Control Group
Mar. 11th, 2012 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tao_te_trick Continued work on "Arcane Investigations". Since the game is basically Dominion mixed with a Dungeon Delve, I decided to work on the Dominion side of it today. As an economist, I see terrible storm clouds on the horizon as I balance the complexity of the resources. I decided to eschew Dominion's discreet actions and buys, and instead focused on defeating foes or contributing to the completion of an abstract puzzle. (The puzzle needs certain resources to complete, and players accrue "harm" if they do not contribute to the puzzle.)
The basic premise is the players all enter "a room" and must face the enemies and the puzzle that is there. While enemies provide the resources necessary to improve the players, they also cause harm. Conceptually, the enemies should deal more harm than players can sustain. (Thus encouraging players to complete the puzzle quickly.) Once the puzzle is complete, players may rest and remove all "harm" and "injury" that they have accrued.
During this rest phase, players use "dark secrets" to influence the course of the plot in their favor. So, there is a micro game of combat and resource management layered into a game about strategic use of resources to gain victory points. (Players have various goals they can have at the start of the game, such as a Witch Hunter that gains victory points for defeating Unholy enemies and solving puzzles at Holy locations. Or a Pugilist who gains victory points for defeating any enemies, but loses many points for each mechanical or arcane card in his deck.)
So, the problem has come up that using "dark secrets" as currency in the micro game makes it very hard to have any left when a puzzle is completed. (This may actually be ideal. It is hard to say.) However, I can also make dark secrets MUCH harder to get and use a different, more diversified set of resources be used to actually acquire cards in the micro game.
Anyways. I'm having a pretty good time of it, and I'm making a pretty solid game. Well, I've got the groundwork of a solid game anyways. Also, and this is important from a personal goal standpoint, the game is highly modular. Cards can be added and removed from the game without harm, much like Dominion, and the game still functions.
I need to do much more testing, then I can move on to replacing the mechanics which stand in for the exploration side with the actual exploration mechanics. Should be fun.
The basic premise is the players all enter "a room" and must face the enemies and the puzzle that is there. While enemies provide the resources necessary to improve the players, they also cause harm. Conceptually, the enemies should deal more harm than players can sustain. (Thus encouraging players to complete the puzzle quickly.) Once the puzzle is complete, players may rest and remove all "harm" and "injury" that they have accrued.
During this rest phase, players use "dark secrets" to influence the course of the plot in their favor. So, there is a micro game of combat and resource management layered into a game about strategic use of resources to gain victory points. (Players have various goals they can have at the start of the game, such as a Witch Hunter that gains victory points for defeating Unholy enemies and solving puzzles at Holy locations. Or a Pugilist who gains victory points for defeating any enemies, but loses many points for each mechanical or arcane card in his deck.)
So, the problem has come up that using "dark secrets" as currency in the micro game makes it very hard to have any left when a puzzle is completed. (This may actually be ideal. It is hard to say.) However, I can also make dark secrets MUCH harder to get and use a different, more diversified set of resources be used to actually acquire cards in the micro game.
Anyways. I'm having a pretty good time of it, and I'm making a pretty solid game. Well, I've got the groundwork of a solid game anyways. Also, and this is important from a personal goal standpoint, the game is highly modular. Cards can be added and removed from the game without harm, much like Dominion, and the game still functions.
I need to do much more testing, then I can move on to replacing the mechanics which stand in for the exploration side with the actual exploration mechanics. Should be fun.