Trying to design a competitive crafting game

Heya! Trying to create a quick, escalating and competitive crafting card game. Each round should not take more than a couple minutes, so you can play a "best of 3" in a coffee break. The project should be finished this week. It's a little something to break the routine.

The idea is that a customer walks in a blacksmith shop, and asks for a random item (example: metal hammer) and a quality (normal, legendary, etc). The player is supposed to make that something, or as similar as possible. Limited amount of turns to create and improve the item.

Heavily work in progress, but after working for the past few years on serious, "commercially viable" products, I just wanted a silly, quick game. Here are some WIP notes and concepts:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1teKp8-8VeigobIqK6T5PlYyqHCPdpZapKBDyziZX6dI/edit?usp=sharing

Please, any comment or notes here or in the doc. Many thanks!

 

Have you tried paper prototyping it? Card games are quite easy, you can buy cheap card sleeves, insert old playing cards or magic the gathering cards for stiffness to aid shuffling, print your own cards on A4 paper, cut them out & insert them into the sleeves.

If you use boxes for numeric values you can write them in in pencil & change them mid game while testing. You can also add or remove cards mid game, change what cards do mid game etc all without needing to change any code. Once you have found a version that plays how you want it to & is fun you can code it up as all the rules are bedded down.

This is a useful site for free icons to help make boardgames

 

Absolutely! But I'd like to nail down the mechanics first, before wasting a whole lot of printer ink

Also, you forgot the link

 

Sorry

http://game-icons.net/


I find black ink is cheaper than the time to code it all up (given how slow I am) plus you gain a lot of time by being able to change stuff mid game in a few minutes while you still have play testers at the table

Ps, if it works you can put it onto drivethrucards etc & sell the hard copy version as well

 

That is true. I'll see what happens. What do you think of the design, though?

 

There isn't enough info for me to say, I don't know what the events are etc.

To me it reads like the players get a hand of 5 cards that consist of the various bits e.g. Hilt, dagger blade, sword blade, shield strap etc; a random item is drawn to be the clients request & then the players try to make the best that they can with the cards they have.

I can't see where there is any player interaction. Can they do stuff to each other or is it multiplayer solitaire? Also, is there any opportunity for strategy/tactics (something to let the player feel clever)?

 

I see the document is not clear enough. I'll refine it and let you know. Maybe do a match example as well.

 

Yep, I too can't tell enough from the current design doc (but I know you're working on that).

But I will say that the basic premise sounds like fun to me.

 

The concept seems like a good fit for a deck builder. I can see this working as a dominion clone.

You can always use a regular pen for prototyping. Attempting to nail down the design without prototyping doesn't really work. Plenty of design issues will only make themselves visible when playing.

 

Ok, finally updated the doc and changed gameplay flow quite a bit, after reading all your thoughts. Would love new feedback

 

Sorry for the delay, I normally access via iPad but since the last iOS update safari keeps logging me out when a page fully loads so by the time I get to the dialogue box it disappears before I can do anything (as I'm no longer logged in).

I added some comments to your document, mainly questions to clarify some bits as I'm still struggling to understand the player interactions. I can see the card/actions that affect them but not how they will be played in the game. Part of me is thinking it's a bit like a trick taking game crossed with rummikub, where once players have items on the table as their build it can be manipulated/affected by another player so you need to ensure that there is motivation to play cards & not just hold everything in their hand until they have done their build & then play it for the completed object (my feeling is that if players do this & then other players can play action cards to damage something after a product is completed then there ends up being a major negative with making items & no or minimal positive return for the risk).

There is definitely something here but you really need to paper test it. Make up a deck of cards, bed the rules down enough for testing to begin (play it all yourself until you work out the kinks) & take it to your local game shop or some meetup & ask people if they can spare 15mins to help you play test. You will be surprised how many are keen to help & provide feedback & how much experience at crafting games, deck builders, trick takers etc you will find at them. Just remember that they don't need to play a full game for you to get an idea of what is working, and if everyone agrees there is an issue and are willing then change the rules mid play rather than starting again. They also seem to appreciate it if as well as asking for general feedback you give them a specific focus point e.g. I'm trying to balance the take that elements with the risk of crafting an item on the table. They will focus on that but that will help them look at the supporting mechanics.

Anyway, just my two cents worth. Let us know how it goes. Good luck


Edit

Ps, there is also likely to be a tabletop design group within reach of you so search them out. I've found these groups really supportive (no one steals ideas as like here they are all working on 4-100 of their own). You can jump onto boardgamegeek.com or bgdf.com for feedback but they will want 'proper' rules so that they can provide feedback.

 

Many thanks! I have answered to your comments and on Tuesday I'll go to a meetup to test the changes

 

How did your playtesting go? Was it helpful?