Lots of Cowboys, but not the Miners

After a few more playtest session with my friends and other designers in TBD group. I have decided to give this game a bit more wild west feel to it. However, I will be more specific, it is a bit more - Mining theme rather then the cowboys shoot out or desperado killing people...etc.

The rules has changed quite a bit, I will say. There are several bits are now removed to make the game flow even better and more bluffing elements in the game.

One more thing to add to the game is there might be several expansions or add-on that will not included in the base game. Player can choose which module to play or just the base game.

I do hope this game can be published some time in April or May this year and since this is not language dependent, both English and Chinese Rules will be included.

I am happy to provide a prototype for people who are willing to help me to play test this :)

That's all for today, it's getting close to Chinese New Year in Taiwan and it's a good time to catch up with a bit more gaming.

American or European?!

I have many ideas after Office 21, my first published game, but most of them did not really meet the standards which I am seeking for or the fun factor of "a game" should have. Until 2 weeks before, I looked through all the game ideas I have and come up with a new one. Let's called this game Gold Rush for now.

I am always a fan of casino game, I don't like gamb

ling, but I love to watch the others. This is probably the reason why I love making games that borrow a small bits from the usual casino game and make it become a game with no money on the table.

Gold Rush is a game of bluffing and negation. Player's tries to get some gems and metals and hide their richness in the game. In every round, 1 player will be voted as the "maybe the richest" and he has the chance to fold or challenge. At this point, I think you get a quick feeling of how this game will plays like.

And yes, after I have thought through the game, I think this one is a par and need a few more bits to make this game works perfect. The play testing is a GO! YA!

In addition to the mechanisms, there is a small problems on the theme, whether it's set in the wild west or a more European style in the past( steampunk?). It's hard to tell, Any thoughts  from you ?!

Flat Design / Minimal design in games

As I am a big fan of simplistic, I usually kept the artwork of my game or any illustration as simple as possible.
Kept the basic features and form the image by using fonts and shape. Nearly Every illustration I have done so far is kept to the same concept.

Most of the boardgames in Europe or the US have very detailed artwork and I do love them sometime.
For example, artwork for Seasons, Tokaido, Mascarade and the new game from the Essen 2013 -CV.

Mascarade - Repos Production

Tokaido - Funforge

CV - Granna Games

They are colorful and varied in style but they all share 1 same element which is attractive!

Japanese boardgame/cardgame are more to my taste, not many components, cards and small tokens are the usual stuff inside the box. Oink Games and Kanai factory are probably the two publishers that have similar artwork to my game. and yes I do adore them both.

Kobayakawa - Oink Games

Love Letter - Kanai Factory

It's an art how to represent 1 character, 1 animals or 1 events with minimum drawing. I guess I will jump into the world f iconography next.

Here is the new game that Table Friends will be hopefully publishing next year in Spring Q1.
I will release more info when it's avaliable.

SHOWTIME inspired by Charlie Chaplin

That's all from me this time, have a good week and enjoy the Christmas.

Color of the Game

Red, Orange, Yellow....White, Black. What are the most frequent color you found on a game's box?

Most of the games now has a theme color. For example. RA by RK use a Yellow theme to give a Egyptian theme. Felix - the cat in the sack use a green theme, well, all of the FF game are green.

Is there a color that will attract people the most? and do the color of the box shows what is this game is about. Does a green game box means it is environmentally related?A Japanese Publisher - Oink Game is one of the publisher use "Flat Design" in all of its game series. I love their work and how they use simple colors and shapes in every game they released so far.

Many games don't even have a theme color. There are so many colors and makes the whole box looks luxury if it success, a mess if it fails. Are the games unlike CD or mobile phones, where the box does not need to stand out when look at a distance?

I am not very good in drawing when I was young (still not yet professional till now). so I tend to use very simple shapes and symbols when doing artwork for the games. There is a new game coming up from TF which I think it can probably sells really well especially in Asia. I can't give away anymore info then telling you this is a party game. I will release a bit more when the game is ready to roll out from the printers.

Fingers crossed on this, I hope this can be done sometime in the next season.

What about a Roulette that you can decide the winning spot?!

Roulette is a common gambling game in all casinos, numbers, red or black are set up already in a particular pattern. I have an idea if the player can actually decide where player's win, everyone wins or dealer lose at a certain spots.

Player will receive several cards and on a players turn, they must play a card on the roulette and at the very last turn, everyone bets. After that the result will be revealed and it is possible that the reuslt is targeted at one player win/lose, everyone win/lose at the same time.

The theme of the game comes from where players can't go to sleep and try to count the sheep and reach a certain target number. 

In addition to the player decision on how the roulette will look like, in order to add a bit more tension, it is possible that player can lose what they have won so far. This means player will not be able to do a minimum bet every turn. So no runaway winners here!

The question this game is facing is actually "how to decide the result?"

Roulette is pretty much a luck based game, where the fun comes from, which is a concept that I don't want to remove.  Here are some current thought that I have and might work or not:

1. Deduction: Like Hattari where player receive some info and they can share.

2. Dice: Player roll dice.

3. Sim.Action: This is the original mechanism that I used, and this required all players shows how many fingers at the same time and the total will be the results.

4. Combining the numbers on to the card.

Any thought from you? yes, the smart lads sitting in front of the screen and just finish reading my work ?!