Long Lost Progress!

It has been too long since my last post, and important progress has been made! We realized that we weren't getting very far trying to design and play test games solely over the internet, so the four of us currently involved in Squid Games decided to start meeting regularly. This has made a huge difference in our productivity, and is also incredibly fun.

Ben has been chugging away at a new soccer board game, and the prototype he created has been great for generating new ideas and toying with current ones. Liege Lords has been stalled for awhile because I haven't taken the time to work on it, but that too has changed with our regular meetings. We've been meeting at a local bar that has an ever-changing stock of micro-brews. (Good company beer can work wonders for creativity!)

Check back for updates on some of our games in the future! We now meet every other week for a few hours to share ideas and play test whatever needs it, and I'll post some of our updates and experiences here.

More help!

In an attempt to get this engine started again, I've invited Ben Lachman to join in the Squid Games development process. With all the real life stuff we're all dealing with, it's been hard to debug, generate ideas, and fine tune what's been working (even with a super-secret online work group). Here's to hoping that adding another brilliant mind to the mess will help this beast turn the corner!

No promises, but...

Things are still very busy in real life for me, but I'm going to try to spend more time working on the games again. Nothing will change unless I change it, right? And at this point, even an hour a week would be more time than I've spent since my last update here. I'm still quite excited about Liege Lords and still think it will be inventive and fun, I just need to find a way to stay motivated to do the necessary work. It's odd how the frustrations I have with my real life job tend to inspire me to complete the games and pursue new horizons...or crush my will to be creative in any sense. [smile] Thanks for tuning in.

Stalled

Squid Games has stalled. It's entirely my fault, as I've been distracted by my real job and also a bit daunted by the realization that the Liege Lords play testing is going to be much more involved than I previously realized. I'm going to have to back up and rework many/most of the mechanics I had thought would work. I also think it will be valuable to put together some kind of feedback form for play testing to track what issues, problems, or mechanics are being addressed and what possible changes could be made.

And I need to find a dedicated crew to play test. Although it should perhaps be called "work" testing, because for awhile there won't be much fun being had, which should be part of the definition of "play." :)

Combat System

What can I say? It's a mess. Playtesting is happening in its roughest sense, and already it is performing its duty: bringing the wrinkles to the surface for observation and ironing. On the upside, everyone agreed that the combat system is different and fun to play, it just needs to be tweaked. And not delicately. Specifically, the rules for retreating are very unclear and the Knight tactic cards, while fun, seem to be about 25% broken. These things will work out more as the economic and political systems shape up, but as it is they're nearly unusable.

GenCon Indy

Here's Kevin and Brad demoing the brand new Eve CCG at GenCon. We each received free starter decks for it. Decent game, really.

GenCon was great. I was able to talk with a few people in the business of making games, attend a valuable seminar on how to get your game published, play loads of demo games, have fun with great friends, and establish a good connection with Kevin Brusky of APE Games. I would highly suggest that you check out his stuff, as the artwork on his games is some of the best. And he has also collaborated with Rich Burlew, creator of Order of the Stick, to publish a hilarious, challenging, and fun dungeon delving game based on the comic strip. It should be out soon, and I'll certainly get a copy.

In other news, play testing is going slowly. Mainly my fault--I need to be more intentional about scheduling and structuring the playtesting. Gotta get on that.

Liege Lords

Just a quick note: finished the LL components over the weekend and week. Maybe I'll get some pics of their sheer simplicity up for you. Sooo, play testing on a massive scale to begin shortly. Meaning: whenever I can get the dudes together to work.

On the agenda: does combat work? how much gold is needed? how do lord/vassal relationships form? how should the economy work? does the game play to an end naturally?

Exciting Squid Games news!

For the past few weeks I've been wanting to have conversations with a few key people to gauge their interest and commitment to what Squid Games is doing. Despite a vacation and my sometimes sluggish nature, Brad Metzler has agreed to become a business partner in the Squid Games venture! This is good news, as he brings with him knowledge of small business start-up that I just do not yet have.

I'm still waiting for a few more key conversations, but I should have more updates on the business side of Squid Games soon. Business plans are being sketched, potential is being measured. Also, we're getting very close to the play testing stage for Liege Lords, which is very encouraging. This game is shaping into something quite remarkable.

In the meantime, how can I fill you in? What would you like to read about or see here on the blog? Post your comments below or write to squidgames at gmail dot com.

Liege Lords: Seasons

Inspired by the 1968 film The Lion in Winter and the biblical story of David and Bathsheba, we've added a progression of seasons to Liege Lords. Ok, so we really were just looking for a way to slow down the turn order so players wouldn't be reassigning turn order every five minutes, but there's still some truth to it.

The problem: as it stands, each player moves only a small number of armies each round, which ends up making rounds pass rather quickly, which makes rolling for turn order a repetitive nuisance. The solution? Break down a round into phases that allow a player several different options at each phase and that also allow for more combat in each round.

The game "year" starts with a roll-off for turn order. You can spend your resources in various ways to give yourself an advantage in the pecking order--we don't want it to be completely random, and you'll need to spend those shiny Gold pieces on something. Once turn order is assigned, we begin in Spring. The ground thawing. Fields being plowed. Green growing things. Armies preparing for the coming season of war! In Spring you can levee new armies and/or send them off for a round or two of combat. Most likely there will be at least one more option for Spring activities, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

Summer is the season of war. All players will be allowed to move more armies than they can normally. In short, you can attack some in Spring, but Summer is the primary attack phase.

With Autumn comes the harvest. Any lands that have not levee'd an Army will produce their goods, thereby supplying our players with the Gold they'll need for their further exploits. Autumn also gives players one last round of combat before the snows fall and Armies rest, although moving Armies is Autumn will come at a cost to goods production.

With little to do in Winter but wait for the thaw, players will be able to spend their saved and newly aquired Gold to purchase upgrades to their war capabilities, to purchase a chance at extra Nobility points by throwing a gala ball and seeing who shows up, or to save their Gold in preparation for the coming initiative rolls of the next "year."

Liege Lords: Lords and Vassals

Kevin and I had a great work session this weekend. We want the fun of Liege Lords to revolve around the changing relationships between players more than simply around who controls which territories. Territory and armies are a means to an end, but not the end in itself. Since the main focus of Liege Lords is, in fact, to have players lord over each other in-game, we spent most of our time discussing how to establish and encourage players to enter into liege-and-vassal type relationships, and what that would mean for gameplay.

We established earlier that the two main resources in Liege Lords will be Nobility and something more material and generic, for the time being called Gold. Nobility is a representation of social importance and influence, while Gold is a representation (obviously) of material wealth and buying power. The game will be won or lost based on Nobility, which will also be more difficult to obtain. Nobility determines who can lord over whom, while Gold is a commodity that can be used to buy upgrades to military strength, buy out of vassalship, or to throw a gala ball to earn extra Nobility points.

A player with fewer Nobility points than another can voluntarily become that player's Vassal. This makes the player with more Nobility a Liege, or lord. One advantage of this relationship is that a Vassal's Nobility and wealth increase with the Liege's--like riding the Liege's coattails. The Liege of course then gets the benefits of being lord: requiring tributes of Gold, using the Vassal's armies, or forbidding the Vassal from taking a particular action. It will also be possible for a Liege to force other players to become Vassals by crushing them on the field of battle.

The next step in the process is to get out the gameboard and start balancing the powers of the Liege versus the benefits to the Vassal. And, of course, to identify the numerous ways in which a treacherous Vassal might scheme to turn the tables on the Liege in order to win the game!

Introductions! (Squid Staff)

So, let's meet the Squid Studios team. Probably should have done this sooner.

We're a small group dedicated to playing--and now also to making--great games of all types, but primarily board games. It's really a shame that we're doing most of this on a "volunteer" (and self-funded) basis at this point: that crumby "real" world with all its bills and payments and what-have-you. (Holla if ya hear me.) We love what we are doing and are very excited about the results.

I'm Patrick Filipiak, project leader and lead developer for Squid Studios games. That means I choose which ideas to run with, and I direct the way in which our games develop. I do much of the designing and troubleshooting throughout the game design process. I also do much of the nuts-and-bolts stuff like creating mock-ups for play testing, balancing the game rules and mechanics, and the maintenance of this blog.

Kevin Jacobson and Brad Metzler are key developers. These guys take the rough ideas I give them and make them better, suggesting possible gameplay elements or a different spin on a concept. During brainstorm and planning sessions, these are the guys that make the room light up. Currently, Kevin is assigned primarily to Liege Lords, and Brad is tasked with the broader shaping of Escape.

Graphic design is handled by Aaron Schlagbaum, a relative newbie to strategy board games, but not to visual design. He takes the sketches and ideas given to him and makes them interesting and awesome. Or so we suspect, as we have just barely reached the point of needing his services and haven't seen his work yet.

There are a few other folks that you may be introduced to soon, once I get the chance to invite them into what we're doing.

Liege Lords combat system finished

The combat system for Liege Lords is finished and will undergo thorough play testing as soon as the board design and mock-up are finished.

One frustration with some combat-driven board games is the fallibility of probablity--namely, those headachy, flaky dice. You can have a great army, but be undone by dumb luck. In some senses this can be exciting, but for Liege Lords I wanted to try something related but different. Here's a brief and incomplete summary:

While still using dice as the basis for determining victory, Liege Lords also incorporates Tactics Cards which, when used appropriately, offer a chance to sway probablility more to your favor. Each player will have an identical set of Tactics Cards of various colors. Players simultaneously choose, then reveal a card. Depending on what color of card your opponent plays against your color, you will each receive a bonus or penalty to your combat dice rolls. Functionally, it plays out like paper/rock/scissors but with many more options and no absolute guarantee of victory.

The two basic army units in Liege Lords are Knights and Footmen. Each has its own Tactics Card deck with its own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. After a round of card selection and dice rolling, a losing army takes the difference between the two die rolls as damage. When an army can sustain no more damage, it is defeated and must retreat. If there is no open territory to retreat into, the army is destroyed. This will make more sense after the details about tile design and board layout get posted.

Not coincidentally, the next phase of development is to polish up the terrain tiles and rules for assembling the game board. Then, we begin the task of balancing the economic and political aspects of the game with the combat aspects. Look for updates here soon!

Two games currently in development

Squid Studios is currently working hard on two original concept strategy board games. Since most of us have full time jobs outside of game development (sadly), these games might be awhile in the making. The working titles for the games are Liege Lords and Escape. We're currently focusing on Liege Lords (about 40% finished), and we'll then turn more heavily to Escape (about 10% finished).

Liege Lords is a competitive game of feudal conquest in which 3-6 players use political and military might to establish their right to the throne. Player will rule over player in this battle between lords and vassals, knights and footmen. Do you have the courage necessary to reign with nobility and valor?

Escape is a cooperative game in which all players must work as a team in order to escape galactic imprisonment and evade their alien captors. Each player's abilities, items, and energy must be used wisely to avoid setting off alarms or alerting the guards. No one player can escape alone, but--with a little luck and a lot of cunning--the whole team will make it out alive!

Check back weekly for development updates on these games, and we'll also keep you posted about the publishing and availability of our games (which may take a long while, but we're still very excited).

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting the Squid Studios blog!

Here, we'll post updates on the various games we have in development. Once they're ready, we'll have info on how and where you can get Squid Studios games. And we just might ask you for feedback about our games.

We're a small group of designers making games that encourage people to get together, to think creatively, and most importantly--to have fun! Whether collaborating or competing, we hope to make games that you'll enjoy forever.