Rage-design: A Less Shitty Version of Impulse

Board Games
81

Aaaaaaand new print-and-play assets are done:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tocRnBb806FqOAjSuIE7D6-Vo199FZGD/view?usp=sharing

Followed @Apreche’s suggestion to make information disappear when you don’t need it - so you have the gem when it’s a Mineral, the action name when it’s in the Plan, and the Tech text when it’s a Tech. I think I like that a lot, and it sort of reflects more streamlined gameplay.

Homeworlds are both a starting action (size 1 any color) AND a bonus after they get developed. Figured I might as well make it matter down the road.

I want to figure out how to make the action name colorblind friendly without duplicating other information. I tried alternate fonts but ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that got messy fast.

I have a feeling this is not a 2-player game. Probably 3 - 6. We’ll see what happens.

2 Likes
82

It’s almost impossible to have a good political game with less than 3-4 players.

This was a great suggestion and I’m glad you’re implementing it. The more you can minimize information overload, the more you can speed up player decisions and turns overall.

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It’s literally impossible to have a political game with less than 3 players.

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Now I’m thinking about this… you could approximate (or achieve?) the Characteristics of Games definition of politics by making a 2p game where both players win or lose independently. Or maybe not… it’s been a while since I opened that book.

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It wouldn’t be an orthogame in this case. Orthogames require an outcome where players are ranked, and are seeking the highest rank.

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If you have a two player game where both players can win or lose independently, isn’t that just two solitaire games that just happen to be next to each other?

Also, I don’t see how that can become political. Two players in the vote who wins game are always going to vote for themselves. Without at least a third party, no player is ever in the position to to take any action that favors one opposing player more than another.

I think the best that can be done is to create some number of NPCs (or even digital AI) that have the possibility of winning. Thus the game is still mathematically political even though only two of the players have a political will.

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Maybe in a tournament structure, where victory in one match affects seeding in subsequent matches?

Let’s say we’re in a double-elimination tournament, and I know that if I lose, this guy I can’t beat will go on to play against someone who’s better than me, and they will lose that match. If I choose to eat it so that guy loses in the next round, and then I work through the loser’s bracket back to where I was before, then I haven’t lost much and I’ve stuck it to the guy I couldn’t beat.

But like Rym said, that’s not really an orthogame. Very meta.

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In that case, the tournament itself is the game, which ranks two or more players. The tournament is a political orthogame unless it only has two players or prevents players actions from affecting the ranking of other players.

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89

Solid point.

I’m planning to toy around with some kind of variation that makes a 2-player game workable. I wonder about some kind of parallel intelligence, instead of an independent AI thingI? Like, in a two-player game, you have some other faction you manipulate based on your actions? I dunno, I’ll poke and brainstorm.

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Now you’re making two different games that just happen to share a lot of pieces.

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91

Sure, this is an exercise in whether or not it’s doable, not an effort to make it part of this design. More like “can I make it work” than “if I do this I can say it’s a 2-player game.”

Besides, political fuckery is straight up more fun with more humans, so I’m only going to get so much out of making it two-player. I’m kind of thinking more along the lines of having the Orions at the center of the galaxy, and they antagonize the other two players.

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Obviously you should work on what you want, but it might be more efficient to work on the general game and then work out how you could play it with 2 players than try to do both at the same time. Just my $.02

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So anyway I kind of rolled with this idea, as a way to explore some of the mechanics I’m playing with, and wound up coming up with a different game. Totally unplaytested of course, but an interesting exercise if nothing else. Got me thinking about other ways to approach the core idea.

Quorum and Quasars

1 Like
94

I know what you’re thinking.

“I wonder if Pete’s given up on his stupid-ass project yet.”

I ain’t no quitter.

I present: Pulsars 'n Politics, the redesign of a redesign of a shitty-ass game!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M6GaRm6enqscWcj1xYOtIePLHvI-O9wf?usp=sharing

This folder contains the PnP files and the rulebook. Here’s a direct link to the rules:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eV4y5K7yqgflAHmV6VOAcC3ikfEl_BVi/view?usp=sharing

In the next couple of weeks I’m planning to a self-playtest using opponents who make random decisions, mostly just to make sure nothing is glargingly broken. It’s probably still too complicated, but hopefully I have collapsed the decision tree enough that some kind of path is evident. We’ll see.

As always, feel free to print it, play it, and give me feedback, no matter what you have to say!

5 Likes
95

So I just did this, and man is it a dumb way to go. I mean it works in that it creates situations that I have to respond to, but it definitely creates nonsensical outcomes. Which is fine I suppose, because really I just wanted to make sure the game actually flows, but sometimes it actually made my life harder because a rational player would’ve stopped another player from doing stuff. You don’t have the ability to fuck with everything you want to fuck with, so you really do need other players to take actions against your direct opposition. I guess that’s what I get for making a political game.

In future self-playtests, I’m literally just going to make all the decisions for every player, because the dice sometimes tell you to do really stupid shit.

The first turn is difficult because you have a bunch of options and directions and no clear indication of what is going to play out how. It becomes easier as the game progresses because you sort of get invested in your structure, but I’ll need more playtests to see if you can actually see a path to victory from the outset. I think I’d be OK with a little bit of wandering in the beginning, but not much.

Trade is a weak action, that or it has to be played in a really particular way to be effective. My random decision tree had the Trade faction sell off all their size 1 cards the first chance they could, and that royally fucked them - because you need those to build up your engine enough to take meaningful actions later. I take that as a sign that part of my design works as intended - I want players to have to build up over the course of the game, instead of jumping straight to the endpoint and creating a very large swing on their turn. Smaller oscillations, basically.

The Plan was definitely useful and neat. Will have to see just how important it is.

It’s hard to say how much Techs mattered overall. They seemed to make a difference for me, but it’s hard to know for other factions because, again, random.

Changing up the impulse by Developing is definitely massively important, so that’s another part of the design that works.

Combat probably needs work. Right now it’s just basically coin flips. Some Techs do modify combat though, so I might just need to develop those and see what happens. Thinking about doing it as highest total across each of the 4 colors, winner of a color destroys one loser ship, but we’ll see.

Need to rejigger the font size for the actions. I thought you’d only need to kinda reference it, but in play you need to reference that information a LOT, much more than Tech text. That’s easy.

2 Likes
96

Self-Playtest 2

3-player game
all human decisions

What Worked Well

  1. Techs for sure made a difference. The Refine faction had a Tech that let them Refine an extra card. Combined with Mine in the Plan and Mine on the map, they had the only major point-generating engine, and man was it major. Techs don’t change too rapidly, and Research doesn’t get employed too often, but they definitely made the engines turn more and in significant ways. I’m happy with the pace of Tech development.

  2. The Plan continues to be excellent. Honestly, it’s basically a necessity, so that means the flow into the Plan has to stay. I’m happy with that too.

What Could Work Differently

  1. Right now, I have a thing where the Plan can sub in actions when your Sectors activate, but can’t be used with the Decreed action (i.e. the one picked from the Impulse). I’m thinking about changing it so you can just swap any action across color lines with the Plan, because there were many places where I would take a Decree action just to activate Sectors so I could swap - and that sucks, and it means I need to rethink how that part works.

  2. Combat was still really chancey but ehhhhh. Right now a 2-on-1 fight is dicey, but maybe it should be? I don’t like the idea of ships being extremely expendable, but my combat across colorways idea basically makes a 2-on-1 a foregone conclusion so that’s also bleh. I’ll have to experiment to see what feels right. Might just isolate combat and stage some draws to see what makes it flow right.

  3. Trade as it stands is worthless, so I’m thinking about changing it completely, from a points generator to an actual card swapping action. Like, discard a card from your hand to take a card of your choice of its size from the discard pile. Literally go trading in the scrapyard to salvage something useful. That would completely change the utility of Trade and probably a significant part of the game dynamics.

  4. Dissenting is a very attractive option, and may honestly be better than Assenting in most circumstances. Not a fan of that, because I want Dissent to be situationally strong but Assenting to be attractive. My current thought: the strength of the action chosen in the round is equal to the card value plus the number of Assenters; Dissenters can play a card from their hand instead, but only get whatever value it is. This would make Assenting or Dissenting a directly meta political choice - do I jump on the bandwagon and get a benefit that everyone else gets, or do I slow them down a bit and do my own thing? Will play with that.

  5. There were many turns where nothing happened because of Impulse Development. Thinking about changing it up so that there is an action every round, and you can Develop before choosing the action. So, Develop the Impulse if you want, then pick an action and do that. I was worried that it might make too much happen, but there wasn’t enough happening so that’s maybe not a concern.

  6. There are times when you might have fully redundant cards in the Plan - two actions of the same name and color. I’m not sure if I should have some kind of effect for that, or just leave it be and fix problems through other means. I think maybe fix glaring problems first and then see how the Plan needs to change after.

What Didn’t Work

The card flow in the game is abysmal, and you need cards to do pretty much everything. I have ways to get them via exploration and Dissenting, but it’s just not enough if Draw doesn’t come up, and I can’t rely on pure chance for card flow.

Dissenting, as I mentioned above, was very attractive, but not really for the building or moving a ship - it was all about drawing a single card on the off chance that it gave you something useful. That’s a sign of bad design. The game basically wandered aimlessly because nobody could really get the needed confluence of things to go somewhere, until the Refine faction eventually built a useful engine.

I absolutely 100% need a way for players to draw cards directly of their own choosing.

The ways I might fix that:

  1. start the game with more cards in hand, like 6 instead of 4. That won’t fix permanent card flow, but it will give a better initial boost and perhaps get the game into a rhythm faster
  2. since there were instances of not taking an action, an option might be “draw 1 card instead of taking an action to which you are entitled,” basically taking a cue from Mottainai by having a “pray” action
  3. a hand refill size, Glory to Rome style
  4. flat out draw 2 cards at the end of your turn

I think 2 might be the best option, because it’s fungible and would involve less modification. The basic Dissent action would not change, and I would add a caveat that any action can be scrapped in order to draw 1 card.

And if I go with my alternative Assent/Dissent model above, you could still effectively get some cards out of the deal by scrapping some Sector actions. Really, no matter how I slice those ideas up, swapping actions for cards seems like a solid move.

I’d keep the Draw action anyway, because the most basic Draw gets you 2 cards, and that’s better than scrapping another action for 1.

And since every faction starts with a size 1 wild action, it’s basically guaranteed that you will be able to draw at least one card every round if you so choose.

So yeah, I think that’s probably my route.

3 Likes
97

The idea listed in #4 sounds really cool. While I haven’t seen the game in anything close to this iteration, I like the potential to weight the collaborative choice.

1 Like
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It’s a thing I’ve been thinking about since @Apreche said the bit about making the vote the entire game - the action should be as strong as its votes.

Since the actions just scale anyway, it’s trivial to manage.

May have to rejigger Refine if I do that, but I’ll cross that bridge later.

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You have to be very careful with card draw. Card draw is extremely powerful in card games. Not enough and players can’t do anything. Too much, and they can do everything. There needs to be some mitigation. e.g.: hand size limit in Settlers making it risky to draw too much.

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Yeah, I’m going to play around with various iterations of card drawing power and hand size limit. I know for a fact that I don’t have enough card-drawing power right now (I literally spent an hour playing 3 factions wandering around doing nothing because no card-drawing power), so I think it’s literally going to be a matter of trying different combinations of initial hand size, drawing power, and hand limit until something works well enough.

1 Like