Tuesday, July 25

The tales of a casual games designer: Part 3

As Jack said, First Past The Post works as print and play because it's about 6 A4 pages in total. However the game I've been workign on lately will not be print and play. If it playtests well (I'll be taking it to Cast are Dice hopefully) then I'll be releasing it as "I make, you buy". Something that, as my wife agrees, will make the time I put into creating it a little more worth it. Sure I have to cover costs and some of my time expenses but it should still be cheaper than games on the shelves, and as I'm making it, it will be limited. The game is called "Tour" and is based on the Tour de France. It borrows from Formula De with regards to moving through dice roll - BUT you make a team of five cyclists in a draft with the other players at the start of the game and they have different strengths and weaknesses. You can use "power" to breakaway from the pack but going it alone will eat into your Resilience more quickly and you may well get caught. Stitting in the pack means you don't tire and if you're directly behind another cyclist you get a +1 movement bonus for streamlining. With the normaly roll either 2, 3 or 4 and the breakaway roll either 3, 5, or 7 there's only a small amount of variance in hwo far you go, making tactics and timing more important leading up to the spring finish. I've sorted out the team mats, and a number of player cards (I have to draw the heads of cyclists and scan them in for the cards). My prototype stages are handdrawn on large cartridge paper. There will be two stages per sheet which means people can collect and buy the stages they desire. I just need to come up with a good way of printing the stages - maybe with my father in law's structural engineering printer that prints onto A1 paper.

3 comments:

Jackson Pope said...

I've been using: http://www.asteriskdigital.co.uk, who normally print onto A3. They seem pretty competitive price-wise, but if you want things laminated it'll add a lot onto the price.

I'm looking forward to play Tour & First Past The Post with you at The Cast Are Dice.

HamsterOfFury said...

Grief, we're gonna be ahving a busy time, what with you having to teach me Border Reivers too!

Jackson Pope said...

*grin* It's a deal, depending on whether I can get the pieces with plenty of time, just in time or too late I'll either be coming down Friday or early Saturday, so I'll see you there.