Designing a Solitaire Game

In light of my ever changing passions your regularly scheduled Gimme Games is becoming another changable day.

So my passion of the moment is Solitaire Game Design. Games that can be played, or are meant to be played with only one player.

In a recent post I talked about my current working prototype, the (solo) Amusement Park Builder. This game is now on version 2.2 of the rules, so that post is outdated. In the new rules the game is quite fun, I believe, but lacks a real goal beyond "Beat your high score!". I feel this is a detriment.

As such I thought I would ramble a little bit about what I believe are the principles of solitaire game design.
(Discounting electronic games, of course)

1. Firm Goals
• Less a principle of solitaire design as a principle of game design in general, a solitaire game must have firm goals. Something towards which the player is striving. While it is possible to get away with "beat your high score" it is much more engaging to a player if there is a firm end condition where you can say you won, and another where you can say you lost. 
• Firm goals also refers to goals within the game. There need to be easily measurable and distinct stages of the game from which you can gauge your performance. 
2. Luck vs Strategy
• In a solitaire game luck has a much greater place than in a multiplayer. This is because without the unpredictability of other humans to take into account, the game can become too cut and dry. This is not to say that the whole thing should be based on luck. Far from it. There needs to be a great deal of strategy as well, as the player has as much time as they would like to devote in order to develop a plan of action. A careful balance of luck and strategy is what is needed in order to truly stimulate the player.
3. Play Time
• This is the most variable and personal quality, I believe. Both long and short games have their place in the solitaire world. A 15-30 minute game is a great filler while you wait for friends to arrive, or between classes, or any number of places. But a long 1-3 hour bonanza of play time is also great for those nights where you can't get anyone together. A game that has a variable and decidable play time with a large range would be ideal, as it could fit both niches.
4. Scalability 
• The ability for a game to scale beyond one player seems a bit anathema to the principles of solitaire design, but in reality it is a major factor in whether people will play. It is much more enjoyable to find a game you really like and are good at, and then be able to share it with friends than it is to ave it to yourself forever.
5. AI
• Solitaire games are much more enjoyable when you only have to play from one side. This ties back into luck and strategy. If you have to constantly shift gears between "Player 1" ad "player 2" you have less brain power to devote to coming up with ideal strategies. Luck therefore makes a great opponent and should be used to help mitigate the brain power needed to play two sides.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a smattering of ideas I had while thinking about solitaire design, but it is certainly a list I would stand behind. 

Game a Week: Amusement Park Builder

This week we are looking at my latest amusement- ahem, I mean game. It is still very much a work in progress, and isn't really a "Game a Week" as I have started it well before the beginning of this week, and intend to keep working on it. But I thought I would show what is eating my time.

I've trying really hard to develop a solo game that uses the shake and make mechanic. So I did my best beginnings. I chose the amusement park theme because of Boardgamizer, and quite like the idea.

First pass rules:

1 player
Hard limit: 12 turns
Make the best amusement park possible in a year!
Shake and make: 3 equal segments 1, 2, 1

To play the game you start by randomly placing a face up chit on each of the nine spaces.
The number corresponds to how many customers you will get if you build there.
You then shake the container, and read your results. Depending on colour of the button (brown, white, green) you collect one or two cards of wood, metal or money
You may spend the resources listed to buy new attractions or build roads as listed:
2 wood, 1 metal = minor attraction (x1 customers)
3 wood, 2 metal = medium attraction (x2 customers)
4 wood, 3 metal = major attraction (x3 customers)
2 metal, 1 wood = road
2 money = 1 of either resource
5 money = 2 customers

You can then use your resources to build as much as you like.
Every amusement must be attached by a road to a previous amusement.
If you build a road past an open spot for an amusement, that spot is now defunct and cannot be built upon.
When you build an amusement you gain the number of customers shown on the chit, times by the size of amusement you built. (chit says 2, built a Major amusement, you get 6 customers (2x3))
Once twelve turns are over count out your resources, any set of five is equal to 2 more customers.
Count your customers, that is your score.

I'm trying very hard to design it in such a way that everything will fit in the box I am using for the shaking, so everything is rather tiny.

I like it as a jumping off point, but there is very little tension, and the number of customers gets bigger than I would like. So I need to mull on it quite a bit more, but I thought I would share where I'm at.

If you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them!

Game a Week: Religion Rally

This Tuesday we're taking a look at a game I made in a few minutes based on a Game Design Showdown prompt of (basically) Religious Micro Game.

This game is a dice and card game which involves fifteen cards and twelve dice.
In it you take on the role of a religion trying to gain followers. You do this by rolling dice.

2-4 players, 10-15 minutes

Game contains:
12 custom six sided dice
15 cards
Rules

The Values of the 12 dice are:
1 Follower x12
2 Follower x8, Priest x4
3 Priest x8 Event x4
4 Revolt x10 Event x2
5 Cruelty x12
6 Crusade  x12

In this game players play as their own Religions, attempting to gain followers.
Players put all the dice into a bag and shake them up. They then blindly select one, two or three dice to roll. They roll them one at a time, resolving the faces as they come up.
If a player rolls a follower, they put that die in their pool
If a player rolls a Priest, they select one other player to reroll a follower in their pool. If they roll anything other than a follower that die goes back in the bag.
If a player rolls an Event, they draw a card. These cards force you to reroll the next die you roll that it names. There are three each of the following cards
Reroll next Cruelty
Reroll next Crusade
Reroll next Revolt
Reroll next Follower
Reroll next Priest
A player may only have one event at a time, and are required to draw a new one when they roll an Event face.
If a player rolls a Revolt they must put one follower from their pool back into the bag
If a player rolls a Cruelty, that die is removed from the game
If a player rolls a Crusade that player must reroll a follower from their pool. Anything other than a follower goes back into the bag.
Once a die is resolved it is either placed into the player’s pool (followers) or returned to the bag (everything else)

Play continues until there are no more dice left to roll. The player with the most followers at this point wins.


I've playtested it a few times to try and even out the dice faces, and this is as good as it is getting, as I am busy working on another game. I hope you enjoyed this week's Game a Week, and I'll see you on Thursday for Gimme Games!

Game A Week: Poisoned Cities

Today is Tuesday and that means we have a new game to put up! This one went together with a little help from my friend Sonja (check her blog here). We grabbed some thoughts from Boardgamizer and I pulled a random thought from my head. She helped me tune it up, then with a little more fine tuning from me, we hve the version seen below.

Without further ado, our themes were:

1. city
2. pollution
3. survival (this was a victory condition, but I liked it better as a theme)

Our mechanics were:

1. pattern building
2. chit pull

My first thought with these mechanics was a Zen Garden style city building game, were you had to manage pollution levels to keep your citizens alive. (See my thoughts on Zen Garden here)

This was a little complicated in my mind and would likely have just been a retheme of Zen Garden.

Then I remembered a project I was working on before I bought Dungeoneer (see review here). It had tiles with paths on them that could be built up in sections, forming the board as you go. I shelved it because of my opinion of Dungeoneer and not having ideas of how to do it better.

So now we had a mixture of ideas. The secret design element of Zen Garden, the path building aspect of Dungeoneer. We needed something else, something that screamed survival. Sonja hit this one for me when she mentioned Master Labyrinth, a game I recently bought at Value Village. Instead of a pattern of paths, a pattern of materials.

Thus we have the framework for the theme:

Players are playing as survivors of the nuclear apocalypse. They need to fortify their base in order to survive the constant storms. Their job is to head out into the ruins of the city and gather resources to try and match the building plans they have. First person back to base with all their resources wins.

The game requires two bags of chits. One is the Exploration bag, the other is the Resource bag.
In the Exploration bag you have four kinds of square chits:

1. Roads: These show a road on one side and smog on the other
2. Resource Hubs: These show the number of resources on both sides
3. Radiation: These show radiation on both sides
4. Smog: This tile shows SMOG on both sides

It also requires two d6 (one specialized) and a card for each player listing the trade possibilities.

The game is played by first placing down the Home Base chit in the center of the table. This is where everyone starts and must return to in order to win.

Next one player rolls the exploration die (1d6) and can use any part of the number rolled to pull from the Exploration bag that number of chits, one at a time.

• If they draw a Road they place it Road side up connected to any path on the board. Only one side has to be connected, others can face walls.
• If they draw a Resource Hub they place it attached to any road on the board. It must be attached to an open road. They then drawn the number indicated on the tile from the resource bag and place them face down on top of the hub.
• If they draw a Radiation they must attach it to an open road immediately
• If the draw the SMOG they may flip one or more road tiles equal to the remainder of their Exploration die. The SMOG tile is then replaced in the Exploration bag

After they have drawn and placed all their tiles they may use the remaining sum of the Exploration die to move that number of spaces. A player who moves may not end their turn on the same space they started it on. A player may not move through Radiation or Smog tiles.

When a player lands on a Resource Hub they may take the top tile from the Hub and place it in their Inventory. A player may have no more than four items in their Inventory at once, but may discard an item at any point of their turn. A player cannot earn another resource from a Hub until they land on that Hub. To land on a Hub and take its resource ends your turn.

At the beginning of each round (after the first) one player rolls the Wind die. This die has one face showing wind and another showing a storm. 

If the wind side lands face up all Road tiles currently smog side up are turned road side up again.

If the storm side lands face up all Resource Hubs are refilled to their maximum resource number.

On their turn players may trade resources in to the game in order to gain certain effects:

• Trade goals with another player
• rotate goals: you can choose direction
• trade inventories with another player
• trade one item with another player
• re-roll the exploration die once
• re-roll the wind die once

These and their trade amounts are listed on a card in front of each player.

We've not playtested this one yet to determine starting numbers of each exploration chit, resources, or number of resources per hub, but the framework is there, and I consider it done enough to understand. So that's it for this week.

Meet us next week when take a look at another new game, or follow the blog as it constantly has new content in games, art and resources as well as reviews of places I go!

A Game Mechanic Database

So let me explain.
Yesterday was supposed to be a post I had written about house training a dog. Except I apparently never wrote it. I must have dreamed I did or something.
Oh well, I have nothing new to say on the subject, really, so I suppose that is for the best.
So this week you get your Friday post on Saturday.

And what a post it will be.

In recent times I have been trawling the web about game design, as you know.
My favourite places, the Board Game Designers Forum and the BoardGameGeek Design Forum are pretty slow moving forums, as forums go. With only a few to a few dozen posts in a day (as opposed to hundreds) I tend to blaze through the posts (usually quite soon after they are posted). This means I am stuck without my fix of new information related to a topic of interest. Oh noes!

But have no fear, back reading is here. I've been voraciously tearing through the pages and pages of old threads on both forums. And on both forums I've seen call for the same thing many times over.
A game mechanics database.

A whosit, a whatsit? You read correctly. A database of game mechanics. Not a database of games (BGG does that quite well and completely). But a database of the minute particles that make up a game. This would be useful on many levels for designers. A way to cherry-pick for game design, a reference for how games are similar, a metric for how different games are.

However, there is also one really good thread (that I've seen so far) discussing the creation of such a database.
And the insanity of it.

You see, unlike, say, books, mechanics are incorporeal. They exist only in abstraction. While there can be a near infinite number of both books and mechanics, there are easy to identify qualifiers for books. Not so much with mechanics.

So (as you can read in that thread) things have turned to more a board game components database. A list of physical things that can be found in board games.
Such as bricks/blocks (Jenga, Settlers of Catan, Love Letter), cards (poker, Magic: The Gathering, Dominion) tiles (Forbidden Island, Zen Garden) or boards (Monopoly, Scrabble, Candyland).
All this makes sense from an actual "get things done" point of view. But they aren't as fun of a thought experiment.

So I am still thinking about a game mechanics database. And how such a thing would be catalogued.
My point of view is needing a standardized language for such a project, such that each mechanic would be on equal footing. Leaving out the math and possible to change numbers and wording, and getting right to the core of how the mechanic actually plays out.

Do I think I am the one person on earth with the ability to do this? Gosh no.
Do I think it will entertain my brain in new ways? Yes!
Do I think I can make something of some use to other people? I hope so.

Game a Week: Storm Clouds

Iitttttt's Tuesday! And you know what that means?
It means we have another Game a Week!

This week we are going to design the game I'm calling Storm Clouds. It is using the Theme and Victory from Boardgamizer: Storm and Block all Players.

This will be a game for two to six players.


Players each play as a storm front attempting to take over a region. Each player is attempting to block out all other storms from the region.

It is played on a hexagonal board made up of hexes.
There are seven hexes from corner to corner, making each edge a line of four hexes.

In a two or three player game each player starts with 4 gems on the board at the edge nearest to them.

In a four to six player game each player starts with 3 gems on the edge nearest to them, sharing one corner with an opponent.

In a two or three player game each player starts with 6 other stones in their pool.
In a four to six player game each player starts with 7 other stones in their pool.

Players then take turns either placing a new stone or moving a stone one space in any direction.

You may have no more than ten stones of your colour on the board.
You may only place a stone adjacent to one of your own stones.

When moving you may jump over any one of your stones.
Jumping must occur in a straight line.

A stone surrounded by stones of the other colour is captured.
A group of stones of one colour are considered a unit. If they are surrounded by another colour they are all captured.
Captured stones are removed from the game.

Win by removing your opponent from the board.
If there is nowhere to move or place a stone, you have lost by default.
If no one can move or place a stone, the game ends in a tie.


Initial playtests of this game reduced the number of available stones from 18 to 10. There is certainly strategy involved, and no one strategy has yet to come out on top.

We've only playtested a two player game, though three would be easy to envision.
The four to six player games are harder to imagine, and may require a larger board, but the theory should still be the same. For a one week game, I'm going to call it done as is though.

Game a Week: Blacksmiths

Today (and hopefully more in the weeks to come) we are going to look at a very quick game design!

Taking our cues from Boardgamizer we will start with a random Mechanic(s), Theme(s), Victory Condition and an optional Constraint. 

This week's set consists of:

Mechanic: Pool Building

Theme: Armor Building

Victory: Most Reputation Points 

Constraint: Must have cubes

So from this we have a simple theme:

Players play as blacksmiths trying to outdo other blacksmiths and win the patronage of the prince.

This will be a War-like trick taking deck building game for three to six players.

Each player will start with a deck of fifteen cards.
These cards are numbered one through five in three suits:
Horseshoes
Silverware
Armor

Each player draws three cards from their deck.
The first player plays one card and each player follows suit if they can, attempting to be the highest number.
In case of a tie horseshoes trumps armor, silverware trumps horseshoes and armor trumps silverware.
Three way double tie (Same number and suit or same number all three suits) is resolved by playing a bonus round, winner takes all.

Each trick you win gains you an effect based on the winning card's suit
Each trick won by armor earns you one Reputation Point.
Each trick won by horseshoes earns you an extra draw this next turn.
Each trick won by silverware lets you change the card you played in the next round after everyone has played.

Once the trick has been taken, each player draws one card from their deck.
If a player has no cards in their hand at the end of the trick, they draw three cards.
The player who won the trick is now the first player for the next round.

When you win a trick you take all the cards played into your discard pile.
If ever you need to draw and your deck is empty, shuffle your discards to create your new deck.

To win acquire 3 Reputation points or be the last player with any cards.
The Reputation points are represented by cubes, to just barely fulfill the Constraint.

I've played this once using three decks of regular cards (ace through 5 of hearts, diamonds and clubs) and except for the slight confusion over which suit represented which, the game went well. It seems sound.

Any and all opinions, comments and criticisms would be appreciated!

Game Design Resources

I am not a game designer. Nor will I ever (likely) be. However I do find game design to be a very interesting topic, and as such have collated quite the collection of references and resources. Since that is what I do when I pour myself into a hobby- I make lists of resources. However it is often the case that my interest in the hobby wanes (only to wax again later), and I am left with list upon list of resources and no current use for them!

If this is the case, why shouldn't you, the intrepid game designer to be, benefit from my hours of web searching, scrutinizing and scanning? My time spent ranking and rating and otherwise spent categorizing?
You should! As such I am starting a series on resource sharing.

First up is... The Designer's Resource List  from BoardGameGeek.
Now over on the 'Geek they've got a whole forum section divided off for board game design. Right at the very top you'll find this list. What I like about this list is that it has quite a few things on it! What I don't like is that it hasn't been updated in a year, and that, well, there are so many things on it! It can get kind of bogged down- especially with the very minimal descriptions given.

Next we have the aforementioned BoardGameGeek Game Design Forum.
This forum is a great place to talk about board game design.
Pluses: Active and friendly with good resources available in the pinned threads.
Minuses: Everything is muddled together. You have your mechanics questions next to your theme discussions next to your playtest requests and everything just gets a bit lost.

A Brief Crash Course on Game Design is another thread on the BGG Design Forum.
This thread discusses in a nicely detailed manner all the steps to take an idea from the paranoia stage straight through to prototyping and production. It offers a nice set of questions to ask yourself of your game to see where it is heading.
It also gives advice on playtesting, both by yourself, with others and in blind runs.
the only thing I don't like about this thread is that the majority of the time is spent explaining production of prototypes, playtesting and publishing and not much attention is paid to the actual steps of designing the idea.

Exploratory Learning Through ...Games links to the course syllabus of San Diego State University's course EDTEC 670.
This site is a little hard to follow, not being a student. But if you take the time the resources it offers are quite good. With exercises and design outlines as well as 'required' reading.
the Board Game Analysis worksheet is great for cementing your ideas about what you want from your game. The Board Game Design worksheet helps you discover and utilize different mechanics and pieces for your game. the First Steps article is a great introduction on how to actually come up with ideas and design thoughts.
The one drawback is that everything is oriented to making an educational game. If that is not your intent you have to draw from the gist of the message, rather than the actual content.

Offering a concrete example How to Learn Board Game Design and Development walks you through the design process is simple steps, as well as offering several definitions up-front.
I love the list of questions asked, as well as the card game example used. The whole thing is easy to follow and gives an especially nice overview of the playtesting process.
It also offers a nice, though small, list of places to seek out more information on the topic of game design.

The Board Game Designers Forums is an entire forum dedicated to board game design.
It includes subforums for Mechanics Discussion, Playtesting, Thematic Elements, and General Design as well as many more.
It also allows you to have a mini blog on their site, as well as game journals to share your content.
It has the plus of being very diverse and informative, but it is a slow going forum and the content on the rest of the site is rarely, if ever, updated.

/r/tabletopgamedesign
I'll admit. I know very little about reddit. All I know is that this subreddit is very active and very informative.

The Ten Things Every Game Needs is an article listing... the ten things every game needs.
From Rules and Inertia to Fun and Flavour this article covers all the bases. While you could probably do with out one or two (strategy isn't strong in Candyland, to mention one) I would sense woe for anyone trying to disregard them all.

Back to the 'Geek for a couple of Board Game Mechanics.
This link takes you to the BGG's list of board game mechanics, which each have a definition and example games. While by no means the be all end all of mechanics lists, it is certainly a good start.

Offering ways to evaluate games and more content is Games Precipice, a blog.
everything on this blog has some value, so there is too much to list. But I will certainly mention (again) their How to Evaluate Games series. Looking at things from a game balance as well as a production stand point, this is a great yard stick to hold up.

Boardgamizer is a random generator that you can submit ideas to. It offers up Mechanics, Theme, Victory and an optional Constraint from which you can build a game.
It is great for getting the creative juices flowing and for jumping off from. It also offers some hover-over definitions for some of its mechanics.

For today, that's all I'll post. But maybe in the future we'll see more of my go-to places for this topic and others.

Happy Designing!