Cancellation and Body Parts

Oh Dear!

Slight disappointment really. You may remember that I was saying that a friend of mine was going to take Marooned to a game convention for me, well unfortunately he isn't going now and therefore neither is marooned :-(.

I was looking forward to sending it off with a pat on it's bum and a bag of tuppenny chews in its hand, but that's how it is I'm afraid. I will look into taking it myself to a Con in the future but at the moment I have no idea where or when that might be.

Not got much further with things at the moment as the non game world has impinged a little on the development, I've got a job in the next week that has distracted me a little... very interesting stuff which I will tell you more about a little later on.. there is a need for secrecy but I promise it will be worth the wait!

In other news.... I've been playing around with an idea for another game... Based around the reanimation of dead tissue this has about as much in common with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein as... well... most of the Frankenstein films ever produced by Hollywood! In my game (Tentatively Titled "The Spark of Life!" as "It's alive!" has already been taken) each player takes the part of a Mad Scientist attempting to stitch together and reanimate a dead body. There is a storm coming and once it hits then the process of reanimation must begin! MWAH HA HA HA HA! etc.

It's a card and dice game and I'm hoping to do it initially as a print and play thing as a beta version and then perhaps as a print on demand game from one of the online retailers. At the moment the art is pretty basic (as done by me with some marker pens and very little artistic talent) but that might change too!

So all in all both disappointing and exciting in equal measure... sure I would have liked Marooned to have swanned off to Q-con, then be whisked away by a wonderful producer and be in print within the year, but the chances of that happening were always very remote as it was. Here's to the next chance.

Where have I Been? Where Haven't I Been?

It's been a long time since I've updated this hasn't it?

Why? Have I given up on Marooned? Is there some crisis of faith that means that I'm giving up the whole thing and moving to Pontypool to raise Okapi?

Nah... none of the above... I've just been a bit busy. It's been nice out and I've been doing stuff.

But back to the Game!

Where am I at? Well it's getting close to that time where I have to give my demo copy to a mate to take to a Game Convention he is going to... that's exciting... but also a bit daunting.

I have a few decisions to make about what I'm going to send... I could just send the basic two player game with him (that would be the easy option) but I think that it may be best to send a version that can be played by 2-4 players... that's two double sided boards, forty blocks and requisite counters/men.

AND THE RULES!

That's the bit that is getting me in a tizzy... I have to get the rules sorted but I've not really got on with it... Last night I had a look at the rough draft I did and boy was it rough! There are a few problems I have to think through on this... there needs to be diagrams in the rules... some of the concepts of movement in the game are much easier to grasp if you can see them visually than read about them (well at least I am having trouble writing them in a way that can be easily understood!). But are diagrams better... or should it be photographs with additional arrows and so forth?

Also I think it best to include some sample moves within the rules... but should this be peppered throughout the rules themselves or in a separate section at the end? All things to be considered.

Gragh! well this isn't getting anything done is it? So for now I'm going to get off and get going on it and see how it turns out.


But I'm glad to be back and hopefully I can get moving on this very soon now for all those wonderful people who are going to get to play Marooned!

Wigan Carnage

I took Marooned to Wigan Wargames club last Friday... I wasn't pushing to get it played but thought that if there was an idle moment then I might just get it out.

There was an idle moment.... and I did! But more about that anon.

I must stop to shower praise on Wigan Wargames as a club, it is the most wonderful unexpected group of people around. I have been going there for about a month and a half and I can honestly say that it is the most welcoming, tolerant and fun group of gamers I have ever met. £3 for an adult and £1.50 (I think) for a child to go and play some of the best games around with people who really don't mind teaching you what to do... and enjoy playing the games win or loose! Brilliant... If you are around the Wigan area then I suggest wholeheartedly that you get down there one Friday night from seven and get playing the games!

Back to Marooned!


Two of the members and myself had finished one game and were looking for something else to play near the end of the night so I asked them if they wouldn't mind helping me out by having a play test of something that i brought along. They said that would be fine and so i took them to a free table and set up the game.

It was a bit of a test for me to teach the game to people that I don't know very well but that are well versed in games and those sorts of mechanics.

The first thing I found out was that one of the rules that seems very simple to me... really isn't! Or at least the way that I explain it to people doesn't make it plain enough.  It took one of the playtesters quite some time to get his head round it and I think that may have spoiled his enjoyment of the game a little.

Having said that both Gamers said that they did like playing it and after the first game was played they immediately started resetting the board for another game... always a good sign.

In the past I have always played when I have taught the game... there is no doubt that this is the easiest way of getting people to see the mechanics but one thing I have noted is that it tends to infect people with my style of play.  Marooned can be played in a variety of ways and there will be lots of different strategies available for play, that is one of the points of playtesting, you want to see if someone can 'break' the game, to see if any one strategy can be used to always win. As I have said before, people think that just because I invented the game that I must be some kind of Grand Master at it, nothing could be further from the case... Yes I have had a lot of experience playing the game, more than anyone else at this point but that doesn't mean I'm the best player of it by a long chalk! I have a strategy and I would describe it as conservative racing play which was why it was fun to watch the two players I was with go at it...

They were so aggressive in their play! It was pure carnage! A Grand Guinol of  Game play! Hilarious!

The first game was won with only one of each players pieces making it across the board. The second game fared little better and it was interesting to see where my game play differed from theirs. Next time I am going to play against one of them with my style and see which comes out on top.

The reaction was good, as I say the resetting up at 12.15am says it all to me really, they seemed intrigued by the game and wanted to investigate it more. Some good suggestions were given re; design and certainly more food for thought.

Also having revisited this for this blog I have had an idea for a set of boards... a last man standing set where there are no OUT blocks, lots of death trap squares and the winner will be the person whose pieces last the longest! Oh yes! This would probably be an expansion set and may well see the introduction of the DEATH MEEPLE!

Sorry... I got carried away there. but that is one of the good things about Marooned for me, certainly at this stage it is still finding out what kind of game it is, and it has built into the structure the ability to be more than one type of game within one box... you like cerebral strategy... I can do that for you no prob... death fest... please just try this board... group play... certainly... just down this aisle!

The next thing is to get the sets made ready to go with the people to the game convention and to teach the people who are going how to play.

Best get on with it then... Oh and See you at Wigan Wargames!

IH OUT

Lets Go!

I played a game of Marooned yesterday with a friend... scratch that, I played several games of Marooned yesterday with a friend. There seems to be a pattern that happens when people play the game it goes something like this....

First game... what the? You mean I don't roll the dice? Why can't I do that? Oh I see... Well you've won but you would wouldn't you, you invented it. Ok...Give me another go.

Second Game... I'm Getting it... Oh, that can kill me? Yes I forgot.. And you've won... yes but you would wouldn't you. Another Game.

Third Game... Right! ha Ha! That Shocked you didn't it... No I'm gonna... HA! Right... Got it now.... AGAIN BITCH!

This to a varying degree of language is the usual way things go... I played a few other games with another friend who said something along the lines of "well you know I hate board games, but I'd play that again" which is high praise indeed coming from her.

This week I have been wrestling with a design program to make the boards and other components that are needed to make the game. I used to use Corel for my design work but no longer have it on my computer so am now using a combination of INK and GIMP two freeware programs that do the same job. I've been trying to keep things very paired down for this incarnation. Theme isn't that important to Marooned, it is more or less what you would call an abstract game, it's not trying to recreate building castles in the 16th century, the rise of the industrial age or the fight against a pandemic (all good themes for very good games) but simply the plight of your little men as they try to get from one side of the board to another.

This is a good thing I think... sure if X games company take the game on board and say they want to re theme it in a automated cake factory I'll say hell yeah and take the royalties but until that day comes... I'm keeping it wide open.

This is a bit of a quickie as I have to get other things done, but I wanted to put a couple of things up here... the first I put up on my Facebook Page is the Logo...

Look at that Dunnit look lovely! and the little meeples falling off! Argh! off they go the little buggers

And the design for the Death Square in the game....

I See Dead Meeple.

Silly Huh?

Oh and one other thing... This Blogger thing lets me see where people the people are that read this blog... and I'm intrigued... who are you lovely people? there are some in the UK but also some from The US and Canada... even some from far flung places like Bulgaria... so if you fancy putting me out of my mystery then why not post a little comment after this blog to say briefly who you are, where you are from, how you found your self here and why you read this blog... Go on... you know you want to.

IH OUT

Radio Four and Hell

Hey I'm Listening to 'Left Bank Two' on the Youtube here... you might know it better as the theme tune to Tony Hart's Gallery if you are in the UK, if you are not in the UK then you might know it from the game Little Big Planet... either way I was prodded into listening to it because of a Radio Four programme i was listening too this week about Library Music which can be found here. Rather wonderful stuff.

What has this got to do with Marooned? I here you ask... well you have to do something whilst you are painting and sticking and re-sticking and swearing at 40 little cubes to get them how you want them!

It has been a big learning curve has this.

Each cube has to have a number on each of it's faces and the best way to do this with my limited real world artistic skills is to design something pretty in a cad tool then print them out on stickers and stick them on cubes... dead easy right?

The Addams Family Game Night Look

Wrong.

The design part went ok, till I saw an old design that I had done and wanted to include elements of that in the new design but still that was just a time thing. I found some cheap stickers in my local 'The Works' and decided to just print over them regardless of pre cut lines and then sort it out later. To add to durability I thought I would use laminating plastic on the face of the printed stickers... this was a mistake. Whilst the laminating plastic stuck to the stickers fine it also warped them and meant that they slowly peeled off the cubes after a while to rescue these I flattened them by pressing them against a cool iron whilst on the cube then stuck them down using prit stick extra strong glue... that worked! It also gave a sort of rubbery surface to the cubes meaning that they would grab on to any surface they were on or next to not good if you need them to slide freely as I do... so a coat of pva glue was then needed to stop the sticky.  That worked.

A Finished In Block

As a process this is far too long and involved to do for every cube... I measured my time by Radio Four programmes and put it this way I ended up listening to Jenni Murray more than once... too long.

So I have learned some lessons for the next set.

A Finished Out Block

I'm also going to do a bit of a redesign on the cubes themselves... the Victorian Gothic is a nice look but a little too dark for playing in anything other than full light and perhaps a little to themey for something with only the barest bones of a theme... they are starting to look a little too much like floral versions of the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser.

Spot The Difference!

Quick review on the to do list....

Make the 100 cubes into 10 two player sets.
40% done (with problems)

Get the Play testers NDA sorted out.
Not Going to do this after advice has been taken but will produce a handout

Organise a local play test night/day
Um yes... next on my list now that i have enough cubes for a few games

Get the guys who have offered to take Marooned to a Trade Show to play test, up and running with the game.
This will depend on me getting the thing above sorted won't it? so Um... yes

Edit the Rules and  put pretty Graphics into it.
To Start Today

Make up or source some feedback forms and get them printed.
Later

Think about what else this blog needs (If anything) while the game goes into beta mode.
Later

Price up the Demo Version, attempt to come out at a fair price point.
Much Later I need to get a workable way of manufacture up and running before I do that!

 

Stop putting Random capital letters in my Sentences!
yeah Right like that's Ever gonna happen!

So that's where we are at the moment... looking groovy I think... every set back is a thing to learn from next time me thinks... here's to less time making and more time listening to Radio Four!

IH OUT

Brahms and Lists

Hello all,

Not been about for a bit...been a bit poorly and had to do some other stuff for a while, also I'm making a present for someone which is quite involved time-wize but I'm going to make time to do a blog entry and make a little list of things to do in the near future at the same time.

This list will not be in order of priority but more in order of when things occur to me.

Make the 100 cubes into 10 two player sets.

Get the Play testers NDA sorted out.

Organise a local play test night/day

Get the guys who have offered to take Marooned to a Trade Show to play test, up and running with the game.

Edit the Rules and  put pretty Graphics into it.

Make up or source some feedback forms and get them printed.

Think about what else this blog needs (If anything) while the game goes into beta mode.

Price up the Demo Version, attempt to come out at a fair price point.

Stop putting Random capital letters in my Sentences!


That'll do for now... gosh it does seem to be a big mountain to climb. The make the 100 cubes into 10 demo versions alone breaks down into loads of little things like. Buy some black paint, sand down the 800 sharp edges into 800 less sharp ones, paint the blocks, make the stickers (Size them, print them, laminate them (possibly) cut them) then stick them to the blocks) Make some counters (Stickers again poss, or web sourced tiddlywinks or both) design the board, print the board.... Graghhhh!

You can see why it's a bit of a big mountain to climb.

But I shall get there!

(best get on with it eh?)


IH OUT

There you go... scale again.... size!

Well I dropped off the radar a little bit there... I'm sure that there were some people who were worried that I had gone to the Wigan Wargamers group and from thence been sold into slavery... no such luck for you I say.

The Wargamers Group was wonderful, I had a lovely time and played three games that I had never played before. The People there were very patient with such a newbe to the hobby explaining games clearly and well and not afraid to admit to it when they had ballsed up. Highly recomended.

I have stalled a little on the production of the marooned demo version because of one issue... scale.

In the game (as you may have seen from the photos in the first post) you need to have your men on top of the little blocks... sometimes up to six at a time. In the photo the men were represented by coins but I would rather that they were 3D tokenms of some kind either the Meeple thing or a Pawn.

The problem is then fitting these on the top with any degree of comfort. I ordered some Pawns from an online surce and next to my blocks they are bloody huge! you can only get four on top at any one time. I tried Meeples from my Carcassonne game and could get the requisit six on top but only just, and they were standing shoulder to shoulder (or stumpy arm to stumpy arm) and it seemled like one faulse move would bring the whole thing crashing to the ground.

Now I could just go with Tokens... or I could make the Blocks bigger... which would have a knock on effect on the board size, the weight of the product and the size of any packaging.

I think that for the purposes of this demo version (and the fact that I have had enough blocks made for five two player sets) I shall source some tiddly winks style counters and put some stickers on with nice smily faces to represent the tokens but I'm not sure that this is the best solution. (The best solution in the end is Meeples I know this but for that I will have to bite the bullet of resizing).

Meeples... they are lovely aren't they.

Why am I resisting the resizing issue? Well I guess it's because I don't want the pieces to look too much like children's blocks. But it may be that i will just have to rely on my elegant design skills for that.
Anyway. Enough of that stuff. on my tick list for today is, write a blog entry (ticked, good boy point to me) and make a start on writing down the rules (not ticked, one good boy point taken off (Aw!)). The Rules will not me made available on this site BTW and bringing that up gives me a chance to address something here and now.

I am hoping in the future to let producers of Board Games look at this game with the possibility of producing it and selling it; Therefore it would be foolish of me to put completely out in the open the game for all to pick over now. Some people have said that already i have been a little too candid in the info I have given so I will be pulling back on that somewhat. I don't think you could reverse engineer my game from the info posted but you never know.

Now if all that seems a little tight, then remember  will be looking for play testers somewhere down the line and I will be announcing that need here first, so stick with it and you will be among the first to be able to play the game in this iteration. I also have plans to do some print and play games that will be developed in the open and I'll not be so precious about so there will be more interesting things to come.

Mr John Inman as Mr Humphreys

The first idea I have had for a print and play card game is tentatively titled "I'm Free!" and will centre around the machinations of the staff at a well known department store in the 1970's. It came to me when I was dropping off to sleep a couple of nights ago and I will no doubt rattle on about it in some depth soon...

Anyhow, that will do from me for now,

IH OUT

Stepping Out

Tonight I plan to take a trip to a local game club, Wigan Wargames.

http://www.wigan-wargames.co.uk

This has been long overdue.. Lets face it I am someone who LOVES board games but who hardly every plays them because, well, we just don't in the UK do we?

I am lead to believe that things are different on the continent, that board games are not considered to be childish things and that are perfectly reasonable things to use to while away the hours with friends. I do think that in the UK the general consensus is that Games are just for kids, but if you look at the complexity of most games (even those that on the surface might not seem to be that complex) it quickly becomes apparent that the last thing that they are is childish.


I will illustrate this point by showing you this image...

This is the cover of a game (not the original cover but very similar) It was bought for me and my friends when it first came out in 1979... because well, it's a game, it has monsters in it and they will enjoy playing it... I was eight... I was the oldest one in the group and I really did try to understand what you had to do but it was far to complex we ended up playing tiddlywinks with the monster tokens I think.

I replayed the game in my twenties and I seem to remember it as a quite good strategy game with a good level of humour but far too sophisticated for kids... but look at the art again...

It looks like it should be a great kids game with all those funny people and further to that, it doesn't look like a sophisticated game that adults could play. This however does...

...mmm how classy! The latest edition of the 1980's smash hit game... In fact the game that made it ok for adults to play boardgames again. Even though it's had a bit of a makeover it still very much aimed at the adult dinner party market. This edition even puts its playing age as 16+! I'm assuming that implies that the questions are too hard for kids, not that all the questions are post-watershed stuff, but you never know.

At the time people were heralding a new dawn for the board game and that a tide of wonderful followers were going to sweep in the wake of Trivial Pursuit's thundering advance... but... it ... didn't.

...and once the box of questions had been gone through a couple of times even Trivial Pursuit went back into the cupboard...

That's not quite fair TBH it was an uphill battle for boardgames at the time, home computers were the new thing and were taking off like wild fire. A lot of the leisure money that once would have gone on physical games were now going there... but now there is a trend back towards boardgames... on social networks, on portable multi-devices such as iPhone and iPad and in online games networks like x-box, steam and PlayStation. All have electronic versions of games... and not just the obvious old favorites, Scrabble, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, but things like Carcassone, Settlers of Catan and multi-various Reiner Knizia creations.

This can only be a good thing for board games in general, if you play the electronic version you may well wish to play the real life version too... so how long until you get the iPad version of Marooned?

...a little while yet I should think.

... but I'm not ruling it out!

So back to the first part of this post... I'm off out! to meet new people and play new games, and find out what sort of people real gamers are!

You see I don't know that many real gamers, certainly not people who are so wild as to go out on a Friday night to a scout hut just to play board games (They play table top war games too but I don't think I will be doing that)

And it looks GREAT! in pictures of the last meet people were playing all kinds of interesting board games... Power Grid, Boom Town and Cosmic Encounter!  All stuff I've never played... I'm gonna spend my night being taught new games and drinking tea... how lovely!

IH OUT

Pretty Pretty!

I really don't like stuff that hasn't been nicely turned out...

When I first made Marooned I had an idea of how I wanted it to look but unfortunately the technology I had at my disposal at the time couldn't keep up with what I wanted to do.  The blocks were hand cut, the stickers were just printed black and white on paper then stuck on and varnished... they looked alright but were not perfect... the boards were hand drawn... again nice, but not quite right.

NOW I HAVE COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN!

WITH COLOUR!!!!

Look at these lovely sides for the cubes...

Aren't they pretty?

I love the look of flock wallpaper and glowy numbers... I have used it before for the branding of Impropriety an Improv Comedy Group I sometimes work with. Its got a kind of groovy Fall of the Raj type feel to it.

Lots of colours up there aren't there?... that's me going a bit mad... as I will only be producing the two player version to start off with (possibly) then it will most likely be the Red and Blue sets first.

The current plan is that the designs will be printed out on to large stickers and then put on to the cubes.

Tomorrow I will be mostly painting cubes!

IH OUT

Little Blocks of Loveliness

Just look at this....

 Do you know what this is???

One hundred little wooden blocks that's what it is! Isn't that a thing of loveliness?

Here's the thing, To stop Marooned (insert alternative title here) from becoming just a bunch of odd wooden blocks in the back of the cupboard of what might have been I need to do something about it. A game is not a game unless people are playing it yep?

But apparently it's not as easy as ringing up Mr Monopoly and saying, 'Hey mate, I want you to publish my game for me and give me oodles of money for the privilege.' Games companies want things called demo versions and the right to say no! How very rude.

They also prefer it if you have some kind of interest in your game from the games community before you even approach them! I mean really! They'll be asking if the games any good next! Cheek!

So like you do i had a little look around on the interweb to see how people go about getting their game noticed... the answer seems to be, 'With a lot of hard work', but there are a few things that nearly every indie board game inventor has done to get his/herself noticed but the powers that be... one of the best ones is, self publish and be damned! If you are a poet or first time novelist that is now quite simple to do but because a board game is such a mix of disparate parts some of which might have to be hand crafted in the first instance this can be a bit of a big hill to start climbing let me give you an example as to why...

They say that you should produce 500-1000 copies of your game to begin with, some to send out free to reviewers and 'Alpha' gamers, the rest to haul around trade shows and sell and/or sell from a website. this should start getting enough buzz going about your game (assuming it's any good) to get you a better foot in the door with any games companies you may approach after that.

Each Player in Marooned (sic) has at his/her disposal ten blocks (8 movement blocks, an 'In' Block and an 'Out' Block) so in a two player set that makes 20 blocks (can you see where this is going?). To produce just a basic 2 player version as a demo I have to source up to 20,000 little wooden cubes! That's the first picture times 200 to my limited maths... that's a lot of bloody blocks!

And they aren't really off the peg items... have a look around the web... see what you can price these buggers up for... I looked on CraftShapes.co.uk and found a set of five 1 1/2 inch blocks at £3.53! that's an outlay of £70,600 to make the demo set... GULP!

Ok so I didn't get my cubes from there... I'm not so daft.

I got them from a local timber merchant who will cut to size any bit of wood and liked the challenge of doing the cubes for me 100 cost £7.00 (Much better) but to get to the 1000 demo sets would still take £1,400 just for the blocks alone so I think this will have to be done piecemeal. A little at a time and perhaps (certainly for a web order) Produce on demand.

Did that scare you a bit? It did me... here have a picture of the lovely blocks again to calm you down.

...look they've got a little old style one on top... how cute!

Old style? Oh yes! the new Marooned will look differenter to the old one my hearties... more of that later!


IH OUT

Here we go!

So this is a blog hopefully to let people know where I am at in the development of my board game Marooned (at least that's what it's called at the moment, that might change).

So... what is Marooned (or Whatever) where did it spring from? Well, when I was a Drama Student in That-There-London I got into playing board and card games quite heavily. Many hours were spent playing things like Magic the Gathering, Talisman and Illuminati the CCG. I was also quite into Logic Puzzles and in one book there was a puzzle/game which involved a dice on a chessboard type affair.

Marooned grew from thinking about this puzzle and various other things (more of this later) this is just a first post.

The basics of Marooned (or Something) is to get your little men from one side of the board to the other using the blocks to form a path whilst trying to stop the other players from doing so.

You can have 2-4 players but I think that the demo version I'm going to produce will just be the 2 player game... here have some pictures of the very demo set with the crayon drawn board we used this weekend.

The Game at Set Up

Mid-Game

Red Wins

So there you are.. some pretty pictures and a bit of a rambling text.. that should do you to start off with!

More Later...

IH OUT