Figure Drawing Update

Time for something a bit more traditional! I've been refining some skills in the figure drawing department, and have grown to love willow charcoal.

Yaharr...

An In-Depth Analysis of "Coin Age": A Print 'n' Play Game that Literally Fits in your Pocket

Hey guys! The game I chose to deconstruct is called Coin Age. It is a Print 'n' Play game created by Adam P. McIver that literally fits in your pocket, as the size of the cards themselves fit nicely in most standard wallets. It is available here.

The Goal of the Game is to score the most points by the end of the game. These points are dubbed by the instruction cards as "Victory Points", or VP for short. VP is attained through area influence and control on the small map that is included on one card. Whichever player is in control of the most territory usually wins. However, different coin values and region control do offer some variables to that rule.

The Core Mechanic of the game is the randomization of coins that are face up and face down. Before the match begins, one player decides on heads, and the other decides on tails. A coin is flipped to see who gets to go first. Afterwards, a single coin is taken from each value tier (of which there are 4), and placed into a player's hands. The player then shakes all of the coins in his or her hands, then slams them down onto the table. Whether the coins are face up or tails determines the move(s) that they will make. These moves include placing coins, paying coins to the other player in order to place more coins, moving coins that are already on the board, and capturing coins from the other player.

The Space of the Game is the map itself. Coins can only be played and moved inside of the illustrated regions that are visible on the small map. If they are not on the map, they are located in either player's bank. The map itself is divided into regions. Each region has a select number of tiles to control within them. One has only one tile, another has two, another has three, and another has four. More than one coin can be placed on one tile. However, the coins must be placed in hierarchal order. Coins or stacks of coins that are moved may only be moved onto an adjacent tile as long as it is not already occupied.

In the category of Objects, Attributes, and States, coins fill the role of the objects. They are the entities that are placed and moved across the board, and their location and quantity decide how much VP the player earns by the end of each game. The coins themselves have attributes, depending on their type. Quarters are worth the most VP at 4, nickels are worth 3, pennies are worth 2, and dimes are worth only 1. Coins may be stacked on top of each other regardless of whether the coin they are being stacked onto is heads or tails, but only if they are a smaller value than that coin.

The Operative Actions a player can take are few, but each one can rapidly change the game. Coins can be placed by a player, anywhere on the board, as long as they are placed in a region that has no coins in it or if the region has a coin of a larger value on it. Coins can also be payed to an opposing player, allowing the player who payed a coin to place another coin on the board. Coins can also be moved, allowing players to move individual coins to new areas or to move an entire stack of coins to a new area.

The Resultant Actions of this allows players to take control of regions and bully other players out of their tiles, allowing them to strategize and plan the best course to maximize how much VP they earn by the end of the match.

Behavior Rules of this game are pretty simple. Players aren't allowed to cheat or fight one another. Trash talk, while not necessary, is encouraged.

Some valuable Advisory Rules to take into consideration when playing Coin Age it is wise to place coins that are of lesser value to decrease the likelihood of a player taking control of your area by placing a coin on top of that coin. However, this obviously won't earn you as much VP as a coin of a larger value will earn you. That is why players usually keep their large coins towards the end of the match so they can place them down and maximize the amount of points that they earn.

Examples of Skills Learned from playing coin age include strategizing the placement of your coins and planning ahead for the moves of your opponent. Some risk and gambling elements are taken into consideration as well.

The Role of Chance in coin age is pretty high. The coins flipped at the beginning of each round serve as "two sided dice", and the player's actions all boil down to what coins were either face up or face down. As a result, the player can be at the mercy of a randomized luck based system, but it is how they react to what they are dealt and how they use it to their advantage that makes their moves important.

Print and Play Adventures: Space, Arenas, and Classical Warfare!

So this was pretty interesting! For an assignment in Game Design I at Ringling, we were tasked with playtesting one or more print and play games available online in preparation for making our own print and play game in the near future. It was a really interesting experience. The games themselves were very easy to obtain and produce, hence the name, "print and play".

The first game I played with a group was Light Speed, a print and play game designed by James Earnest and Tom Jolly. The cards themselves were illustrated by Eduardo Muller.

The game was pretty cool in concept. It sells itself as a "Real-Time Card Game" on its site, and it does a pretty good job of delivering on some spicy real time action. The game is designed to be played with between 2 to 4 people (though it could technically be played with even more if one desired). Essentially, three asteroids are placed down onto the map, and people must place down their ship cards as fast as possible. Each ship has a different number, dictating the order in which they fire in after being placed, and a different direction and power of lasers that they shoot out in specific directions. There are two choices for players to obtain points: They may target the astroids in order to maximize resource mining, or they may place their ships so that it destroys others who are in their line of fire, depleting the player of any resources that their ship currently carries while gaining points of their own.

It was an incredibly fast paced game, for this one killer mechanic: Whoever places their cards first must say "Stop!", and anyone who is not done placing their ships down must stop. This forces everyone to think quickly and make rash decisions in terms of their ship placement, which could end up hurting them in the end. We had multiple rounds where somebody's ship would fall victim to their own friendly fire, causing them to lose out on some valuable resource points. Overall, "Light Speed" was quite a blast, and it's interesting and unique take on the concept of a card game left me excited to play even more Print and Play games.

The next game I played was called Sword and Sail, another print and play game designed by Jason R. Williams.

Essentially, Sword and Sail plays out like a simplified risk. The goal of the game is to take control of one country, or territory, of the map. Territories include small but hard to reach areas like Britannia, to vast, expansive areas, like Italia, or Africa. The whole theme of the game is set so that it occurs during the era of classical warfare, which was quite interesting. Each turn, a player would get four actions. Actions included drawing a card, moving an army, playing a card, and discarding a card. There were two types of cards that could be drawn. The most common card were territory cards, which would have the name of one specific territory on them. When activated by a player, he would place one army onto that territory. Another type of card was the navigator card, which would allow a player to upgrade one of his or her armies to a naval army, which would allow them to traverse water. However, their strength would be unchanged.  An army could only be destroyed if two opposing armies were placed in conjoining tiles. Then, one of each player's armies would be discarded, with the last remaining army taking place of the attacked one. 

This game was exciting and tactical. There were many occasions where the game came pretty close to ending, where it would require one player to gain control of only one or two more tiles in a region such as Africa or Britannia to win the game. However, either of us were would always end up draw a card for these regions, allowing us to enter in behind enemy territory preventing the player from gaining control of it without losing one of their armies. This tactic earned the name "Orbital Strike", as the ridiculousness of having an army come flying in to the top of Britannia when most of that player's armies were located in Africa was pretty funny. In the end, I ended up winning by taking control of Italia. It was a long and protracted war, but "New Rome" was ready to restore the world of its former glory and peace.

Overall, the whole experience of playing Print and Play games found online was really fascinating, awesome, and fun. The whole time, I kept thinking that "These are pretty much indie board games", and they definitely played like them as well. Some, like Light Speed, took really unique approaches to an old concept which resulted in a fast paced shoot first, ask questions later game that I wouldn't normally associate with tabletop games. Others, like Sword and Sail took a popular concept and made it smaller and more simplified, making sure that each component in its small set of rules was refined and easy to follow as possible. Last but not least, this whole process has gotten me super excited to make my own Print and Play game. Bring it on!

Thorne Room from Freshman Year

For my second semester at Ringling, we were required to construct a Throne Room in our 3D for Game Art class! I was paired up with two people, and we constructed a really awesome piece. We decided on the idea of staging an assault on a top secret Soviet Union war room during the 70's by US Spies.