Well I have missed a couple of updates, but I must admit to getting a bit distracted by films, weddings etc. Apologies for that, but lets get back to it.

I have done some basic card design and considered the mechanics of the game.

The basic cards have the following:

Position
Each player will be given a position that has a keyword on it relating to News and Scandal cards. It will also have some kind of effect that will need some careful balancing so that all the positions are equal in power.

Elections
This will all have the reshuffle keyword on them, meaning the deck must be reshuffled. This is because a lot of the cards in the game will put cards on the bottom or top of the deck, and I don't want people to memorise the order of cards to gain an advantage. Elections will only play from the top of the deck, and will occur as soon as they are revealed. Each election will also have some kind of global effect, by which I mean an ability that will affect the entire table.

News
Cost to Complete (C) in capital
Influence Gain on Completion (I)
Bury cost (B)

Most news cards will have some kind of special effect as well. Costing these cards is going to be a delicate balance. When I sit down to design a game where the cards can do a lot and have some kind of cost I tend to come up with basic guidelines as a starting point. So News cards will all have at minimum:

B = 1, I = 1, C = 2

The C value will rise whenever I add an ability that triggers on the completion of the News card, or if the card has a global effect.
The B value will rise whenever I add an ability that triggers when the card is buried.
The C value will also rise whenever I decide the card should be worth a greater amount of influence.

The maximum C value should be 4 as this would give me +1 for an effect and +1 for an influence increase. This guides me in the amount of capital each player should start with.

These rules will give me a consistent basis on which to design the first round of cards and to come back to whenever I need to discard a card and design a new one.

Scandals
These will have a basic I modifier of -1 or -2. Some will also have an effect, that may cost the person who reveals it something. Still not decided on that at the moment.

So those are my basic design parameters for the cards, lets look at the rules as they spilled out of my brain! I will write the rules, then explain each one in turn.

Overview
It is a time of political upheaval, scandal and burying news as soon as it appears. It is...monday! As the political calendar progresses your post will be in jeopardy, but for a little risk you may be able to get something better. Time to be sneaky, devious and selfish. Time to be a politician.

Setup
Deal each player 5 cards. Each player will also need 4 tokens to represent the capital they can spend every turn. The deck is shuffled and placed face up on the table.

The 5 card hand is a good place to start, as it gives a good choice of cards to play and gives the possibility of a scandal being in the hand. The 4 capital I have chosen so that if someone wants to complete a C = 4 news article, that is all they do that turn.

The deck is played face up, as I want people to be able to plan a little bit for what is coming, and I think it would make for an interesting change.

Turn
Starting with the most devious person each player does the following:

1)Obey top Card
a)News: The news card is played onto the table.
b)Scandal: The scandal is taken into the players hand.
c)Election: Obey the election card immediately

If the top card does something at the start of each players turn, it means that card can be manipulated to the benefit of other players

2)Draw a number of cards = to the amount of capital on your position card.

I had an idea that you can put capital onto other people's cards forcing them to draw cards, and probably scandals.

3)Turn every news card 90 degrees to the right.
Once a news card is rotated back to its starting position it is buried and influence hits are taken as if it was completed. Note its bury text will also take effect.

I wanted there to be a constant cycling of news and this mechanic will do that for me. Also news cards affect those positions where the keywords match when they are completed or cycle.

4)Spend Capital.
a)Draw top card of deck = 1 capital
b)Spin: Pass a scandal card to the left = 1 capital
c)Put a news card into play from your hand = 1 capital
d)Bury a news card = amount of capital equal to the bury cost. If the card has a bury effect that happens now. The card is then placed on the bottom of the deck face up.
e)Leak scandal = spend any amount of capital you want to reveal a number of cards in one players hands. If you reveal a scandal it is played in front of the target player. Their influence is reduced by the amount on the revealed card, -1 for every keyword that matches.
f)Force draw = spend any amount of capital and put it on the next player's position card, they will then draw cards equal to the capital on their card.
g)Complete a news card in play = spend capital equal to its complete cost. If the card has a complete effect it happens now. The card is then placed in front of the person to complete it. When a card is completed everyone who has a keyword that matches the card and did not complete it, loses 1 influence.
h)Call an election: Play an election card from your hand. This costs 4 capital.

This is pretty much everything I could think of and will no doubt need refining as the game design progresses. Playing election cards may not happen if I decide they happen as soon as they are revealed in anyway, not just on the top of the deck.Option g is one of the most important ones and has a, hopefully neat, rule that punishes ministers if they don't complete relevant news cards in time. I am not sure about the leak rule regarding keywords, as I ahve not entriely decided that scandal cards will have keywords.

5)Draw cards equal to the amount of unspent capital.

This will punish anyone who doesn't effectively plan their turn. I don't think it will happen too often and may be redundant.

In Play
Card effects often refer to the term 'in play'. This refers to any card that is face up on the table but not on the top of the deck. It does not refer to cards in player's hands.

Hand size
Unless affected by a card, the hand size for every player is 5. A player may not take any action that would increase the number of cards in their hand above their hand size. If their hand size goes over 5 they must discard cards down to 5. They may not discard scandals.

Card Explanation

News Card
Every card has a complete cost in the top left hand corner, an influence cost in the top right hand corner and a bury cost in the bottom left.

Keywords: This shows how much it affects the influence of the ministers if it is buried and also how it is affected by other cards.

Every card's effect text may include one or more of the following.

Bury ability: when the card is buried from being in play, then this effect takes place. This effect does not take place when cards are buried from a player's hand.

Complete ability: When the news card is completed this ability takes effect.

Cycle ability: If the news card cycles fully then it buries and this effect takes place.

Scandal Card
Every card has an influence modifier in the top right hand corner that shows how it can be played by the person who leaks it.

Keywords: This shows how it affects the influence of ministers if it is leaked and also how it is affected by other cards.

Effect: the scandal may have some other effect other than its intended purpose. This may be if it is leaked or buried.

This is just some explanation of the card types and card text and will expand over time

I have not decided on a win condition yet, so have not added it to the rules. I think I will start with 10 influence as the condition but that may not be enough.

So there you have it, a guide to how I will design cards and the basic mechanics I have come up with. Next week I will show of some of the cards and the week after will have my first playtest report.

All the best

Iain

So I have been mulling reshuffle over, it almost became a board game midweek, but I think I have the basic mechanics down. I want the game to have a high level of interactivity, people mucking each other up and forcing different types of play. So the basic ideas so far are as follows:

• Everyone will play a certain parliamentary position with a certain keyword and a special ability
• Influence will be the resource that allows you to win. 
• The deck will be played face up so that everyone can see what is coming, even if they can't avoid it
• The deck will consist of three types of cards: News, Scandals and Elections. Just added elections as I think they need to be a different type of card, not just a news card.
• News cards will have a cost to take care of, give an influence bonus to the person who does and have some kind of effect, not always beneficial. They will also have a keyword or two on them relating to the positions above that means if those people do not take care of them then they will lose influence. News will probably cycle over time meaning there is a limited amount of time for events to be taken care of.
• News cards will be played so that everyone can see them in a central pool. 
• Scandals will be taken into players hands, forced draws etc. , and can be 'leaked' by other players or 'spun' into other players hands. 
• Elections will either have to be played, or cost a lot to put off, not entirely certain about that. What will happen at an election is the person with the most influence can choose their new position, then the next highest and so on.
• The winner of the game will be the first person to get 10 influence. I think they will all start with 5. 
• I want the game to be humorous but tactical, and players will have a lot of choices of what to do each turn.
• Players will spend 'political capital' each turn to do different things like: draw cards, bury news and scandals, spin scandals and news etc.

I think that is most of my initial thoughts on the game transmitted in a more coherent form than the pages of notes I have. Hopefully by this time next week I will have some cards made up and a better idea of the turn structure. I am keeping my focus on making the core game tactical and building the humorous elements around it. A lot of the tactics will come from card balance so I anticipate this being the biggest problem as the game develops.

All the best

Iain

Hi folks,

I was toying with starting up a blog at the start of the year, and went as far as to buy a website address. Of course I have inevitably ended up not posting a darn thing so thought I should turn my attentions to using this place a little more. So begins an experiment!

I have been toying with a game called 'Reshuffle' about being cabinet ministers and vying for position as scandals, events and general politcal stuff gets in the way. What I am going to do is post ideas and information as I develop the idea as a kind of insight into how I personally design games. The benefit will hopefully be three fold:
1) I can get some help with the game as I develop it
2) It will let those who are thinking about designing a game follow the process from beginning to end.
3) It will force me to actual write some post on this site, and get more used to updating it regularly.

So, I am going to update this blog at least once a week with information on how the game is progressing and hopefully we will get an actual product at the end of the day.

Should be fun, and hopefully interesting to you fine folks.

Iain McAllister

The Giant Brain is pleased to announce that 'Revenge of the B-Movie 2: Monsters, Mutants and Mayhem' is now available from our shop.

Now you can let you audiences experience your films 'in 3D', cower before the terrifying 'Mutant', watch in horror as one monster 'Devours' another and throw confetti as a 'Demon' 'Marries' a 'Meerkat'. These and many more options will soon be available for the directors amongst you to add to their twisted visions.

'Revenge of the B-Movie 2: Monsters, Mutants and Mayhem' is playable as a standalone game or can be combined with 'Revenge of the B-Movie' for the ultimate in ridiculous film titles.

The game costs £9 or you can buy Revenge of the B-Movie 1 & 2 for £15. Postage and Packaging is free within the UK and £2 to the rest of the world.

All the best

Iain McAllister

Hi folks,

Just a quick one to let you all know that the Giant Brain is now on facebook. Hope to see some of you on there!

Cheers

Iain

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you had a good time and that santa was good to you.

The Giant Brain had a great start last year and this year is going to be a busy one. First up I am heading to Conception where I will be releasing the ashcan version of 'Reel Adventures' my RPG of action heroes and diabolical nemeses. I am almost done with this but just want a bit more feedback before I release it later in the year, and want to experiment with the ashcan model to see if it can help. Any copies I don't sell will go out through the shop so keep your eyes peeled.

Later this year we will be releasing at least one expansion for B-Movie, two are in development at the moment and are starting to come together nicely.

These alongside a Stitch ashcan on the horizon and a new card game I have in the early playtesting stages is going to keep me a very busy guy over the year.

I would like to thank all the people and shops who have supported me over the last 6 months and wish everyone all the best for 2009.

Cheers

Iain

Right, so Reel Adventures has been on the back burner since the last playtest at the start of the year, but I have had a few ideas about things I want to do to it.

The problem from the last playtest was that their was no incentive for players to risk the things they create. Basically their was no reason to take action, which was obviously a problem.

The main mechanic works pretty well, and the structure is good, but there needs to be some tweaking to make the game more interesting and also incentivise the players to take action.

So here is what I want to add:

Applause: this would be a mechanic whereby the player would get a point everytime they engage in a piece of action or suggest a piece of action that is taken on by another player. It may tie in more to the mechanic ala inspectres e.g. everytime you pull a king you get a point of 'applause'. Needs some testing obviously.

The basic idea is that this would represent the audiences happiness with the film and their willingness to believe in the character.

Applause would be used to determine who gets to take down the nemesis at the end of the tale, eliminating the need for an arbitary role to determine it, or some complex group mechanic.

Does this sound like it would work and incentivise the players enough? I want to make it a little competitive basically.

Sidekicks: I would like to add in rules for people to play sidekicks rather than heroes. They would still get applause, but maybe for different reasons, assisting heroes etc. They wouldn't be able to take down the nemesis at all, but the applause they would gather would determine if they live or die, how they leave the film.

Anybody got any ideas on what sort of thing should be reflected in sidekick rules?

Random tables: I want to add in tables for inspiration, scene ideas, film ideas, name generators etc.

Written like board game rules: If you have ever played a board game from scratch you know that a lot of board games have their rules written to be understood by a new player. I want reel adventures to be playable out of the box, no need for rules prep.

So anyone got any suggestions, ideas, comments?

Cheers

Iain

I have just finished putting together a lens for 'Revenge of the B-Movie' on squidoo. You can check it out here!

Cheers

Iain (The Frontal Lobe)

'The Giant Brain' is delighted to announce that ‘Revenge of the B-Movie!’ is now available from the fine folks at Indie Press Revolution.

‘Revenge of the B-Movie!’ is a fast playing card game about making ridiculous B-Movie titles. Players compete to make the best(worst?) film titles and sell them to Hollywood for vast riches. After all who wouldn’t want to see 'Killer Tomatoes from Outer Space vs. The Chainsaw Wielding Bikers from Hell?’.

You can read a review of the game here.

All the best

Iain (The Frontal Lobe)

Hi Folks,

Well I am delighted to announce that I have just sold the last few copies I had of 'Revenge of the B-Movie!' to those fine folks at Leisure Games, but this does unfortunately mean that I am temporarily sold out. However, there is more on its way! Yay!

I have recently put in a new order that should be leaving the printers tomorrow. Half of that order will be coming to me here in Scotland and the rest will be winding its way to the fine folks at Indie Press Revolution(IPR). Yes that's right folks you will soon be able to buy the game from IPR and it will also be available through them at Gencon Indy, which I will unfortunately not be able to attend.

More news soon on our forthcoming projects and a chance to get involved with playtesting our next card game. Keep an eye on the site for news, or hook into our RSS.

All the best

Iain

Well the first month of 'Revenge of the B-Movie!' has drawn to a close, I would have posted sooner but life got in the way, and it has been great so far. Since it released I have sold 75 copies and comped 7 leaving me with 18 left. This means I am ready for my second run, woohoo!

My next steps are to distribute through IPR, which is in the works at the moment, look at distribution through Esdevium and hit the stores of Edinburgh and Glasgow to see if they would like to take some. You should be seeing a review in Games Gazette in the not too distant future as well. Guild of Blades are still setting up there webstore but have already had a retail sale out of that so hopefully once that is up and running, the sales will flow.

I have been getting some really nice feedback from people about the game, just saying that they really enjoyed it and to keep up the good work. It is so gratifying to put a game out and find that people enjoy it as much as you hoped they would.

All the best

Iain

Last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic round GB HQ but I have finally found some time to do a bit of updating to the site. I have added the first couple of retailers that are stocking the game to the site as well as a link to the first review 'Revenge of the B-Movie!' has received at BoardGameGeek. The review is very positive overall and it is so gratifying to hear about people having a good time with something you have made.

All the best

Iain

Well 'Games Expo' was a great success for 'The Giant Brain' and 'Revenge of the B-Movie!'. I sold 40 copies over the course of the con and comped two, one to Pinnacle for a copy of 'Rippers' and one to the excellent Chris Baylis who will be reviewing it for a future copy of Game Gazette.

Thankfully my second box has now arrived which means my Shop is up and running. The game is retailing at £9 and if any shops fancy stocking it then please get in touch with me directly.

If you are stateside you can currently get the game direct from my publisher "Guild of Blades".

The last week has been a great start for my company I can't wait to see what the rest of the year will bring.

All the best

Iain McAllister (The Frontal Lobe)

Hi guys,

Well I am on holiday at the moment but my brother informs me that the pack containing my rules for 'Revenge of the B-Movie' has arrived. Good News!

On the bad news front, my second box did not go out till tuesday night as the guy Ryan had left in charge didn't know how to put the creases in the tuckbox. It does mean I don't have to pay shipping on the reprint cards though, I mucked up one of the cards, which is sort of good news. It does mean it is going to be a little tight but hopefully I will have received that box by next tuesday. In Ryan's defence he has been very open about it and told me as soon as he realised what had happend. A thoroughly excellent chap.

On the upside I am getting into the marketing side of things now and throwing myself around the internet looking for various sites to post on and places to put press releases out. Anyone got any advice on where I should head? I have a presence on BoardGameGeek now and I am starting to see a good upturn in traffic on the site.

Cheers

Iain

Hi folks,

I am very excited to announce that 'Revenge of the B-Movie' will be launching on the 31st May at Games Expo in Birmingham. Soon after that you will be able to order the game through my website and the Guild of Blades retail site, which will be up soon.

In the meantime here are some pretty pictures of the Grand Box Opening

Opening the box


Unpacking


Tuck Box


Constructed Box</a>

Some sample cards


Yes the cards do fit!


I can't wait to get this into the hands of my fellow gamers.

All the best

Iain

Oh my god. I arrived home today to find a parcelforce note on my doorstep. Hopefully post office will be open early enough tomorrow for me to go and pick up the parcel. I am pretty sure it will be B-Movie as I have no other parcels coming at the moment.

In other news, the game will be available in the states through Guild of Blades initially. They are putting together their retail site over the next week or so and will post links about the the place as soon as I know the exact details.

Cheers

Iain

Well after a little email trouble that is finally all the files sent to Ryan at 'Guild of Blades'. He is reviewing them and making sure everything is in place and then it will be GO GO GO!!! I am at once exctied and terrified but am sure everything will work out fine.

More info. very soon.

Cheers

Iain

After a year of nail biting, nashing of teeth and frustrations of one form or another, I am finally on the cusp of releasing B-Movie. I am sorting out some financial bits and pieces this week and tidying up the rules and card layout. By the end of this week, start of next, everything should be ready to go.

As soon as I have pictures I will post them. There will aslo be a giant party at my house to celebrate!

More details soon.

Cheers

Iain

I have been beavering away on Reel Adventures of late, trying to get the game working precisely the way I want it to. One of the recent changes has been to take the dice out of the resolution system and use cards instead, which got me thinking about the sort of deciscions that would lead you to choose dice or cards for your system.

Why use randomisers at all?
First things first, why should you include a randomiser in your game? If you think about it there are plenty of successful games, chess coming instantly to mind, that have no randomiser in their system at all. On the other hand there are games that are only randomiser, snakes & ladders.

The main reason to use one is to make the outcome of a given choice uncertain. This can increase tension and excitement in the game and force players to react to an ever changing set of circumstances. For example in most wargames the way of determining whether my guy kills your guy is to roll some dice based on, or compared against, unit stats. If it was just a straight comparison the game could become very dull and all about the superior troop type, meaning all players would just field the strongest force they could. The introduction of a random element means the choice of army is not 'obvious' and you get a more diverse spread of troop choice which can only make the game a bit more interesting.

However the introduction of randomisers must be handled carefully. Snakes & ladders, though an entertaining game when you are a child, is actually terrible from the point of view of design. Their is no choice for the player and all you do is roll a dice several times until someone wins. The game is all randomiser and no choice. This is to be avoided at all costs.

Randomisers in RPGs
Now RPGs, and especially story focused games, introduce another factor worth considering. The choice we have mentioned above becomes more interesting as the players, I include the GM here, are creating a narrative that other players can react to. In a way the other players introduce the random element we can get from cards or dice and as such the need for a randomiser to create unexpected situations is lessened.

That is not to say we can always design RPGs without a random element, and indeed most still include some kind of dice or card mechanic to decide the outcome of combat/ social situations etc. Those without these randomisers must be careful to not fall into the trap of making all deciscions fall to one player, GM fiat for example, or to reduce it to such a point that it is non-existent and the game has no suprises for anyone. For me the thing that makes RPGs so interesting is the unexpected twists and turns in the story that we create.

Once you have decided to include a random element in your design, you need to decide which one.

Dice
Games have been using Dice since, almost literally, the dawn of time. The most common dice is of course the d6 and is readily available, in small quantities, in most households. Now our hobby has more dice than I can really mention and you could write infinite words on proababilities, why a d6 is better than a d10 etc. I am not going to do that here.

What I will do is lay out why you might want to choose dice over cards.

1) Probabilities: Ok I am going to mention it briefly. The core range of polyhedrals offer and interesting range of probabilities, some of which may suit the mechanic you are thinking of better than a deck of cards will. The core range is: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20.

2) Visually: They are an instant number you can read easily and as long as you don't have too many fancy calculations in your system resolution is instant.

3) Familiarity: It is more common to use dice in a board game as the randomiser than cards and as such people are more used to seeing them used in a gaming context.

4) Addition: If you are pooling and adding them together then they are easy to add as the numbers are instantly there. You don't need to think about how much a face card is worth.

5) Quantity: You can roll loads of dice easily in your hand but holding more than 10 cards say is a bit troublesome. However not everyone has loads of dice so there can be an accesibility issue there.

Cards
I have been heading towards using cards in my game design since 'Mob Justice', basically because I think you can play more interesting narrative tricks with them. However they aren't all good and carry their own set of problems. So why would you use them over dice:

1) Accesibility: Every household, pretty much, has a deck of cards in it and is familiar with the suits and value. You show the average joe a d12 and he will look at you like you just insulted his mother.

2) Visually: They are bigger and impact more on the play area than dice. This can be good, from the point of view of everyone being able to see it, and bad, means you need more table space.

3) Quantity: Holding more than 10 cards in your hand can be a bit cumbersome, though is not impossible.

4) Probabilities: A lot trickier to calculate with cards and something that you really need to think about when designing a game. Does every player need a deck? Do the proabilities balance out as players draw cards?

5) Addition: this can be harder than with dice if you are including face cards as people need to think about what they are worth. However it means you can play tricks with their value that can be useful.

6) Tricks: You can play tricks with leaving cards on the table, bluffing, winning whist style tricks etc. that you can't with dice. This gives us more design opportunities to maniuplate player behaviour, but that is another post, or 10, all in itself.

So there you go. Dice vs. Cards is something that will be debated for a long time yet and either method has its pluses and minuses. I will post more soon about exactly why I chose cards over dice for Reel Adventures.

All the best

Iain

One of these days i will use this place more regularly.

For those who are interested in seeing what I am working on I will have a preview version of 'Revenge of the B-Movie' and in-development versions of 'Stitch' and 'Reel Adventures' at Dragonmeet in London this coming saturday. I should hopefully be getting another test session of Stitch in over the weekend as well.

On the subject of 'Stitch' I have put the Game Chef version up for free on the website. It is very rough but if you want to see where I am going with it this is a good place to start.

http://www.giantbrain.co.uk

Cheers

Iain