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.

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.

Tokens, tokens, tokens.

Little time left till I will leave to Croatia, where I will hopefully test my new StarTrader design. It will be extremely though test, since we will have really strong competitors - Agricola, Power Grid, Warcraft and Bang (I suppose). To the topic. I've tested few things as well as finished some. First of all - the biggest success is the dice system for trading. Dices do show the planets and the numbers. I also decided not to prepare separate dice for buy/sell - this will be indicated by placing planet dice into a certain location. Believe me or not - it looks pretty good. I'm proud of it - especially when you will consider on - how much time did this consume to me. Another test was performed on using coins as markers - yet another success! And if that is not enough - I have now all the material to crate the boards and related equipment. Aha! I did also purchase two items: a) space ships (48 small ships of 12 differend kinds - exactly what I need) b) poker tokens to be used as money. The only thing that was not perfect - was my printer. It did not print the cards from PDF because of a driver problem. It is not a big obstacle, since I will now print it as image. Having all that in mind, to be ready - I still need to: a) print all the cards b) prepare all the tokens c) finish the dices for trade d) design and print game boards, both for trade and representing space ships e) design and print space board - yes, surprising, but is not ready yet with the current approach and current space ships f) design and print space ship markers to be used in conjunction with the plastic figures. A huge lot of work you say? Well... but it is such a fun!! And what is more - I can't await to see it running than tuned... and than - next games are already in the queue :) Fingers crossed.

Trade in box

Initialy my idea was to set up separate 'tokens' for each action possible. That in fact would create dozens of wooden rounds. Aditionally - it would be a bit complicated to set this up. Now - as a remedy for that - another idea jumped into my mind. Why not using dices? Those do fit perfectly - one action is to buy or sell - first dice, second stands for planet considered in trade, third one is to show the trade good, while fourth and fifth are representing proposed price. All together in a wooden box.The form of the wooden box could be as shown on the picture... but not necessary. I think that it might be good to set up a big trade boxes per player, that would allow multiple trades. Ideal size of a dice will be 8/10 mm.Having this size will allow relatively simple, clear and - easy to hide from opponents setup. If I'm lucky - I might have this done during the weekend. Fingers crossed.

Some light into the design!

Most recently I do have quite a significant improvements. I did finish off all the cards - those are now ready to print!!! (sample is shown on the left). Following my quite innovative thinking at work - I did follow it up to here. And the simple thing is - since I have quite issues with getting all the wooden parts - let's skip them for the moment and see - how it will work without. For this purpose - as tokens I will use old and new coins. Than I will stick some markers to it, as it was originally predicted. Aditionally - I've purchased metal space ships! It was 2.5GBP per 12 small ships - and that I consider a great price. I hope they'll arrive soon since I plan to redecorate 'ship' board to accomodate those little ships.
What I will now concentrate on is to:

• Finish off design for space ship card template
• Finish off design for planet (note - it is different to ones already posted here)
• Finish off all the 'cut lines' for plotter.

I would really hope, that I will be capable of doing some test print (of cards for example) yet this weekend. That will be the first and ultimately - very important step forward. I will probably print out the stickers to the coins as well. Summarizing - I'm almost done in here!! :)

Almost forgot - the PDF counter is also quite nice. For Today - I did only 'pure' paper version. That already helped me in reconsidering the design, that will most probably be now changed slightly, but only slightly. Still - the idea works pretty well - at least for me. What is bothering - is that whole idea would best fit on some 'thick' wood or plastic of a kind so that holding it is quite simple. Well - this is for future.

New Stuff!!

This time it has been a looong while. Honestly - my work just eats me up totally. I'm however coming back. For the moment - I already have idea for a next game - strategic play of golf :) with a bit of 'randomness'. Since it is an interesting topic for me - it will be a funny thing to try this out by myself. It will wait a bit, till I'll finish the refubrishment of this Star Trader. Today I'm presenting "Star Trader Counter" - flash version. It is moreless documented at:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dddnhjg_3kpq23zdh
Idea behind is to have an automated way of calculating... without actually calculating. This time it is 'electronic'. Now - I'm working on a paper version of the same thing, that should not be extremely difficult since the mechanics are already ok with the computer version. Well - but that is the funny part - fresh let's say. In the meantime - I'm preparing all the steps to close this refresh off and play it finally!!! By the way - another request for a printable version has been posted to me. By the way - I just noticed one minor 'mistake' in my refubrished maps!! It was a huge surprise to me to notice, that my remade price modifier is remade wrong!! Holly crap - I'm correcting this ASAP :) Cheers.

Interesting News

The game is nearly refubrished. What is interesting - I did find just nearby a place, where I can make all the board pieces / tokens in the exact way I need them. It was quite funny, since it took me some time to find company... and when I found it is something like 2 km's away from the place where I live. Now I'm negotiating with the producer on - what can he produce and what will be the price. I will anyway take those, but I'm interested in - how much will it cost. Second thing is - on BGG I did put the vector map of Star Trader that I did produce. And I know - already some people did reuse it. But wait until I will prepare the XXI century Star Trader :) In the meantime - I have an idea already on two games of my own. First one - a space adventure but of unknown nature for the moment. Most probably - discovering new space system. And the second is pretty much related to my work... In this game players would become team managers responsible for executing projects. I already have some ideas, some engine idea... but that is still to be written. I should have this soon I hope. Still - for the moment, I'm thrilled with the reedition, especially when I think of additional plantes to be incorporated (two).

Idea - easy game cards translation.

Idea is - how to make the game cards translation without loosing the nice design along with the translation still - keeping it all together without destroying original View. My idea on this one is to:

1. Use Scribus software to recreate all the card descriptions
2. Create printable references, that will fit the original sizes of cards
3. Print what you have on foil
4. Fit this into card sleeves
5. Use freely :)

I will soon post my results into BGG under the Warcraft Board Game Expansion (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10991), where I did translate all the cards. Additionally - I will recreate the heroes.
In the same time - I did play a bit... and I must admit - I like Agricola... but plying it too much leaves your opponents (that do not play that often) bit behind. And ... that kind of depresses them. Additionally - it is a bit complicated one.
While on the other hand - I must honestly admit - with Warcraft Board Game Expansion game becomes a lot more of a strategy than it was before. Still - it stays relatively simple one. And I say this even without using the heroes! In general than - I will rate it higher than previously for the standard edition.
As last maybe... Star Trader. I'm almost ready to deploy the final solution. For the moment - what has already been completed:

• All the reference cards (Agents, Occasions, Events)
• Most of the tokens used in game
• Designed the non-writing way to deal with the trade
• Completing design for 'star-ships' boards
• Think of redesign of the boards to accommodate current game approach
• Prepare 'cut' lines for boards

What it seems now, that instead of plexa boards it will be foil. Well - will see.

Where are we?

Could not skip it - first 'tranche' of tokens arrived. Is it good? More than good! Excellent! The only difficulty may be, that those are bit round, but apart from that - exactly what was needed. For the moment - goods are ready to use. I have some difficulties in getting the 'plexa' board... since the producer does not 100% follow what I need, but that shall not stop the idea. In the meantime - we had a very enjoy full weekend. Just to mention - "Power Grid" for the first time - I kind of liked it, but randomness was bit of a pain. The second game - "Puerto Rico" with a new impressive score of 59 for a five player game! Still - I'm not too sure of how to play this game. Ah.. one more - MISHA. Full stop.

Refubrished GK Game Board

Well... it took me some time since last post. So the current status is as follows. A lot of tokens are now purchased. I mean - a real lot of tokens. I hope to use them not only in this game, but in others as well. In total - around 1.5k of tokens made of glass jewelery like tokens. In different sizes, different shapes, different colors. At first I did consider to take wooden ones, but seems - the variety is not really sufficient. This is why I went with glass ones. In some time - I will also need some additional ones that are already considered.
And that is of course not the only thing. What you can see is the player board, that will be the future one with the use of tokens. When I did summarize - now I need to find good printing shop, where I will be able to print out round tokens for some other stuff. In the meantime - additional changes will be applied to the reference cards (aa... yes, those are also already created) that will describe different 'tokens'. And the last thing. I can perfectly remember, that most frustrating thing about this game was, that each time game was moved (either way - accidentally / deliberately) probably something like 30-70% of tokens were misplaced. To prevent this from happening, board above should be prepared in a way, that tokens will fit into special 'holes'. For the moment I'm considering PLEXA, but if that will not work - I will use maybe some special paper. Soon I will also produce cards for the agents... but I've never considered this as first thing to do. Impressive? Well - I hope to deploy all together by end of April. We'll see. Ps. When I'll receive tokens - I'll give those a shot.

What a nice surprise!

Well, well, well. It is only few hours since I've posted my work and it seems, that someone looks at this (I even have some recommendations for my work on boradgamegeek.com)! Even if those are 'fake' entries :) I still enjoy it a lot. And you know what? That motivates me even furthermore! So what is next? As wrote earlier - I'll try to customize the game board with related game tokens, so that it is more 'playable'. Let's put it on the paper, in terms of the principles:

1. Simplify the board.
2. Each player will receive own boards, where he will play with his resources and fleet.
   
3. Eliminate hand writing for different activities (that's the challenge).
   
4. Get rid of tokens (1x, 10x and 100x) representing HT's (after all - is there anyone using those? :) )
   
5. Reference cards for each player convenience.

What is the plan than? In few steps, what could be done to re-edit the game and make it easier to play. Maybe points to be done grouped by importance.

1. Move out all the data from board to custom reference sheets.
2. Create player boards for each player to work with.
3. Provide 'rapid' method of resolving trades / price changes.
4. Eliminate paper tokens with some 'nice' bricks / other elements.
5. Provide custom solution allowing players to note deals they will do without using pen.
6. Different way to handle ships (again - no paper tokens).
7. Paper cards representing agents and describing agent abilities.
8. Create reference sheets for players (differentiate ones that will be used often, and ones that will be used rarely).

I think that is a very good plan and will take me some time. At the end - I assume, that this game will be reborn :) And playing it will not take something like 10h but will be rather nice and easy for someone, who plays it for the 2nd or third time in his life (since rules itself are bit difficult). So to speak - aim is to create custom extension, that will speed the game up with additional fun factor increase.

Gwiezdny Kupiec - board ready!

After my last post I decided, that I need to finish what I previously started. So there you have it - fully customly recreated "Gwiezdny Kupiec" boards. Those are available in four versions in fact:

- light + background
- dark + background
- white background
- blue background (original)

Those can be viewed on: http://picasaweb.google.com/sielimek/GwiezdnyKupiec#.
I had a lot of fun developing and reminding the game... and I also made a decision, that I will tune it so it is easier to play. I mean - tune the board and the way it is all played on it. I'm willing to bring it on printed to the 'GameDay' with intention to finish it (which takes quite a long time in reality - 10h?).
There is also second contribution - change slightly the rules, so that game is more suitable and quicker to play. But this probably should be decided also after we have the first play on the changed board.

Aha - those attached are not HighQuality, but I have one - vector one. I will probably put them somewhere... but to gain one - you would need to write me. :-) Those are just to heavy (something like 8 MB x 9).