Print and Play News Blog

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Future Content for this Blog

I started this blog awhile ago as a sister site to my BGG blog. My goal was to provide interviews and other supplements to that blog but that got pretty difficult and I stopped doing it early on.

I've been thinking about what to do with this blog. One thing I've wanted to do for awhile is write a few tips and tricks posts about PNP games in general. Things like tips on how to craft them and tools that are useful. I'd like to start posting those here as a reference for people new to PNP or looking to try new methods.

Keep an eye on this space and hopefully I'll have some interesting content here soon.

Hottest New Book

Naval SITREP #53 (October 2017)

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Interview with Brenden Sewell, Jared Beauchamp, and Jesse West - Scathe

Hello! Welcome back to the PNP News! This post is part of a series of interview that I'll be conducting with game designers who are participating in board game design contests on Board Game Geek. Today, I'll be interviewing Brenden Sewell, Jared Beauchamp, and Jesse West who designed the game Scathe for the 2016 2 Player PnP Design Contest.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
We are a group of three video game developers who decided to try our hand at designing board games. We all share a passion for tabletop gaming (money made from digital games has a tendency to go directly to expanding the physical game collection), and collectively have decades of experience in the video game industry, but only recently decided to merge those passions together based on the nugget of an idea that eventually became Scathe.

What is your favorite PNP game?
Hive Mind by Richard Garfield

How did you first discover PNP design contests?
Brenden has been active on BoardGameGeeks for years, and was always intrigued by the quality and numerical increase in WIP games during contest season. We had the rough idea for Scathe as a 2 player hybrid dice/card game, so when we saw the 2 Player PnP contest, we realized it would be a perfect excuse to turn that idea into a functional game.

Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
Scathe recalls the turn based tactical RPG video games we loved growing up. The pixel art style, party member combat mechanics, and turn based gameplay all harken back to the sense of adventure and strategy that defined that era and genre of gaming, and with Scathe, we extended that feel into a competitive head to head game.

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Players act as battlefield tacticians leading teams of heroes into battle against an opposing force. Each hero has unique and powerful abilities which can be strategically combined to dominate the battlefield. The player who successful wipes out the opposing team of heroes is the winner.

Players begin by recruiting a team of 3 to 6 heroes from a selection of over 20 unique hero classes. They then take turns rolling special dice that determine which of their heroes’ 6 abilities they can use, including powerful ranged physical attacks, armor bypassing magic attacks, or ally empowering buffs. They can also coordinate hero abilities to unleash powerful combinations and ultimately outplay their opponent.

What were your design goals with the game?
We wanted to create a game that succeeded in the middle ground territory between high strategy and casual play; this required a careful balancing act with the role that the luck of the die would have on composing and implementing a strategy based on intelligent planning with your heroes. We also wanted a game that was quick to play (30 minutes or less), but with enough customization and variety that it would support many play sessions and long term value. And ultimately, the game wouldn’t have been a success in our eyes unless it achieved in evoking some of that feel from playing tactical role playing games in our youth.

How long have you been working on your game?
Ideation started nearly a year ago, but we really started experimenting with and implementing the mechanics 6 months ago.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Interview with Scott Allen Czysz - Iron & Brass

Hello! Welcome back to the PNP News! This post is part of a series of interview that I'll be conducting with game designers who are participating in board game design contests on Board Game Geek. Today, I'll be interviewing Scott Allen Czysz who designed the game Iron & Brass for the 2015-16 Wargame Print and Play Contest.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
Way back in the 20th century when I was in high school and college, my first introduction to serious board games were my older brother's game of Outdoor Survival, and my cousin's game of Feudal. I had a couple wargames too: PanzerBlitz, D-Day, Upfront. Then, computer games came along (Doom, Warcraft, Call of Duty). Fast forward a couple decades (to about a year and a half ago), and my son starting helping a friend re-furbish an old downtown storefront because he was going to open a game store. Soon, games starting creeping into our house: One Night - Ultimate Werewolf which led to Carcassonne, which led to Stone Age, to Shipwrights of the North Sea (still my favorite), to 7 Wonders, and on and on.

What is your favorite PNP game?
Anything by Todd Sanders. Is that a valid answer? I've only printed one of his games - the 1 page "A Wanderer in the Forest of Wyr", but I've played a few more that I purchased. "The Seeker in the Forest of Wyr" and "Mr. Cabbagehead's Garden Game" are also excellent.

How did you first discover PNP design contests?
First, I discovered Board Game Geek. Then - being an engineer and creator - I discovered the Board Game Design section of BGG. I saw a thread for a publisher's design contest, dusted off a simple card game idea I had been toying with for years, created real cards (in Powerpoint - gasp!), submitted the game, and it actually was a finalist. The game is called Talons & Teeth (the beginning of my "this & that" game titles).

Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
From the BGG game entry: "Welcome to the colony of Dugbirch - not a sprawling city of splendor and spires and airships, but an almost forgotten place too far away from civilization and with not enough gold to attract the city dwellers. But, just enough gold to battle over.

Two rival towns are mining gold and hiring the able bodied to build their towns into cities and their militias into capable armies.

Iron & Brass (like its inspiration, the Warcraft PC games) challenges players to select the right strategy, then execute that strategy to defeat your opponent. Hoard resources, build up defenses, build up an army, or some of each - all while your opponent is doing the same."

So, this isn't a grand civilization sized game, it's more of a small colony civil war size. It's also slightly steampunk with steam powered vehicles and "Iron Man"-like armored infantry called "Iron Infantry".

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Iron & Brass is a simple, 2 player "4X-1" wargame. I saw 4x-1 since there really isn't any exploring, but there is definitely expand, exploit, and exterminate. Each player starts with a small base and gets 4 actions per turn to collect resources, build their city and army, move, and attack. Each player has about 40 units to choose from, but in a typical game, because resources are limited, will probably only build 15 or so. Combat resolution uses unit strengths plus each player rolling 2D3 (actually 1,1,2,2,3,3 D6). These dice introduce just the right amount of randomness, I think.

What were your design goals with the game?
I wanted to make a game that felt like the Warcraft PC game: decide on a strategy (offense, defense, hoard resources, etc.), then execute that strategy while your opponent is doing the same thing. The tech tree is similar to Warcraft also, so the players will need to build certain structures to get armor, or motorized vehicles, for example.

How long have you been working on your game?
I think I started toying with the idea back in July 2015, and had a good workable game by December of 2015. Special shout out to Chris Hansen for playtesting the game and providing valuable feedback. Thanks.

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
If you like the Warcraft PC games, then you'll probably like my game. Like I said, that was my inspiration, and I think the game flow is similar: collect resources to build up a city and army (from many choices of units), defend your city, decide when and how to attack your opponent.

Note from Chris: As Scott mentioned, I was an early playtester on this game.

Interview with Steve Ashing - Constantinople

What were your design goals with the game?
My aim was to chip a small piece off the mountain of ignorance surrounding Byzantine history. I feel that the role played by the Byzantine Empire is often under-recognized relative to its impact on world history.

Here's a quick quiz question to illustrate my point: When did the Roman Empire collapse?

If you answered somewhere around the 5th Century AD then you're my target audience. Play this game and find out the real answer.

I hope that Constantinople inspires players to find out a little more about the place of the Byzantine Empire in world history.

How long have you been working on your game?
2 years off and on, mostly off. The game reached its final form mechanically before the current contest, but graphically and components-wise Ilya Kudriashov redesigned everything in March of this year (2016).

When I first started working on Constantinople, I had a mish-mash of mechanics which I'd cobbled together. I really didn't like the design at all and had put in no more than 10 hours of design effort by that point. Then I discovered States of Siege and realized it was a perfect fit. Constantinople has a much grander time scale than similar games, but all my previous efforts very quickly slotted into the States of Siege framework and Constantinople looked very close to its final form within a couple of weeks or about 8 hours dedicated work.

States of Siege is very easy to tune, by tweaking the cards to strengthen an opponent here or gain an action there. Constantinople went through a few iterations to balance it before I then built my first substantial prototypes for playtesting. I used cardmaker to build the cards and everything else I made in MS-Office and hand crafted. I then eagerly took it to several games events to try on the unsuspecting.

The feedback was lukewarm, but I hadn't tried it on any solitaire wargamers. I lost enthusiasm and shelved the game for over a year. When I saw the wargame contest, I thought I'd try my hand. The timelines were generous and the audience likely more appreciative of the subject matter, so I entered. When Ilya volunteered to revamp the design I was delighted, and feedback from the contest has been more positive than my previous playtests. The total time I've put into Constantinople could be broken down as : 20 hours concept, 24 hours design, 10 hours prototype construction, 16 hours organizing and communicating with playtesters, 16 hours contest and BGG admin - all spread out over 2 years.

I'll leave Ilya to add anything regarding the art and graphic redesign effort.

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
Israeli Independence

Note from Chris: I found this game to be a little more complex than Israeli Independence. In terms of complexity, I'd put it more in line with Levée en Masse.

Interview with James Driver and Doreen Bestmann - We Stand Alone

Hello! Welcome back to the PNP News! This post is part of a series of interview that I'll be conducting with game designers who are participating in board game design contests on Board Game Geek. Today, I'll be interviewing James Driver and Doreen Bestmann who designed the game We Stand Alone for the 2016 2 Player PnP Design Contest.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
I played a ton of board games as a kid and was always drawn to more complex games, although they were a lot harder to get my hands on back then! As a result, I also ended up creating a number of games myself, usually based on whatever TV series or computer game I was into at the time. I took a long break from gaming until my wife and I were living in England for a few years and looking for something different to do. We picked up a copy of Arkham Horror, and have been actively gaming pretty much weekly for the 8 years since then. We both love co-op games, but sometimes have a hard time finding ones that provide sufficiently interesting decisions to drive the joint problem-solving that we both enjoy.

What is your favorite PNP game?
We haven't played too many PNP games, but have played a ton of user-created content for existing games. We've both really enjoyed Jacob Schmidt-Madsen's scenarios for Mansions of Madness and Michael Hunter's scenarios for Eldritch Horror. We're looking forward to trying out more of the PNP games from this contest.

How did you first discover PNP design contests?
We'd created our own scenario for Eldritch Horror previously and thought we'd have a go at taking it a step further and creating our own game. In the process of doing so, we discovered the PNP community at Boardgamegeek, and as a result the design contest.

Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
Players take on the role of heroes defending humanity from an overwhelming horde of monsters spilling forth from tunnels under the earth, seemingly without end. We were inspired by games like Vermintide and Myth the Fallen Lords - where things never seem to get better, they just become less bad. The monsters are generally much more powerful than the heroes who must rely on skill and cunning to stand any chance of survival. We wanted to give players that experience of revealing new monsters and thinking 'Ah damn, how are we going to deal with this' - and then the satisfaction of finding a way to beat it.

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Players roll dice and then assign them to various skills and abilities to do damage to the enemies that appear. Rather than higher numbers being better, the results on the dice just determine your options - all dice can be used, just in different ways so players will be constantly challenged to make the best use of the resources they have available - rarely if ever will the dice prevent you from being effective, but you might have come up with different strategies depending on the outcome. As the game progresses, players purchase new skills, items or additional dice, giving them new ways to deal with the increasingly challenging enemies. Managing which enemies are engaged with which players is key, as many of the enemies are capable of one-shotting a hero if not handled effectively!

We also included mechanics that enabled players to work together by 'saving' dice that can be used by other players, or having abilities that can be activated during other players' turns, ensuring that players stay engaged even when they're not the one taking their turn - we wanted a co-op game that kept everyone involved at all times.

What were your design goals with the game?
To create a co-op game that presented challenging decisions, that required players to think together and talk together to strategise and overcome the challenges of the game, and to provide a large degree of replayability through different hero abilities and builds. And most importantly, to do all of this in a game that could be setup, played and broken down in under two hours.

How long have you been working on your game?
We only started working on it in March this year, but we put a silly number of hours into it, designing, playtesting and tweaking. I honestly have no idea how much time we spent in total. Suffice it to say it was a lot!

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
If you like the Lord of the Rings LCG and the decision making that comes with that, but want something that can be setup more quickly and without the deck building, then you'll probably enjoy this.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Interview with Lee Broderick - Maeshowe

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
The game involves a large amount of hand-management, whilst tokens keep track of progress and special powers.

What were your design goals with the game?
I wanted to make a simple solitaire game that lasted up to half an hour but provided some challenge in terms of strategy. I also though that the scenario leant itself to a good solitaire experience.

How long have you been working on your game?
A few months.

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
If you like Onirim then you might like my game. Both are essentially solitaire hand-management games. Having said that, I think my game offers more in the way of strategy and planning as well as a greater challenge. There again, I'm biased and I was also one of the few solitaire players to be disappointed by Onirim!

Interview with Aleksandar Saranac - Dungeons of Light and Darkness

Hello! Welcome back to the PNP News! This post is part of a series of interview that I'll be conducting with game designers who are participating in board game design contests on Board Game Geek. Today, I'll be interviewing Aleksandar Saranac who designed the game Dungeons of Light and Darkness for The 2016 Solitaire Print and Play Design Contest.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
I am solo gamer - playing solo bordgames, wargames and RPG. I keep the blog about my gaming that can be checked at this link: www.battreps.blogspot.com. As I have PHD in Statistical Process Control, I am the one good at designing mathematics for the games. I guaranty that my games are balanced. Graphic, on the other hand, is my week side.

What is your favorite PNP game?
I play a lot PNP games. This includes Civilization in my pocket, Inspector Moss 2: House Arrest, Micro Rome, The Lord of the Rings: The Adventure Deck Card Game, etc.

How did you first discover PNP design contests?
I can't remember. I participated at the first Solitaire PNP contest in 2011, and from then on I am entering my games to the contest every second year more or less.

Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
Dungeons of Light and Darkness is a dungeon crawler. Your explorer will enter ever-changing underground labyrinth in the search of the Fountain of Knowledge. Labyrinth is basically empty - there are no monster in it, no traps. But light and darkness within it play tricks on explorer's mind, enough to drive him mad and forever lost.

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Dungeons of Light and Darkness is push your luck dice and tiles placement game. You roll the dice and use the results rolled to place new tiles to the dungeon or to turn the light on in some dark part of the dungeon. But if the luck is not on your side, you will be left with the odd dice that will bring darkness your way, and you will have to move around or you will be forever lost in the underground.... There are some similarities to game Escape: Curse of the Temple, but only to a certain point...

What were your design goals with the game?
As I have already mentioned above, the initial idea for the game came to me after playing Escape: Curse of the Temple. Actually, I didn't like that game so I wanted to design something with the same theme and similar mechanics that will better suit the style of a game I would like to play.

How long have you been working on your game?
I started working on this game in April this year. I was able to create components rather quickly thanks to the great free on-line Pyromancers.com Dungeon Painter software. This solved my graphic knowledge issue.

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
Inspector Moss 2: House Arrest, winner of the 2011 contest. Theme and game-play are different, but it falls under the same dice and tiles placement mechanics.