Fall? Wow, the time is just going. I must be getting old because Spring and Summer are just gone. I’m still kicking around doing what I do but things have gone more hectic as the kids get older. I think I need to transition to shorter posts so that I don’t backlog some long event and then never get to posting it.
For the first time in a while, my entire weekend was free. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really go anywhere so I decided to break out a project that has been on the backburner for the past couple of weeks: a custom d20 dice tower.
With the Prologue ready for testing, I jumped in and did the first run through to see where the theoretical failed and the real game began.
So there we have it, the working title of my monster hunting game. I’ve been gravitating towards “Valor” for some time but felt like the name needed a little so a subtitle was added. I actually got the idea because of what I wanted to touch on today: death.
With a lot of the basics out of the way, I put my Monster Hunting game to the table to give it a spin. I have the outline of the scenario for the Werewolf mission and enough small tests to understand the combat mechanics but it is different seeing it all come together.
We’ve seen how the hero will operate in my game so now it is time to take a look at how the enemies behave. In solo games that I’ve played, I usually see two extremes where either the enemies have a very simple “seek and destroy” routine or highly complex set of routines that are “if-then” dependent or randomized in cards or the App’s operating system. I think both can work well but it depends on the game’s other factors to see it come together and make for a great game experience.
My first goal in any design endeavor is to get rules to the table as soon as possible. Normally this means slapping random physical assets together to just get the bare minimum across and see if the game concepts even work. There is no point in creating beautiful layouts and printing cards or assets that may undergo radical changes during the development process. That being said… I did paint up the minis needed for my first test.
With the design bug deeply embedded and noshing on my brain juices, I started working on the main concepts for my monster hunting game. Back in the early years of attending Gen Con, I frequently attended the convention’s various design seminars and starting all this pulls up memories from more than a decade ago. It was a fun time of doing my own designs that never seemed to go anywhere but were completed all the same. I envision a similar fate to this venture but this is one of the few exceptions where I enjoy the journey more than the destination.
One thing I’m not stopping myself from buying this year is rule books. Miniature agnostic rule books are really in a renaissance right now as people realize they probably have tons of minis (painted or unpainted) that can be used to quickly play a new tabletop minis game. Spearheading this field for me are games like Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadow Deep, or Five Parsecs from Home. Friend Colton threw a link my way for another game option:
I saw this meme floating around shortly after the new year (Happy New Year, btw!). It is the old joke of having too many minis and yet always wanting more. During COVID, other similar memes were going around talking about “what you did during lockdown” and posts talking about painting complete Warhammer 40k armies and other lofty goals. Like many, I also have way too many minis and keep buying more but I looked at this year and saw the bragging joke and thought “what if I could still say this on December 31?”
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