Wednesday, July 27, 2022

It is finished!!!

The game is finally finished and for sale!!!


The demo can be downloaded for free at:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/396995/Illeria-demo-game


The pdf of game can be purchased at:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/395081/Illeria


The hard copy of the game can be purchased at:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/simon-stump-and-tag-/illeria/paperback/product-67nrmq.html?q=illeria&page=1&pageSize=4


Moving it over the finish line has been a weird process.  I think I had what I first thought of as the final pdf done a couple of months ago, but there has been a lot of back-and-forth getting the final product to look right (I'm still working things out to do a hard-cover copy on wargamevault).  But, it's done.  It's been kind of a relief to have it finally be out there, and I've stated thinking about what game might be next.

Friday, December 31, 2021

Happy end of 2021

Happy New Years!!!

So, I wanted to give you all quick updates for the year.

I got Illeria to a point that I'm calling it "finished."  There was a quote I heard George Lucas say once (I can't remember if he was quoting someone) about how movies are never finished, just abandoned; I think that totally applies here.  I could probably keep going on forever, but at some point it is time to say "Done!" and leave any further changes for the second edition.

The final game has 43 abilities (among 6 classes), 11 spells (among 3 schools), 10 types of additional creatures, 9 missions, and 5 scenarios to determine how characters become linked.  The rulebook is 5 chapters and 55 pages, and contains 14 drawings and 13 figures.

This feels like something to celebrate.

I order a copy printed from Lulu, and I'm super excited to see it.  I think it should get here Tuesday.

I pitched the game to Osprey and Mantic Games, both have said no.  I'm going to try Warlord Games, but if that doesn't work, I might just send it to Wargame Vault.  

Anyways, cheers!

Friday, November 5, 2021

Finalizing the campaign mode

My update, I have 5 playtests to go.  I have an ordered list of abilities I want to test (I won't get to all of them, but that's okay).  I'm happy with my missions, and might try to squeeze one more in.  The rulebook just went through a major edit, and Sarah is going to look at it.  And, I have a campaign mode I'm happy with.

On that, the campaign mode...

I've always had a few goals in my campaign:
1) Battlefield deaths feel heavy (e.g. if a party is losing, they don't keep fighting to earn extra experience)
2) Games are varied (e.g. if I play four games against my brother, they feel distinct, rather than like one game with three rematches)
3) There is an end condition.

For (3), I've decided to stay with the Illeria as a former prison colony backstory.  I've gone through different ideas, and what I finally came to was that the characters know of a way to escape (e.g. crafting a magic flying boat or building a teleporter), but doing so is resource-intensive.  So, they battle over alchemical resources to craft their items from, and escape when they collect enough.

For (2), a given game has 5 characters, but groups 12 that they can pick from.  Because of this, you will field a different party every game.

For (1), if a character dies in battle, there is a decent chance they die permanently.  This links with the 12 characters thing, because it builds in a buffer: if a character dies, you still have 11 left.

So, then comes the nitty-gritty of how to do a campaign.  To test my ideas, I created a campaign simulator.  I made a party of 12 characters, and named them after PS1-era Final Fantasy characters (I figured I'd care more if I saw "Tifa dies" instead of "Character 3 dies").  Then, I made a simulation that did everything except the game:
1) I picked 5 characters to fight.
2) The simulator randomly determined if I won (50/50 chance), and picked who died in battle (based on death rates in playtests).
3) It determined whether a character that died in battle if they died permanently, gained permanent injuries, or was fine.
4) It randomly assigned me whatever spoils I got from the battle.
5) It gave me the choice of how to assign experience points, and if someone levels up, gives them pre-made abilities.
6) It determines how many resources I consumed, and if needed, what would happen with foraging.
7) It determined if the party persisted; if so, repeat.  

I ran this for a number of campaigns, and then decided how I liked the results.  I would then tweak how steps #3-7 worked.  I made a few interested discoveries.

I wanted parties to consume some kind of resource (step 6), to put a timer on things.  This was meant to be like the ante in poker: a reason to not sit out most games.  I tried versions where I tracked this on a broad and a minute level, and I found that I liked using the broadest level possible.  What I came up with was that 1 unit of "rations" feeds the entire party after a game.  If you win a game you get a perishable ration, if you lose you need to eat one of your dry rations.  If you run out of dry resources, then you need to forage, and foraging often results in misfortune.  I like this because it is simple, and it puts a clock on the number of games that you can lose.  

Spoils (step 4) took a good bit of adjusting.  I elected to have the win condition be collect X alchemical resources, and so I needed to tweak what X was, and how many you could get in a game.  For a while, it was 1 if you won, and 0 if you lost. I eventually decided to make it 2 if you won, 1 if you had a minor loss, and 0 if you had a major loss.  I did this to keep people in battle, so that even if they knew they would lose, they would still fight for that one bit of resource.  It also felt better to get 1, and much more interesting if the number of resources was not just the number of wins.  I also tweaked how many rewards parties got (besides the resources).  After a few tests, I settled on the winning party got 2, and the losing party got 1.  For the winner, 3 was too many and 1 was not enough.  For the loser, it really felt bad get nothing.

I haven't changed my leveling-up system (step 5), and I've always really liked it.  Basically, after each game you get a certain number of training dice, which you assign amongst your characters, and if you roll high enough, they gain a level.

Death took some tweaking, to get it moderately punishing.  I ended on characters die on a dice roll of 4+, or 5+ if they are level 3, or 6 if they are level 5.  Each time they die in battle but not permanently, it usually increases their chance of dying permanently.  I debated whether to have the chance of dying always increase, or just usually (i.e. on the roll of a 1, nothing happens).  Usually felt so much better psychologically, however, it had little impact on the long-term probability of survival (i.e. how many times a level 1, 3, or 5 character could die in battle before dying permanently); so, I kept it.

Okay, almost 1000 words.  Almost there.  This is exciting!!!

Sunday, September 5, 2021

10 playtests to go...

This will be an all-update day.

As I mentioned in my last post, maybe a month ago I set a deadline for myself: I would play 20 more test games, and then call Illeria done (at least for now).  I recently played game #10, so it's time to check in and see how it is going.

I'm trying to keep in mind a great GDC talk I saw by Tom Francis on efficiency in game design.  I recently rewatched it.  One of his main pieces of advice was to consider things it add in terms of value divided by work.  

So, here is what I have done and need to do, divided into groups.

Main rules
I feel really good about the main rule set.  I've made few changes in the past 10 games, and feel good about those I have (e.g. making spells harder to cast if the target is in cover).  I've also been tightening things by removing rules or making things consistent.  I doubt I will have many more changes in the next 10 games.

Characters
I've finally started testing with high-level characters.  I think it has gone well, as a character with a two-point ability or a couple of ability boosts is good, but not overwhelmingly good.  
I currently have 5 fighter abilities (mostly well tested), 7 archer abilities (all but one well tested), 12 mystic abilities (not all of them tested), 6 spellcaster abilities (some well tested, others less so), 4 animator abilities (all well tested) + 2 I'm debating, and 5 summoner abilities (most well tested).  I think at this point I can stop testing archery abilities, and I either need to start culling mystic abilities or testing them thoroughly.  I keep feeling like I need one more animator ability, but have been struggling.  

Missions & scenarios
I've divided my game types into "missions" (which define how one wins), and "scenarios" (which define how magic is transferred to the real world).  I currently have 9 missions that have been tested decently to well, and a few I'm so-so on.  I'm debating between whether it is worth spending my last 10 games tightening up current missions, or developing new ones.  I think it would be irresponsible to try to develop more than one new mission (two at most).  I have three very solid scenarios, and two that are so-so.  I'm definitely going to test the two so-so scenarios, that will be a main focus.  The scenarios have honestly been lacking in part because they are harder to design.  I'd like to have a 6th one, but might not come up with an idea. 

Campaign
I have a decent campaign mode at this point.  I think I have a decent method for having strong parties fight weak ones.  I think I really like my death and experience systems, though I wonder if they could use minor tweaking.  I've tracked the number of survivors per game in the past 7 games, and have found that on average 40% of a party dies if the party wins, and 60% dies if the lose (that said, these are both +/- about 18%, so I can't be super confident yet); I can use this to project how long a party will survive.  One thing I've struggled with slightly is the resource system (more in a future post).  I've been thinking testing with this in simulated campaigns, where I do the pre-game stuff, then flip a coin to see who wins, and calculate the aftermath.  I'll do computer simulations understand long-term behavior, but also do it by hand to see how crappy I feel after a bad game.  

The campaign is one where I debate the value/effort.  If I look in that term, I'm not sure if it is worth it, but it is something I really fundamentally wanted from when I first created this game.  I guess that is like what Tom said, that it is important because it is the value I want to put into this game.

Rulebook
I just gave the rulebook an on-paper edit.  It is still rough, but other than the missions and scenarios, I have everything on paper.  My time as a scientist taught me it's often easier to edit than write from scratch, and I have a good basic structure.  Sarah promised that she'll read it when I'm near done.

I have several diagrams, which I'm happy with, and many hand-made pictures.  I have a few more diagrams I want to make, and a couple more drawings I want to hand-draw. 

Backstory
This is one I keep going back and forth on.  I'm starting to lean towards the story of mercenary prospectors in a magical outlands, rather than a story of escapees fighting to survive on a prison island.   The outlands story works better with the campaign mode, and honestly makes more sense with some of the missions.  I'm debating if it is an interesting story, or one that is over-done (I worry it sounds too much like Frostrgave and Mordheim).  I think the prison island story is much more unique.  I also have to take into account that I have flavor text written for the prison island story, and I worry that would take too much time to re-do (failing the value/effort ratio).

Ok, so the current to-do list (in rough order of importance):
-Make rulebook clear.
-Make rulebook pretty.
-Polish abilities I am so-so on.
-Add an animator ability.
-Get campaign mode working.
-Polish scenarios I am so-so on.
-Polish missions I am so-so on.
-Get at least 1 more scenario.
-
Make at least 1 more mission.

Ok, T minus 10 games and counting...

Sunday, August 29, 2021

I'm back, and a SUPER exciting topic

I took a hiatus from Illeria after starting my new job.  I needed it.  I'm back though.  I set a deadline to playtest Illeria 20 more times, and then contact my first publisher (Osprey).  I'm at 9.  I told myself I'd do a check-in at 10, so that will be my next post.

For today, I wanted to talk about grammar in rulebooks.  I know, why did I take so long to talk about something so exciting?  :p  

Seriously though, as I was writing my rulebook, I noticed I was being inconsistent about what I capitalized.  For example, do I write, "If a Spellcaster is Linked, they gain +2 Soul when casting Berserk," or "If a spellcaster is linked, they gain +2 soul when casting berserk"?  Previously I had been just doing what felt right, without putting much thought into it (this in a book that I've edited and rewritten for the past decade).  My recent full edit made me think I should be more intentional in my choices.  

I talked to Sarah (a former English teacher) for advice.  She said that game rulebooks are such a niche that there probably aren't standard conventions, and to just be consistent.  She also suggested looking at other games, and seeing if I found a pattern.

So, I did this, and here's what I found (some of these in old-edition rulebooks):

Dungeons & Dragons capitalizes stats (Wisdom), skills, table names, abilities, and various quantities that they abbreviate (Armor Class as AC).  They use lower case for race (dwarf), class (barbarian), and condition (paralyzed).  They italicize spell names.

Warhammer 40K and Necromunda capitalize stats (Leadership), races (Ork), titles (Champion), terms like Combat Score or Break Test, psychic power names, skills, and mission names.  They also capitalize weapon names when they are in a table, but not in text.  The use lower case for statuses, phases of the turn (shooting phase), and the terms short and longe range.

Infinity capitalizes stats, attributes of weapons, troop types, skill names, statuses, mission names, and attributes like Short Skill or Range.  I couldn't find anything significant that was lower-case.

Frostrgave capitalizes stats, class (Elementalist), magic schools, spell names, and the words "Line of Sight" and "Wizard Sheet."  They use lower case on creature names and mercenary classes.  

Savage Worlds capitalizes stats, skills, action names, status, and the term "Unit Card."  It uses lower-case for the term "cover".  

King of War capitalizes stats, move types, missions, statuses, troop type, movement types, and the terms Line of Sight and Enemies.  I couldn't find anything significant in lower-case.  

Going through this made me feel better about how indecisive I've been, it seems a little all over the map, and some games seem to just capitalize everything.  

I found one discussion of it on BGG, which seemed to suggest that there is no standard convention, that "only capitalize proper nouns" is a good rule of thumb.  I also like the idea of using italics for highlighting certain things.

Here is my working idea.  I will capitalize:
-Stats (Armor)
-Terms like Energy Points, Residual Magic, and Training Dice
-Mission names (Scoria Hunt)
-Phase names (Action Phase)
-Action names (Melee Attack action)

I will italicize:
-spell names
-ability names

I will use lower-case for:
-statuses (linked)
-terms like summoned creatures and damage
-class names (mystic)
-terrain types (heavy cover)
-names of creatures (eidolons)

I'll see how this looks, and edit it as needed.

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Quick update

 Hi all, I haven't posted in a while.  Between a lot of life stuff (starting a new job at Carvana, trying to buy a house) and a feeling of burnout with Illeria, I haven't worked on it for a while.  So, I decided I needed a break.  I pushed my goal of finishing it back to the end of June, and decided that I'd spend May not working on it (except for painting figures for it, and maybe making terrain).  I'll tell you more about it when I get back.

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Simplicity vs. interesting(?) decision in turn order

Weekly updates:
I keep playing games and coming up with abilities.  I want to have 5 abilities per character type (i.e. melee, archery, spellcaster, etc), and I'm almost there.  

For today, I want to talk about the initiative system.

Illeria has an I-go-you-go system, where each round, players take turns acting with one character at a time (until all characters have acted).  To determine who goes first in a round, I have had players roll a dice, and whoever rolls highest gets to pick whether go first or second.  If there are ties, then you reroll until someone wins.

I had a funny moment when I was playtesting by myself.  For a long time, I did this faithfully, rolling two dice, picking the highest, and then deciding when the team that won would want to go.  However, at one point I realized that because this is a zero-sum game, and I had all the information, I there wound never be a situation where one player wanted to go first and the other second.  So, since it came down to an even split to decide, I made it easier on myself, and rolled one dice, with each side having a 50% chance of going first.  This meant I didn't need to think, and that I never had to reroll ties, and gave the same outcome.

This got me thinking, should I bother making whether to go first or second a choice at all?  The main pro is that the player who rolls higher gets to make an interesting decision.  It is also more what players expect.  The main con is that it is one more step in the game.

Thinking about it, if you just flipped a coin each round to determine turn order, that would take 10-ish seconds.  If both players roll a dice, that also takes 10-ish seconds.  However, there is also a 1 in 6 chance that they need to reroll the dice (making it 20 seconds), a 1 in 36 chance they need to reroll at least twice (30 seconds) and so on.  This should take an average of 12 seconds (see here).  Plus, there is the time a player needs to think (another 5-10 seconds), and the more squishy impact of cognitive load, perhaps on something other than what the game should be about.  Is this decision worth doubling the amount of time it takes?

I was leaning towards "no", that I should just make it random, but then had another realization, which is that I don't need to make the odds 50-50.  When I initially designed Illeria, parties had a leader, and if the leader died, their party suffered a penalty to dice rolls.  I don't know if I want to bring the leader back, but I have had some other ideas of how to tinker with the roll.

First, players could get +1 to their roll for each character who is knocked out.  I'm really liking this, because it would produce negative feedback.  Wargames are notorious for having positive feedback loops: you win by killing characters, and killing your opponent's characters makes your opponent less able to kill your characters.  I've often struggled with this, and it might be a way to do it.  

Second, each player could spend Energy Points to boost their roll.  This would add an interesting decision.  Additionally, near the end of the game, parties sometimes get to a point where they gain Energy Points faster than they can spend them.  This could potentially remove that, by giving an infinite pit that you could throw points down.

I really like #1, and am on the fence about #2.  They will slow things down, especially #2, though I also have ideas for eliminating ties (the player who lost last time wins ties).  I think I really need to just playtest this with others.  But, if these extra rules feel like one extra rule, I think I'll just go full simple and make it a 50-50 chance that each player goes first (no decision required).