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.

Predicting opponent moves

A simple game, that does not require dice-roll and could be used as a sub-element of any game (and is used in fact in games today - when players compete for a value spending some wealth in secret - "Game Of Thrones")

2-5 (or more) players
Each starts with a predefined number of 'points'.
We go into rounds. Each round player is required to say, how many points will he spend. Person that will choose the highest number of points - wins. If two players are equal - they share the win equally. After determining the winner - points are taken from players and we go with the next round. All finishes, when no-one on board has spare points.

To give an example - three player game, let's name them A, B, C and D. Each has 10 points.

Round 1
A - 1, B - 5, C - 4, D - 10 - winner D (1pt).
R2
A - 1, B - 1, C - 2, D - 0 - winner C(1pt).
R3
A -1, B - 3, C - 4, D - 0 - winner C(1pt).
R4
A - 1, B - 1, C - 0, D - 0 - winner A+B(0.5pt)

And A for 6 games more.

After all
A - 6.5 pt
B - .5 pt
C - 2 pt
D - 1 pt

Just simple as it is. The advantage here also is - it is really, really quick. A bit different topic, but still - a valid one on the blog subject :) How to invent a board game.

New game board... it took me ages. Well, fortunately it is finished. Still - some more need to be completed which makes - completing the game bit difficult. We'll see.

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.