[Boardgame] MMMA! - Mixed Monster Martial Arts
Hi all, I'm starting this thread to track the development of the boardgame I helped make at GGJ 2013. If you managed to play it at the meetup or at the GGJ please feel free to add comments here :)
Link to the GGJ Page
Files to print and play
Lex
Link to the GGJ Page
Files to print and play
Lex
Comments
I find the Frankenstein monster theme incredibly appealing. Aequitas's chainsaw-wielding cacodemon-headed abomination was truly terrifying (seriously, he had 8 attacks).
A couple criticisms and suggestions came up for possible improvements, of course we'd have to test them to know if they're good suggestions (and I look forward to doing that :) )
- The combat feels like it could be made a little more strategic. At the moment it might be too easy to look at an opponent's monster and say "That monster will statistically definitely kill me, so I'll instead run away or team up against it".
While it is fun playing interpersonal politics and there is a lot of room for mind games it might feel a little flat in terms of the choices available and the monster theme.
One idea that was suggested was that certain limbs might grant special bonuses or activated abilities (maybe sometimes activated at the cost of sacrificing the limb). These abilities might grant bonuses in combat, or minimize damage, or interfere with other player's abilities/choices/position or synergize with particular other body parts to grant bonuses. (like gaining extra initiative from having multiple Pirate parts)
This might make attacking particular other monsters more desirable (attacking the monster with the body part that completes your set rather than picking on the one with the lowest health) and having abilities to threaten other players with or bluff with or make yourself a less appealing target may make the politics more interesting.
- I felt that at the moment the "initiative" stat is a little underwhelming and definitely makes the game a bit more confusing and slightly longer. Maybe if some limbs had other activated abilities the 5th stat wouldn't be as necessary? (and the game could progress in a circle instead of having, largely inconsequential, player order rolloffs). Unless the rolloffs were to grant bonuses or something against the other player... or something... because as it stands they often don't affect the game either way.
Another thing that was suggested was that players could have a LOT of dice. One per attack or defense. Which are all rolled at the same time and then the initiative stat helps determines which dice targets which other dice.
So I roll 5 attack dice and another player rolls 4 defense dice. If I have a higher initiative I get to match more dice up in a way that gives me an advantage (so that my opponents highest defense rolls are wasted against slightly higher attack values which I've rolled)
- It's probably not a good suggestion at all... but (further down the line) custom dice might be cool. If there are going to be dice (which are inherently kind of abstract) then dice that have some flavour (like attack/wound icons or chainsaws etc) would not subtract from the theme as much. (And as I said, I really do like the theme).
- I would love there to be values that I don't know about my opponents monsters... like abilities they can activate... for which I only have partial information and have to guess at what they can do... like for instance if I didn't know what heart they have and if the heart played a greater role over the outcome of combat. So using the heart ability would reveal to other players what your monster can do, it might even be a single use ability, and keeping it a mystery keeps them guessing which heart you have.
- I don't think the base values that the monster starts with are that useful, I imagine they're in mostly because it made it easier to balance. I think the torso could start with those values (and there be fewer negative values).
I mention this because I think it would be nice to be able to look at someone's monster and read off the values rather than be constantly tallying it up on paper. I don't know if this is possible. If attack values were big red numbers and defense big blue numbers maybe it could be read off fairly easily. (Or maybe red X's for attacks and blue shields for defense).
The other reason to not be using bits of paper is that it might allow some abilities to target and disable specific body parts. Losing the use of a hand for one turn is a bit of a pain if I have to write down the new values and then correct them a turn later, but if it were possible to count the values off the monster whenever needed, then temporarily disabling a body part is as elegant as flipping the body part over for a turn.
Or I could rather say, perhaps the granularity of modifying body parts could increase if keeping track of the stats were simpler (and customizing your monster is something everyone enjoyed, like you said at the meetup, and it might be cool if more occasions for customization could be worked in).
- What about body parts that change where they can be placed (like a body part that is explicitly a second head or a third leg).
- Movement might be a bit weird. The biggest advantage to having high movement seemed to be that you could retreat strategically and wait out while others fought. Of course making movement more powerful, like being able to move-attack-move makes more movement too much of an advantage.
Maybe if there were some more potent strategic locations on the map (with something like cumulative bonuses) movement would play a bigger role. I'm not sure if it could work, but if a player could spend their turn at a body part graveyard (or something), and gain a permanent bonus, that might make them a target for other players and give more meaning to positioning on the map.
Though I'm not sure that it would, and I feel like positioning should be more important in this game (if movement is to be a stat). Having the bonuses on some of the tile does mean moving around someone to attack is sometime going to be an advantage, but only occasionally does this make a difference.
Those are some thoughts! I look forward to playing it again!
I'll play it as soon as I have some friends(have to make them sometime right? :P) to play with and will post some feedback.
So here is a basic version of the board:
- Beginning of the round the Lab and the blocked tile is placed (These will not move every round)
- Every round (next button press) all other tiles locations are shifted randomly on the board
Todo:
- Figure out how to build for tablet
- Allow the items to be used (remove from table)
- Better models, textures and JUICE
Let me know what you guys think
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2homim19ixk185j/Board.zip
sorry guys my head is not on my head today...it's fixed now.
The concept is that the board is (hopefully) on a tablet [then you can play on the tablet].
Right now you can turn a pc screen on its' back and try it on there.
Things I can tell from the mat :
- I have interchangeable body parts.
- I have more than one dice each round, and even though I can use them for any of my actions, some dice are better suited to certain actions?
- I can roll more than one dice to take an action to improve my chances of success.
- If I roll a 2+ I score a hit
- If I roll a 4+ I score a hit....confusing.
- If I roll a 6 on red(attack?) die I score a critical hit.
- If I roll a 6+ on a block roll I score a counter instead of a block
- If I roll a 2+ on a enchance(?) block dice roll I score a block
- If I roll a 5+ on a normal(?) block dice I score a block
- Scoring a 5+ on a blue die will improve my other dice rolls to a better version of whatever...
- I have no idea what the arrow is for... but it does point to something :P
Hope that has been helpful. :)
In the game you get different coloured dice.
I've updated the mat as well. feedback appreciated :)
1. I figured out you get different coloured dice, but it wasn't instant. Maybe if you showed that the dice in the dice pool on the board somewhere? Like in KOT you get 6 black dice, so they might have put 6 dice on their board (if they had need to). (if the number of dice varies for whatever reason you might also delineate that with a small table?)
2. I like how the figure in the middle looked, it was obviously an inventory/equipment system with limbs, that's cool :)
3. On turn start didn't make much sense to me, points at dice pool... Huh? Maybe do a simple turn phase guide... Like 1: Roll X dice (a good place to indicate graphically) 2: distribute/spend dice 3: buy cards, whatever.
4. the line under the 5+ > lightning bolt thing might work better above the 5+, as it groups it all together.
5. In fact, the dice thing to the side - if you roll a red 6, does it count as a hit AND a crit, or just a crit, or can you choose? I guess in the end you want dice with icons on, right? And green has a 6+... How do you get 6+, is the green an 8 sider or 10 sider? If so the shape should indicate as such.
Cool :)
I figured the coloured dice out. This is how I had it:
Red - Attack
Green - Block
White - Generic
Blue - Action
I have no idea how you generate those(or if I'm even remotely correct), but I'm guessing legs generate actions, where arms generate and head generate attack and arms generate block(generally).
@Tuism ideally we'll have custom dice, but for now we need to use d6's
Updated based on feed back
On top of that, everyone loses 1 dice at the end of every round.
Both of these dramatically speed up the game and get it back to the simiplicity of the original idea.
Thoughts?
My thinking is, the most fun is 1. building the monster, 2. killing the other monsters. Eliminate the opportunity to not engage in combat. Have each card colour coded. You get a dice that matches that colour if thats part of your monster build. Each dice have some attack, some defence, and some special side. Person with the least dice starts, can choose to attack (or draw a card?) and then you'd both roll all your dice.
Match attack to defence dice (based on who's attacking and who defends) and specials might allow crits or something...