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Author Topic: Interview with Donald X.  (Read 2126759 times)

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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4600 on: February 22, 2019, 04:49:04 pm »
+4

Do you do any sort of numerical estimate of how often a card or card-shaped-thing will be relevant when designing it?

I was thinking specifically of Capitalism, but I suppose this could also apply to many reaction cards.
For most cards, not at all. Most cards are trying to be potentially relevant all the time; obv. this means that e.g. a trasher is competing with other trashers, a village with other villages, and I mean they try to.

For narrow cards, ideally the card is not ever nothing. Obv. in game after game some cards aren't good enough because of the other cards; that's fine, that's not what I'm saying. But if a card interacts with e.g. Duration cards, well not every game will have them. So that's a concern. In Dark Ages, the when-trashed cards all try to be compelling without that ability, so that if you can't trash them, the card isn't stupid. Patron can't always be revealed, but it's still relevant as +$2 +1 Villager.

Tomb got to exist despite maybe there's no trashing, and Capitalism despite maybe it does nothing, because they're landscape cards, they aren't counting against the ten cards that give you something to do. They would have been even more to do but aren't, which isn't as bad as a blank kingdom card. But some cards like that, e.g. a Project that cared about Duration cards, didn't survive, and that was part of it.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4601 on: February 25, 2019, 07:02:11 pm »
0

Did you ever consider having Idol give out a Hex on the second play instead of a Curse? The symmetry there is appealing to me.
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crlundy

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4602 on: February 25, 2019, 08:08:58 pm »
0

Did you consider another use for Villagers, like how Butcher is another use for Coffers?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4603 on: February 25, 2019, 08:34:14 pm »
+1

Did you ever consider having Idol give out a Hex on the second play instead of a Curse? The symmetry there is appealing to me.
It was an obvious idea, but I didn't want anything making you put out both stacks. So it was always Curse.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4604 on: February 25, 2019, 08:37:12 pm »
+3

Did you consider another use for Villagers, like how Butcher is another use for Coffers?
I tried to find something else like Butcher, especially with Coffers, but nothing worked out. Whatever stories are in the secret history.
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4605 on: March 01, 2019, 12:34:33 pm »
+1

Are there any new tabletop games from the past year or so (that you haven't made) that you've really liked?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4606 on: March 01, 2019, 02:24:44 pm »
+5

Are there any new tabletop games from the past year or so (that you haven't made) that you've really liked?
I have to go by, what I tried within the last year, rather than when they came out. I looked through the reports and these are highlights:

Fabled Fruit: You have a hand of fruit, there are six action-locations to pick from, but it's worse to go where someone else is. Instead of doing an action you can turn in a hand of fruit that has whatever some location wanted... and then we take out that action card, and add a new one (though there are like 4 in a pile, so the original pile isn't immediately gone). So after the first time someone scores, there are 7 action-locations (and probably still 7 for a while then, because the new card you add also has 4 copies). After the game (someone scores enough times), you start the next game where you left off, with new actions. The actions of course all just muck with hands of fruit. It's a pretty light game, but the gamers enjoyed several games of it, and it's a good game to play with kids. I'm unlikely to play any particular not-being-playtested game all that many times unless I can play it with the kids, and they liked this one for a while, so I played this way more than the other games I'm listing.

London: You draw and play cards, and build up a tableau, which can be as big as you want, but punishes you for how big it is. The cards in the tableau just sit there, and then periodically you "run your city" and execute the cards (most things only execute once ever normally, though some keep doing stuff). There's economy and VP, and poverty which is anti-VP based on how much you have compared to other players. There's another card for your city that you can replace, that isn't part of the tableau and can keep doing things. The card mix needed work - it has pick-who-to-hose, like it's a game from the 80s, and also could have had more variety and combos - but uh it was fun. It may be too solvable without a better card mix or other variety-adding tweaks, but it held up for the games we played.

Istanbul the Dice Game: A light dice game. It copies the parts of Istanbul that aren't the interesting parts, but I liked it so I guess that was fine. You can go for rolls that build you up or that score various ways. You have to wait for your turn, but you know, it's the start of the evening, someone isn't here yet, you can chat while rolling dice. I've considered getting this one to try with the kids, but it would be competing for play time with King of New York (which they like).

Orleans: A bag-building game, reminiscent of both The Village and Eminent Domain. Your bag has vanilla chits representing people. Each turn you draw some and position them on your playmat, where abilities take certain sets of chits to activate (then those guys go back in the bag). The early abilities all both do something, and gain you a certain guy for your bag (this is the Eminent Domain part). One area of scoring is building and collecting on a map, like the outside part of The Village. You can send guys away forever like in The Village, to a mat where they give you some small one-time bonus, or complete a set of sent-away guys for a bigger bonus (this has a dots problem - you hope someone sets you up when you'll get first shot at it). There are special abilities to gain that no-one else will have. Each turn an event happens that messes with the game. There are a bunch of ways to score.

We played the base game and then with an expansion (I think there are multiple expansions and multiple options per expansion, and well we did not play with the hose-people stuff). The expansion did a few nice things. The event deck was still "randomly screw you over" but was more fun; the sent-away guys board gave bigger more interesting bonuses.

This game was fun, and for gamers this is my top pick of the year. But it needs work and I'm here to tell you about that.
- When you gain an ability (the unique ones), it's your choice from any of them. Well first of all, turn one, to figure out what to do, read this giant pile of, wait they're all icons, get out the rulebook. This is just ludicrous, I don't know what to tell you. It's fun to have a game where sadly you have to read 12 cards turn one, e.g. Greed, and 11 cards turn two, man I'll cop to it, but you know, this big pile of abilities, why would you inflict this on players. I think def. you want to either have a line to buy from and replace them as they get bought, or deal out some to each player at the start ala Agricola. The line to buy from has the problem of, maybe I want to wait to see what other people are doing so that I don't pick that action unless the thing I want will be there. But we tried one game with dealt out abilities and it seemed fine.
- Some of the unique abilities sure seem strong next to others. I would at least try, after you play, take out the winning abilities for next game, and keep that up until it doesn't feel like the abilities were the whole game (we did this for that one game). I would consider not letting you put cogs on them (cogs permanently fill a guy slot, so that that ability is cheaper).
- I would get rid of the complete-a-set-of-sent-away-guys thing, as it has a dots problem (you know, the kids game, dots, you put your initials in a square). It's already plenty good to send away guys, both to get rid of them and get the bonuses, again preferring the non-hosing expansion board. On late turns you can have to wait for someone else's playmat decisions (you always could but normally do not care and save time by all going at once), because maybe they will complete a thing ahead of you but you'll know if they're sending the right guys away. So, get rid of that too.
- The event deck is sure random. I would at least go through and pick out the best ones, from the main set plus expansion.

But I mean, it's worth fixing up, it was fun.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 04:01:44 pm by Donald X. »
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jamfamsam

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4607 on: March 03, 2019, 08:48:00 pm »
+2

I bought Fabled Fruit based on what I read here and played it last night with two friends. It is super simple and entertaining. We actually could hardly stop playing. Great recommendation!
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GendoIkari

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4608 on: March 04, 2019, 12:01:37 am »
+1

I played the full "campaign" for Fabled Fruit. I think it works even better when you consider it all one multi-session game instead of individual, separate games. There is more interesting politics involved; since you are often forced to attack/hurt specific players, the strategically correct target could be player A if you were only considering the current game; but instead it's player B if you consider the full campaign. As in, sometimes it could be the right thing to purposefully take a loss in the current game, if it means that the winner of the current game is the player who is behind in the overall campaign.

Oh, and if you want the Fabled Fruit experience in a one-evening package; Friese also has the Fast Forward series, which has you jump into a game with no information whatsoever, and play through a legacy-style deck with an ever-changing game. Fortune is a lot of fun. Fear was a neat concept, but not as good.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 12:03:36 am by GendoIkari »
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jamfamsam

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4609 on: March 04, 2019, 03:50:22 pm »
+2

Agreed. We played a multi-session game with the suggested cumulative point scoring. So far we've worked through about 70% of the campaign (in one sitting).

Donald got one thing wrong in his description, there are only 4 cards of each type except for the final one. Thoroughly enjoyable game. I bought the expansion which is a separate campaign but haven't played it yet.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4610 on: March 04, 2019, 04:02:40 pm »
+2

Agreed. We played a multi-session game with the suggested cumulative point scoring. So far we've worked through about 70% of the campaign (in one sitting).

Donald got one thing wrong in his description, there are only 4 cards of each type except for the final one. Thoroughly enjoyable game. I bought the expansion which is a separate campaign but haven't played it yet.
Oops, sorry, fixed. At 8 it would be much slower getting to the new cards, but somehow I typed it up as 8.
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jamfamsam

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4611 on: March 05, 2019, 01:52:04 am »
0

Thank you for the write-up of the game. It is one of my new favorites.
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MattLee

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4612 on: March 07, 2019, 01:17:28 am »
+2

Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4613 on: March 07, 2019, 10:53:11 am »
+1

Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?

On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4614 on: March 07, 2019, 01:56:02 pm »
+6

Are there any Dominion themes or mechanics (aside from Potions) that you wouldn't consider ever using again or is it all fair game for future expansions?
Not happening:
- Potions - There are always people who speak up to say how they want more, but mostly people didn't like them, and they don't do anything essential for me.
- Hexes - They are just asking too much, horrendously slowing down games with casual players.

Unlikely:
- Ruins - You need to include 50 cards to handle 6 players. That's a lot to ask of an expansion.
- Heirlooms - Naturally there can only be 7. Of course I could add a rule for "what if there are 8 of these" in order to do more.
- Boons - I think they were worth doing but I should have only done say 5 cards with them. They weren't received well enough to want to try to find more to do with them.
- Artifacts - They sound fine, but it was work to get 5 I could live with.

The space for possible new Events, Projects, and Landmarks is not impressive. However any new expansion could also have some other new thing that adds some space, e.g. if Renaissance had had Events there could have been ones that involved the tokens or an Artifact.

Overpay is unlikely except that I could do like one overpay card somewhere. It sets you up to have a way-too-wordy card, but if the top can be vanilla then it could be okay.

A lot of the set mechanics can just appear in any set on a few cards, and have: victory cards that do things, choose ones, durations, $7's, treasures that do things, care about variety or provide it, when-gain, when-trash, care about the trash, split piles. Then there are mechanics that require tokens or extra cards or mats, which will only appear as larger hunks of a set. And well then there's Night, I would want to have a bunch of that in order to include rules for it.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4615 on: March 07, 2019, 01:58:50 pm »
+4

On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
Something like Capitalism or Inheritance is fine, provided that all copies of a card are the same at all times. Band of Misfits, Overlord, and Inheritance break that rule, and well I still may errata them, they cause problems.

The Adventures tokens aren't out of the question, but in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever. I should have tried to get more use out of a smaller set of tokens. But, with that approach, that kind of thing in the future is okay.
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crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4616 on: March 07, 2019, 04:17:49 pm »
+8

in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever
Am I the only person who stores the tokens sorted by type, not by colour? You need the Journey tokens for a game; you fetch the journey tokens. Especially if you spend five dollars on a compartmented plastic storage box, setting them up becomes trivial.
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Awaclus

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4617 on: March 07, 2019, 05:13:53 pm »
+2

Compartmented plastic storage box
$5 Action
Turn your journey token whichever way you want it.
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4618 on: March 07, 2019, 08:19:44 pm »
0

in retrospect I don't like how many different tokens Adventures has, it's annoying pawing through them looking for the boot or whatever
Am I the only person who stores the tokens sorted by type, not by colour? You need the Journey tokens for a game; you fetch the journey tokens. Especially if you spend five dollars on a compartmented plastic storage box, setting them up becomes trivial.

I do that. I didn't sort it fully by type (the vanilla bonuses are together, the ones with pictures are together, and the -1 Card, -1 coin, and +2 cost are together) but I still end up only having to look through three or four rather than all 10.
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Eran of Arcadia

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4619 on: March 07, 2019, 09:50:09 pm »
0

I started out sorting by color, but I realized sorting by type makes more sense.
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ipofanes

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4620 on: March 08, 2019, 04:54:13 am »
0

On a similar note (I guess this is just a more specific version of that question), would you ever consider using another card that changes the types or abilities of other cards, similarly to Capitalism, Inheritance, or the vanilla bonus tokens from Adventures?
... Inheritance is fine ... and Inheritance ..., they cause problems.
I am confused.
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crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4621 on: March 08, 2019, 09:30:10 am »
+2

... Inheritance is fine ... and Inheritance ..., they cause problems.
I am confused.

Note that he actually wrote:
Quote
Something like [...] Inheritance is fine, provided that [...]
The "something like" and "provided that" are kinda important.
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Wizard_Amul

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4622 on: March 08, 2019, 11:38:26 am »
+1

@ipofanes To further clarify what crj is saying, Donald's first use of "Inheritance" refers to a card that changes the type of other cards--Donald says a card like that is fine provided that all copies of a card are the same at all times. However, the second "Inheritance" is an example of such a card that changes whether or not all copies of a card are the same at all times (e.g., my inherited estate is a certain card and your inherited estate is a different card--this can result in problems with cards that change the types of other cards).
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4623 on: March 08, 2019, 05:44:49 pm »
+1

e.g., my inherited estate is a certain card and your inherited estate is a different card

Or more relevant, my Estate is a certain card right before I trash it and a different card right after.

crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4624 on: March 08, 2019, 08:00:39 pm »
0

Or more relevant, my Estate is a certain card right before I trash it and a different card right after.
I don't think that's actually a problem. It's fine for Estates to change their nature from one moment to the next; I think the problem Donald X. is alluding to is, at a given moment, one indistinguishable Estate-shaped bit of cardboard having a different nature from another.

Suppose there was a landmark which said "whenever an Estate is trashed, until the end of the current turn Estates become treasures that give $1 when played". While that would be a pretty dull effect, it's easy to see how it would be applied and there aren't many corner cases.
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