All Discussions - Boardy Games

All Discussions - Boardy Games http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussions/feed.rss Wed, 22 Feb 12 19:10:37 -0500 All Discussions - Boardy Games en-CA A Kick in the Seat of the Pants http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/26/a-kick-in-the-seat-of-the-pants Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:37:29 -0400 JBMannon 26@/forums/discussions
What are you working on? What makes your game awsome? I know there are other creatives out there, speak up and lets get this rock rolling again!]]> The Game Crafter http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/25/the-game-crafter Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:55:05 -0400 Kevan 25@/forums/discussions The Game Crafter? Seems to be an independent game production company who've opened up their printing and packaging services to the wider world, offering to sell people's games print-on-demand - a kind of Cafepress for games. You calculate a base production cost, add whatever you want, and split the difference 50/50 with Game Crafter.

Plugging in Ninja Showdown (three decks of cards, two boards, 25 pawns and instructions) gives an estimated base cost of $14. It's probably not worth it for preliminary prototyping, but might be good for getting a few higher-quality versions built to take along to gaming events. And it's probably as good a way as any to get your game out into the world, if you aren't in it for the money. What do people reckon?]]> Ninja Showdown: a sneaky game http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/3/ninja-showdown-a-sneaky-game Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:26:48 -0400 Simon Pettersson 3@/forums/discussions
NINJA SHOWDOWN!

To a seemingly idyllic mountain town i feudal Japan, where the cherry trees blossom and scent the air with their heavenly fragrance, come a number of important court officials to relax and forget their courtly worries. But danger is afoot! A number of the officials are actually ninjas in disguise, infiltrating the little town and getting ready to assasinate their targets.

Rules
So you've got a pretty board showing the quaint little mountain town. Something like 20 different court officials are represented both by pieces moving on the board and by cards in a pile. Every player chooses a ninja clan to play. Each clan has a different special ability. One can assasinate over very long distances, another can, when in a shadow, act as though he stands anywhere in that shadow, &c. Anyway.

Each ninja draws a card from the pile of court officials. This is their secret identity. Now they draw another: their first mark.

Gameplay consists of playing cards allowing you to move one or more of the officials on the board. You're trying to get to a position where your secret identity can assassinate your mark. When you do, you reveal your mark and get some points, and draw a new mark. All the other players will of course look carefully at the board to find out which people could have been the murderer and make mental notes, so make sure you're in a crowded place!

Play continues as ninjas assassinate their marks and the numbers of court officials dwindle. If you think you've figured out who's a ninja, you can assassinate them. If you kill an enemy ninja, you get lots of points. If you kill someone who's not your mark and not a ninja, however, you are shamed and lose points, as well as risking your identity for no reason.

Probably, you can choose to reveal your identity when you know you've been discovered. The advantage would be that nobody can control your movement on the board but you. But most likely you're not long for this world.

When a ninja dies, that player takes the role of a samurai. The samurai's only mission is to root out the ninjas and kill them. A samurai can also be killed, of course, for a bunch of points, though the player will just get a new samurai.

I have a few different ideas for how the game ends:
* Play ends when there's just one ninja left.
* Play ends when all ninjas are dead.
* There are a limited number of samurai, and play ends when either all ninjas or all samurai are dead.

Most points win. To summarize, you get points for:
* Killing your mark
* Killing an enemy ninja
* Killing a samurai
* Killing a ninja when you're a samurai

You lose points by killing "innocents".

Thoughts? Comments? It's a memory game combined with risk management. Can you see flaws in the mechanics?]]> Turnless Civic-Management Token Game http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/16/turnless-civic-management-token-game Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:38:40 -0400 Brendan 16@/forums/discussions parent thread: The game takes exactly five players. The goal is to keep a city in the midst of decay from collapsing entirely by eliminating stagnation, crime and corruption, while obtaining the most credit for the relief effort for yourself. There are a set of tokens or cards passed around the table, each with a set of a few actions on it; when you get a token in your queue, you can take any action except the one its previous holder took, then send it off on one of four alternating routes. Tokens may hit a bottleneck if one player has trouble deciding what to do, and if his or her queue is long enough, new tokens may skip to the next player along. You have to use and pass the earliest token in your queue before you can get to the next one.

All of that is open to amendment, but I think it's a good starting point. There are still a lot of questions to answer:

What are the different areas of control? (Archer's Goon provides one possible division of power.) What actions does each of these allow?

How do you keep score? What's the game's end condition?

How do the actions taken affect the state of the game and/or the other players to generate complexity?

Is there a "bad" token, which requires you to advance the city's breakdown, or another mechanic to do so?]]> Citadels http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/24/citadels Tue, 19 May 2009 05:01:02 -0400 Josh 24@/forums/discussions
Anyway, the idea is that the players (for some reason, in my head, there are three of them, but I suppose there's no practical limit) are competing to build citadels while fending off wave after wave of increasingly vigorous NPC enemy attacks. The way I had it in my head was that each player starts with a 16x32 Lego base plate, and has a pile of lego bricks to one side and a pile of cards in the middle. The players take it in turns to draw cards, and many of the cards will have improvements to the citadel that the player can build - increasing wall size or thickness, archer towers, gates, boiling oil, a moat, etc etc. For example, if you drew a wall card, it would have a number on it, which would represent the number of... what's the technical term? Nobbles that you could use to build your wall. So if it was a 4, say, you could use a 4x1 or a 2x2 brick. I imagine that further restrictions would be needed, like the maximum depth or height to which an element could be built.

Scattered in amongst these, though, are invasion cards. Every time one of these is drawn, an invasion force is generated by the game which lays siege to the players' citadel. The mechanics for this are a little bit rough in my head, but I envisioned the invasions getting stronger with each card drawn - like the outbreaks in Pandemic, or the bonus armies in Risk - and the strength of the army determining how much damage they could do to your citadel. I envisioned the damage as permanent, as the invading army literally tears down walls. I'm unsure how much of this to leave automated, though, as the other players could 'manage' the invading army, if they were given the framework to do so.

In any case, the aim of the game is to be the last player standing, as the increasing attacks outstrip your ability to rebuild.

Thoughts and concerns.
- Obviously the invasion mechanics need to be worked out properly.
- At the moment, the outcome seems to be based too much on randomness. Hoping that the invasion cards distribute themselves fairly seems like bad design, but otherwise, there's every chance that the outcome is decided purely by who has the most vile run of bad luck. At least in Pandemic that was bearable, as the bad luck was collective and only advantaged an NPC villain.
- I was toying with having a world-building element. For example - the game starts with the players' baseplates on the ground. In addition to drawing cards, the players can also draw a terrain tile and place it somewhere in the middle of the play area. Invasion cards do nothing if drawn until an Enemy Stronghold terrain tile has been drawn and placed. Perhaps invasions are colour-coded to specific Enemy Strongholds, and always attack the nearest citadel, regardless of who drew the card? I can't think of any other way to tie this to the game, though, so it's off to the side for now.
- Different types of invasion force. for example, an army of archers would be much weaker against walls that were high, while siege weapons would struggle against walls that were deep, and melee forces would struggle to deal with moats.]]> [Basic Units] Breaking down basic components. http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/23/basic-units-breaking-down-basic-components. Sat, 09 May 2009 09:04:57 -0400 Kuma 23@/forums/discussions
For example, a six-sided die and a hand of six cards numbered 1-6, shuffled and replaced face-down after each draw. On the surface, each of these offers the same result - a random number between 1 and 6. But there are inherent difference between a rolled die and the stack of cards: one is absolutely independent (the die's result is lost if it is re-rolled, and may be same result again), and the second offers the possibility of dependence (instead of shuffling after each draw, you can pull the next card, and it will never be the same result).

These sorts of differences are crucial in game design, and I've never seen an exhaustive attempt to catalog the properties of game components. Here are the first two posts I did, on cards and dice:

Clickity for new tab/window.

Others I have planned:

Poker Chips
Spinners
Pawns
Dominoes
Tokens

Feel free to grab onto any of these and start breaking them down. I'll add more here as I post them.]]> Double game! http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/10/double-game Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:54:59 -0400 Simon Pettersson 10@/forums/discussions
The players are playing two different games. The games affect each other, but each player is only playing one of them, and there will be two winners at the end.

Why? Because this will give rise to better alliances maybe. I can ally myself with player A without having to worry that I'm helping him win. It's great that I'm helping him win! That means he has a better reason to keep his alliance! However, I need some of resource X, and I can only get that from player B. He's giving it all to my opponent, and I need to put a stop to that. Or it can be like this: I'll ally with both of players A and B, leaving my opponent without help. Or like this: I'm allied with player A, but player B is obviously winning. I need to make him stop giving support to my opponent, for which I need to offer him something. Or threaten him.

Yeah, you get the idea. Maybe some players are cities and others traders? Or some players are actors and others are directors? Or something.

Yes? Good?]]> Intellectual Property / Copyright / Patent Issues http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/18/intellectual-property-copyright-patent-issues Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:49:47 -0400 armahillo 18@/forums/discussions
Will a license like a CC or GPL/MIT-style license prevent other companies from stealing the idea and profiting on it, if it was intended to be used for non-profit use only?

[Mods: Sorry for creating a discussion topic, considering I'm still a n00b here, I didn't see this topic discussed anywhere else but it seems relevant. If you disagree, delete the topic but please don't delete me. :) ]]]> Murder Mansion http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/21/murder-mansion Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:51:01 -0400 zaratustra 21@/forums/discussions
Welcome to Murder Mansion! The Mayor has invited the members of the Villager, Mafia and Werewolf families for a masquerade ball in his sumptuous mansion. However, once they are there, the Mayor is nowhere to be seen and the doors are locked! Who will survive this night of murder?

Each player has a Family and a secret Mission. The game starts at 6 PM and ends at 6 AM.

Each hour (turn), a player may perform one action:

- Move to another room of the house (they will be seen by any players they move past)
- Kill a player in your room (All players in the room except the killed one must agree to kill a person; keeps player from acting this turn before killing them)
- Investigate a body (discover its true family and time at which they were murdered)
- Intercept a player (You grab the player if they pass you and stop them from moving further)
- Perform an action (Players must be alone to do this; may be required of certain Missions)

The 11 rooms are set in this manner:

Second Floor (connects to Master Bedroom, Mistress Bedroom, Library)
|
Main Foyer (connects to Kitchens, Dining Hall, Office)
|
Basement (connects to Pantry, Dungeons)

The Office has a passage to the Library, and the Kitchens have a small set of stairs leading to the Pantry.

At the end of the game, successful Missions count +1, and dead members count -1. The family with the highest score wins.]]> Digital Prototyping http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/22/digital-prototyping Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:04:37 -0400 Wolfe 22@/forums/discussions
I have a lot of sedentary time on my hands. I'm a programmer of some small skill. I have a paid version of Game Maker, which makes production of graphical programs pretty easy.

In the last week or so, I have built two board-games with Game Maker, with varying degrees of polish; Trian(http://wolvesdenpublishing.com/Trian.zip), which I talked about in the last thread I started, and Pente (http://wolvesdenpublishing.com/Pente.zip), a boardgame I did not invent. it's semi-challenging, and it's fun.

So here's the idea. You all, potentially, have boardgames you are designing. I am offering, on a first-come, first-served basis, to prototype your games in a digital format. The advantage to you is that you have a way to play the game without having to mock up pieces, and to give the rules a detailed workthrough (both in communicating them to me, as programming doesn't allow for any hand-waviness, and in playing the game, strictly by the rules as defined). The advantage to me is that it helps me stretch my programming techniques (as Game Maker DOES have a moderately robust coding language built in) and gives me something entertaining to do.

If you're interested, here's the specs on what I can/am willing to do:

- I can make the game for as many players as you like, with the ability to choose the number, but at current, all players will have to play at the same computer. My savvy with the Game Maker multiplayer features is still lacking, and I don't want to commit to something until I've successfully done it on one of my own projects.

- The graphics will be semi-generic. I can do semi-pretty effects, but the main thing I'm offering is prototyping. If later you'd like it polished up to be an actual product, we can talk then.

- I fully expect that I will have to change the game at least once or twice after playtesting begins. However, my connection is iffy, so I'd strongly prefer not to have to make minor tweaks for each build. If you're going to request a new build, try to get as many changes as you can into a single request. If I accept the project, I will commit to 2 rebuilds. More than that will require individual negotiation.

- I take NO legal rights to your game or its rules. The product will list you as designer. All I ask is that I get the credit for coding and all graphics I provide. If you provide graphics, they will also be attributed as you choose.

- The product I build cannot be sold. It must be distributed for free, but it will only be distributed by your guidance. I will not take it upon myself to share the product with anyone outside of your guidance.

- Any exceptions to the above will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

I really hope my proposal is of interest to some of you, because the idea of collaborating in this fashion is really quite exciting to me.]]> Trian - It's kinda like Go http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/20/trian-its-kinda-like-go Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:07:40 -0400 Wolfe 20@/forums/discussions
How to test it, though? The rules are simple, but the strategies that should evolve from them are harder to predict. So I created the board game as a computer game, and played it repeatedly against myself. At this point, it seems to work, but playing it against myself, I find I've fallen into a pattern, and I wonder if I've found the "optimum" strategy. A game that HAS an optimum strategy is a game that's broken, IMO.

So, for my edification, and possibly for your enjoyment, I give you Trian (http://wolvesdenpublishing.com/Trian.zip)

The program only works on Windows.

The rules are as follows:

Take turns placing pieces on the board. You may place them on any empty intersection. The object is to either wipe out your opponent or (more likely) claim a larger segment of the board.

The interaction of pieces is based on a comparison of threat and strength. Strength is based on how many friendly pieces a given piece is touching, including itself. Threat is based on how many opposing pieces are touching it. If threat is greater than strength, the piece will change color to the opposing side.

Example:

x x x
o o
o

The center x has a strength of 3, because it is touching two other pieces. The flanking x's have a strength of two. All three o's have a strength of 3. The upper two o's have a threat of 2, as each of them are touching two x's. Each outside x has a threat of 1, and the center x has a threat of 2. None will flip. If an x is place to either side of the upper o's, threat will increase to 3, which will still not be sufficient to flip them.

Strategies: Build in clumps to keep strength up. Never approach the opposing color without strength. Attempt to envelop and trap your opponent's pieces.

Program functions:

Arrow keys or the mouse will move the cursor (the flashing colored dot) around the board.

Enter or left-click will place a piece according to the color of the cursor. Pieces will automatically flip when appropriate.

Spacebar will highlight all empty spaces.

Esc will close the program.

The game will end if one color is wiped out, or when the board is full. (126 turns)]]> Tile based settlement-style game http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/19/tile-based-settlement-style-game Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:40:36 -0400 armahillo 19@/forums/discussions
Yes, I'm new here (excited to join your community!). I've got a few game ideas I've been working on and wanted to bring one of them in for critique / discussion. It's fleshed out enough that I think I can start playtesting it with some mockup pieces (I'm thinking pennies & hex-paper).

I am interested in your feedback regarding what you think of the mechanics, any suggestions you may have, etc. Much of the game is still mutable, particularly the numerical attributes. (My original idea called for a 30x30 hex grid, but I realized the game would be ridiculously long before any conflict occurred, so I reduced it to 15x15, but it may need to be reduced further)

Game development was bottom-up -- I thought of the mechanics first. The concept is two players competing for common scarce resources (specific hexes on the grid), racing for them -- but balancing that race with light combat. The "attack" / "defense" mechanics are intentionally vague w/r/t flavor -- it doesn't necessarily have to be physical combat; it just represents some kind of conflict.

anyways... I've been writing it up in googledocs, but I created a wiki on my webhost and transferred the text to there so it's more public.

Link: (removed by author)]]> My Little Diplomacy Variant http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/13/my-little-diplomacy-variant Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:26:56 -0400 Lxndr 13@/forums/discussions
Nonetheless, something grabbed hold of me and said DO THIS after flipping through a few pages of variants, and this came out. This has been sitting on my wiki for several years now, and I've had no place to really talk about it, especially since the person who helped me with the map kind of faded away from the internets (so, uh, the map needs updating, obviously):

http://www.twistedconfessions.com/confessional/index.php?n=Dip.IslandDiplomacy

Anyway, I would love to see discussion, critiques, et cetera on this little work of love (either the "basic" boojum, or the "advanced" bits down near the bottom). Would anyone oblige me? :)]]> Turnless Games http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/7/turnless-games Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:29:58 -0400 Brendan 7@/forums/discussions
The way I see this most often addressed is with simultaneous turns, rock-paper-scissors style resolution where everybody makes a choice at their own pace and then reveals them simultaneously. If I recall correctly, Pirate's Cove makes use of this each time you decide where to send your ship, and The Big Idea's voting phase works the same way. But that's not good enough! You're still blocking on the slowest person's decision, which can actually be WORSE than sequential turns, since once you've made your decision you don't even have the other players' turns to pay attention to while you wait.

My background is in computer science, so naturally I'm looking to threading to solve this problem. I want to see a game with multiple simultaneous queues through which I am constantly sending and receiving actions. I might divert some of my funding pool into project A, for example, while bouncing messages about project B to the player on my right, then turn to deal with the breakdown in project C while casting a nervous eye at the buildup of results from project D that's going to lead to turnover if I don't go through it. (With the right amount of these, you could not only keep most players busy most of the time, you could easily achieve 7 ± 2 complexity.)

The big issue, obviously, is designing a threaded economy that players can actually be bothered with learning to use, and that doesn't yield immediate and obvious ways to break itself. I think those are manageable. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on two things in this thread: is there a better way to design turnless games than multiple action queues? And what kind of theme would readily yield a queue economy that worked and made sense?]]> Rennaisance Men http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/12/rennaisance-men Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:18:03 -0400 strongbow 12@/forums/discussions
Your piece would represent a person in a rennaisance town who was trying to be the best there was at three things. Scholarship, Dueling, and Love. You go to different sectors of the town to complete missions and gain victory points. Along the way you woo beautiful women, Poke holes in the logic of others and fight duels of honor. It is kind of "EnGuard the Board Game".

I always thought that the conflict rules from Dogs in the Vineyard felt very right for fencing rules. For those of you unfamiliar, you start with a handful of dice and roll them, putting forward one dice as an attack and using any number off dice to match it as a riposte. If you used more than two dice in defense you take damage. This is an over simplification but is about what I wanted to do. They feel somewhat less right if you know what the dice are at the beginning of the combat. DitV gets around this by allowing you to bring in new dice that wouldn't exist in this game.

I think I would change this by allowing the players to call forth powers from the cards that were their missions. So if you have successfully completed the mission for the sword maker he teaches you the secret of the Spanish Defense which would allow you to defend with an extra dice without taking damage.

I had assumed that there would be victory points for completing the mission and bonuses for the greatest scholar, lover and dualist in the game. I don't know if all of the missions would be open but I had assumed so.

My questions are. Could the same rules be used for scholarly arguments and the wooing of maidens, or would the game be better if there was something else to do and fighting duels was a separate thing?

How do I keep the powers from becoming a power spike making it too easy for the player who gets them from dominating the rest of the game? I think this might be in the form the three arenas. the things which help you be a better fighter would not help you to be a better scholar.

I'm sure I will have more questions as I get further along.]]> Possible wiki here http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/14/possible-wiki-here Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:44:04 -0400 Brendan 14@/forums/discussions

Posted By: KevanCould maybe set up a couple of wiki pages somewhere - one for the kill track, and one image-heavy page for the board, with CSS-floating images for pawns. (In fact, a wiki would be useful for thrashing out rulesets generally. Any plans to set one up, or repurpose the Dispatch one, Brendan?)

Ugh, installing and administering MediaWiki is one of my least favorite activities, but it would be useful to have on this site. Anyone have a good alternative? Other wiki software I've tried lagged way behind it in power and presentation, but that was a few years ago.]]> Achieving 7 ± 2 Complexity http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/6/achieving-7-2-complexity Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:13:07 -0400 Brendan 6@/forums/discussions 7 ± 2 queue.

Poker may be a good example of the classic principle here; it takes someone with a great deal of ability and a lot of rote math to be able to judge the odds and simultaneously play the other players' perceptions. I think poker-style bluffing is overused, though, largely because nobody takes it seriously in any game besides poker. Citadels (which has its faults) is closer to what I'm talking about: every turn demands that you make an unpredictable but useful choice of role, build something that gains you either victory points or in-game abilities, manage your gold supply and watch to see who's in the lead. I understand Puerto Rico gives some people the same satisfaction, although the few times I've played it, I felt too constrained in my choices.

Am I expressing a concept you enjoy in games? If so, I'd like you to brainstorm in this thread: what are some good, reliable mechanical methods for generating this level of complexity while a) not being Magic and b) not depending too heavily on randomness as a factor?]]> Swine Between the Stars http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/9/swine-between-the-stars Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:38:40 -0400 Wolfe 9@/forums/discussions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Pig). I called it Galactic Bomb. With no further exposition, I will attempt to recall the game as I'd created it, those years ago.

The Board: The board had 12 planets and a number of stars distributed across it relatively evenly. Six of those planets were the home planets of the 6 player races. The other 6 were just.. yanno, planets.

Accessories: There were 6 player races. I don't remember them all, but there was a stone man (Lonic of Korce.. Ha! I still remember the name..) a slime, and a tentacled red.. thing. There was an envelope for each planet. Then there were the cards. The cards were various pieces of equipment that would help you cope with planetary conditions and combat. One piece of equipment was the Bomb Code.

Setup: The players selected their characters, and placed the figures on their home planets. The cards were dealt out at random, then the planet envelopes were dealt out at random. The players were given time to place the cards into the envelops, except 3 they could hold onto. Then the envelopes were put away, and a timer was started (usually 1 hour).

Play: determine randomly who goes first. They may move their figure along the "star lanes", basically jumping from star to star. I forget if I had a die roll, or if it was simply 1 move per turn. I think there was a die roll.

If you reached a planet, you could leave cards there, or pick cards up. I don't think I had a limit on how many cards you could carry, though I should have.

If you came to a stop on the same space as another character, you could initiate combat. Other than killing the other character, I don't remember why you would. I think there was a way to steal their objects. Combat was very simplistic; You rolled 1d6 each. Whoever's was higher scored a hit. If you had been hit, when you scored one, it would remove one of yours. You needed to accumulate 2 hits against your opponent to beat them. You could recover hits with certain items, though you had to discard them from play once used. I believe you could flee at any time as well, though doing so would leave any unclaimed items if it was from a planet.

Planets were interesting. They had 3 stats each: atmosphere, temperature and gravity. Each of the player races had certain tolerances. If the planet was out of tolerance, you could not land on it. If you possessed a piece of equipment that would allow you to tolerate condition, then you could. For example, the slime couldn't deal with hot or cold temperatures, but with a thermal suit (or the slime equivalent of a suit) it could survive in cold temperatures.

When the timer ran out, you had to possess the Bomb Code, or you lost, and your planet would be destroyed.

That's the gist.

Over the years, I've toyed with the idea of picking this up again, adding a little complexity, more options, some randomization to how the planets are laid out, etc.

This community may be the impetus required to do just that.]]> cooperative games http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/2/cooperative-games Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:34:35 -0400 strongbow 2@/forums/discussions
I have seen games where the players are working toward the same goal, like Pandemic or Red November and games where the group is working toward a goal except for the traitor, like Shadows over Camelot or Battlestar Galactica. But are there any games where teams work toward differing but not diametrically opposed goals?

I have been thinking about games where cooperation isn't zero sum. If we don't work together we all fail but if I help too much you will win.]]> This article mostly relates to video games http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/8/this-article-mostly-relates-to-video-games Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:49:56 -0400 Brendan 8@/forums/discussions 29 Business Models for Games, found via Chris Bennett.

I think board and card games are a perfect demonstration of the emerging dichotomy of commerce in a post-bandwidth-scarcity world: you can still sell physical objects, but without a locked-down proprietary platform, it's extremely difficult to merchandise data. Of course, with a physical object, you're just locked into another platform--the tyranny of either selling direct or losing a cut to get distributed through specialty stores.

To reach the broadest possible audience, you'd want to have both physical and digital forms of your game available, but then making money (if that is your goal) becomes more difficult. The business models above are all attempts at solving this problem. Can you think of more? Have you personally used any, and to what effect? How many of them actually have demonstrated exemplars of success?]]> Quick definition: "Ameritrash?" http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/5/quick-definition-ameritrashs Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:45:13 -0400 Brendan 5@/forums/discussions Backstabby games http://www.boardy-games.com/forums/discussion/4/backstabby-games Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:54:48 -0400 Simon Pettersson 4@/forums/discussions