Not Back in the Swing of Things

After my almost-a-full-month-away-from-my-desk, I'd like to try and get my head back around to finishing up Leviathan, but that's not going to happen for a little while. I submitted Minsterpool to the GCOM Game Design Contest, which passed the first round (a cursory read over the rules), and so I'm working on a prototype to ship out to them. Additionally, I had wanted to go back and rework some PocketCiv stuff based on the trickles of information coming in through boardgamegeek.

I had attempted to submit Minsterpool to Hippodice earlier, but apparently that email got lost somewhere in the ether, as I didn't hear anything back from them (which they traditionally do respond back either an "yea" or "nea"). So, I guess this will be a good trial run for later this year. It's probably my tightest game, "tight" being a strange term in that I'm not really sure what the definition of tight is. The game plays very cleanly (well, at least in my online playtesting of it), is pretty simple, and is not language-dependent.

Somewhere down the line, I'd like to expand upon it; but not in the usual expansion way. Right now, the game is solely about gaining influence over the various court members. And that's it, points for control. I envision a much larger purpose for this. I imagine an add-on game where controlling each court member actually let's you play out those court members on another board; and that's where you score your points. So Minsterpool is just one basic mechanic in the scheme of a bigger game that will play out. But that's for later at this point.

As I'm working on this prototype for the contest, one of the more interesting things I've discovered is that getting things printed out at Office Max on their color laser printer produces really nice results which don't smear under the use of sticky, wet fingers. Normally, I print stuff off my home inkjet, and then have to laminate it, so this has relieved me on a step. Also, I decided to try out using some Bienfang Master Illustration Board as a backing for the "boards" instead of my usual foamcore. And results are impressive. Now, I might have to shell out the extra 10 bucks to get my game back from the contest since this proto is coming along so nicely. Guess I'll be dumping the foamcore method from now on.