Episode 75: Depth and Elevators
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Intro and Welcome:
Chevee Dodd Returns!
Whatcha Been Playing?
Jason has been playing: Survival Craft
Rob has been playing: The Rumplebum Academy for Bug Based Baking and more Morels
Feature of the Week:
Depth and Complexity
Practicing the Pitch:
Rob pitches Elevator Adventure
Speaking of Jason’s survival game idea, I’m reminded of the game Robinson Crusoe from Z-Man Games. The game is both complex and deep, with a bajillion different chits, bits, and cards in the box. If you’re trying to generate more ideas for a simple and deep survival game, a good exercise might be to look at that game’s aspects, systems, and mechanics and go through them, asking “how can I get close to the feel of this part with less?” for each part.
Also, similar inspiration might come from the PC game Don’t Starve by Klei Entertainment. http://www.dontstarvegame.com
Links for Robinson Crusoe:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121921/robinson-crusoe-adventure-on-the-cursed-island
Tom Vasel review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAuNybsa72k
Rahdo Runs Through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXehTS6hmn4
At one point you guys were discussing Chess and how many possible combinations of moves could be made. It reminded me of an excellent podcast that RadioLab put out a while back called “The Rules Can Set You Free” http://www.radiolab.org/story/153809-rules-set-you-free/, the whole episode is great but if you jump to around the 25 min mark, they talk about Checkers And Chess and the recorded history of games played.
The Elevator Concept sounds cool, I agree with Jason that buttons/cards should have duel purposes. You mentioned using down to dodge attacks, you might want to make both up and down cards jump or dodge attacks, otherwise the player moving down the elevator might be at a disadvantage by burning through the down cards. Maybe the left and right cards could be used for disarming bombs in that case.