Further Introductions

Awesome find with that trove of old games. It’s amazing to look at the differences across the decades. All the little cork-gun shooting games (there aren’t nearly enough cork-gun shooting games these days). I especially like the “Contraband” game, sneaking illegal goods across boarders. I wonder how well that kind of game would go over today…course that said, I wonder what somebody in the 50’s would’ve said about some of the modern shoot-em-up video games.

Anyway, I’ll continue introductions from where we left off before. Though Duncan was kind enough to already provide my name (Chris Fagala, a.k.a. Wall6ly), I’ll try and fill in a few other details.

I’m actually a newcomer to the board game world. I’ve been playing RPGs and tabletop miniature wargames as far back as I can remember. I can remember many a lazy summer day spent rolling dice over a miniature battlefield…though I remember a whole lot more excited overnight versions of the same. While I had designed my own tabletop war game and a dueling card game before meeting the other guys in 11^th Floor, I’d never actually thought much about game design…or being a designer for that matter. But seeing the excitement and effort the other guys put into their creations, and eventually feeling the same is a wonderful feeling, and I know now I’m a game designer for life.

As far as my projects go, I’ve always got 3-4 going at once, and I float between them based on mood, energy etc. I’ll touch on them here as they develop.

Most recently to see work is Solarphage (conveniently given a picture flashing in the little slide-show box near the top of the blog). I wanted to build a really big, epic feeling game, and it’s hard to get bigger than the whole galaxy. Basically players control the fates of the stars themselves, as they twinkle and churn in a contest to see who can bring light and life to the galaxy.

It’s accidentally a Euro game. No dice, and players compete to reach a goal rather than fighting against eachother. But that said, I’ve only just now got a working mechanic, and a lot could change as it grows into the future. Though still only rough, I’ve attached a pic of the solar system tile. This is used to track a planet’s development from a ball of rock into a space faring society.

Not sure if this game will work out, but it’s fun to try. After all, as Duncan said, it’s not about selling a million games, its about the process of making one. That’s my goal, to make something new, fun, exciting, challenging, and maybe even beautiful. And I hope you like this blog enough to join in the ride.

Turning battling religions into warfare

Apparently in this game, if one of your bishops gets caught with a prostitute, you loose a sect. You can also pit various religious against one another. Didn't you have an idea like this chris?

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/01/28/a-religion-board-game-satire-or-scandal/

Vintage Board Game Design Gold Mine

No one's gonna get as excited about all this as me. Check out this vintage stuff, it's AWSOME!

OK, look. If we're gonna do board games, they have to have a vintage element to them: as well as a hand-made element. They're just so cool.

Hidden in the closet for many many years

Oh ho ho ho.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4323442/Widow-finds-dead-husbands-secret-toy-treasure-trove-hidden-in-shed.html

Yep, we're all gonna end up like that. I know a few wives (and girlfriends that could become wives) that'll be HAPPY to clear out the TI3, Zombies! and Settlers of Katan boxes for more shoe storage space.

Small Editions

I don't know why it is that ideas, in the space on minutes (even seconds), can inflate themselves up to enormously large sizes so that suddenly, your 2 player monster game is a now a thousand dollar project involving artists, marketers and graphic designers.

I think it's good to be humble about ideas and work with what you have. Peter Morrison, the designer of a board game called Viktory, produced 25 hand produced copies of the original game, and then used the profits from that to bring out Viktory II in a much more professionally produced manner, which also sold out. Reading the particulars is very interesting, because he tells it like it is. But the obvious thing with his game was that he started small, doing what he could himself before he started producing.

A while back, I came up with a nice idea for a small card game based on trumps called 'Oh, yeah?'. Not being and artist or anything, I was a little hesitant first to do my own artwork, even as a mock up, but heres how it came out:


When the cards had been finished they all looked something like this:


There were a number of good things to learn from this process, and even though I'm a Graphic Designer with rather 'high ideals' (nothing arrogant, I just try to constantly think of high quality results to keep my professional attitude up), I found myself a bit proud of these mockups.

The sketched illustrations and handwritted text have their own charm. The things I don't like about the card are that I coloured them in photoshop: I should have done that by hand as well. Doug Malewicki, produced a game called 'Michelles Monster game' for his daughters birthday one year, and his own hand drawn monsters (complete with original names) are awsome! Check it out here.

I've often talked with my design peers about hand written stuff; and we all agree that it's loveable. It can be appreciated in it's own way. Personally, I'd be happier to purchase a hand produced copy of something than a manufactured one. It has so much more emotional attachment that way, and I'll feel less like throwing it away. You'll probably all agree with me when I say that the best board games you all have, are the most beat up, wrecked, pieces missing and replaced, patched with sticky tape ones in the cupboard.

It's not just because they're popular. They become more like 'your' board games with the more individual characteristics they take on. Back in Australia, my families copy of Monolopy is awsome because half of the money in it was lost, and then merged with an even older copy (from my mum's generation), so for example, we now have two $50 bill types all mixed up. The two types of money make makes it special in it's own way. Suddenly it's not a game by Parker Brothers, it's ours.

To get back to what I'm talking about, I think that hand produced games are the way to go. Sure it means we can produce thousands, but for the love of logic: NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT US. Start small! I'd even say: Stay Small! And make really really good handcrafted games. Imagine a box opened with hand drawn character cards, handwritten information, hand carved pieces...

I'm in the ZONE.

An introduction

Hi all, fellow gamers and people coming across this blog from the 'next blog' link in the blogger header bar. Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Duncan Brotherton, and I'm a member of 11th floor games. One of 4 members, actually! I'll jot down some history of the group, more so for myself than blog readers because I'm bound to forget it in the years to come. I have this feeling that the information on blogger.com will be around for centuries yet.

All four of us, used to work at the English Language School NOVA in Japan, until it's dismal collapse back in 2007. During the dying days of the company, a huge space was cleared on the 11th floor in our building, and then jam packed with all kinds of office furniture and boxes. It had all come from branches around the country that were closing. It was a nice quiet place to talk game mechanics.

Lyal Clough, Chris Stone-bush (TendrilsofKraken), Chris Fagala (Wall6ly) and myself are all gaming fans. It was ego more that anything that got us talking about our own game ideas. I felt good vibes about the ideas that came up, and I though that as a Graphic Designer, there's definately something that I could bring to these games: and maybe give them a bit of life.

While the company was around, we would hang out quite a bit, but that's all changed now. We only got together a few times last year. I personally find it hard to commit to game days because i work for myself now, but I still feel the urge to continue making progress on stuff we've done. Check out the board below: it's for a game called 'Kite Flyers' that I'm working on. I can't just get this far and then leave it.


So Fagala and I were cutting up the cards for it one Friday when I suggested we start blogging about what we're doing. We have a bulletin board setup for ideas, but it's closed. I thought that we might as well make it open, otherwise we're always going to be a closed group. Fagala set this up for us.

There's no one reading it at the moment yet, but that dosen't matter. The four of us can use it as a kind of diary of our gaming adventures. So you other three start getting into blogging mode.

And here we go. Strap yourselves in for some rough mechanics, cheesy art work and red-eye play testings.