Cost estimation...

Innovative.... cheap? Forget about it - it seems like current setup for "Star Trader 3000" will cost minimum 70$. Where is the room for some charity profits? Well - most probably - game will be cut into different versions. So what could one do? Again, I can't say I did invent the wheel.

1. Main part for 4 players (will be significantly cheaper - around 50$ I guess)
2. Expansion pack for another two players with some additions - new agents, new occassions etc.
3. Expansion pack for another two players - this time it would be entirely new planets and things like that

On the other hand - Star Trader 3000 with 8 players? It is hard to imagine that... however - wouldn't say it is impossible.

Work, work, work...

"Long time, no speak" paraphrasing Yoda :) Well, I'm proudly presenting card, that represents one of the ships in Star Trader. I'm around 80-90% complete. When it is done... - than there will be results.
Now - innovation. I'm just trying to check, how efficient it will be to use 3D Printed dices. Those will be quite expensive - around 1$ per piece if purchased in bulk orders... I'm not sure if it will scale. Still - first I will have a 'prototype' created and than - will consider for further usage. Of course - that will be presented here with the model and the result. Cheers!
And a present for you - some images, that represent current work status around StarTrader - all by courtesy of BoardGameGeek: Space ship, gaming board, opportunity card 1, opportunity card 2

Lot of work completed, results - soon I will have the chance to evaluate. Through The Game Crafter service - re-edition of Citadel Of Blood is now almost completed. It means - it is actually ready to play. What I still need to create is new instruction to the recreated components. For the moment - I'm working only on Polish Version, since it is a lot easier (I own a copy). Now - where I'm at is that before checking it - I will first re-create also Star Trader and create Manago, to check all the three games at once. Or maybe not? We'll see. Probably - Citadel and Trader will be done together so that I'm paying for shipment only once :) Details will follow soon!

Long Time Ago...

Yes, it has been a while since last post. This is for some reasons - well, before doing 'real' rebuilds, I decided that I need something like new web page, that would be a kind of lantern for all the game creations - decision is 'sharpsharkgames'. Cute, isn't it? For the moment, only blog engine is in use - and to be clear - not 100% complete with the content. http://sharpsharkgames.blogspot.com/

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.