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!