I have created a board game~

[Juno]

This'll be brief, because I'm trying to cook for a going-away-to-college party at the same time, but since there's a full, terribly illustrated manual, that's ok.

I've been designing games as a hobby since I was 7 or so. It's kind of what I'm known for amongst family/friends/etc. While I've done some coding, I usually stick to pen+paper. This particular game was/is planning for cpu but I decided to make a paper prototype first to hammer out the details. Eventually, I modified it to work as a board game instead because testing was so fun and I'm not going to have time to code/create artwork (or try to) in the near future.

With everything mocked up in Adobe Illustrator, it did[strike]n't[/strike] take too much extra work to make it postable online. I wouldn't suggest printing it all out unless you want to spend a fortune on ink. In the next week or so, I'll post a barebones version that's a little easier on the printers.

Now, if anyone does try it out, feedback would be great. Something like 'dis gaem sux' is ok, but something more specific like 'dis gaem sux cz i cnt shot webz' would be more helpful. Whether it stays on print or jumps to code, I'll be updating this one to include in my portfolio, any and all input will be looked over.


Far more convenient download link

Upcoming

Pilots - Raven (CC), Rease (GF), Prince Ares (BE), Fritzi (BE)


Changelog: 9/22/2012

Van Flyheight - Shield Liger
-Reduced damage on Van's missiles from 60 to 50.
-Listed missiles maximum range and imposed a minimum range of 3.

Mercenary Irvine - Command Wolf
-Changed initial A&A penetration to 10% from 20%.
-Changed Eagle Eye damage modifier to +90 from +45.

Pilots General
-Added backgrounds on each pilot. Due to space constraints, these are on separate PDFs.

General
-Converted all images to PDFs, for those that prefer things that way.
-Included 'blank' copies of Duos, Enemies and Maps that are much more printer friendly.
-Re-made the manual to have fewer pages and be more printer friendly.

[Mentosftw]

Heh, you must have been board enough to do that.

[Dracius]

Heh, you must have been board enough to do that.

OHOHOHOHOHO

[Kueh]

After playing this with my brothers, I have a few comments.

There was very little in terms of characterization and setting. Aside from a short description of the pilot's personality, there wasn't anything that stopped me from saying, "You're pilot A, and you're pilot B." There wasn't much of a reason to play other than to try it out.

The use of so many abbreviations is tiring. Take A&A, for example. Both A's stand for something different, but they use the same letter. Ar&Ag, or something similar, is still short, but also gives some meaning to the shortening to make it easier to remember. SD, SE, and ED all have the amount of letters and share a letter with both of the other units, making it very difficult to keep track of what is which. (In fact, I'm still unsure what an SD is, I just used them as "seconds". It doesn't say so, but I assumed an ED was an endurance point.) Brevity shouldn't come before semanticity.

Alas, I have not the time to write up my other comments.

[Loopulse]

Want me to put everything on Google Docs presentation for you to make it easier?

[Juno]

After playing this with my brothers, I have a few comments.

There was very little in terms of characterization and setting. Aside from a short description of the pilot's personality, there wasn't anything that stopped me from saying, "You're pilot A, and you're pilot B." There wasn't much of a reason to play other than to try it out.

Ah, so glad you pointed that out. As usual, I feel like an idiot for not noticing it...

The characters in question are all from the zoids anime (Chaotic Century/Guardian Force) or the alternate universe fanfiction (Breaking Even) that I wrote. The primary target was people interested in those things, so it completely slipped my mind to give each character a proper introduction.

Rest assured I'll remedy that immediately.

The use of so many abbreviations is tiring. Take A&A, for example. Both A's stand for something different, but they use the same letter. Ar&Ag, or something similar, is still short, but also gives some meaning to the shortening to make it easier to remember. SD, SE, and ED all have the amount of letters and share a letter with both of the other units, making it very difficult to keep track of what is which. (In fact, I'm still unsure what an SD is, I just used them as "seconds". It doesn't say so, but I assumed an ED was an endurance point.) Brevity shouldn't come before semanticity.

I chose A&A because it was phonetically easy to remember. Even if you forget what the 'A's stand for, remembering what the A&A stat does should be easy.

That said, the use of abbreviations was largely due to limited space when I was using handwritten sheets for testing. At the same time, space is a concern on some character sheets as well, but I'll see if I can cut some of the shorthand via reorganization and/or redesign.

Also, what is semanticity?

Alas, I have not the time to write up my other comments.

Even so, I really appreciate whatever you can write up~

Want me to put everything on Google Docs presentation for you to make it easier?

Do you mean the materials posted or your comments? If its the former, don't worry about it for now. I'll be redesigning and consolidating the manual as per feedback from elsewhere and making some changes mentioned earlier in this post too. After that, I'll put everything in a single PDF file to make things easier.

Nevertheless, I'll have to look into this presentation. Could be useful~

[Kueh]

Ah, so glad you pointed that out. As usual, I feel like an idiot for not noticing it...

The characters in question are all from the zoids anime (Chaotic Century/Guardian Force) or the alternate universe fanfiction (Breaking Even) that I wrote. The primary target was people interested in those things, so it completely slipped my mind to give each character a proper introduction.

Rest assured I'll remedy that immediately.

I had figured it was something like this, after reading the credits page and giving "Zoids" a quick google search (I remember watching it in the past, but I can't remember a single thing about it).

I chose A&A because it was phonetically easy to remember. Even if you forget what the 'A's stand for, remembering what the A&A stat does should be easy.

That said, the use of abbreviations was largely due to limited space when I was using handwritten sheets for testing. At the same time, space is a concern on some character sheets as well, but I'll see if I can cut some of the shorthand via reorganization and/or redesign.

Also, what is semanticity?

Semanticity is whether or not a word means something. For instance, if I have no association between the word "flower" and the thing we call flowers, or if I think "flower" means cakes, it has no semanticity for me. Basically what I meant is that: if you save space in the manual, but it becomes confusing, it might be worthwhile to type it out longer.

Now, I'm not sure if it was actually in there somewhere and I just can't find it, but I had to guess that SD meant seconds, and a unit was limited to 8 per turn, and that ED meant endurance. Shield energy was a relatively straightforward abbreviation, though. I didn't have any problems with that other than it was easily confused with SD and ED.

As for other comments, the main issue was that there wasn't much in the way of unit building. Switching up zoids, pilots, and co-pilots achieved that somewhat, but every unit functioned generally the same. That might very well be a deliberate design choice on your part (since I assume the zoids are all manufactured in a similar fashion), but there wasn't a way I could make a striker-type build, or a support-type build aside from choosing pilots with better attacks or defenses.

Aside from that, the lack of non-combat actions felt a bit constraining. So I'm rescuing someone, but do I carry them in my Zoid? Do I have to break their prison open beforehand, or do I finesse it open with hacking or lockpicking? The way we played it was just that enemies came out of spawners every 3 rounds after their last-spawned mob died, and the prisoners were like individual flags in a game of capture the flag. We just moved into their position, then moved to a safe zone to drop them off.

Overall, the game was fun, but I'd rather wait till it's done (I get the impression it's unfinished) to actually give my input on whether or not it was enjoyable or whether I'd play it.

[Loopulse]

Here it is.

Just added the rules so far. Gonna add more later.

[Juno]

As for other comments, the main issue was that there wasn't much in the way of unit building. Switching up zoids, pilots, and co-pilots achieved that somewhat, but every unit functioned generally the same. That might very well be a deliberate design choice on your part (since I assume the zoids are all manufactured in a similar fashion), but there wasn't a way I could make a striker-type build, or a support-type build aside from choosing pilots with better attacks or defenses.

Can you elaborate on this some?

What do you mean by a 'striker' build or support build? Or really, by build at all?

[Kueh]

Can you elaborate on this some?

What do you mean by a 'striker' build or support build? Or really, by build at all?

Sure.

By striker, I mean someone who does a lot of damage. By support, I mean someone who, one way or another, disrupts damage from reaching allies.

Describing what I mean by build is harder than I thought it would be, lol. I mean a goal of the zoid's capabilities, imagined by the player, and customizing the stats and abilities such that they conform to that goal.

I'll just use Guild wars 2's system to help illustrate my point. In GW2, the weapons you use determine your first 5 skills. Your second 5 you get to choose yourself, from a pool. You can (and should) adapt your weapons to your build, but your second five skills are yours to choose, and that gives each player a different play style, even if they have the same weapons.