Should Designers Make Videos for Unpublish Board Games Part 2

Link to Download Podcast

Dr. Wictz and TC Petty III get together in a two part seminar series to discuss the role of video for board game designers in attracting publishers and players for unpublished board games.  In part two of the series, Dr. Wictz and TC Petty III talk with board game players Bruce and Mike from The Party Gamecast featuring The Party Game Cast about what videos actually matter to players.  After talking to Mike and Bruce Dr. Wictz and Tc Petty III reflect on the insights shared by the publishers and the players to deduce what are the most valuable roles of video for unpublished board games.

Link to Part One

Examples of Prototype Videos Referenced in Podcast:

Complete Playthrough - Vivajava: The Dice Game

Abridge Playthrough - Table Top

Promo Video - MVP Boardgames UNPUB6

Live Video (Periscope)  - Ed Marriott Gencon 2015

Rule Explanation - Hoboken

Rule Explanation - Daniel Solis 

Snippet - Hoboken Unwelcomed Visitors

Snippet - Hoboken "Game Over Man"

Internal Conversation - Michael R. Keller FCOJ

Should Designers Make Videos for Unpublish Board Games Part 1

Link to Download Podcast

Dr. Wictz and TC Petty III get together in a two part seminar series to discuss the role of video for board game designers in attracting publishers and players for unpublished board games.  In part one of the series, Dr. Wictz and TC Petty III postulate the goals of the different types of board game prototype videos before talking with Kevin Brusky of APE Games and Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games about what videos actually matter to publishers.

Link to Part Two

Examples of Prototype Videos Referenced in Podcast:

Complete Playthrough - Vivajava: The Dice Game

Abridge Playthrough - Table Top

Promo Video - MVP Boardgames UNPUB6

Live Video (Periscope)  - Ed Marriott Gencon 2015

Rule Explanation - Hoboken

Rule Explanation - Daniel Solis 

Snippet - Hoboken Unwelcomed Visitors

Snippet - Hoboken "Game Over Man"

Internal Conversation - Michael R. Keller FCOJ

Tips on Making a Rule Explanation Video with Two People in Different Locations

Someone asked me to make a video on how to play Hoboken to share with their friend.  Excitedly I said of course, but then I was faced with a problem, how do I make said video?  The challenge is that Dr. Wictz is not in fact one person, but two (just like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde without the evil), and I wanted both of my personalities to appear in the video.

Quickly, I got together with myself and I hatched out a plan on how to put together a rules video with two two people in different locations.

Separate Video from Voice

The key innovation I came up with was that I can record voice and images separately, with the images being only game components.  This allowed me to have both of my personalities in the video (Aaron & Austin) without ever having to get both of us in the same place.

Write a Script

To keep both personalities on task I wrote a script.  With two personalities, we can easily talk over each other, forget a key point to the game, and ramble (ok, that is just my personality, not because there were two people involved in making the video).

With a written script, I could just focus on saying what needed to be said and not worry about if I was missing something.  All I had to do was look at the script and ask myself if that part was finished or not.

Recorded Different People at Different Times

Writing the script took loner than I expected, so I was not able to record both of my voices at the same time.  Luckily, with a script I did not need to record both of my voices at the same time.  Each voice could make a recording and the recordings could be put together at a later date.

Each Person Reads the Entire Script

Just because I thought pre-recording one personality should say one thing and the other personality should say something else does not mean that was the correct decision.  By having both voices read the entire script I could elect to make any combination I pleased based on who sounded better doing what.  It also speed up the production process because if one voice did something wrong than I could check to see if the other voice did it correctly.

Google Hangout

A Challenge I had was how to record the voices and get it all to the same spot.  That was the magical moment when I realized the internet provided me a solution through the magic of youtube google hangouts.  I could have each each voice record a google hangout that I downloaded to get the audio for the final video.

Separate Video & Voice Bonus

As I watched the final product all put together I discovered one more bonus of recording voice and images separately, I realized that when I update the game components I only need to re-record the images, not the voices.

A Dr. Wictz List: 10 Uses for Pennies in Board Game Prototypes

After prototyping countless games I am going to let you in on a little secret on my favorite cheap material I use for board game components in my prototypes, the penny.  I know some places may scoff at my list (Canada) because they no longer have access to lots of low cost pennies for you to take from the convenience store cashier (as change, I am not advocating robbing the party store to get your board game components).  But for those of us who still have access to this low cost, versatile, board game component, here is a list of ways you can use it to build your board game prototypes.

Pennies used as movement pieces in
Underground Street Racing.

1.  Pennies as movement pieces.

2.  Pennies as mental coins for currency.

3.  Pennies represent a resource in a game, like copper.

4.  Pennies used as wound markers.

5.  Pennies as weights to prevent movement prices from being blown away.

Penny used as base to
prevent Post Position
horse from blowing over.

6.  Pennies track victory points.

7.  Pennies flipped as a way to determine start player.

8.  Pennies used as a way to denote ownership of a territory.

9.  Pennies thrown as a means to distract other players from making rational decisions.

10.  Many, many pennies used to bribe board game publishers to publish my game.

Are there other uses for pennies that I missed? Because I sure can’t use them to buy anything. So help me out and leave your suggestions in the comment section.

Prototype Question: Should I include money with my board game prototype?

On twitter I posed the following question:

When sending a board game prototype that uses money to a publisher do I include the money or will they want to use their own play money?
— Dr. Wictz (@drwictz) August 7, 2014

I was curious because I am preparing to make prototype versions of Post Position to send to publishers. 

Why might I think that publishers would not want me to include play money with the game?  Well, I naively thought some publishers prefer to use poker chips over paper money and they would pull out their own poker chips to play the game.

Quickly, other game designers corrected me of this fallacy.

@drwictz Include everything, when possible. Less effort on their end. They can swap out what they want.
— Gil Hova (@gilhova) August 8, 2014

@drwictz include everything. Don't make them search for components.
— Michael R. Keller (@vhgames) August 8, 2014

They make a good point.  These folks are being inundated with submissions from other aspiring board game designers.  Time spent trying to setup my game with their own poker chips is time lost playtesting other games.  Even worse, missing an important game component starts the playtesting off on the wrong foot, reducing the chances of my game being picked up.

And if there was any question to doubt other game designers, Crash Games, Dice Hate Me, Stronghold Games, and Tasty Minstrel Games confirmed that they want play money included with the prototype.

To be honest, Tasty Minstrel liked The Cardboard Jungle's idea even more.

@dicehateme @Crash_Games @drwictz @StrongholdGames @jameystegmaier @TastyMinstrel send some actually money too... ;)
— The Cardboard Jungle (@CBJPodcast) August 8, 2014

Tasty Minstrel never said which currency I had to use, so I am going to see if I can get my hands on Zimbabwe dollars.  The currency is so worthless that Zimbabwe officially abandoned it, meaning it should fit nicely into my prototype budget.

What Makes a Good Rule Book?

Andy Low of Random Access Podcast asks Dr. Wictz and TC Petty III what makes a good rule book.




You can also directly download the discussion from archive.org here

Emergent vs Analytical Game Design Podcast

Andy Low of Random Access Podcast moderates a discussion between TC Petty III and Aaron & Austin from Dr. Wictz about our different design philosophies.  In particular, we talk about the differences between Emergent vs. Analytical Board Game Design Strategies.  The positives and negatives of each approach.  And what situations/personalities best suit each style.

This discussion is motivated from TC Petty III's retort to Dr. Wictz's statement in Dr. Wictz's post on "Writing Down the Rules."   Dr. Wictz argued that writing down the rules before play testing was so important that he couldn't understand "when people say it's an early design, and so fluid that I have nothing written down."

TC Petty III stood up for non-analytical designers and after explaining part of his designed process, called Dr. Wictz out, saying, "The reason I don't write rules is not laziness, but because my brain doesn't process creative information like an analytical system designer until I'm developing a working system."


The podcast can also be downloaded from archive.org.

Playtesting the Controlling Idea

A month ago I talked about how the controlling idea helps me better prepare a game for playtesting.  Today, I am going to talk about how the controlling idea helps me use feedback from the playtesting of Underground Street Racing at the UNPUB Mini in Chantilly, Virginia.

For those of you not familiar with my game Underground Street Racing, the original controlling idea was for the players to experience the dynamic, fast, and has twisted turns of fate of snowboard cross, a Winter Olympic event.  I discovered during my iterative design phase that being true to a snowboard cross theme made the game too complicated, and that I could preserve the same experience by resetting the controlling idea and the theme to Underground Street Racing.

Controlling Idea and Playtesting Help Fixed Theme Problems

What playtesting revealed to me is while I had internally altered the controlling idea to be about underground street racing, some of the language I was using in the game was thematically snowboard cross.  In the version of Underground Street Racing that I was playtesting, cars could go too fast and crash.  When a car crashed it also crashed into other cars around it and forces all the crashed cars to stop before accelerating back into the race.

This frustrated my playtesters.  The pointed out that when there is a crash in an unregulated street race, especially if it takes out more than one car, there is no expectation of anyone walking away, let alone continuing the race.  That is when I realized crashes for going too fast was a byproduct of my old controlling idea and theme.  When snowboarding, if you crash, you generally get right back up and keep going.  Even if you crash into a few other people some bumps and bruises may be expected, but injuries are very rare.  

I needed players to stop imagining a horrendous NASCAR style crashes. So I thought back to my controlling idea of car racing and thought to myself what else can happen from going too fast in a car race that results in everyone slowing down, but not in the outright destruction of their car.  That is when I started visualising cars spinning out in NASCAR races and all the nearby cars having to slow down to avoid crashing into it.  So, I changed the terminology so that when a car goes too fast around a turn it loses control and spins-out.  Cars that spin-out, stop, regain control, and then try to get back in the race.  Cars around the car that spins-out also are forced to stop and then try to get back in the race to prevent a crash that would have eliminated them from the race altogether.

Controlling Idea and Playtesting Help Fixed Mechanic Problems

Playtesting also showed me where my game was unsuccessfully meeting the goal of the controlling idea.  I wanted strategic spin-outs throughout the race to be the twisted turns of fate within the race, but in repeated playtesting, each race had only one strategic spin-out close to the end.  I quickly figured out this was due to having five lanes in the game, and it taking a player half the game to get into a position where it was possible for a car to spin-out. And so, five lanes became three to encourage more spin-outs.

Even with the reduction in lanes, I still had a problem with the game not living up to the controlling idea.  The race was not exciting enough.  

Originally when players came around a turn they could speed up or slow down by being above or below the target number with their dice.  If players dice equaled the target number they remained at the same speed.  Maintaining a good line through the turns was the only way to keep control and momentum to the next turn in the race.  Each time a player played dice to move, they lost the dice from their hand unless the dice total equaled the target number, in which case they kept one die to use later in the race.

I thought this setup would result in chaotic and exciting races with cars constantly speeding up and slowing down.  Sadly, in actual game play this led to scripted races where players made sure to always hit the target number with all of their cars to keep as many dice as possible.  Only at the end of the race did players use dice to move into the faster lanes for the win.

I was at a lost at what to do until I received one suggestion that challenged my initial expectations on what was needed to achieve the controlling idea. The suggested change was to reverse the target mechanic, so that players only lose dice when they hit the target number.  That meant speeding up or slowing down allowed players to keep dice in their hand.  This had a massive effects on gameplay.  Cars were now swerving all over the place on the board, and with the reduced amount of lanes it meant that a potential spin-out was on every turn.  Players were not losing as many dice from their dice pool, letting me reduce by half the amount of dice each player needed to play the game.

Initially in my design, without any playtesting, I would not have entertained this idea.  I, incorrectly assumed that players needed the extra incentive to maintain a straight line through the course to better simulate strategic racing.  After I instituted the change and saw how it drastically alter the game for the better, I realized players were already rewarded to maintain a steady course by avoiding a spin-out or stopping during the race.  To create side to side motion created the risk needed to infuse the game with excitement throughout the race, I needed to make it harder to maintain a straight course.  I discovered that this change to the game better adheres to the goals of my controlling idea and is now a fixture of the current version of the game.    

Final Lessons on Controlling Idea and Playtesting 

Having a controlling idea at the onset of playtesting helps to better channel suggestions to make the game stronger.  I was able to take the feedback from the playtesters and discover flaws in my design that did not fit the theme or the desired experience of my current controlling idea and changed them to better fit the game.  

That said, the game still is a work in progress.  I still need to get more playtests of the game to figure out where else I can improve it.  If you wish to play test Underground Street Racing you can find the rules here, the print and play here, and the online feedback forms for the game here. I am grateful to any thoughts or pieces of advice you have.  

A Dr. Wictz List: 9 Board Game Prototype Problems

In light of the success of early access in video games, I wondered if board game players are willing to pay to play a board game before it has been finished.  To give you an idea of the joys of playing a brand new, untested game that has yet to be tested by anyone (including the designer), I have constructed a list of common experiences for a first prototype play testing.

1.  The rule book has rules that contradict each other.

2.  There isn’t enough physical money for players to play the game.

3.  There are parts included for the game that are not mentioned or explained why they are there.

4.  The game designers tells you to ignore a rule of the game when it becomes inconvenient.

5.  Play testers discover the game is either unwinnable or is decided after two moves.

6.  The game pieces, board, and anything else glued together becomes unglued.

7.  The spaces on the board are too small for the pieces.

8.  There is no standard iconography, and the rules miss some of the icons.

9.  There is a disagreement between players on what constitutes “winning the game.”

If this calls to you, I am sure we can arrange to build you an untested game to share these moments with you, for a price of course, say $50.00.

Game Design Philosophy: Iterative Design

Last Game Design Philosophy lecture I used the Controlling idea to craft the XYZ’s of Olympic Snowboard Cross.  Even though I have a core concept, the game is far from ready for prototyping, because I have yet to test the XYZ to make sure the game actually works.  

To put my ideas to the test I use the process of iterative design.  In iterative design new versions of the game are created one after the other. During the iterative design process I take the first stabs at balancing the game, making sure the game is not broken, discovering if the game is fun to play, and making sure the game flows from one moment to the next.  Problems arise and problems are solved with each version of the game.  

To give you a better idea on how the iterative design stage works, I am going to walk you through some of the iterative designs I have gone through with Olympic Snowboard Cross.

In my first iteration of Olympic Snowboard Cross I wanted to hew closely to the original theme. I decided the game should consist of several heats of elimination that lead to the final race to the podium. Each player was to control six racers from a country, and each racer would give a player five dice to make it through 7 jumps in a heat. This meant the more racers you had in a race the more dice you could roll and allocate to your team. The more races you are able to move on to a later heat the better chance you had of getting to the podium.

In this iteration the way to seed heats changed depending on the number of players.  I discovered that the seeding processes lengthened what should be a fast dice game.  Even worse, while I liked the idea of sharing dice among multiple racers, I learned the amount of dice needed was quite large and players had to spend most of their time competing bureaucratic tasks for setup instead of playing the game.

It was time to change the game. To do this I looked to solve the problems of the first iteration, while keeping the aspects I liked. Continuing the irritate process I began working on the second version of the game.

To guide this process I went back to my controlling idea, the experience of Snowboard Cross. What I have discovered is that my Controlling idea itself is too vague. What I care about is not replicating Snowboard Cross, but the racing experience of Snowboard Cross. An experience that dynamic, fast, has twisted turns of fate where first place can fall to last. Where people get too aggressive and wipeout taking others with them.  This narrowing focus of my controlling idea allows me to change the theme of the game to make the experience stronger.

I want to remove the bureaucratic elements of the Olympics, and focus on the race. To that end I changed the theme to underground street racing. Instead of multiple heats, the game will depict one race on one track. Each player will have three racers in the race and will position themselves around turns to come out ahead without crashing.

Having changed the theme and controlling idea I then turned to the mechanics. The main element in this game is throwing dice, and I wanted to strike a balance between the amount of dice needed vs. the number of turns the race contains. Because I liked a player having to split the dice between their racers I need a good amount of dice, but also feel short on dice so they will want to hit the target number and gain some back. After a few iterations I settle on 15 dice and seven turns. Obviously this is more art than science, and a number that will need to be heavily playtested, but I now feel that I’m in the right ballpark.  

This process continues as I get more detailed with the game, the changes will keep coming as problems are solved on how to handle things like movement and crashes. This is the essence of iterative design, nothing is sacred, and all changes are made to serve the Controlling idea, enhance and simplify the X,Y, and Z’s. It is true that all of these issues would have come out during playtesting, but in the last few hours I just saved myself what could be weeks worth of work building, playing, rebuilding, playing and rebuilding again. So now that this is done, there's one last step I need to take before I’m ready to unleash it upon the world. I need to put it on paper.

*Thank you to Michale Karg (@michaelkarg on twitter) for correcting/pointing out that I meant "iterative" and not "irritative" design.

Rule Writing Tip: Cross Referencing

I discovered the importance of cross referencing while running a blind play test of a game for a fellow designer.

What do I mean by cross referencing?

If you are undertaking an action that has a constraint on it elsewhere in the rulebook, you need to cross reference the section that talks about the constraint while you explain the action.  For example, imagine a board game where you are only allowed to take three action movement in a round.  This constraint is started at the very start of the rule explanation under the title Action Movement Constraint.  Now imagine you have a section of the rules on how to execute the different actions.  Say one of the actions you can do is pick an apple.  A cross reference will say that the picking an apple action counts as one of the three action movements mentioned at the start of the rule book under the heading Action Movement Constraint.  If there was no mention in the section that picking an apple cost one of your three actions in the pick the apple section, then there is no cross reference.

Why is cross referencing Important?

What I observed in the blind playtest is if there was no cross reference to a constraint on an action said elsewhere in the rule book, players learning the game assumed away the constraint.

Take a trucking game with a trailer component.  The trailer has little squares where you place the cargo it can carry.  Assume that the rules mention that each space can only hold one cargo in the game component section.   However, assume a page or two latter there is a section on loading the truck.  If the section on loading the truck does not cross reference the earlier mention that the truck only has room for one cargo in each space, then some players will not recall that was mentioned earlier in the rules and will be unclear on how many goods a truck can carry.

I observed in the blind playtesting that even when players were lucky enough to connect the dots without the rule being cross referenced, there was a large delay in learning the game.  The players had to pause, think, and flip back in the rule book to the section they thought they remembered had the important rule.

Cross referencing in board game rules gets rid of that down time for lucky players and prevents other players from leaving a rule out all together.

Lessons Learnt On What To Ask On a Blind Play Tester Feedback Form

What did I learn about blind play testing questions from my recent blind playtest of my game Post Position?  Back in October I came up with a series of questions to help me to construct a blind play tester feedback form.  (Link to: What to Ask on a Blind Play Tester Feedback Form?)  The feedback forms are now back and I will give a quick run down over the questions that worked well and the one that did not.

 

Did you like the game, why or why not?

 

Here is a question that was not on the original list of questions to try.  The question was a standard question on the old UNPUB feedback forms.  I discovered for a blind play testing this question was wasted ink.  The problem with the question was that people are way too nice.  

No one ever said they disliked the game, even though some players found the game to be difficult and too long.  Plus answers were short on detail so it was not clear what they really liked or disliked about the game.

 

That said, the sort of questions that did provide useful details about the parts of the game play testers enjoyed and the parts of the game they disliked was when I asked the straight up “What was your favorite part of this game?” and “What was your least favorite part of this game? “  Players were liberated from trying to come up with a reason why they liked the game or disliked the game and just went straight to the details about the parts of the game that were good and bad.

 

What I discovered was the most important question was actually a group of questions that I will call the four essential questions.

 

What was your least favorite part of the game?

 

Name one improvement you would make to the game?

 

What strategies did not or did work for you in the game?

 

What was the hardest rule to learn and why?

 

These four essential questions not only highlighted which rule in the game was the hardest for players to learn, but they also provided illustrations on how that rule affected overall game play.  In form after form, when a player listed their least favorite part of the game they would look to find an improvement to fix that part.  When they talked about their game strategies you could observe how that mechanism made it harder for them to succeed.  And when they talk about the hardest rule to learn it almost always was the player least favorite part of the game.

 

The four essential questions combined gave me an insight into not only what rule gave the player a problem, but how that problem affected their gameplay and what sort of things I need to try to fix that problem.  

 

For example, short position selling in my game Post Position could be a player’s least favorite part of the game.  Then the player would suggest a change to the short position selling form as an improvement to the game.  When the player talks about game strategy they then talk about how short position selling was a bad strategy for them and that there were uncertain why a player would ever engage in short position sales.  Finally, when asked what was the hardest rule to learn the player listed short position selling.

 

What did I learn? I learned the player did not understand the purpose of short position selling and was therefore not able to execute the maneuver in the game.  This means I need to do a better job of not just explaining how to conduct a short position sale but also include a short explanation on why a player might want to engage in a short position sale so they have a little intuition when it should be used.

 

This is concrete feedback that I will use to improve the game.  No matter the issue with the game, the four essential questions produced similar feedback.  These are the questions I am convinced should be in ever blind game play testing feedback form.

Random Lessons in Prototype Shipping

If you don't read the rest of the post and are getting ready to mail out a prototype for blind playtesting remember these two lessons:

 

1. Include your contact information in many different places with your prototype.

 

2. Americans, ship your prototype using a U.S. Post Priority Mail Flat Rate box.

 

Of course, to find out why, you need to keep reading.

 

Last October my board game Post Position left the safety of my home to travel and visit others for a series of blind play tests.  To keep prototype costs low, I was circulating a single prototype between different playtesting groups.  For this to work it needed to be easy for the host play tester to receive the package and to forwarded it on to the next destination.

 

My solution was to package the game in a flat rate size medium #2 United States Postal System Priority Mail box.  In the box I included pre-print labels with paid postage for each destination.  That way the host play tester only had to tape the next label onto a new free U.S. Priority Mail flat rate box and drop it off at the local Post Office. 

 

With all the pre-printed labels and an instruction sheet packed together I was on top of the world.  I didn't even have to worry if the postage was off due to a random weight change.  I thought to myself I was prepared for anything that could go wrong.

 

That was until I received a frantic message from the first play tester.  Post Position apparently wanted to make a side trip to Georgia.  The game hypnotized the host into thinking it was a t-shirt and not a board game.  So under a hypnotic trance the host placed a pre-paid shipping label onto the Post Position box to a t-shirt company in Georgia.

 

At this point we convened a crisis committee.  The host quickly contacted the t-shirt company and arrange to get the prototype mailed back to him.  Weeks past and still no game had returned from Georgia. 

 

I was prepared to write the prototype off as permanently missing in action when a human resources manager at Alpha company sent me a message saying they had Post Position.  Something had gone wrong with mailing Post Position back to the host and the U.S. Postal Service returned it back to the t-shirt company.

 

That is how I discovered the best things I did putting together the prototype for blind play testing was to include a lot of documents with my e-mail on it.  The t-shirt company found my e-mail and reached out to me.  

 

After thanking them profusely for contacting me and promising to say lots of nice things about them (you should all buy one of the t-shirt brands from alphashirt.com) I learned the other benefit of mailing the prototype using flat rate U.S. Priority Mail boxes with pre-paid labels.  I was able to e-mail a pdf copy of the pre-paid USPS shipping label to the t-shirt company.  Since the rate was a flat rate from any destination I had no worry about the package having the wrong postage.  And, if the Post Office had trouble delivering the box to its next destination, I would get the prototype game back since the return address was to me.

 

Now I eagerly await to see what sort of hypnotizes it performs next.  If only I could train it to hypnotize publishers to pick the game up instantly.