Advancing Advancements

At this point in the development cycle for Captains of Industry, we are focused on the tech tree and the game timer. I ran another playtest on Saturday.

My variant of the game timer (where each Real Estate built counts towards the timer, however only one per round can become active in counting towards it) had an impact in preventing the second age from lasting 10+ rounds when all four player built real estate in a single round, and then none bought any more for the rest of the age. This tweak definitely only matters in edge cases, but as it prevents a game from going too long, I think that's an important edge case to guard against. Someone whose first game is too long likely won't play a second.

The tech tree activity wasn't very instructive, but it generated some ideas for techs that are more interesting and fit the overall design goals.

I will try to get another test this month, otherwise the next try will be at DexCon in July.

Quick Updates

• City Hall is undergoing graphical rulebook design and proofreading with the new publisher.
• I am preparing an updated copy of Captains of Industry to send out to a new playtest group as well as take to DexCon in July.
• I will be in Boston for the next couple of days. I plan to go to the Pandemonium Books & Games game night on May 1st. Send me a tweet if you want to meet up.
• Andrew Parks is the person most directly responsible for my being a game designer and for my even playing board games. He introduced me to modern games with Ideology and has always been supportive of my efforts to become a game designer. One design of his I've played a couple of times is Canterbury. I've liked this game and been disappointed that it never got published. Andrew is taking the leap and launching Canterbury on Kickstarter. Go take a look. Now!

City Hall Publisher

So . . . this happened. Got surprised by finding out from tweets of people who saw it live. Still, quite glad people finally know and are happy about the news.

Playtest Podcast

I recently appeared on an episode of On Board Games to discuss playtesting methods. Have a listen, then go read my old playtesting series for more ideas on how to playtest your games.

Dreamation 2013 - Preview

I will be at Dreamation in Morristown this Thursday-Sunday. City Hall and Captains of Industry both have scheduled sessions. You can reserve a slot for one of these sessions.

This will be my first convention after a year of promoting City Hall. It will be nice to be at a convention mainly for fun instead of business. Last year was stressful and tiring, so I've looked forward to returning to my normal state as just a Game Designer Wannabe instead of a Game Publisher Wannabe.

Dreamation Schedule

Thursday, February 21

• 10pm-12am City Hall (B369)

Friday, February 22

• 1pm-4pm Captains of Industry (B434)

Saturday, February 23

• 1pm-4pm Captains of Industry (B618)

Sunday, February 24

• 10am-12pm City Hall (B757)