Cards arrived for Draw Stranger this week. Draw Stranger is my 17 card micro game about duelling gunslingers. The design issue I wanted to solve with this iteration was if I could reduce the amount of text so it is faster and easier to play first time. The game plays in five minutes and is an ice breaker game, so it’s super important that it is fast to learn. I also boosted the Tumbleweed cards so playing these during the shootout will mean you take time to aim and help you hit on your next shot.
I’m happy with how clean the visual design came out. Of course things to improve immediately jumps out when you have the physical cards in your hand, but overall I’m very pleased with getting to this stage.
This time I printed 30 copies so I have some to hand out. I would also like to learn the price point for such a game, in case I decide to self publish. Ideally this could be an impulse buy placed in hotel lobbies, railway stations, and bars — everywhere where people have time to kill and could be tempted to pick up an ice breaker game.
But first, let’s see how first time players responds to this version of the game. Draw Stranger is one of my two entries for SAGA this year (Gotlandia is the other). You are welcome to swing by Folkets Hus in Hallunda on Saturday April 11th to play my games.
Hex and Agon
At Folk Lab in Hallunda I’m teaching myself to use the laser cutter to create game boards and pieces. I have chosen the games Agon and Hex as my test subjects. Both are two player abstract boardgames where rules are in public domain and that are not widely known. I have a gorgeous luxury copy of Hex that I got as present a long time ago. I haven’t played a complete game of Agon yet. Getting to play the game is part of my fuel to create a nice physical copy.
One of the things I like about playing board games, is the learning curve. For both games, it is easy to explain what players do on their turn. But it’s non triviel to get from there to how to play well to win. “Easy to learn, hard to master” as the saying goes.
Hex has a great learning curve. I enjoy teaching the game and see how people playing the game for the first time discovers emerging patterns. Every move is both defensive and offensive, so it frequently swings who is attacking and who is defending.
I’m also learning the craft of building boardgame components with Beam studio and our Flux laser cutter. Many subtle things can go wrong. You control intensity and speed for each layer. These must match the material in the printer. There is a camera so you can align the engraving with the material. As always it is only when you have the physical components in your hands that you can really feel if this is a great game or not. What looks great on a screen may not work when you hold the tokens in your hand.
I already know which games to create next: Xiang Qi and Tablut (Hnefatafl). Maybe we can do a day of historical boardgames in the autumn?
