Interesting week passed

First of all - I'm really surprised to see so many visitors (as shown on picture). Thank you all for visiting! I hope there is always something interesting in here... Work on StarTrader progresses well. I think that cooperation with Dathkadan is not only giving me a lot of joy, but also allows me to have a different view on things, that I would do differently. To be more clear about that - together, thinking of different ideas - we did manage to decrease number of playing cards required to something like 100. That's really great if you would compare to previous +350. I hope, that soon game will be ready. Unfortunately - nor me, nor Dathkadan can spend too much time on it.
Why did I say that I had an interesting week? First - I was on training where we used some application guiding through the management. And this now made me focus a bit on MANAGO game. Now I think of three layers included in game.
* type of personality people are
* contribution factor showing engagement
* type of work that can be performed
I will not describe details now, since it is a bit 'fuzzy' now. My idea with this game would be even to go to the profi trainers and ask - what do they think and if that could anyway help. That's mainly the idea. Additionally - I was thinking on other games as well - since StarTrader will be completed very soon (I hope). Weekend will be a mini-gaming weekend for me. I was invited to a mini convent activity. I can't wait to see how it works.

Using Star Trader Counter - expanded edition

I got some voices saying - ee.. what is it all about the demand/supply track? And how your calculator will work? We'd like to have it all automated! From my perspective... it is not the most time consuming activity, it is however bit like that and additionally - requires 'maths' - yeah, I don't like that especially when you wish to play AFTER work :) To describe how counter simplifies it - I will compare this using table - what happens in each way of dealing with that, using standard approach and using counter. By the way - you could also create rectangle counter - it would however be a lot bigger, since round shape allows squeezing elements greatly. The document itself is quite a big essey, this is why I did put it as a Google Doc entitled Star Trader Counter - Enjoy! Link to the doc - > LINK.

Dices - new approach to calculating prices

Not a long ago I had the idea of 'automatic' or 'mechanical' price calculation. The most recent idea is to do this with dices - the 6sided ones. The way it is designed is quite simple, but necesairly - easier than in original design :) Who cares if it is fun? So how it will work. First of all - there will be two 'sets' - one for -10 to -6 and second -5 to -1 (or maybe for each PP a separate set... undecided yet). On both - there would be a set of 6 numbers plus the original numer. Now for each PP modifier you would have a definition - which numbers should you use. After rolling - you wouldn't need to find - how the price would change, but you would only add numbers from both dices. Well... I must be honest - all the results wouldn't be exactly the same as with the original. Yes, the prices would go up slightly quicker. Again - who cares? From what I remember - this was the biggest pain of game if playing in big groups. That might work. There is also a second idea, a bit aligned to what I already did before - and this I must admit - I find even better. Idea is to create wheels indicating all the prices and changes. To check the pricing you would only need to 'roll' the wheel and that would be it. It would be good, if already based on that you would see - hoe many items can you purchase with your price, don't you think? Yes, and that is possible. It will however require some development of parts - and I dont think it will be enough to use just paper - this time it wont. Interesting stuff anyway - for sure I will prepare both those and show the results.

I was extremely happy with BoardGameCrafter - I still am. Unfortunately all parts together including the pawns to make trading notation... is just expensive. To be more specific - game costs 51 while shipping costs 41 to EU and a total of more than 90$. For me - that is bit too much. I will rather now - delete the pawns and ask my colleague from US to purchase it and have a look - how it worked. As per myself - I will have to print it all on my own. There are a lot of printing press facilities around the City. Where I'm concerned back again - how to make the trading notation... I will probably go back to the 'wooden' box idea. On the other hand - I still need to have 'quantitive' tokens. Plan is to have a 'multi' purchase deal.. or use the coins. As said - always - wood is much nicer than coins. On that one - I'm awaiting on feedback from some 'wood' crafters. In the meantime - I will put all the boards and cards to the format acceptable by printing press. In BGC it would cost 21$ - let's see how it works with a printing press.

Star Trader ?

Having some more time - there is also a different aspect of 'recreating' board game - it is copyright. With "Star Trader" it is a bit of interesting one, since it is not shown 'directly' anywhere - who really owns it. First - web recognition shown 'DecisionGames' as a potential succesor. Unfortunately - although they did some of SPI games re-editions, although they own some copyrights... still - not for StarTrader. What is interesting - they are now publishing two games allocated in space - in fact, both are re-editions. Those are "Struggle for the Galactic Empire" and "Struggle
and Free Mars". I'll be looking closely on - how they will go with those. Going back to the topic. Guys at DecissionGames were extremely helfpul and directed me to Hasbro, who probably purchased SPI (original designer of StarTrader) from Wizards Of The Coast, who have taken it from TSR... I wonder if Hasbro still remembers this - after all - it could be 5, 10 but could be even 25 years ago. I did even receive my own personal super special question id - 091102-000096. Do you think it means that I'm 96 in the queue Today? Interesting thing would be also to understand - when their rights are gone to public... will need to ask someone on - how it works in US. For the moment - enjoy more space ships re-created for the StarTrader.

Cooperation !

I wanted this to be a separate post. Image enclosed in this post is something created by Mike who's nick is Dathkadan. You can view Mike's profile and works on BoardGame geek - http://boardgamegeek.com/. Mike's works are really amazing. Now imagine - using the mechanics I did propose - Mike will recreate StarTrader boards, this time in more structured, proffesional way. And having a look at creations Mike did before - well, I can imagine it will be a very good piece of work. Hopefully - this will all work fine at the end. And let's be honest - I always knew that the GFX will be not the strongest in my designs. Hopefully - I will learn something. And maybe - will create alliance for board games creation? Who knows... anyways - I'm thrilled. Mike - if you are reading this - thanks again! Let's see how star trader will look like.

Something completed!

Well - "This is it!". A lot has changed since last posts, since last updates. Now - work has been completed to the point, where it is ready for testing. How - you could ask? That was a bit like a present. Going through BoardGameGeek I did encounter GameCrafter service. Basically - this service allows you to put your game together with elements they propose. It includes boards, pawns, tokens, instructions, cards and more. Said that - last weeks I was completing all the elements to 'fit' what 'BoardCrafter' requires. It was quite a job if you consider that I still have something like private life (aha - I started running, that is extremely addictive - for the moment :) I'm something 6min/km - a lot to improve :) ). Still - was completed. The way it will look is shown on BGG image that is shown below. Actually - the cost for all boards and cards is not extremely huge - around 25$. The large part comes with plastic pawns and rings, that will be used to note down transactions. And that is another 25$. I think - that the best way will be to put it as 'two' separate modules for the same game. After purchasing the game - player will still have to print and add some stickers, that couldn't be added to the GameCrafter edition. Now - what's left :) simple - order and see how it looks in reality. Honestly ;-) I can't wait. And rather it will not be how it looks but how it plays. By the way :) Thumbs up for pictures are highly appreciated.