Implementing a Real World Mechanic

Implementing a real world mechanic is hard for many designers because they are too tempted to keep too much of the real world in their board game. When designing, I preserve the experience of the mechanic in the real world, even though I do not always preserve the theme.  In the real world, that mechanic is part of a larger more complicated system that can be too complicated to implement in a board game. When I implement a real word mechanic there is a particular aspect of the mechanic I want players to experience.

The first step to utilizing a Real World Meachic is to distill the mechanics down to most basic components and purpose.  This simplicity focuses in on the fun in the singular real world mechanic. Stock is a form of cooperation. Stock enables people to form partnerships that divide ownership within something that they can easily trade.  Stock is also part of a larger financial system that interacts with banks, bounds, hedge funds, etc that complicates what stocks can do and is not part of the experience of stocks I want to partake in my board game design of Hoboken. Hoboken is about the experience of using stock to work together in a competitive environment.

In Hoboken players are hotel operators trying to build new developments along the waterfront of Hoboken. No single player has the cash on hand to construct these hotels and no means of obtaining new cash until a hotel has been built. The only way to get a hotel constructed is by forming partnerships with other players, splitting ownership and the potential income in future turns.  By removing many other means of raising capital investment found in the real world, players in Hoboken focus on the fun of negotiating the price of a share, deciding how to divy up ownership in a new construction, and who they want to form partnerships with to build their real estate empire. Players are not sidetracked from the core real world mechanic by unnecessary themes or actions.

Go Forth and Game Interview: Austin of Dr. Wictz

Tom Gurganus of the Go Forth and Game podcast & blog recently interviewed Austin from Dr. Wictz.  In the interview Austin talks about my experience pitching board games to publishers at Origins, how Dr. Wictz was formed, using the Controlling Idea in Design, and other developments (see Index below for more details on topics).

You can download the episode here.

Podcast Episode Index:
(All links below are to related Dr. Wictz blog posts or links  to things outside of the podcast)

00:00:45  Intro

00:04:22  Advice how to make a video for a board game prototype (Part I & Part II)
               
00:06:30  Dr. Wictz origins (formation of Dr. Wictz) story

00:11:00  How to use the Controlling Idea to design board games

00:19:38  How to use Iterative Design to refine a board game design

00:25:55  A little Unpub Network Love

00:30:18  Cattle Car (Active Design)

00:40:51  Hoboken (Active Design)

00:48:27  Pitching Game Designs at Origins Game Fair

00:51:08  Update on Post Position - Now Bookies and Bettors

00:53:25  Aaron & Austin's Origins Game Fair Side Bet

00:55:40  Game Designers of North Carolina

00:56:56  Why Designers Should Get Board Room Ribbon at Origins Game Fair

00:59:52  The New Jersey Syndicate (Upcoming design)

01:03:56  Overtime (Upcoming design)

01:08:57  A Fishing Story

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

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: A Few Quotes from UNPUB5

There were "more in attendance to UNPUB 5 than the previous three combined"

- UNPUB 5 volunteer

"When a play tester comes back for a third time to play your game again, how can you refuse?"

-Charlie Hoopes talking about demoing his game Lady of the Diamonds  

"I play Power Grid, I like Power Grid, but this game is better than Power Grid."

-Hoboken Playtester 

"I had to run back from lunch with half of it stuffed in my mouth because there was a mob of playtester demanding to play my game."

-Nathaniel Levan

"Last Year I could sit down at any table and play any game, this year all of the tables are full...always."

"Its a good problem to have"

-Bruce & Mike from the Party Game Cast featuring the PartyGameCast

"The game ends when the players have decided who is the winner"

"Oh"

"They have been playing for 2.5 hours"

-Alf Shadowsong talking about Kiva Fecteau and his game Diplomancer

To get picked up by a large publisher you need to design something that their in-house designers could not make."

-Advice given to Paul Owen from a playtester

Congress of Gamers Preview 2014: Austin Smokowicz

There is an unwritten rule (until now since I am writing it down in this post) that I do not do a game preview unless I have seen/played the game myself.  Excitingly for me, all the games that I know of that will be at the UNPUB ProtoZone at Congress of Gamers 2014, September  27th & 28th will be new to me.  Sadly that means I have no one to interview to get us all pumped for two days of board game playtesting heaven...or so I thought until I realized there was one game that will be in the UNPUB protozone that I have personally playtested in the past, my own.  So today one half of Dr. Wictz (Aaron) will interview the other half (Austin) about the games Austin is bringing to Congress of Gamers.  

Dr. Wictz:  Well Austin, I have known you since my freshman year of high school and I have seen many of your game designs over the years, including U.N. the Card Game. What new exciting game are you presenting at Congress of Gamers?

Austin Smokowicz: For this years Congress of Gamers I’m bringing the first in the ‘New Jersey’ line of games called Hoboken.  Players play as real estate developers building luxury hotels in the city of Hoboken, catering to the tourists coming to New York City.  Unfortunately the construction costs are too high for any individual player, so they must partner with each other to raise enough capital to complete construction, and negotiate over the ownership and profits of the new building.

Dr. Wictz: Where did you first show the game to Dr. Wictz? (I had to ask, apparently my questions are part of some sort of standardized form).

Austin Smokowicz: Huh? Where did I first show it to me? Well, I first playtested with some friends over the summer, but Congress of Games will be the first open-to-the-public testing of Hoboken.

Dr. Wictz: How has the Hoboken changed since you started playtesting it?

Austin Smokowicz: There were two major changes after that first playtest, one mechanical, and one componital. For the components, every round tourists are drawn from a deck as they enter the city and try to find a place to sleep. Because this deck is supposed to be random every round, I spent the entire playtest shuffling the cards! I decided no one should be stuck with that burden, and so changed it to chit pull, one simple shake of the bag, and you're good to go. On the mechanical end I had it so that once all of the hotels were available to be built, players drew from a hurricane deck that would end the game. But, I found that by then the game had already been won, and the extra deck drug the game out with little change in players positions.

Dr. Wictz: What inspired the current game theme, I mean New Jersey of all places, was New York City taken already? 

Austin Smokowicz: Well, NYC does have rent control…Honestly it was a mistake of geography on my part, I really thought it was by the beach, and thus the hurricane talk, and when I visited a few years ago I really, really, liked the street clocks.

Dr. Wictz: So you picked the name because you have trouble with geography, even after visiting the place, what next, a cattle ranch in central jersey?  

Austin Smokowicz: Well yes, but we’re here to talk about Hoboken.

Dr. Wictz: If you could see my face you would see a look of puzzlement.  So before you send our readers into a freezie by claiming all of Dr. Wictz games are set in New Jersey I am going to ask you a new question.  How did you get into designing board games?

Austin Smokowicz: I started back in middle school. In my first attempt at making a board game I tried to recreate the computer game Wolfenstein 3D using grid paper. And shortly thereafter I attempted to re-purpose my Stratego set to run football plays. If only I knew Space Hulk and Bloodbowl existed!  

Dr. Wictz: Why do you love making games, other than to profuse your love for New Jersey? (I always thought you would have some sort of grudge against Jersey, aren't you originally from New York state?) 

Austin Smokowicz:  Let’s go Buffalo, but I moved away many years ago. as for my games, nothing was intended to be in Jersey, just like everything else in Jersey, they ended up there. 

For myself, when it comes to the choice between being a consumer of content, or a creator, I’ve always chosen to be the creator. After a while it has become second nature to look at the world and ask ‘what can I make with this?’

Dr. Wictz: This will be your 3rd, 4th Congress of Gamers.  So at this point you must have some favorite past moment from previous Congress of Gamers?

Austin Smokowicz: My favorite past moment of Congress of Gamers came during the first time I attended. I spent the entire day in a room featuring unpublished games for a contest. And had a blast playtesting and discussing the games with their creators. It was only years later I learned that that event was the impetus for the Unpub network.

Dr. Wictz: What draws you to Congress of Gamers?

Austin Smokowicz: I enjoy the people who attend, the location is great, you can’t beat the price point for entry, and I get to play a lot of great published and unpublished games.

Dr. Wictz: Any shout outs to your most dedicated game testers (cough  cough, wife, design partner, etc.)?

Austin Smokowicz: I would like to thank my supportive wife Rebecca, and her good friend Zhanna, who while having never played any of my games likes to be recognized for these sorts of things. 

Dr. Wictz: Is that all? (cough, cough)

Austin Smokowicz: Oh, umm, yes, I forgot to mention my good friend and design partner Aaron Honsowetz. Without whom I would still be sweeping the streets of Trenton…. I mean...

Dr. Wictz: Anyway, If someone wishes to follow you and your game designs where can they go to learn more? (I know, I know, we are in essence interviewing ourselves, but its on the form so I have to ask it).

Austin Smokowicz: If you want to follow me (and Aaron), congratulations, you have. You can check out our profile, twitter, and facebook page through the links on the right side of this web

page.