Category: Space Soup

Loose Ends

Post author By jantteri
Post date February 7, 2021

As it seemed in the previous post, Space Soup did not fare that well in the TGC’s Community Anthology Challenge. I was expecting a bit better position than 67/89, but I guess this where you get with no-marketing, a-nothing-that-special-concept, and effectively nonexisting theme. Still, the view/vote -ratio seemed to be 15 to 1, which was something that few designers of better-faring entries posted afterwards.

In the TGC’s Mint Tin Challenge held earlier I had a rather strong mechanical concept (but a bit lacking in the game itself) known as Master of Keys. This one had probably the view/vote -ratio of 9 to 1. I did absolutely nothing to promote this one… and the experiment did give me the confidence that if one does have a strong concept and a very good game, the design would get through the popular voting phase even without promoting.

One other missing story ending is the Board Date Project (which the organizers are now running a second time): nothing happened with Staking the Throne. The video was viewed few times (less than average) while those who did check the video watched to the end. Some interesting statistics were shared on boardgamegeek regarding what kind of games got the most interest, and that would seem to indicate that children/party/family games have the most appeal.

And that’s it… well… I do have an entry in an ongoing contest, but one is supposed to be less vocal about one’s participation. But in the meantime, I’m pondering on enrolling into 7th Roll & Wrote Game Design Contest on BGG. I have this idea of rockets moving in an ever-speeding fashion, in which players try to desperately steer their rockets (and obstruct others) through checkpoints. I did some initial testing a while ago, but there were few bigger issues and some other project deadlines… so this was but on a back burner. But I think now it’s time to draw the line.

Tags Pitching

Space Soup

Voting Time

Post author By jantteri
Post date January 9, 2021

The Game Crafter’s Anthology Challenge is at its community voting phase. Well… actually it’s in the last stretch of it already. There are 90 entries, which was more than my guess of 65 entries. I did manage to get Space Soup sufficiently ready so that I was satisfied to submit it.

I’d assume an entry needs around 15 votes to advance this time around. Based on the current numbers (40 shop page views, 10 video views, ~6 Tabletop Simulator subscriptions, 5 PnP downloads, and 3 comments) I’m doubtful of that happening… that probably would require that about half of the people visiting the shop page would also vote for the game. While I believe the design is solid and the shop page pretty ok, it is a steep hill to be climbed.

I checked out all the entries, and there are pretty amazing ones. I must say that I only did a rather quick assessment (5 – 15 min per game), in which I just tried to get the core ideas of the game and if the concept had some interesting twists in it. Without actual playtesting, it is hard to say if something really works or not. The other aspect I tend to ponder is how well the entry is suited for the contest… i.e., how much better the game would be with components more suitable for the job.

That being said, here’s my current votes in no particular order and what caught my eye (check them out if you have not already):

Bugwood – the map hexes define the actions/effects.
Kaleidoscope – how movement is defined.
I’m_In – mastermind with bluffing.
Sasq-watch – interesting way of defining movement.
Disoville Heroes – I liked thematic approach.
Attack on Station Centauri – Interesting approach on co-op and survival.
Venari – Clean design.
Block Like an Egyptian – The choice of how to move forward while blocking others.
Statecraft – Upgradable actions.
Pizza Pronto – Theme, visuals and complexity matching contest neatly.

I also had a racing game design I was more or desperately trying to finish, but could not quite make it in time. In hindsight, it might have been better to concentrate on this one, since there were not that many games with this theme and the mechanics. Well… games ahoy, fret do not!

Tags TheGameCrafter

Space Soup

Post author By jantteri
Post date November 28, 2020

Starting a new project is always exciting. I finally got around to put together a few prototypes for TGC’s Anthology Challenge to Tabletop Simulator and gave them a spin.

One of the ideas is inspired by Ricochet Robots. In other words, you move your meeple around the board in straight lines until hitting an object. The player who manages to collect all his/her cubes first wins. Proof-of-concept testing with my regular gaming group went quite well: there’s some promise, but this definitely needs some spicing (and theme) before it would be a contest worthy entry.

While it has been a bit slower on the blogging front, some advances have been made in the other areas… and I guess designing is a bit of a zero-sum game: the time cake should be sliced in a way that it doesn’t cause burns. And hence the super awkward transition to the naming of the game idea: Space Soup*!

*) If you are flabbergasted (as you probably should be)… I’m thinking about space amoebas as the theme for the game. In the old days, we used to play Primordial Soup relatively often in my gaming group. And in that game, you eat cubes of your own color while floating in the ocean more or less helplessly.

Tags TheGameCrafter