I think I've got a piece of my life back now.
For the past three weeks or so, most of my spare time has gone into writing presentation software to run a large, massively-multiplayer game of Family Feud at live events. This is actually the second time I've written such software. The first iteration was about five years ago, when I wrote something in DHTML and Javascript. I didn't know how to make text dynamically scale (to simulate flipping the answers over), but I knew how to scale images-- so I reluctantly made bitmaps for every single answer in the game. That was a pretty horrible solution-- certainly one that made me less excited about running the game again with different questions. So I rewrote the software, using it as a chance to learn how to use the Windows Presentation Foundation-- the product I've been working on for the past five years. And while I was at it, I improved the interface to automate the scoreboard and utilize two monitors, letting me set up a control panel on a laptop to run the game and a display window on a data projector. It turned out great, and I ran the game at an event this weekend with about 20 teams of 4 players each. The program worked without a hitch, and the game itself ended with a single point separating the top two teams. Best of all, it'll be a snap to reuse the program in the future with new data. Sweet!
Also this weekend, I got to play Space Dealer-- an innovative but flawed new board game. Players build mines and other tech, advance their tech tree to gain access to better stuff, and deliver resources to neighboring planets to satisfy demands. The big twist to the game is the unusual use of sand timers. There are no turns in the game-- everyone plays simultaneously. Doing anything-- build, produce resources, move your ship, etc-- takes time, measured by flipping one of a player's two sand timers. When the timer runs out, the action is completed and the timer is freed up to be used for something else. Players must therefore plan ahead and optimize the use of their timers, quickly harvesting and redeploying a depleted timer. The game takes exactly 30 minutes (an audio CD with trippy synth music is provided as a timer).
The timer schtick is fresh and clever, but a bit of a one trick pony. Once the novelty wears off-- which for me was after just two games-- the game itself fails to hold interest. It seemed to me to have three big problems. First, the English rules (provided with the game) appear to have gotten a rule wrong (they say the fusion mines produce 4 goods at once, when the card's iconography and common sense suggest they only produce 2). Second, it feels like there's only one main strategy-- advance as quickly as possible to the highest tech level and only build things from that level, ignoring everything else. The advanced stuff is much better than the basics and take the same timer-flip to produce, making the basics pointless. Third, the game is just too fiddly. Everyone's reaching across the table to move cubes and timers around, inevitably knocking things over and just generally making a mess. Space Dealer wants to be a computer game, which would make all that fiddliness go away. Moreover, players can easily forget to advance scoring markers for opponents or otherwise make mistakes (which happened in both games I played), and odds are such errors will go unnoticed and uncorrected.
The idea of an economy based on time, played in real time, is intriguing, but ultimately I don't think Space Dealer's development of the concept is successful. With luck, however, it will inspire someone to evolve the timer mechanism into a better, stronger game.
Posted by Peter at November 13, 2006 9:24 PM