A very merry Christmas to you all, and much peace in 2010.
And Doctor Who at 6:00pm
Much love,
Thom
Friday, 25 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
The Difficult Second Post
Brap! Welcome back to the Cardboard Box Games blog.
(2005) Where am I? When I began designing games it was with my brother, then aged 6, simply to amuse ourselves. The first game we made was set in a nuclear reactor. There was some rubbish about collecting four components from the corners of the board, rolling and moving through twisting passages. When all four components had been collected, you had to move to the reactor core in the centre of the board, then roll four numbers in a specific sequence in order to unlock the reactor and blah blah blah... I can't remember how the code worked or what the components were for, and the game was very thin, but I seem to remember us having fun playing it. He was only six, remember.
Later in the year I designed Two Moons. The game relied too heavily on chance, but the gimmick of only being able to play certain turns when under the influence of the phases of the moons has kept the spirit of the game alive. It'll probably lose the mock-fantasy theme during the next prototype stage (surely a long way off) and be replaced with something creepy, something midnight, something dark. I'm also thinking about a co-operative slant to the game, but haven't put much thought into this yet. Another angle I might take with this game is the use of puzzles, riddles, clues and so on, but no idea how.
(2006) Quats was born after a meal during my second year at university. My best friend's then girlfriend suddenly decided that we should invent a board game. Naturally, I was all for this. I wanted the game to feature two playing pieces that relied on each other in order to move about the board. The game, then known as Quoits, remained as it was until I went to bed that night. Thinking about the game in bed, I realised how the game could work better than we had planned that evening, and I immediately changed the dynamics the next day. Now, I can't even remember the original rules. The game became known as Quats a few weeks later.
(2007) Quats was a success with my friends and I wanted to follow up with another absract strategy game. I had a vague idea under the surface that I couldn't quite manifest, which eventually came out as Bridges in 2007. After putting a lot of effort into making a picturesque board, the game turned out slightly stale. I'm convinced there's still potential in the game, but having put so much time into making the first prototype, I was reluctant to change anything, and therefore the game has remained as it is. When I need to, I'll come back to this game and turn it into the beast that it deserves to be.
(2008) The year of Gravity's Rainbow. This game came into the fray late in the day. Ex nihilo, I designed and created this game a couple of weeks before Christmas 2008 (if my memory serves me). Since then I have played this game well over 100 times. Another "abstract" strategy, Gravity's Rainbow has usurped the popularity of Quats in my circle, and is certainly the game of which I am most fond. It is also the game I am most likely to publish in 2010 - the first in Cardboard Box Games' ludography!
(2009) Ideas for games began to come to me more frequently, often as very vague ideas for mechanics, tone, theme, etc, but sometimes as fully-formed games. Many of the ideas that I would like to flesh out in 2010 I outlined in my first post. I've taken one of those games to prototype stage - Tangle - and if 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 were the years of Two Moons, Quats, Bridges and Gravity's Rainbow respectively, then 2009 is certainly Tangle's year. A very different Cardboard Box Game (though I'd like to hope that they're all different) Tangle could almost pass as a party game. I playtested the game with my class during maths lessons (many of my games have a strong pattern, space and shape awareness vibe) and received a positive reaction. Anyway, it's sat on my girlfriend's coffee table now so is bound to be played at some point during the Christmas season.
(2010...) I'm trying to pull together all the necessary components in order to self-publish Gravity's Rainbow as Cardboard Box Games. I'm nearly there. I'm currently having problems sourcing (ironically) the cardboard box for a relatively cheap price, but due to my small print run this could prove tricky. I ran into another local designer who owns this own games publishing company (Jackson Pope of Reiver Games) and he very helpfully pointed me in the right direction. It's actually very reassuring to know that there are people, even locally, who are self-publishing and even turning publishing into a profession.
Coming up: Generally, I'll keep you on top of my progress with setting up Cardboard Box Games as a company and publishing Gravity's Rainbow.
In 2010: "But is it canon?" Sometime I'd like to talk about creating Cardboard Box Games as a brand, and also how I try to find coherence between each game in the Cardboard Canon.
(2005) Where am I? When I began designing games it was with my brother, then aged 6, simply to amuse ourselves. The first game we made was set in a nuclear reactor. There was some rubbish about collecting four components from the corners of the board, rolling and moving through twisting passages. When all four components had been collected, you had to move to the reactor core in the centre of the board, then roll four numbers in a specific sequence in order to unlock the reactor and blah blah blah... I can't remember how the code worked or what the components were for, and the game was very thin, but I seem to remember us having fun playing it. He was only six, remember.
Later in the year I designed Two Moons. The game relied too heavily on chance, but the gimmick of only being able to play certain turns when under the influence of the phases of the moons has kept the spirit of the game alive. It'll probably lose the mock-fantasy theme during the next prototype stage (surely a long way off) and be replaced with something creepy, something midnight, something dark. I'm also thinking about a co-operative slant to the game, but haven't put much thought into this yet. Another angle I might take with this game is the use of puzzles, riddles, clues and so on, but no idea how.
(2006) Quats was born after a meal during my second year at university. My best friend's then girlfriend suddenly decided that we should invent a board game. Naturally, I was all for this. I wanted the game to feature two playing pieces that relied on each other in order to move about the board. The game, then known as Quoits, remained as it was until I went to bed that night. Thinking about the game in bed, I realised how the game could work better than we had planned that evening, and I immediately changed the dynamics the next day. Now, I can't even remember the original rules. The game became known as Quats a few weeks later.
(2007) Quats was a success with my friends and I wanted to follow up with another absract strategy game. I had a vague idea under the surface that I couldn't quite manifest, which eventually came out as Bridges in 2007. After putting a lot of effort into making a picturesque board, the game turned out slightly stale. I'm convinced there's still potential in the game, but having put so much time into making the first prototype, I was reluctant to change anything, and therefore the game has remained as it is. When I need to, I'll come back to this game and turn it into the beast that it deserves to be.
(2008) The year of Gravity's Rainbow. This game came into the fray late in the day. Ex nihilo, I designed and created this game a couple of weeks before Christmas 2008 (if my memory serves me). Since then I have played this game well over 100 times. Another "abstract" strategy, Gravity's Rainbow has usurped the popularity of Quats in my circle, and is certainly the game of which I am most fond. It is also the game I am most likely to publish in 2010 - the first in Cardboard Box Games' ludography!
(2009) Ideas for games began to come to me more frequently, often as very vague ideas for mechanics, tone, theme, etc, but sometimes as fully-formed games. Many of the ideas that I would like to flesh out in 2010 I outlined in my first post. I've taken one of those games to prototype stage - Tangle - and if 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 were the years of Two Moons, Quats, Bridges and Gravity's Rainbow respectively, then 2009 is certainly Tangle's year. A very different Cardboard Box Game (though I'd like to hope that they're all different) Tangle could almost pass as a party game. I playtested the game with my class during maths lessons (many of my games have a strong pattern, space and shape awareness vibe) and received a positive reaction. Anyway, it's sat on my girlfriend's coffee table now so is bound to be played at some point during the Christmas season.
(2010...) I'm trying to pull together all the necessary components in order to self-publish Gravity's Rainbow as Cardboard Box Games. I'm nearly there. I'm currently having problems sourcing (ironically) the cardboard box for a relatively cheap price, but due to my small print run this could prove tricky. I ran into another local designer who owns this own games publishing company (Jackson Pope of Reiver Games) and he very helpfully pointed me in the right direction. It's actually very reassuring to know that there are people, even locally, who are self-publishing and even turning publishing into a profession.
Coming up: Generally, I'll keep you on top of my progress with setting up Cardboard Box Games as a company and publishing Gravity's Rainbow.
In 2010: "But is it canon?" Sometime I'd like to talk about creating Cardboard Box Games as a brand, and also how I try to find coherence between each game in the Cardboard Canon.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Cardboard Box Games
Good evening and welcome!
As I have no real agenda for my first post I thought I might list the games I have either made or have "in mind" at the moment. Please feel free to ask, comment, poke or otherwise jiggle me around.
1. Gravity's Rainbow - "loosely abstract" strategy game involving stars, planets and black holes. Ooooh! This, I feel, is the strongest of my oeuvre, and the game I am currently trying to get into production.
2. Quats - again, "loosely abstract" strategy game with, I suppose, capture the flag elements. Capture the Quats, if you like. Prototype made, though I'm giving this one a re-haul at the moment as I have fallen out with the board layout.
3. Bridges, or, "Bridge over the River Quat" or even "Bridge over Troubled Quats" - completing the Cardboard Box Games Loosely Abstract Trilogy, this game is based on bridge building. Prototype made; needs refining.
4. Tangle - a shape-based, fast-paced game that I play with my class in Maths lessons. Featuring the characters Tangle, Shuffle, Shadow and MirrorMe. Currently in prototype stage. Has also spawned:
5. Tangle: the Card Game - the same idea as Tangle but played with transparent cards. Snazzy! Sadly, this game has not yet made it from my head and into the physical realm.
6. Two Moons - this used to be a spoof fantasy game that relied heavily on chance but also featured a neat Two Moons mechanic that was based on the phases of two moons that orbited the board. Now I'd like this game to feature a strong co-operative mechanic but I haven't given it much thought yet.
7. The Forest of A Thousand Eyes - an exploration game set in a moonlit forest. Hexagonal tiles, inventories, creatures and battles; I see this as the board game equivalent of Zelda and Pokemon. Like Tangle: the Card Game, this game has yet to come into existence in any way, shape or form...
8. The Circuit - a game based around lighting bulbs by manipulating an electrical current. No prototype made.
9. Dragon Doors - a dungeon-based game involving opening and traveling through portals. I have yet to flesh out the mechanics but it could prove to be a strategic game. No prototype made.
10. The Clock or Minutes to Midnight - a time travel game based on a clock face. I want the game mechanics to allow players to exist at different points in time and influence each other through time. No idea how this one's going to work, and as you might have guessed, no prototype has been made.
11. Colossus - imagine, if you will, a cross between Shadow of the Colossus and Lemmings. But as a board game. At the conceptual stage (i.e. no prototype made).
12. Nucleus - I wondered if there might be a game mechanic that could be drawn from the idea of creating bonds between chemical elements. This idea then boiled down to a simpler, less imaginative idea that was close to a hex-based Gravity's Rainbow. Needs further thought (and a prototype...)
That ends the list of the most concrete (or what could just about be described as concrete) ideas I have currently.
Until next time, goodnight.
As I have no real agenda for my first post I thought I might list the games I have either made or have "in mind" at the moment. Please feel free to ask, comment, poke or otherwise jiggle me around.
1. Gravity's Rainbow - "loosely abstract" strategy game involving stars, planets and black holes. Ooooh! This, I feel, is the strongest of my oeuvre, and the game I am currently trying to get into production.
2. Quats - again, "loosely abstract" strategy game with, I suppose, capture the flag elements. Capture the Quats, if you like. Prototype made, though I'm giving this one a re-haul at the moment as I have fallen out with the board layout.
3. Bridges, or, "Bridge over the River Quat" or even "Bridge over Troubled Quats" - completing the Cardboard Box Games Loosely Abstract Trilogy, this game is based on bridge building. Prototype made; needs refining.
4. Tangle - a shape-based, fast-paced game that I play with my class in Maths lessons. Featuring the characters Tangle, Shuffle, Shadow and MirrorMe. Currently in prototype stage. Has also spawned:
5. Tangle: the Card Game - the same idea as Tangle but played with transparent cards. Snazzy! Sadly, this game has not yet made it from my head and into the physical realm.
6. Two Moons - this used to be a spoof fantasy game that relied heavily on chance but also featured a neat Two Moons mechanic that was based on the phases of two moons that orbited the board. Now I'd like this game to feature a strong co-operative mechanic but I haven't given it much thought yet.
7. The Forest of A Thousand Eyes - an exploration game set in a moonlit forest. Hexagonal tiles, inventories, creatures and battles; I see this as the board game equivalent of Zelda and Pokemon. Like Tangle: the Card Game, this game has yet to come into existence in any way, shape or form...
8. The Circuit - a game based around lighting bulbs by manipulating an electrical current. No prototype made.
9. Dragon Doors - a dungeon-based game involving opening and traveling through portals. I have yet to flesh out the mechanics but it could prove to be a strategic game. No prototype made.
10. The Clock or Minutes to Midnight - a time travel game based on a clock face. I want the game mechanics to allow players to exist at different points in time and influence each other through time. No idea how this one's going to work, and as you might have guessed, no prototype has been made.
11. Colossus - imagine, if you will, a cross between Shadow of the Colossus and Lemmings. But as a board game. At the conceptual stage (i.e. no prototype made).
12. Nucleus - I wondered if there might be a game mechanic that could be drawn from the idea of creating bonds between chemical elements. This idea then boiled down to a simpler, less imaginative idea that was close to a hex-based Gravity's Rainbow. Needs further thought (and a prototype...)
That ends the list of the most concrete (or what could just about be described as concrete) ideas I have currently.
Until next time, goodnight.
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