Sunday, January 01, 2006

[RPG] Awesome Dirty Virgins Feedback

Remember my game, Dirty Virgins? Medieval maidens trying to avoid being sacrificed to a Dragon? Ron's feedback on it is here at the Forge. Some highlights:

... a stupendous Game Notion which lit up the eyes among my group members at first mention.

You have here a perfect and wonderful idea for a custom card game, along the lines of Give Me the Brain or Uno.

You're almost there! You almost have it! Dude, this could be the knockout card game of GenCon 2006 if you breathe deep and see what you have instead of what you intended to have.

Finally, don't change the name! What are you thinking?


Yep, having received comments from 3 different people, we'll keep it as Dirty Virgins.

Ron's idea about 'dropping the voting phase' is completely out of the blue (
it's been part of the game for me since the beginning), but I can see his point. And I actually had been thinking about converting it into a card-game.

Does anyone have a copy of Give Me The Brain? What other card games should I play?

So, I have lots of options. I could:
  1. Playtest what I've got and figure out its pros & cons, or
  2. Make the voting process work, or
  3. Immediately start developing it along the card-game route, or
  4. Keep it as is & hope I don't come to the conclusion 6 months down the track that the voting doesn't work (which has happened to me several times writing scripts when I've gotten feedback from people who know what they're talking about).

(I think Ralph Mazza's essay on game design, Shooting the Sacred Cow is also a relevant read, here.)


Anyway, those are just options. What I'm excited about is that other people are as excited about this as I am. Hell, I'm on holiday at the moment. I think I'll spend some time right now thinking through the ramifications of Ron's feedback.

Filed in:

8 comments:

hix said...

Oh my. Cards that either decrease your Honour or increase someone else's. But if you increase their's too much, they'll be safe (like they can get married or something).

hix said...

The brainstorming went well.

I think I have to playtest my current rules. Find out what's going on in there. Especially, find out whether the voting is fun or lame.

Unknown said...

Re: card games

I suspect that Munchkin would be another one to go for for the kind of humour/player smackdown you need. Also Gloom is worth checking out.

The idea of turning it into a card game is pretty good. You have the cool idea, card games where you mess with each other are fun, the possible card ideas/illustrations would be awesome.

A bastard to self publish a card game, though, from online discussion I have seen.

hix said...

Yep, if I go down the card-game route then (at the moment) I suspect I'd initially try something like a totally cheap production run where you just cut the cards out from a page of the .pdf. (I think Matt C went down that route for his Iron Chef game?)

That is, I don't provide any cards at all.

See, I'm not sure about producing a physical object - with all the production and shipping concerns that'd entail - without being convinced there's a market for it.

Although, based on peoples' reactions, if I do it right then there'll be a market for it.

Cheers for the recommends, also, dude.

Anonymous said...

Matt and Debz have made a bunch of cardgames. You should talk to them fer sure :)

Matt said...

Debbie and I made a few card games - physcally produced them and sold a couple hundred copies. It was well worth it as a personal achievement, and we made a few $. We never had the cash to invest in slick production values though, so we went a kind of Cheapass Games route.

Dale Elvy has recently produced an incredibly slick (and I'd guess very profitable) card game along with his partner Rebecca. It's a Quiz game called, funnily enough, Quiz. He's a smart man that Dale, and the game looks great. It's available in Whitcoulls and Paper Plus.

I must remember to congratulate him either at Kapcon or by email...

So, we're happy to chat about our creative process and lo-fi production, and Dale will no doubt have some very sage advice on producing a slick final package.

His website is something like:
www.imaginaryempire.co.nz

hix said...

That's awesome & unexpected news. Well done, you guys! I shall totally be picking both your brains (and maybe Dale's) v. soon.

Off to register for Kapcon.

hix said...

Here's a useful thread about card-stock printing, from the Forge.

Here's another about laying out cards.