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[Donald X.]

You'd still have to be careful with the odering.  Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order?  Or do you do top card first?

I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.

[Witherweaver]

You'd still have to be careful with the odering.  Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order?  Or do you do top card first?

I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.

Man I thought you were leaking new expansion cards

[Donald X.]

You'd still have to be careful with the odering.  Do you get to resolve the evaluations upon revealing in any order?  Or do you do top card first?

I don't deny that it would need to specify, were it a real card and not just obviously silly. Given its actual role though, it is free to leave it a mystery.

Man I thought you were leaking new expansion cards

It's a thread with questions for me, so if I don't answer your question it's like I'm ignoring you. So this is what happens. Let's all try to learn from it.

[Davio]

What convinced you to come back to Dominion and create a new set? Other than money, which is a totally valid reason.

It wasn't money; it's nice to have a project that you know will get published, but uh a Dominion expansion has no chance of being a dud but also no chance of being a big hit. It only sells to the portion of Dominion fans that want another expansion.

All the reasons for doing spin-offs instead still stand. But I made a spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Kingdom Builder. And I made another spin-off and took out the Dominion part and that's Temporum. And it seemed like, even if I manage to make some spin-offs, I'm sure not cranking them out like I once thought I might. So at some point I would be making another Dominion expansion, for the publishers and fans that I wasn't offering spin-offs to. And one day it seemed like a good project to work on next.

Thank you for your answer.

I hope the new expansion will enable some of the currently least loved cards to find decent partners.
I mean, I love games where cards can shine which otherwise don't get bought very often.

I know you can't say anything about the expansion and it's still very much in flux, but this is what I hope.

[spiralstaircase]

Please will you name one of the new cards "Squirt"?

[Donald X.]

Please will you name one of the new cards "Squirt"?

I can neither confirm nor deny that all future Dominion cards will be named "Squirt."

[cactus]

I remember ages ago you speculated that one day you might do an on line only promo. I'm not overly interested I that but I do wonder - have you ever considered designing a "board" or card game that could only be played on a computer or iPad?

It occurs to me that there are likely to be lots of interesting mechanics for board or card style games that would be impractical with physical games that might be interesting ...

One that occurs to me is the ability for more "for fog of war" in games. Once a while in a game of dominion I'll think of a really interesting odd strategy ... but it requires buying an unusual card first up and that often telegraphs where you are going to you opponent.

Anyway, I guess there are lots of possibilities for online only type mechanics ... could be some worth basing a game around?

Edit: changed to read "fog of war" rather than "for of war"

[Donald X.]

I remember ages ago you speculated that one day you might do an on line only promo. I'm not overly interested I that but I do wonder - have you ever considered designing a "board" or card game that could only be played on a computer or iPad?

Mostly when I think about making computer games, and mostly when I have made them, they are / have been single player, or essentially single player. I have two that stand out from back when. Dudes of Stuff and Things was my take on Heroes of Might and Magic; you can download it in this very thread. And The Little Guy Game was my take on Lode Runner. I don't have a version of that that runs on modern machines. You uh solved puzzles.

I have given a little thought to games for phones and things. Kevin and I made that one that's in a thread in the games forum. I had another premise that was too ambitious for the personnel at hand; it needed a bunch of art. It still sounds good but I don't know if I'll ever get to it.

I have spent some time thinking about how I would fix up different kinds of computer games. I will tell you now, the main trick is to have Magic-style combos - things care about things, two things are greater than the sum of the parts. In a game like Skyrim, it could be that your sword and helmet were a combo, instead of, they just have the best stats you've found. There is also the variety thing; Mario Kart games would have a lot more variety if, instead of a mix of items available every game, there were only two items per game, one for you and one for the opposition (then I would have car designs correspond to items).

I have not spent much time considering making board games for computers. It's easier to make them for real life. And on computers you have so many options. You don't need "cards" to have "rules components."

But uh I can make a game, do all of it except the art and actual production and sales and stuff, you know, I can make the game here at this desk and get it to the point where we are playing it and having fun. If it never gets published we still had a good time, there's that even. And publishing it is low risk for the publisher. Modern computer games have big teams of people and are costly. I mean this is why you see so much more innovation in flash games, where it can still be one guy and sometimes he even does the art. Richard Garfield has endlessly poured time into computer games that never happened. I don't think it's the life for me. If Nintendo says, hey can you make Mario better for us, I will say, man can I, and pitch my ideas. I think that's about as far as I'm going in that direction though.

[enfynet]

How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?

[Donald X.]

How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?

Well it's not a great comparison for a bunch of reasons. Large Dominion sets are ~26 cards rather than 330. Magic uses rarities to sell more cards (and leech utility from consumers). Magic has a lot of rules "atoms," the simplest things you can do on cards, and Dominion has very few. Giant teams of people are paid to work on Magic sets. Storage solutions aren't an issue for Magic because you don't bring all of your cards somewhere to play, you just bring your current decks. The environment rotates sets to further sell new cards, while old sets go out of print. Magic reprints cards, and makes cards strictly better than other cards (I am not talking about nonsense like Smithy being better than Ruined Library, which it isn't because they have different costs and that's a world of difference, find your own term if you want to talk about cards being better ignoring cost; I am talking about say a 1B 2/2 that does nothing being strictly better than a 1B 2/1 that does nothing, Magic does that, sometimes in the same expansion).

I have many times given reasons for switching from expansions to spin-offs. None of that has changed; spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons. There is an expansion on the way rather than a spin-off because I have so far not managed to produce a spin-off; I don't want to make something that's just a lame Dominion clone like the million that exist already, and the satisfyingly different stuff I've tried, I've ended up taking the Dominion part out of completely.

Some things seem bad to do because they stray away from what fans wants from the game. For example it seems bad to do an expansion focused on anagramming. Beyond that, there is the usual limit: the number of cards you can make is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game and the amount of space you use for card text. The card abilities have to go somewhere; they are either on the cards or in the rulebook. People expect to mostly understand Dominion cards without looking at the rulebook; at the same time they don't want microtext. And cards can't be too similar to existing cards. So, the expansions necessarily get more wordy and thus less what-people-want at the same time as they already have more than they can carry and plenty of variety and well I have covered this in such detail already.

So anyway the amount of design space left depends on what you're willing to do. Are you willing to do anagramming? Then you will never run out of things to do. Do you want mostly cards as simple as Smithy? Bad news.

[ehunt]

The people demand anagramming.

[LastFootnote]

The people demand anagramming.

The marmalade-appending gnome.

[Polk5440]

The people demand anagramming.

A propaganda melding theme, men!

[Thanar]

A Mint/Madman doppelgaenger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna

[dereeder]

A Mine/Madman doppelgatnger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna

FTFY

[Thanar]

A Mine/Madman doppelgatnger, eh?
2P Game night: Remodel Dame Anna

FTFY

This slight misspelling is even more thematic:

A Hermit/Madman doppelgaengen!

[Witherweaver]

How much design space (and storage space) do you feel is left for Dominion? Would you like to see it grow to >500 kingdom cards, or instead create a sequel of sorts that allows the nature of the game to expand without making the original unwieldy? You've mentioned many times your history with Magic, which leads me to believe you are familiar with people owning tens of thousands of cards. Is this a place you'd like Dominion to go?

Well it's not a great comparison for a bunch of reasons. Large Dominion sets are ~26 cards rather than 330. Magic uses rarities to sell more cards (and leech utility from consumers). Magic has a lot of rules "atoms," the simplest things you can do on cards, and Dominion has very few. Giant teams of people are paid to work on Magic sets. Storage solutions aren't an issue for Magic because you don't bring all of your cards somewhere to play, you just bring your current decks. The environment rotates sets to further sell new cards, while old sets go out of print. Magic reprints cards, and makes cards strictly better than other cards (I am not talking about nonsense like Smithy being better than Ruined Library, which it isn't because they have different costs and that's a world of difference, find your own term if you want to talk about cards being better ignoring cost; I am talking about say a 1B 2/2 that does nothing being strictly better than a 1B 2/1 that does nothing, Magic does that, sometimes in the same expansion).

I have many times given reasons for switching from expansions to spin-offs. None of that has changed; spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons. There is an expansion on the way rather than a spin-off because I have so far not managed to produce a spin-off; I don't want to make something that's just a lame Dominion clone like the million that exist already, and the satisfyingly different stuff I've tried, I've ended up taking the Dominion part out of completely.

Some things seem bad to do because they stray away from what fans wants from the game. For example it seems bad to do an expansion focused on anagramming. Beyond that, there is the usual limit: the number of cards you can make is proportional to the product of the complexity of the game and the amount of space you use for card text. The card abilities have to go somewhere; they are either on the cards or in the rulebook. People expect to mostly understand Dominion cards without looking at the rulebook; at the same time they don't want microtext. And cards can't be too similar to existing cards. So, the expansions necessarily get more wordy and thus less what-people-want at the same time as they already have more than they can carry and plenty of variety and well I have covered this in such detail already.

So anyway the amount of design space left depends on what you're willing to do. Are you willing to do anagramming? Then you will never run out of things to do. Do you want mostly cards as simple as Smithy? Bad news.

But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

[KingZog3]

I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?

[pacovf]

I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?

Oh, oh, I know the answer to that one:

"Let me check if Jay has answered that... nope, no he hasn't. So there's enough of them, but not too many either."

[werothegreat]

I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?

Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?

[Donald X.]

I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?

Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?

What Wizards of the Coast found out years ago was, that even tiny amounts of information could reveal way more than they intended. They'd preview a card in advance of regular previews, and people would work out, oh, this set has 15 artifacts, due to this collector's number.

The first real information on the set will be the blurb; I don't know when that will show up.

[enfynet]

Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?

[KingZog3]

I know you can't say much about the expansion, but I was wondering, how many cards have a horizontal line separating bottom text from top text?

Do any of them have more than one horizontal line?

What Wizards of the Coast found out years ago was, that even tiny amounts of information could reveal way more than they intended. They'd preview a card in advance of regular previews, and people would work out, oh, this set has 15 artifacts, due to this collector's number.

The first real information on the set will be the blurb; I don't know when that will show up.

I know small info can say a lot. Knowing how many cards have speaks to the complexity of cards. It means extra rules, on gains, on trash, stuff like that. But creative questions are always more interesting to ask than things like "how many reaction cards? Huh? Well? I like the colour blue!"

[Kirian]

Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?

It was definitely written with a lot of irony compared to the less ironic expansion blurbs, but less irony when compared with some of the more ironic expansion blurbs.

[pacovf]

Did you write it with the same amount of irony we've come to expect, compared to blurbs that are written with different amounts of irony?

It was definitely written with a lot of irony compared to the less ironic expansion blurbs, but less irony when compared with some of the more ironic expansion blurbs.

There are secret expansions brewing, I'm sure of it. At the very least, there are fan ones. A new poster wrote, "The cards are on the table." I frantically searched the forum for the translation before realizing he meant that a RL game was ready. Excellent. Everything is going according to plan.