Hi everyone,
I considered putting this in advertisements but I decided against it; I'm not telling you to buy my game, I'm asking for feedback.
Over the last few moths I have been working on a party game called Dark Dynasty. I've been tweaking it quite a bit, but before I start to playtest, I want to see if I missed anything big or did something in a 'bad way.' I'm also worried that it's too complicated, seeing as it's a party game.
I've been playing quite a bit of Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, and I've noticed several flaws with the game. I've set out to make a game similar to it, but better. There are many more qualified people who could do this, but they all have day jobs.
The premises of my game are pretty simple: The citizens must protect their lives and their city itself against many threats. I've called this game Dark Dynasty, that should change in the future.
This game would be different from Mafia and Werewolves because it brings forth a town. Each person has a role card as well as their house card, which is where they live and it generates status points for them (depending on how good their house is). No one knows what type of house you have, so the marauders and orcs can't just attack all the mansions and ignore the shacks.
There are also currencies: Some sort of dollar (probably gold pieces) and status points. Your profession and your house can give you status points, and they are used for purchasing land and workers of any kind.
The gold pieces are used to purchase goods and services, which can give you more gold over time, protection from kills at night, status points, and more.
There are also roles that can destroy buildings, which passively kills anyone inside. But these roles are not limited to just houses, there are other buildings as well (a lawyer would add a courthouse, a blacksmith would add a forge, etc.). These buildings are required to perform any night action, and if they get destroyed, you're out of luck.
Land, laborers and additional buildings can also be purchased, but we won't dive too far into that.
Finally, the roles are much more diverse. Each player can have an individual role, and there are endless possibilities to the different setups. I am also planning on designing expansions for fun, because there is a lot of design space left over, and a lot of good ideas that I don't want to throw away.
Does this game seem similar to a game you've played? The ones that come to mind are mainly Werewolves, Mafia, Dominion and Magic the Gathering. Is this too similar? Is it too complicated? Any feedback is appreciated, but I'm not planning on releasing this into the market until the summer, if ever.