I finally decided to post the third part of my series on The City Beneath. In preparation to write this, I was just re-reading a few excerpts from the novel. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I want to share it with as many people as want to read it. There are a few ways I can do this. Easiest, I can make it available in all it's Alpha version glory for you to read on your e-reader device.
The other option is to serialize it and post it in bits here on my blog. I tried doing this with my first novel, Singularity. The difference was that I was writing that and immediately posting it on the site. It fizzled when I couldn't keep up very well. The novel got finished, but I never finished posting it on the blog. With The City Beneath, I've already written it, so I would just give each bit a cursory edit and post maybe 1000 or 2000 words at a time here, maybe a couple of times a week.
Anyway, let me know in the comments or on twitter if you'd be interested in a serialized version of The City Beneath.
The City Beneath: Part 3 - The Game
From the beginning, I wrote the novel with the intention of it being a companion to the game of the same name. I had made plans with my friends Ed (@EdPMarriott) and Jeremy (@jeremyvanman) to collaborate on the game and the novel. (An aside: If you're a creative person, surround yourself with other creatives. It does wonders for your art.) The plan was for me to write the novel, and each day, I would share my progress with them. For the first time, I was forced to make an outline for something I wrote. That was a good experience, though I'm not sure I will ever move away from discovery writing, or writing by the seat of my pants.
Ed and Jeremy came up with some great mechanics for a story-driven game. Our goal was to produce a semi-cooperative game. The first half of the game would be cooperative, where players work together to pull off a heist. The group could fail the first half and the game would end with everybody losing. If the players pull off the heist, you enter the second half of the game: The Getaway. Only one person will end up fleeing from the cops.
The catch is that things you did in the first half of the game will affect your ability to get away in the second half. Maybe you will benefit from holding back a card that you could have played to help the team during the heist. Maybe if you participate in a certain action during the heist, you can improve your abilities for the second half of the game.
Players would play as one of the characters from the book, and each would have a given skill-set based on their roles in the book's heist. The goal was to have a cooperative game where nobody trusts anybody else. Not dissimilar to how you feel when you play Battlestar Galactica.
Ed and Jeremy had developed a story line concept that I think is a real gem, allowing players to create scenarios that can be variable from one play to the next. They came up with some great ideas for dual-use cards. They also put together a great skills development system allowing players to improve their character throughout the game. I think the game they put together has some really solid elements that could definitely make for a really fun game.
As you may be able to tell from the speculative language, we didn't ever really get that idea to completion. There were some immensely high hurdles associated with the type of game we were working on. Other projects took priority for all of us, and the game sorta faded into the background.
Fast forward a few months. I decided that I wanted to revive the game and run with it. I got Jeremy and Ed's blessing to move on and borrow a few ideas from the design they had been working on. I decided to scale the game back significantly from the epic experience it had become. I also pretty much eliminated the cooperative aspect of the game, focusing instead on the getaway portion of the game.
The game is now an area control game with a lot of hidden information. The game takes place in the setting from the book, with 6 locations around the city that players visit in an effort to set themselves up for a getaway. Play happens over 7 days of a week. Each day, players will perform an available action, and then visit a location, leaving "Evidence" when they do so. Evidence represents a player's influence over a location, and in the end, determines which player will receive the points associated with that location. 1 or 2 cops will be walking a beat around the board, making locations unavailable when a cop is outside.
The value of the location is determined based on the "Heat" that the location has drawn. Each location starts with a high value, and that value decreases as the heat grows for a location. If a location gets too much heat, it becomes a liability, worth negative points. A location gains heat when two players choose to visit the same location on the same day. This also draws the nearest cop pawn to the location. Players also have several opportunities to play cards to tip off the cops to a location and add heat, though these are not revealed until the end of the game.
Most information is hidden in the game. Players place their evidence tokens (value 0-3) face down on locations, so other players don't know how much was left. Players play their Tip cards face down, so other players don't know which locations were tipped off. All actions and location choices are made simultaneously. Skills will allow you to change all of these, however.
In addition to placing influence on a location, each location will allow a player to develop their skills, and improve the actions they can perform:
The other option is to serialize it and post it in bits here on my blog. I tried doing this with my first novel, Singularity. The difference was that I was writing that and immediately posting it on the site. It fizzled when I couldn't keep up very well. The novel got finished, but I never finished posting it on the blog. With The City Beneath, I've already written it, so I would just give each bit a cursory edit and post maybe 1000 or 2000 words at a time here, maybe a couple of times a week.
Anyway, let me know in the comments or on twitter if you'd be interested in a serialized version of The City Beneath.
The City Beneath: Part 3 - The Game
 |
| Awesome Logo by Ed Marriott |
From the beginning, I wrote the novel with the intention of it being a companion to the game of the same name. I had made plans with my friends Ed (@EdPMarriott) and Jeremy (@jeremyvanman) to collaborate on the game and the novel. (An aside: If you're a creative person, surround yourself with other creatives. It does wonders for your art.) The plan was for me to write the novel, and each day, I would share my progress with them. For the first time, I was forced to make an outline for something I wrote. That was a good experience, though I'm not sure I will ever move away from discovery writing, or writing by the seat of my pants.
Ed and Jeremy came up with some great mechanics for a story-driven game. Our goal was to produce a semi-cooperative game. The first half of the game would be cooperative, where players work together to pull off a heist. The group could fail the first half and the game would end with everybody losing. If the players pull off the heist, you enter the second half of the game: The Getaway. Only one person will end up fleeing from the cops.
The catch is that things you did in the first half of the game will affect your ability to get away in the second half. Maybe you will benefit from holding back a card that you could have played to help the team during the heist. Maybe if you participate in a certain action during the heist, you can improve your abilities for the second half of the game.
Players would play as one of the characters from the book, and each would have a given skill-set based on their roles in the book's heist. The goal was to have a cooperative game where nobody trusts anybody else. Not dissimilar to how you feel when you play Battlestar Galactica.
Ed and Jeremy had developed a story line concept that I think is a real gem, allowing players to create scenarios that can be variable from one play to the next. They came up with some great ideas for dual-use cards. They also put together a great skills development system allowing players to improve their character throughout the game. I think the game they put together has some really solid elements that could definitely make for a really fun game.
As you may be able to tell from the speculative language, we didn't ever really get that idea to completion. There were some immensely high hurdles associated with the type of game we were working on. Other projects took priority for all of us, and the game sorta faded into the background.
Fast forward a few months. I decided that I wanted to revive the game and run with it. I got Jeremy and Ed's blessing to move on and borrow a few ideas from the design they had been working on. I decided to scale the game back significantly from the epic experience it had become. I also pretty much eliminated the cooperative aspect of the game, focusing instead on the getaway portion of the game.
The game is now an area control game with a lot of hidden information. The game takes place in the setting from the book, with 6 locations around the city that players visit in an effort to set themselves up for a getaway. Play happens over 7 days of a week. Each day, players will perform an available action, and then visit a location, leaving "Evidence" when they do so. Evidence represents a player's influence over a location, and in the end, determines which player will receive the points associated with that location. 1 or 2 cops will be walking a beat around the board, making locations unavailable when a cop is outside.
 |
| Locations |
 |
| Tip Card |
 |
| Tip Card |
Most information is hidden in the game. Players place their evidence tokens (value 0-3) face down on locations, so other players don't know how much was left. Players play their Tip cards face down, so other players don't know which locations were tipped off. All actions and location choices are made simultaneously. Skills will allow you to change all of these, however.
In addition to placing influence on a location, each location will allow a player to develop their skills, and improve the actions they can perform:
 |
| Player Mat |
- Hideout: +Strategy: View the tip cards played by other players, a number up to the level of your skill.
- Bank: +Negotiation: Move a cop a number of spaces equal to your skill level
- Boutique: +Charm: Choose a location after all others have chosen theirs.
- Clock Shop: +Gadgetry: Swap skill points between different skills.
- Abandoned Building: +Burglary: View a number of evidence tokens equal to your skill level.
- Race Track: +Dexterity: Move an evidence token from one location to another.
 |
| Hidden Agenda Cards |
A Final skill that is available to everyone is to draw a plot card, which may have a Hidden Agenda or Bonus Action on it. Hidden agendas score points if the player accomplishes it, or loses points if they do not. Bonus actions allow them to take an action in addition to their normal action.
So that's where things are. The game plays up to 6 in about 45 minutes. Since the play is all simultaneous, it doesn't take significantly longer with more players than it does with fewer. I'm hoping to have this at Protospiel Milwaukee in a few weeks. If you'll be there, I'd love to play it with you and get your input.
 |
| Bonus Action Cards |
So that's where things are. The game plays up to 6 in about 45 minutes. Since the play is all simultaneous, it doesn't take significantly longer with more players than it does with fewer. I'm hoping to have this at Protospiel Milwaukee in a few weeks. If you'll be there, I'd love to play it with you and get your input.
No comments:
Post a Comment