Version Control and Other Stories

In a comment on my last post, Mal wondered how I perform version control of my ever-changing prototypes.

The earliest versions of a prototype don't have properly written rules, they're just a series of scribbles in my notebook. I'll make an early prototype out of scraps of paper and pencil scribbles. It's not until I have something that's basically working that I make a more solid prototype using card, thick cardboard for tiles/boards and slightly more impressive artwork involving pen and pencil crayons. It's at this point where I start writing out the rules.

From there on, every time I make a change to the rules, I do a new version of the rulebook - with a new version number. I just save them as <game name>.<version number>.txt. I have lots of ideas, only those that I'm fairly convinced are worth trying or I've tested a few time make the rules, other than that they float around in my head until I've tested them.

That's the rules covered, what about the components? Honestly, I don't bother with them. If the components change between one version and the next (they might not) I store the old components and make new ones. There's no infomation about which version those components were used for. I can either work it out from the rules, or I can just recreate them. The earlier components tend to be fairly generic with just enough information on them to differentiate between the different types. As the rules change these can be re-purposed a lot of the time, only occasionally do they need to be re-created.

In other news, I received another prototype from an established designer yesterday, and having received an overview and a copy of the rules, I've now asked for a prototype.

Still nothing from the British manufacturer or from the artist yet. I've been concentrating on my prototypes and using my German course, in preparation for Essen.

December Report

Another month, another monthly report.

I'm going to resist the urge to do a retrospective on the year, I figure there's enough of those doing the rounds at the moment. Instead, I'll do this monthly report and a look forward to what I hope to achieve with Reiver Games this year.

Play

It's been a very busy month in terms of games played. There were a few games nights at Paul's that I actually managed to get to, Dave returned from Afghanistan, I made it to Beyond Monopoly!, the odd game over Christmas with family and then a New Year's Eve party to round things off. I managed not only a lot of games played, but also learnt a fair few new ones, which is always nice, and helps my game design.

Here's what I got up to this month:

• Incan Gold: 13 plays
• Carcassonne: 10 plays
• It's Alive!: 4 plays
• Loopin' Louie: 4 plays
• Magic: The Gathering: 4 plays
• micropul: 3 plays
• Apples To Apples: 2 plays
• Carcassonne: The Castle: 2 plays
• Guillotine: 2 plays

Plus the shrapnel with one play each: Byzantium, Canal Mania, Capt'n Clever, 6 Nimmt, Citadels, For Sale, Hare and Tortoise, Hey! That's My Fish!, O Zoo Le Mio, Race For The Galaxy, Ticket To Ride, TransEuropa and Wyatt Earp.

Micropul, Byzantium, Capt'n Clever, Hare and Tortoise, O Zoo le Mio, Race for the Galaxy and Wyatt Earp were all new to me. Micropul I played solo online, and it seemed like an interesting game, but the abstract nature puts me off slightly, and the artwork, while pretty could be more informative. Byzantium was a really nice game with an interesting mechanic in that all players play both sides of a conflict. Capt'n Clever was surprisingly deep for a kids game. Hare and Tortoise (which won the Spiel des Jahres the year I was born!) felt a little dated, but had a nice mechanic in the use of triangular numbers to control movement. O Zoo le Mio was another nice game, fun and attractive but nothing outstanding. Race for the Galaxy was my favourite new game of the month, like San Juan, but more involved and space-themed. Finally Wyatt Earp just didn't do it for me, something about it just seemed clunky. Special mention to Carcassonne: The Tower, which was my favourite new game (including expansions). The last of the main four Carcassonne expansions, the in-laws gave it to me for Christmas (though The Wife chose it - she rocks!). It adds a new dimension (literally - vertical!) to Carcassonne, and a lot more conflict to the basic game. It was this that boosted Carcassonne so high up my list of plays this month - great fun :-).

Creation

Despite the huge number of games played I still got a decent amount done from a creation point of view. The problems with TNT and the It's Alive! boxes meant I had some time on my hands. I've used this to do a lot of work on Codename: Jorvik, try out a few ideas for Codename: Artist and got a few plays of Codename: Harvest and Codename: Harry in.

Jorvik

Jorvik has come on leaps and bounds this month, I've tried out loads of new ideas, some worked, others didn't but overall progress has been made. I'm hoping to finish it this year, so I need to keep trying things out.

Harvest

I've played a few games of this, my latest submission. The game seems quite neat, and has some nice ideas, but I've some concerns about the learning curve. It's quite easy to make a mistake the first couple of times you play and that can really hurt you. Seeing as a lot of my potential customers will only play it once at a convention, I can't afford to have them put off by a bad play. I've made some suggestions and the designer is trying them out.

Escape

I've not done much on Escape this month, I turned it down last month, but the designer has come back to me, and is going to try out some changes to address the reasons why I turned it down.

Artist

Only one play of this, but it showed quite clearly how knackered the latest attempt at scoring was. The final score: me: 134, brother-in-law: 10. That needs a lot of work! I've added a couple more things which make it slightly more 'Euro', but I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. It's an abstract, so making it a Euro-abstract hybrid might mean it ends up appealing to fans of neither.

In other news, I need to do my tax self-assessment by the end of the month, so I started it in anger last night, and then got stuck. Fortunately my Mum used to do books as a living so I asked her what to do. It's not that much fun.

Good News & Bad News

There's still no news about the missing boxes, lost by TNT en route from the London boxmakers. I rang them again today, now their inventory system is experiencing some problems, so they are not sure where they are. I'll try again after Christmas. I figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem, I wasn't expecting many sales over Christmas, but I sold two yesterday (saving me from the ignominy of my first week without a sales since It's Alive! was released). I had to send the poor customers apologetic emails, warning them I was out of stock for at least a week, possibly longer, and offering them a refund. Fortunately, both were very understanding, and didn't mind waiting. Still I feel like bad for providing poor customer service, and slow turn-arounds on their orders.

We're now down in Bristol for Christmas, staying with The Wife's family. I've had a chance to get four games of Codename: Jorvik in (using the new scoring suggested by Dave and a couple of other scoring simplifications), and one of Codename: Artist. Artist's scoring is way out, I managed to win a game 134:10 - needs a lot of work, it should never be possible to crush someone like that - I aim for much closer scores.

In other news, Merry Christmas everyone!

Go National Express!

I had to go down to London on fairly short notice today. I get the train, which takes just under two hours. GNER used to have the franchise that allowed them to operate the London-Scotland (via York) trains, but lost it recently to National Express. I write this to you from the train, as National Express have decided to allow all customers free use of the WiFi on the trains - yeay!

As I'm still without boxes for It's Alive! I've had yet more time to think: What's Next? On BoardGameGeek last night I asked what games people thought were best for small publishers like myself to publish. It led to an interesting discussion, with the general feeling being things like It's Alive! quick and simple games that are easy to explain, fairly cheap and have fun themes. The next two games of my own that I've got in the pipeline are a historical 2-player game and an abstract game, so perhaps they are not the best games to be going with. This information will guide my choice for RG0003, the next game I publish.

What are your thoughts? Themed or abstract? Light or heavy? Short or long? Number of players? Cheap or expensive? Bear in mind som of the choices are mutually exclusive!

More Submissions

I'm still trying to work out which game to publish next. I reckon it's going to take me until at least Christmas to finish making this run of It's Alive!, so next year I'm going to need to come up with another game to publish.

I've several designs of my own in one state or another, but only two of them are anywhere near ready. One is a simple card game for two-players (Codename: Jorvik). It would be really easy to make (which is a big win when you're constructing games by hand in your spare time) and the low weight would mean that the cost and shipping would be lower than It's Alive! which would hopefully make it more appealing abroad, where the strong pound leads to exhorbitant prices for everyone else. The other is an abstract strategy game, which would require a bit more construction effort (Codename: Artist). Abstract games are a huge market, which I haven't tapped into at all up until now, so that's appealing too. I'm not sure either is ready yet though. Dave and I played Jorvik last night, and we had some more ideas which I think will add to the endgame, but the scoring is still a bit too complicated. I need to think on it more.

I've received another submission too. Excitingly the designer came to me out of the blue, so Reiver Games must be slowly making a name for itself. I need to read the rules for this new game to see whether it is something I might want to playtest.

Speeding Up

Now that the boxes have arrived I can make a copy of It's Alive! in just over thirty minutes. Up until now it's taken nearly ninety. I've been making about six copies a week on average so far, it would have been more, but we've had a lot of weekend plans with either friends or family visting us or us visiting them. This week I've made seven already, in only three days. It's going much better. The next order I have to fulfill is a special one. At the Expo the owner of a UK online games store played It's Alive! and really liked it. He liked it so much that he wanted to stock it in his shop. He'd never got involved with hand-made games before, only the professional ones, but this one he wanted. I was obviously ecstatic, and after I got back we ironed out the details via email. I'm trying to get his order of twelve copies together now, should be done by the weekend. It'll be really exciting to see one of Reiver Games' games for sale at an outlet that I've bought games from for probably six or more years. It'll feel like I've arrived!

This weekend we were down in Bristol visiting my parents, The Wife's parents and some friends from school. I showed Codename: Artist and Codename: Jorvik to my family, in particular my Dad, whose brain works totally differently to mine. He's not a gamer at all, but he has a very creative brain, his years as an art teacher mean he automatically thinks of the visual aspect of games, and he's always thinking up new ideas, far more off the wall (and hence innovative) than anything I could come up with. I wanted to show him Jorvik, because he and Mum had played it months ago, and it had changed significantly since they had played it. I was also considering asking him to do the artwork for it. The game's not ready yet, but I can start laying the foundations. When I got to their house I saw one of his latest paintings, half done in the living room. I really like some of the effects in it, and I thought they would be a really good fit for Jorvik, while being innovative enough to really stand out from the crowd with respect to artwork. He agreed to try out a few things for me.

I also wanted to show him Artist, as the whole game came from an idea of his. He had given me a single word, and asked me to design a game around it. I didn't recognise the word, but it was the surname of an artist. He suggested I design a game based upon the artist's body of work. So I did. It's still fairly early on, but I'm really excited about this one. I'd like to do Jorvik next as it's really simple to make, but I think this one might be more ready. It's going to be an abstract strategy game, which is something I've not tried before. I played a few turns with my dad on Saturday, and then a game with my brother, his girlfriend and my sister on Sunday. They all liked it, and Dad was very excited. The scoring was a bit problematic (12, 12, 12, 10!) but the mechanics seemed to work pretty well.

Now that I can get through It's Alive! copies much quicker I need to start thinking of the next step. I've two prototypes at home from a couple of designers (one fairly high profile :-) ) another two from a published designer on their way, and Artist and Jorvik. I'm thinking of doing a six-way face-off, getting a load of play-testers round to play them all and get an idea of which ones are most ready to go. That'll be a good night :-)

London: Day Two

I had no evening plans for my second night in London, so I had a good few hours to spend on my Jorvik and Artist prototypes. I finished off colouring in the Jorvik prototype and coloured in the Artist prototype and did a bunch of solo playtesting on Jorvik. Soloing a game doesn't give you the full experience (and in particular it's bad for hidden information or bluffing games), but it will give you an idea about whether the basic mechanics work and will give you a feel for card distributions, etc. If you keep ending up with the same cards that you haven't used, then there are probably too many of them. Generally I think things are starting to work, there doesn't seem to be any first player bias (both first and second player were winning games), but there is definitely more work to do. A few of the stage three cards appear to be too numerous, and there were several cards I wanted that I hadn't made, so I'll probably swap out some for those new types. Another problem seems to be that whoever scores highest in the first stage also scores highest in the second and third stages, and hence wins. The second stage is supposed to be the great leveller, but it's not working that way at the moment. I'll probably down-grade the stage one cards to make them less powerful.

I've also tweaked my Artist prototype to fix some problems we had with it last time I played. There was an advantage if you were lucky enough to be given two scoring areas adjacent to each other as some pieces only scored if you controlled both areas. I could have just removed those pieces, but I liked them, so instead I made all the scoring cards double so they covered two areas. I've also coloured in the pieces to work around some problems that came from the pieces just having the colour written on them (which wasn't visible enough). Doubling the size of the scoring cards' areas means that each player now has less to remember (a cause of frequent card checking), and a player shield (which I'll make when I get home) will mean that the cards can be kept face up and yet hidden, so memory will be less of a problem. I've also got some ideas to make things a bit more interesting which I can try out next time I test it.

I feel like I've made some progress on both games tonight, although from my description it might not sound like it!

In other news, It's Alive! got the thirty ratings needed to become ranked on BoardGameGeek today. Its officially the 1558th best board in the world. I would expect that to move up in the coming months as it gets more ratings (which will slowly outweigh the dummy Bayesian ratings), hopefully we'll break the 1000 barrier in a few months. Fingers crossed.

London: Day One

I'm in London most of this week for a training course. This means that I can't do any game construction, but that doesn't mean that Reiver Games is on pause. This morning I posted another copy to the USA, continuing my efforts to work through my backlog.

This evening, after meeting my sister for dinner I returned to my hotel room and started working on Jorvik. I'd spent some time on the train on the way down yesterday drawing up the cards for the next prototype. I'd started testing the first part of the game on Saturday, and I'd tweaked the balance slightly already. I also removed a few cards to make the game a bit quicker. Tonight I roughly coloured the cards to make it easier to differentiate between the three stages of the game. I then played a couple of games with the new cards to get a feel for how the new version was working.

I'm trying to create a quick, simple two-player card game, which also has some depth and player confrontation. The early versions lacked the depth and the confrontation, but were quick and simple. About four months ago my mate Dave had a cracking suggestion which definitely improved the depth and confrontation, but the prototype we were playing with had a dodgy card balance which just didn't work right. I'd had some ideas for a while about how to improve things but I'd been way too busy with It's Alive! to do anything about them. This trip to London is finally giving me that chance. I've also brought Artist with me, as I had some ideas about that ages ago that I've been meaning to try out for a while.

Tomorrow night I've got the night to myself, so I'm hoping to work on the Jorvik prototype and continue my tweaking of the card balance to keep improving the game. I'm also hoping to try out the new ideas for artist and see how that goes.

Playtest-O-Rama

Dave came round Tuesday night, ostensibly for more Space Hulk, but we both really wanted to do some playtesting too. Dave had brought Citywise, and I had Artist, Jorvik and 'The Submission' to get to the table too.

First up was 'The Submission', which I'll be pretty vague about until I've made a decision about it. The game is designed for 2 - 4 players, and Dave and I played a 2-player game. Initial impressions were that the game would definitely be better with more players, it was good fun with just two though. Dave ended both rounds, and although I won on points in the first round by a small margin Dave slaughtered me in the second, striding to a comfortable victory. I need to play this a lot to reach a firm decision about whether or not to invest large amounts of my money and free time in publishing it. Initial impressions were favourable though. I'm not wholly convinced about the theme, I like the theme, but as a publisher I've got to think of the theme as the hook that will take a potential player from seeing the box to wanting to buy (and play it). I don't think the theme as it stands is the best for that given the market I'll be predominantly selling to (the UK).

After that we had a quick game of Jorvik. Dave didn't seem overly enamoured of Jorvik, noting that there was very little player interaction. This is something that I'm aware of, and need to put some effort into fixing. Hmmmm. Dave won again, Two for two.

The third game of the night was Space Hulk. We've been playing this now over a few weeks, taking it in turns to play both sides of each mission. It was my turn to play the marines in the third mission, and with a nice winning streak behind him already for the night, and knowledge of how hard this mission is for the marines, Dave thought he stood a good chance of winning his first Space Hulk game. And he was right. So right. I was slaughtered, in about four turns. Oh, how the mighty have fallen - nice work, Dave!

Seeing as Dave had made such short work of me in Space Hulk, we decided to get a quick game of Artist in to round the night off. I explained the rules of the game to Dave and we were off. As I've mentioned before, Artist can be a bit of a brain-burner, and leaving it to the end of the night was possibly a mistake. Still, I enjoyed it (and I think Dave did too), and I finally won something. I'm beginning to think that Artist is possibly closer to publishing than Jorvik, despite being much newer - I need to play it a lot more to make sure. Dave had some good ideas too about how to simplify the scoring areas. Another good night of games.