Wesnoth as a board game

[Czestmyr]

Hello again to everyone!

First, I'd like to thank ArtillaryGoat and Cernunnos for their fresh new thoughts. It's certainly a good thing to see that I'm not alone on this ;P

Now, to comment some things you guys remarked:

ArtillaryGoat:

may I suggest you don't get rid of the 'n'Attacks X 'm'Damage system?

In the light of the length of the game, which was pointed out by Cernunnos, I'd say that the nxm system is too lengthy. I understand the psychological aspect and thrill of the multiple throws, but it takes much more time. And if we have, let's say, ten units per player, that would be twenty times the lengthy dice throwing per turn - that's a lot We must bear in mind that the game must be fun and too long games tend to bore people.

Also, why all the arguments about damage tokens?...

I've decided. IF we use the hp system, there will be no tokens but rather the hp card as I mentioned before.

Haven't played yet but like the sound of cards with traits on them. ...

This is by far the biggest problem with the game. In all cases, we have loads of game material - either different unit cards or trait cards. Maybe reworking the unit system would help.

Cernunnos:

i'm no board game designer

lol, I think that noone here is

...dealing with a kind of GPL licence...

The nice thing about this licensing is that if the game is polished and playable, even a commercial firm can take the material and start selling the game! They wouldn't have to pay any licensing fees or any designer so this would be very cheap for them. On the other hand, if they modify the game material, they will have to publish it for free download and if they make the game too expensive, noone will buy it because they will be able to print it out themselves.

How long the game takes?

That's a VERY good point. We never thought about this and only test plays can reveal this. I'd vote in favour of shorter games, which would mean simplifying almost everything.

You make all level 1 units with 2hp.

But how do you balance the game then? You would have to redo all the units from the scratch. That sounds like a lot of balancing to me. I'm not against it, but I have no experience with it.

...that means a lvl 1 unit dealing 1*X damages won't do any damages during 1/3 of the game...

Yep, that's true. Thanks for pointing that out . I will add a new clause to newre versions of rules, stating that the damage cannot drop to 0.

Now - I thought a lot about keeping the game spirit and as I see it, we have two choices - either continue and try to keep the board game as similar to the computer game as possible or we can make a few game principles different and risk losing the "original game spirit", but on the other hand we can gain a lot. As an example take a look at the Starcraft board game. It's completely different from the original computer game, yet it doesn't look bad (although I have never tried it). I'd incline to the second paradigm. We're making a board game that should be fun to play, not an exact clone of Wesnoth on paper.

And another information - I am typesetting the rules in TeX to make the brochure look professional. The first draft of the first version of the rules is already typeset.

Thanks to everyone again and keep thinking!

[ArtillaryGoat]

A note on the game length, (this isn't going to solve any problems by the way), perhaps instead of aiming for a game that takes 1/2 hour or an hour or even two, the game is designed to take 1/2 - 3 hours depending on options such as map size and possibly even being able to tweak the gold system (plus any other fun ideas)?

Of course, I think if ever implemented it would be later on in development.

Hmm, perhaps not recycling cards and adjusting the deck size would alter game length?

I've been busy with uni so haven't been able to play this game yet, but holidays are in a week and a half!!!

[elricz]

I am back to the forums, and I have seen that discussion has evolved from the initial prototype, so I have removed that line from the topic.

Probably I will spend some time with the unit stats, trying to make them fit this format. If I get somewhere, I will let you know.

[Czestmyr]

Hi elricz, It's good to have you back!

Also, it's great that you want to re-do the units but if I were you, I'd wait with it before we finish the attacks system or you'll be doing it again and again if we change something.

News - I've sent a PM message to all the people that replied to two previous attempts to create a Wesnoth board game.

P.S.: We should arrange a chat meeting (Jabber anyone?) someday, so that we can discuss things more quickly than replying to each other in a matter of hours or days.

[Czestmyr]

Just a quick thought - I'd prioritize finishing the movement system, because as soon as we do that, we can finish and print out the map tiles and start play-testing. (Well, we could play-test on hex maps drawn on paper, but that wouldn't be so much fun)

[ADmiral-N]

For playtesting, we totally need "Wesnoth - The Board Game - The Computer Game".

[Czestmyr]

For playtesting, we totally need "Wesnoth - The Board Game - The Computer Game".

lol, you mean programming the board game?

[elricz]

For playtesting, we totally need "Wesnoth - The Board Game - The Computer Game".

Actually, that is not a bad idea, you can tweak the units and the maps to match the board game stats, so you can at least get a feeling of the balance and the easiness of movement. I don't know if you can change the way that attacks are resolved using WML, though. Of course, there is no easy way to replicate the potential burden of the counters.

[Czestmyr]

Actually, that is not a bad idea, you can tweak the units and the maps to match the board game stats, so you can at least get a feeling of the balance and the easiness of movement. I don't know if you can change the way that attacks are resolved using WML, though. Of course, there is no easy way to replicate the potential burden of the counters.

All I can say is - go for it! I don't have the time to learn WML. Besides, I have a lot of other programming project for my school.

BTW, what about the chat session? Have you guys thought about it?

[Czestmyr]

As we will need to balance the units if we want to change some game mechanisms to be more suitable for a board game, I searched the web for articles on game balancing techniques and I found this one particularly interresting: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articl ... le1765.asp

[Kryzyzkowski]

Hi all! If you are planning to make a computer version of this board game, I could help with the coding. If it is not done in wml that is - it seems to me that making a board game with rules like these would be extremley difficult in WML, but not so hard with Java, or C. If you want to roll dice by clicking on a dice button, or handle unit cards or tokens with the mouse for example.

I may just be very clumsy, but I can't seem to find a complete set of rules. Does a set exist?

[elricz]

I may just be very clumsy, but I can't seem to find a complete set of rules. Does a set exist?

I did one, but it looks like the current development is going in a different direction. You can find it on my signature.

[Czestmyr]

I may just be very clumsy, but I can't seem to find a complete set of rules. Does a set exist?

Hi! Thanks for your interest in the board game! Regarding the rules - they are far from complete, although the most fundamental ideas probably won't change. If you must see it, here's a TeX typeset version of my original rules, but be warned: A lot has changed since that version! It is a .pdf file, zipped in .zip archive (the damned forum doesn't allow naked pdfs)

[Kryzyzkowski]

If anyone has any objections to my development of the WBG-CG, please speak now.

Hi again everyone! First, thanks for the rules. I think I am ready to start coding.

Does anyone know a way to, using Java, make an application which displays a sprite on a double buffered canvas? I have done it with J2me, but have, so far, not found a SE method that I like.

Some ideas:

ranged attacks over a dictance

walls which stop movement, but units can use some stairs to climb onto, and use ranged attacks from ontop of the wall.

Prehaps choosing the order of attacks is a bad idea, it may be better to take turns rolling.

These are short, I'll expand on them if they are considered.

[elricz]

ranged attacks over a dictance

walls which stop movement, but units can use some stairs to climb onto, and use ranged attacks from ontop of the wall.

Prehaps choosing the order of attacks is a bad idea, it may be better to take turns rolling.

This is the great thing about a board game, you can add major changes to the rules, and they will be feasible just by changing a document.

As for the ideas themselves, I feel like they are far from what I am used in Wesnoth, so I would not expect them in the game. But feel free to experiment, you don't need our approval for it