cures won you points. In addition, the attacking cards cancelled a positive card in the same suit.

Before I went to the playtest session I was concerned the scoring was over complicated, and my fears were realised - it took almost as long to score the game as it did to play it! Afterwards I asked for feedback, and in addition to a load of interesting ideas, the main complaints were the complicated scoring and that twelve suits was too many, making it hard to keep track of how the game was progressing.

So we took out five of the suits and played again, and it went much better. The scoring was still too complicated, so I need to think on that. What that reminds me of is prototype decay, the idea that prototype components have a lifetime that changes rapidly at the beginning, so it's not worth investing too much effort in them. I've now got to make a new prototype with all new cards in six rather than twelve suits, and re-think the scoring.

I've only got a month though, so I'll need to move quickly...

NaGa DeMon 2: The Premise

As I mentioned last week, and in Saturday's post, this year I'm going to try to take part in NaGa DeMon. Last year I thought about doing a game themed on the old Populous computer game, but gave that up as soon as I heard they were try to make a new Populous via KickStarter. I've decided to go zombie science, with a working title of Zombology: The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse. So here's the premise:

I feel the Zombie genre tends to focus too much on the survivalist with a shotgun (or axe or chainsaw). As I'm sure you're aware, the real heroes of any zombie apocalypse will be the scientists who slave day and night over a lukewarm microscope, trying to discover a cure to this dreadful plague. But the poor scientist doesn't get any love, no - no shotgun, no genre representation. So I've decided to redress the balance and come up with a game about the science of the zombie apocalypse.

Scientists are a competitive bunch, and come the zombie apocalypse, their preferred yardstick (peer-reviewed publications) will have disappeared - it's hard enough to get a decent review from an unpaid scientist who considers the work he's reviewing direct competition, so imagine how hard it'll be when the only thing the editor, reviewer, typesetter and printer care about is where their next brains are coming from. In the absence of publishing, there's only one way to prove yourself the best scientist: cure the plague! Ideally, before you run out of test subjects.

I'm aiming for a 6 Nimmt!-like experience: a short game (under 20 minutes) for up to ten players with lots of shafting each other and getting hosed.

Here's the exposition as it stands now:

It finally happened. The Zombie Plague has arrived, decimating entire continents and turning the masses into drooling, stumbling, brain-munching hordes. You're not that bothered though, you live and work in a high security government facility, and for you the plague is an opportunity. It's your chance to finally prove that you're a world-class genius in the field of curing diseases, not like that chump Dr. Gimlet at the CDC, what a tool! Seriously, the guy's an absolute idiot, as if DNA retroviruses are a credible cure for anything.
You've got a few weeks to come up with a cure before you run out of the test subjects you need to show that your cure is the best. Back a method or a few different ones and then quickly gather the evidence you need to prove your genius.

This is actually based on Codename: Proteome, but since the theme has changed beyond recognition and the mechanics are also totally different, I figure I can count it as a new game, which I started making on the weekend - safely within the November window. I've got a copy ready to take to the Newcastle Playtest session at The Bridge Hotel this Tuesday for its inaugural outing. Once I've tried it out I'll post the rules and a P&P download so you can start trying it out yourselves and earning some playtest PIPs.

I'll keep you posted about how it's going, in the meantime, any feedback on how to make the exposition more enticing? There's PIPs available...

TGWAG: League Table

So as part of NaGa DeMon, I'm running The Game Within A Game (TGWAG for short) to encourage people to give me the feedback I need to make a game of above dreadful quality with only a month of time available to me. As part of that I promised to keep track of playtesters' scores and keep a league table. Of course with only three volunteers so far I look like a bit of a spanner doing it, but that never stopped me before, and I'm good to my word. So here's the first of my Sunday night league tables. Remember, the top five (i.e. everyone at the minute!) will get a free copy of the finished game, signed and numbered at the end of the month.

Playtester	PIP Score	Level	Free Copy?
Tiffany Ralph	4	Intern	Yes!
boardsandbees	3	Intern	Yes!
Frugal Dave	3	Intern	Yes!
You?	0	N/a	Yes!
You?	0	N/a	Yes!

NaGa DeMon: The Game Within a Game

I've decided to take part in NaGa DeMon this month. So I'm going to create a 20 minute, chaotic, vicious card game for 3-10 players on the theme of 'The Science of the Zombie Apocalypse'. I'll be posting a bit more regularly than usual, and will need some help playtesting the game.

So I'm running a game within the game (gamification-tastic!):

I've a small daughter, so not much spare time, so if you help me playtest the game, I'll award you Pointless Internet Points™ (PIPs). I'll keep a league table of everyone's points and award achievements for certain levels (who wants a PhD in Zombology?). In addition, at the end of the month I will hand-make, and post free of charge a signed and numbered copy of the final game to the people with the top five PIP scores.

How do you register for this exciting, yet pointless, opportunity? Post a comment on this blog post using a registered account (anonymous users are not valid). Every time you post a comment using that blogger account on any of my NaGa DeMon blog posts, I'll award you some PIPs equal to how helpful I find your feedback, I reserve the right to be capricious and unpredictable in my awarding of points, so no quibbling if you disagree.

Applications below please!

Update

Achievements for the game-within-a-game:
1PIP - Intern, you can clean the glasswear
5 PIP - Undergrad, you know almost as much about Zombology as the cleaner
10 PIP - MSc, you get to call the faculty by their first names
20 PIP - PhD, congratulations! Now get published.
30 PIP - Tenure. That's the last time you have to do any work! Yay!
50 PIP - Chair. You're a Professor of Zombology, you get to wear a fancy hat.