Project Updates March 2020
Yeah, it has been a month since I wrote a blog post, so this is a catch-all update hacked together on a flight between conventions. Because that is the life of a game inventor, apparently.
The Highlights: I have a lot of projects going. I travel a lot. Many games are in progress.
Lords of Vegas:
This is the tenth anniversary of the release of Lords of Vegas from Mayfair Games. I wrote this game with Mike Selinker in the early 2000’s, and it’s not surprisingly about building casinos in Las Vegas. It’s a well-loved “classic” among its admirers, but not many people have played it, which is something Mike and I would like to change.
Recently, Asmodee acquired the rights from Mayfair in a buyout, and now they are passing the rights back to Lone Shark Games, which opens the door for them to release a new card-based expansion called Underworld this year. Mike and co. will be Kickstarting that expansion as part of a big Lords of Vegas project soon.
So, last week at Dice Tower Con, Mike and I got the chance to shoot most of that Kickstarter campaign video right on the Las Vegas Strip. Above is a photo of Fremont Street (and environs) from atop the Stratosphere.
Veritas:
Greater than Games is working with Mike Selinker and me to create several new boards for this game, in anticipation of a deluxe reprint. In Veritas, everyone is an aspect of the truth, trying to stay alive in the Dark Ages by being copied in books in monasteries. It’s a wonderfully unusual theme, powering a simple area control game.
Because the original French map was designed for six players, it feels a little roomy with fewer than five, even if you shut off some regions as described in the rules. So for the core game, we’ve crafted a new board representing Ireland, which plays between 2 and 4 players. (Or you can still play on a subset of France if you prefer.)
For the Kickstarter campaign, we’re also working on at least three other boards, including a Swiss map with a more modern setting, and rules for resource generation; an Ancient Egypt map designed specifically for two players; and a Central Europe map (circa 843) that can accommodate up to eight players. None of these are final yet, and we’re not even sure if any version of this game can withstand eight players, but we will soon fund out!
After the Fog:
When I showed After the Fog to Greater than Games last month, they admitted that they didn’t have time to work on it anytime soon. So we decided that I should feel free to shop it to other publishers. If those publishers pass on the game, it won’t affect GtG’s schedule. So this weekend at Dice Tower West, I pitched After the Fog to another major publisher, for whom it might be a perfect fit. The demo went well, and they have the prototype now. I’ll share on that project when I know more! In the meantime I did clean up a little of the fiction at World Anvil. Take a look if you haven’t already seen it.
Ricochet Poker:
This game is nearing the end of its field trial at the Strat, and as far as I can tell, it’s doing okay. I don’t get a lot of information directly, so I’m relying on guesswork and rumors, but the game is at least still on the floor as of this weekend. The last few people who walked past it did so at empty times, so it remains to be seen whether this was a successful field trial or not.
Crab Fragment Games:
Oh, yeah, the reason we are here!
I’m developing new games with both of the Crab Fragment Decks: the 54-card Island Deck, and the 72-card Pirate’s Bluff Deck. I need to spend another few sessions playtesting the Pirate’s Bluff rules with the new deck recipe before I release those, but they are feeling pretty good so far. I’m also testing a new game with that deck called Fairmarket, that is probably going to be set in the Dew Point / After the Fog universe.
With the Island deck, I’m continuing to refine Powderkeg, and I’m working on another game based on the Pairs variant called Lunch Rush. This one is currently called “Anticipation,” and honestly it’s not working that well yet, so I’m not even posting the alpha rules. But then, at this point it’s only a few days old, so there is still time to get it into shape.
It’s interesting that these decks are actually pretty similar: the Island deck is 6x9 (six suits and nine ranks) and the Pirate’s Bluff deck is 8x9 (eight letters and nine ranks). “Suit” isn’t really a thing in the Pirate deck: the eight letters are really intended just as a tiebreaker, whereas the six suits in the Island Deck are much more distinct. Also, the “face cards” are a nice subset of the Island Deck that the Pirate Deck doesn’t really have. But still, a game that works with one of these decks might also work with the other.
What’s Next?
After a five-day trip to Las Vegas, filled with video work and convention play, I now have three quick days at home before flying off to Florida and the JoCo Cruise! Yeah, cruising is scary these days with the pandemic scare, but not scary enough to cancel. I’ll just try to keep my hands clean and stay away from all nonporous surfaces, porous surfaces, wet food, dry food, other people, air, water, words, and ideas, and hope that by Saturday they haven’t decided to ban everyone coming from Seattle
After the cruise, I’ll be back at my desk editing games and cutting video, then turning right around and heading to GameStorm in Portland, the last weekend of March. By that point I will have final versions of all the Veritas boards and several other card games to test, including the latest version of Littlebeard, so hopefully you’ll find me there!