At Tor Gaming office I have, within the last few months, been having weekly 'get togethers' with a few guys for the local club (Sheffield and Rotherham wargames club, also known as 'The Gimps'.....). Last night (21st December 2010) was the last one of these 'get togethers' this side of the new year and it proved to be an interesting one.
First of all, I want to take this opportunity to thank the guys have have made the effort to meet at the office and throw some dice around trying out the latest additions/iterations of the relics system. So, thank you Tom Lovewell, Alex Elstone and Paul Clarke for your efforts and commitment over the last few (4? 5?) months. I do truly appreciate it.
With the help of these three marvellous men I have almost managed to get the rules development side of the Relics rules back on schedule. Having now seemingly cracked the morale rules to a point that they manage to achieve quite a bit of what I wanted them to do in a view of removing the players 'Omnipotent' ability to direct their as they want on the table, I'm feeling much more confident that Relics as a games system will prove to be solid and is certainly ready (minus the magic rules (see below), which still need meat putting on the new bones before it can be sent out the new play-testing program. More news on the new play-testing program shortly by the way.)
So, what was so great about the get together last night? Well, first off all it was only me and Tom. The other two were unable to make it due to family commitments etc (I think that is called 'Real Life'?) We started out looking at the magic rules, or more precisely the lack of magic rules for Relic. Originally, there were rules for the use of magic in the game, but I decided they were complete crap and throw them out the the metaphoric window.
So, with just the two of us, a cup of tea in hand and some ideas that Tom had come up with we started chatting about how to tackle magic. Ideas were battered about, some were discarded, some led to others and in the end we ended up with a solid framework for the management of magic. This in itself is an achievement and I would have been very happy to call the evening to an end and go home, but that was just the first half the night!
By the time we were on our second cup of tea, we were moving on from Relics related development onto 'Project Fire' (as I have just decided to call it... catchy, hey?)
'What's this? You working on non-Relics related games' You are probably not asking, but I will assume you are. The answer to that is 'Yes'. As Tor Gaming is a business and therefore needs to generate cash-flow to help us not only survive but to grow and develop more miniatures and games, I do need to look at other revenue streams outside of the Relics universe.
So, what is this 'Project Fire'? Well, yesterday morning, an idea popped into my head. This is nothing new, I tend to have ideas pop into my head on a regular bases, many of which come to nothing but with this one it ignited a flame in my imagination (pun intended) that I just couldn't put out. So, during the day, in-between other 'stuff', I managed to get the idea out of my head and onto an electronic document. Surprisingly it stretched to 4 pages!!! Wow, a whole 4 pages.
So, after looking at Relics magic, Tom and I turned our attention to 'Project Fire' and gave it a run through using the rules I have managed to write during the day. Initially, it looked to be a game that would need 3 or more players. Whilst this wouldn't have stopped the development of the game, I was a little disappointed as I wanted it to be playable with just 2 players also. But at the very least, we had proved the concept to be a viable game idea.
Now, as I just stated, I wanted the game to be playable with just 2 players, and I found myself looking at ways to make the two player side of it work even on the first night. This is where Tom displayed one of his many moments of genius and suggested a change to the rules for 2 player games that would remove the issues and made the game instantly more enjoyable for just 2 players.
I'm not going to give you many details about the game itself (it is still in it's concept stage after all) but I am so confident that the game will make it through the development cycle that I will say:
* The game will make use of custom dice
* The game will make use of laser etched counters
* the idea behind the game is for it to be a tactical 'filler' game where people can pick it up and play it in 30mins, maybe even faster (you know the times, you at your club, waiting with a few others for your opponents for the night to turn up. So you pull out a 'filler' game to pass those 15 to 20 mins more enjoyable. But it will also be playable by more than 2 players with added tactical and resource manage decisions which will expand the game beyond the 'filler' type game)
* It will most likely be a 'LDG', or Living dice game. So I view it as a possible line that Tor Gaming build on beyond it's initial release with new expansions that add new dice and rules to the core game.
* It will not be a 'CDG' and you will not be buying blind. I don't like blind purchase games.... Nuff said.......
So, keep an eye out for more news on 'Project Fire', I predict it will be a scorcher of a game! ;-)
Happy gaming and a Merry Christmas!
Gavin.
