Not signed in (Sign In)

Vanilla 1.1.5a is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.

  1.  
    The draft for this game lives here.

    This was my Game Chef entry from Artists First, but rewritten. A quick synopsis thanks to Rob Bohl, "It’s caveman days and you and Mate have to care for Baby. Baby likes to ride dinosaurs and get into all sorts of mischief. How will you and Mate deal with the shenanigans and what will the experience teach you?"

    The new rewrite is much tighter than the original contest version. However, I still have some things that I'm not sure about. Some of it may just have to wait until I can get some good playtesting in, but I figured folks might have some suggestions.

    1) One suggestion that I received on the new version is to add some more Skills that would relate to how the parent's deal with each other and other people. I think Talking was the idea that I had right off the bat. I actually think this is a suggestion that I don't need to think about too much especially since some of the Skills are pretty overlappy anyway.

    2) I know that I need good text that discusses making good Qualities for the child in the game. I'm just not sure exactly what makes a good Quality yet. Intuitively I know that they exist, just not exactly how to make them.

    3) Putting pressure on the parents' Issues during Chase scenes. I need good advice here. Brand suggests watching the people who do this well in playtesting and writing down what they do and why it works. At least to capture some of this.

    4) Is the end too loose? I flip flop between making the game lead to a definitive stopping point and letting players figure it out for themselves. I have the "running through the Obstacle deck" bit if the players don't bring the game to a close on their own, but I just sort of threw that in.

    I didn't post the full text here. I can remedy that if anyone wants me too.
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2009
     
    Yay! I'm glad you posted this here, Dave. This is such a sweet game. It is disarmingly simple. But I think the real twist lives in what the parents have to do to save the baby--how the issues in their relationship is what are really being highlighted by the antics of the kid.

    By the way, it is a three player game, right? How would you handle different numbers of players? I was thinking you could have multiple kids, perhaps.
  2.  
    I hadn't thought about more players yet. I think it would have to be multiple kids.... I'm just not sure how exactly I would break up their authority. Possibly each child gets their own set of Chase scenes, where the other child can join in to stir up trouble.
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2009
     
    3) Putting pressure on the parents' Issues during Chase scenes. I need good advice here. Brand suggests watching the people who do this well in playtesting and writing down what they do and why it works. At least to capture some of this.

    This seems like a good suggestion. It might be that having multiple kids would help in this process too. More people to bounce ideas off of.

    Also, you do use the oracle for the trouble the kids get into, too, right? So the pressure will be sort of a triangulation process. Taking trouble A and and crossing it with issue B in interesting ways.
  3.  
    Yeah. The process for putting pressure on Issues involves taking the current situation created by the child from the Obstacle card and applying pressure to one of the Issues. I know that this should work, I would just like to be able to give some advice on how to do it in the text.
  4.  
    Posted By: emilycareBy the way, it is a three player game, right? How would you handle different numbers of players? I was thinking you could have multiple kids, perhaps.

    I've been thinking about this and I keep waffling on whether I want to support more players explicitly or leave it as an exercise for the ambitious. I also wonder if I'm just having more trouble seeing the multiple child dynamic since I only have one of my own.
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 13th 2009
     
    Sounds like it could use some playtesting! I think it would be helpful since one will often have more players than three. But that's just my hit!
  5.  
    I just got another suggestion that I really liked for fitting in at least one more player. Create an older sibling with a mix between a parent's protectiveness and the child's mischievous nature. So the older sibling would try to protect the child, but would also have some power/requirement to introduce further complications into a Chase scene. I'll post a cut at how this would work when I'm not loopy with a fever.
    • CommentAuthorJason M
    • CommentTimeMar 24th 2009
     
    Feel better, dude. And link to the latest draft!
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 24th 2009
     
    I like that a lot. It also hits on how as a child we often adopt parental roles, for siblings, and sometimes even toward our parents. Looking forward to the next draft.
  6.  
    Ok. After too long of a wait, I finally found the mental power to finish the older sibling rules. I had them 90% of the way done before my world flipped upside down.

    The latest version can be found here.
    • CommentAuthorRemi
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2009
     
    Hooray!
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2009
     
    Yes, yay! I looked over the rules briefly and I like that you have the players figure out the niche that the older siblings occupy in the family. This could be a neat way to explore family dynamics.

    Have to play this, and your story poem.
    • CommentAuthorJason M
    • CommentTimeJun 12th 2009
     
    Dave, we're cooking up a playtest in Durham now.
  7.  
    That would be awesome Jason. My hands are tied on any playtesting right now.
    • CommentAuthorJason M
    • CommentTimeFeb 24th 2010
     
    Well, that was last June and it never happened, but I wanted to bump this thread now that you've got some playtest feedback from Dreamation, Dave. I will definitely keep this game in my toolbox.
  8.  
    Thanks for bumping this Jason. I just put a quick summary on Story Games, but I'm going to expand on some of the ideas for changes here probably sometime this evening.
  9.  
    So I broke out the major points that I took away from the playtest, I think some are pretty straightforward and some I need to talk through still. Although, I'm willing to talk about any of them. These are all the points that really concern actual game play. I've left out some points that mainly involve presentation of the game.

    1. Remove specific dinosaur names from the Obstacle cards - This is pretty straightforward. I realized only recently that specific dinosaurs aren't really important to the game. To the family a dinosaur is more about size, shape, and where the sharp scary bits are located. In addition I pulled a card that said velociraptor and it made more sense in the story to ditch the specifics.

    2. Playing out a Chase Scene - I was really certain that I didn't like the Chase scene as written. At the table we came up with a procedure that I think I'm going to stick with. Start with one of the players of the parents (or the older sibling) who will come up with an attempt to overcome the Obstacle. The player of the child then details how that character's actions fail to overcome the Obstacle. Another player then makes an attempt to overcome the Obstacle without success. Finally either the first player goes again (when there are two players), or the last player (when the older sibling is being played). On this last exchange, the character successfully overcomes the Obstacle, but unless it's the last Obstacle the child slips away again.

    3. Start with a Chase scene - I walked through these rules once before at Dreamation '09 and starting with an Interlude scene was hard then and at this playtest. You have the characters and their Issues, but it's not quite enough to really kickstart the first scene. Jason suggested starting out with a set of Chase scenes, and I think that might solve this problem. The first Chase scene will give the family something immediate to do and then give a lot of context for the next Interlude.

    4. Ending the game - We ended the game after 2 Chase sequences and 3 Interludes. In general the current end game conditions in the text are too loose and it's likely that the game will simply drag on. We discussed that maybe the text should advise that once all Issues have changed once, it's a good time to take stock in whether the game should end. I'm a little worried about it, but I'm not really sure why. I think it needs to be played a few times to really get a handle on it. As an addition to this, I think the game always needs to end on an Interlude. It captures some of the sitcom roots of the game, and resolves the game the opposite of how it began, with a quiet peaceful moment.

    5. Refine skills - The comment was made that some of the Skills seemed less active than others and also that they could perhaps be more whimsically phrased. I think this is gonna need some brainstorming about potential Skill ideas to improve.

    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 3rd 2010
     
    Nice! I agree about the ending being tricky. From having played, ending once the issues have changed *feels* like the natural place to end. The game seems to be about the family working out their problems with one another, punctuated and pushed on by the chase to keep baby safe. But you don't want to end prematurely, so having the players check in seems like a good approach. You can act as you are moved.

    Do you have ideas for more skills? Or want suggestions?
  10.  
    I think you've got what I want the game to be about. We did 3 Chase sequences in our game before ending. I want to leave open the possibility that everything doesn't get resolved for the better on the first try, so not putting a hard deadline on it definitely leaves that open.

    Suggestions are welcome on the skills. When I have put thought into it, I've been drawing mostly blanks.
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2010
     
    What's the current list of skills? Hunting, Foraging, Thinking?

    My character was so proud of the grubs he brought home that the blank looks I got surprised me. Picky family!
  11.  
    Chasing, Cooking, Crafting, Foraging, Hunting, Reasoning, Sneaking, and Trapping

    Issue: No one appreciates the hard work I put into finding grubs to eat
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2010
     
    hee! I should have started with that.

    It's a short and sweet list. Lots of food oriented skills: trapping, hunting, foraging, cooking. But they bring out different aspects, and really cave folk would have to spend a lot of time just getting the bare essentials covered. Chasing seems a key skill given that most of the game is spent running after the child.

    Some alternatives for the less active ones:
    chasing - pursuit, getaway, feetwise, racing, speedy
    cooking - providing, food prep, making tasties
    crafting - make goods, handwise, artsy craftsy, crafty (though that has other connotations)
  12.  
    I really like chasing as a skill, but maybe it would be good to have two flavors of it...

    maybe making instead of crafting...

    I'm working right now on cutting the text down so that the whole game fits on cards. My goal is about 5 core rules cards, with rules text on both sides. I will post up the card document when I get it done.
    • CommentAuthorArpie
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2010
     
    I like the cards idea myself. I find that accessability is always important in introducing a game with a lot of freeform qualities.

    Since cavemen days resonates nicely with the idea of evolution, what about the idea of "evolving" skills from basic concepts, like chase or make.

    In other words, turn it into a kind of brainstorming for the players, having the evolution of the skills reflect the issues they reflected when they used them.

    To use emily care's suggestions, there's a contextual difference between feetwise and pursuit, or at least where they came from in your life.
    • CommentAuthoremilycare
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2010
     
    That's a neat idea. Fits with evolving the characters through the issues too.