Uncategorized http://3rdplace.games Sun, 25 Aug 2019 17:32:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 http://3rdplace.games/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cropped-Logo-Small-Simple-512-32x32.png Uncategorized http://3rdplace.games 32 32 Star Junkers – Scissors Paper Rock http://3rdplace.games/scissors-paper-rock/ Sun, 25 Aug 2019 17:31:46 +0000 http://3rdplace.games/?p=131 Continue reading "Star Junkers – Scissors Paper Rock"

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  • The core mechanic of Star Junkers (recently renamed) can be thought of as a blind bidding mechanic.
    • Typically when bidding on something without knowing other people’s bid, the goal is to make the lowest possible bid that is higher than all competitor’s bids.
    • In Star Junkers players secretly choosing which crew to send on a mission is an inverted iteration of this system: players are rewarded for making the highest possible bid that is lower than all competitors bids.
    • That is to say the optimal strategy is to send the most crew you possibly can, while still having a lower preparation time than your opponents, thereby getting first choice of loot AND grabbing as much as possible.
  • In practice this has created a sort of Scissors Paper Rock mechanic.
    • If we consider a player who makes (what we shall call) a “medium bid”; this strategy could be defeated by player making a “small bid”. Thereby collecting the best loot before this place, while collecting nearly as much as the “medium bid”.
    • However, if the first player instead made a “large bid”, they still forfeit first selection of loot – however by making a large bid they would collect so much more loot they’d likely still get more value than the “small bid”.
    • Continuing this logic and bringing everything full circle, the “large bid” strategy could be defeated by the originally described “medium bid” (much as the “small bid” defeated “medium bid”).
  • This system creates three obvious niches, each viable under different circumstances. This creates different dynamics in different games.
    • In 2 players games players often seek to counter their opponents strategy.
    • 3 player games tend to each player falling into a separate niche.
    • 4 player games are particularly interesting where niches become less defined, with players often competing in similar niches. Fortunately we’ve included several mechanics that allow players to quickly retool their strategy mid-game. But more on that in a future post.
    • ]]>         Space Junkers – Game Design – Irreducibility and Asymmetric Value http://3rdplace.games/space-junkers-game-design-irreducibility-and-asymmetric-value/ Sat, 10 Aug 2019 07:39:27 +0000 http://3rdplace.games/?p=118 Continue reading "Space Junkers – Game Design – Irreducibility and Asymmetric Value"

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    • In the earliest iterations of Space Junkers, selecting which salvage to collect was a simple task of numeric literacy. If cargo A was worth 4 and cargo B was worth 2, you would always choose A.
    • This was not problematic in and of itself; but in practice what it meant was the salvage part of the game was reduced to keeping score of how well you did in the mission planning part of the game.
    • We addressed by introducing salvaging options that were not easily reduced into a simple metric. Consider the following examples:
      • A VIP worth 5 points is always more valuable than a survivor worth 1 point – but it’s not entirely clear whether a VIP worth 5 points is more valuable than a Trained Crew Member who might provide value in future salvages.
      • Similarly 4 points of cargo is very valuable; but from game to game it will vary whether or not that 4 points provides more value than a particular Tech item which give you first choice in a future salvage.
    • By creating these situations we’ve introduced meaningful decisions into the salvage part of the game.
    • We added further depth to these decisions by creating asymmetries between players 
      • The simplest example of this alien artifacts; for a player with no alien artefacts a single alien artefact is only worth 1 point, but a player who already has 4 alien artefacts would gain 9 more points from an additional alien artefact.
      • A similar effect can be seen with cargo sets; by creating an end of game bonus for collecting the most salvage of a particular set, players might be incentivised to forgo higher value savage to collect more salvage of a particular set.
    • The most complex of these asymmetries between players are the mission cards which award a player for certain end game conditions; this can create a situation where a player might adopt that would be completely unviable for another player.

    Quick note: This blog has been very quiet of late, but look for it to heat up as we zero in on a launch window for Space Junkers

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