Sure. Each player gets 4 tiles of their color and a starting hand of 4 Battle cards. The Battle cards are (initially) chosen by the players in a similar fashion to Fairy Tale; you start with 5 cards, select one to keep, then pass the remaining cards to your left. This continues until all players have 4 cards they have chosen. Not only does this allow you to ‘build’ your own starting hand (thus ensuring it isn’t horrible), it also can give you something of an idea of what your opponents’ have, which is good information.

So on your first turn, you have your Battle cards and tiles to place. You also get 3 RUs to start the game. That’s your money. They are pretty scarce throughout the game, so you have to be cautious about how you use them. Resource management certainly plays a part here.

You get a play aid, which indicates that all of your technologies – Weapons, Shields, Engines and Comms – are at 0. This means you get no bonuses to begin with. Shucks. These techs aren’t complicated tech trees; they rise in a linear fashion, with the higher the tech, the bigger the bonus. The techs mostly do exactly what they sound like the do; Weapons gives you a bonus to your hand when you’re the attacker in Battle. Shields give you a bonus if you’re the defender. Engines let you place extra tiles on the board on your turn, Comms let you draw extra battle cards. The cost of each tech is the same as its level. So if I want to raise my Engines to level 3, not only do I have to have the preceding level, but it will cost me 3 RUs for that level. In order to keep them balanced (as Engines is really an attractive option), Weapons and Shields each give a bigger bonus that Engines or Comms. So while Comms gives you 3 extra cards for level 3, Weapons and Shields will each give you a bonus of 4 for their level 3s, respectively. Get too far behind on those and you could get blown up, but good.

Right, I was discussing your turn. Tangent… sorry. I’ll outline the turn order as it’s pretty clear about how you go about becoming Master of the Galaxy..
1. Replenish your battle hand to the maximum.
- On turns other than your first, you may have Comms higher than level zero. If this is the case, draw enough Battle cards to bring your hand up to your allowed max.
2. Take income.
- You don’t get any on your first turn (you already got 3!? whaddya want for free? ) but on all subsequent turns, you get 1 RU just for being the swell being you are. This is in addition to money you would earn for any moons you currently own. Moons give you an addition 2 RU of income, unless you have to pay 1 RU in tax to the player that owns the planet.
3.Take alloted tiles.
- Count out the amount of tiles you get to place this turn.
3a) Place fortifications.
- This is first in your placement phase by necessity. Often people would want to place fortifications later on and forget where they had initially placed tiles. Since you can only fortify tiles you owned at the beginning of the turn, this rule clears up any confusion.
3b) Place your other tiles. Resolve Battles as necessary.
- When you’re placing your tiles into unoccupied space, no problem. However, if your buddy already owns that spot, you gotta battle for it. Sweet. Talk big about how you’ll crush them, mention how many massive Battle cards you have, glare at each other some and go to it. The winner then usually gloats about how powerful they are.
3c) Replenish your Battle cards up to 4.
- If you’ve battled, and if your battle hand was reduced to less than 4 (guaranteed on your first few turns), draw some to go back up to 4. This goes for your opponents, too.
4. Purchase or play Research Cards, Purchase Battle Cards, Purchase Technologies
- Yes, it’s the shopping phase of your turn. Everyone loves shopping.
5. Exchange Battle card, if no Battle has occured.
- If you attacked someone (you space pirate, you) no tradesies for you. If not, dump off your crappy stuff and cross your fingers.

So that’s what you’re going to be doing. When you’re expanding your intergalactic empire, be sure to take advantage of the encounters that are scattered around the board. Those ones are freebies. You take the tile, you get the encounter. Not all are good though, so think hard about whether or not that’s what you want to do. You can also choose to have an encounter without being forced to take those specific tiles. You send out a scout ship (by discarding one of your alloted tiles that turn) and draw one of the encounter tiles from the side of the board. Encounters are good things to have as they do a variety of good things. Most of them are beneficial too, so keep that in mind.

Taking planets and/or moons is also highly recommended. The planets give you a permanent bonus to your techs (or other neat things like Resource Mining or fortifications) and the moons give you more money. However, the moons are always orbiting the planets (so plan ahead) and the planets… well they’re worth big points, so make sure you can keep them once you’ve grabbed ‘em.

There’s more stuff too, that I won’t go into detail about right now.. like your Special Power, Desperation!, and exactly how Battle works.

Once we’re done, how do we know who wins?

Win, win, win. That’s all you ever think about. Isn’t it about the fun of playing the game?

No. I want to kick [insert person's name here]’s butt. Tell me how.

Okee dokee. Well I mentioned about how engines were a big deal. That’s because every tile you have showing on the board at the end is worth one point. The ones underneath stacks with someone else’s tile on top aren’t worth diddly, so tough. On top of that, your planets are worth 4, any moons you own are worth 2 (both of those are in addition to the tiles they’re sitting on), your Special Power is worth 4 (if you didn’t use it) and each RU you still have is worth 1.

On top of those points, you score at the end of the first 2 phases – there are 3 in the game, with the final phase ending in the Supernova – but only for the planets and the moons. Those points are added to your end-game total and the person with the most points gloa.. err… thanks his/her opponents for a good game.

Thanks again for reading… I have a lot of fun writing these up.

Originally posted on BoardGameGeek.

I haven’t written about Supernova much lately. It’s likely due to the fact that I haven’t played it much either. This, however, is because the prototype is off getting all fancified. And by ‘fancified’, I mean done up right and proper by Mike Doyle. I feel simultaneously excited, nervous and scared about it, kind of like how many feel just before opening the door when set up on a blind date. That being said, I know it’s going to turn out fantastically. Mike puts so much time and effort into the details of his creations, I simply can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

On with the Questions and Answers!

What is the point of the game? How does it play?

Well, the point of the game is to become the galactic grand poobah (my term). That, and to lay the smack down on your friends. This, of course, differs from what the rules say, but I have to be more ‘professional’ in the rules. As for how it plays, if you haven’t already read the rules, I’ll summarize.

Each player represents a space-faring civilization, attempting to colonize new worlds and expand their influence across the galaxy when they learn their co-habited solar system is about to be blown to smithereens by the upcoming supernova of their Sun. You lay tiles onto the board each turn, each of which represents your influence in that region of space. The more space that you have influence over at the end of the game, the more points you get. The civilization (player) with the most points wins and becomes the aforementioned poobah. Ahhh, but it’s not that simple. Over the course of the game, you may spend some money to increase your technologies. You can boost Shields or Weapons to intimidate and/or blast your opponents, or you can raise your Engines or Comms, with which you can expand faster or hold more Battle Cards, respectively. What’s this about Battle cards? Oh, right. Anytime you want to take a spot on the board which one of your friends have already taken (or vice versa), you have to fight over it (the more smack talk, the better). For this, you use Battle Cards. You may use them in a variety of combinations to try to win the Battle. You then take into account each player’s level of Weapons/Shields and the height of their stack of tiles to determine the winner. Planets and Moons are valuable as they convey extra points during and at the end of the game while also providing a bonus and income (respectively).

So what’s fun about that? Why should I look at this game instead of Nexus Ops or Twilight Imperium? How is this different?

Well, I haven’t played Twilight Imperium, but I have played Nexus Ops. Nexus Ops (from now on referred to as “NO”) is pretty cool cause it has little smelly alien guys that kinda look like gummi candies. Nice. The thing about NO is that although you get some pretty nice miniatures, you don’t every really get the feeling that you are expanding and growing an empire. Supernova gives you that feeling, at least to a degree. Plus, when you take control of a solar flare and obliterate 4 of your friend’s tiles, well… that’s just cool. I really like how the choices you AND your opponent’s make in Supernova changes the dynamic of the game. If my opponents all start to boost their engines in lieu of other techs, I might want to do the same. Or, I can increase my Weapons to take out their planets as they have less shields to defend with. If I decide instead to spend my money on Research (cards), it can give me more options on my turn. I could also change tactics within the course of a game, which is always a good plan. Often, you may want to be aggressive early to get the points for a planet and as many moons as you can hold onto at the end of the first Phase. Then rest on your laurels and build up your resources a bit until the third phase when you again go hard at a planet for final scoring.

As for how Supernova compares to TI, well, it’s shorter. That’s about all I can tell you about that.

What are some of the different Research cards you can buy?

There are 20 different Research cards in the game, and there are 2 of each for a total of 40 cards. The following is a selection of those cards.

Teleportation – Trade places with one of an opponent’s tiles, up to two hexes away from your own. The opponent’s tile must be of equal height or lower.

Call for Reinforcements – Fortify any two of your tiles with tiles from your reserves.

Fleet Academy Recruits – Draw 4 Battle Cards. Choose up to 2 cards to keep. Discard the same amount of cards from your hand.

Battlestations – Increase your Battle Hand by one card until the end of this turn. If unused, the card must be discarded.

Surface Eruption – Add 1 to the distance of a Solar Flare that you have won control of. You must display this card upon winning the bid.

Space Vacuum – Remove one tile from the bottom of any stack of tiles. This MAY be used to remove a single tile.

Lunar Acceleration – Move a moon one space forward or back in its current orbit, maintaining its current direction.

Research cards are designed to give you a few extra options. They aren’t excessively powerful, nor were they designed with ‘take that’ play in mind. There is some of that, but for the most part, I tried to make them be more about helping yourself than drastically harming your opponents. This keeps the game from changing so much between turns that there is zero planning involved. That being said, the game changes enough that Supernova is definitely a tactical game, not a strategic one.

Who would like this game? What type of game is it?

Although I think the debate between Euro and American styled games is a bit overboard, if I must qualify Supernova within those boundaries, here’s my consensus: it’s a bit of both. Don’t call me a fence-sitter too quickly. It really is. There is some very ‘euro-esque’ resource management and decision-making involved. However, the game quickly becomes about conflict as you try to expand within the boundaries that your friends/opponents are confining you to. If you’re looking for a ‘why can’t we all get along?’, no-conflict euro, this isn’t your game. Well, I suppose it could be, but MAN is it ever dull when people aren’t attacking each other. That doesn’t mean it’s entirely a bash-the-leader kingmaker game either. There is a certain amount of that, but mostly to just keep the obvious leader from running away with the game. But the thing is, the leader isn’t always obvious… unless you spend the downtime counting people’s tiles on the board. But how much fun is that?? Supernova is at it’s best when you and some friends want a game to play while having a bevvie and snacks and want something that gives you some interesting decisions as well as some conflict and a bit of nastiness. It’s fun, pretty lightweight, and aimed at that gamer who has likely grown up on Risk and is starting to explore the broader world of boardgames.

What about theme!?! I know it’s about these races and an exploding sun, but give me CHROME!! (see: chrome)

Gotcha. We’re working on that. As you read, there is a published author working on the backstory for the game. It will be available (most likely) as a downloadable PDF from the official site once the game is released. There will also be much more theme-related flavor text both in the rules and on the research/civilization/desperation cards than there is now. Have no fear, it will make you feel space-faring and galac-tastic.

Thanks for reading. I hope I’ve helped answer some questions about Supernova. If you have more, post here or feel free to geekmail me. I always enjoy chatting about Supernova.

• Some of the roles weren’t powerful enough. The Chambermaid was all but useless and wasn’t even played.
  • The Chambermaid allows a player to move guests up on an elevator. This is a good plan in theory but in practice, it doesn’t really do all that much for you. This has been changed completely. Now, the Chambermaid allows you to increase the Concierge by up to 2 points and use up to 3 points from the Concierge with no action cost.
  • The Hotel Owner allowed you to play a card twice that isn’t higher than a 3. This has been amended to a 4. Although this breaks the whole ‘no sum higher than 7′ rule, it just wasn’t that great as it isn’t even worth the same as a good draw of a 7. But by making it an 8…
    
  • I added a new role called the Doorman, which allows you to draw 3 guests out of the bag and immediately place them on an elevator of your choice.
• I liked that the roles aren’t really exceptionally powerful. They aren’t intended to be; they shouldn’t make nor break the game. The meat and potatoes is still in your hand management and choices with respect to where you place your bellhops. In fact, using the roles is costly, which is exactly what I wanted. By making them slightly costly, it balances out their potential use as a constant ‘take-that’ style of play.
• I really liked having guests start in the lobby. This adds some interest to which elevator you leave there, as the cheapest elevator can certainly bring guests to almost any of the floors quickly. It also give another way for people to get slightly easier/quicker points, enabling them to come back from a deficit easier. I’m going to change one rule due to this addition; 24 guests always must be in play on the floors or on the elevators; more is allowed, due to the Doorman. The guests waiting in the lobby are not counted toward this total.

All in all, I’m quite happy about these modifications. I’m looking forward to playing it again this weekend.

It has not yet been published but I am persistently searching for a publisher. In some ways, it is (imo) possibly a better game than Supernova for a variety of reasons:

• It is reasonably short; around 45-60 minutes
• It has simple mechanics that provide tense gameplay and difficult decisions throughout
• It is a bit backstabby (evil grin)
• It can be played with as few as 2 people

Bellhop is set in New York, 1939. The players play managers of a team of bellhops, whose task it is to assist customers on their way out of the hotel, most of whom are off to visit the World’s Fair. A player’s team of bellhops is small and gets smaller as the game progresses; your bellhops are not reused. The gameplay is quite simple; on a player’s turn, they may choose 2 of 3 available actions.

1. Play a card
2. Draw a card
3. Place a Bellhop

The trick to this is that the player must take their actions in the above order. So, for instance, I may play a card THEN place a bellhop, but not the other way around. Or, I may play two cards in a row… provided their sum is not greater than 7. Playing a card allows a player to load guests onto elevators or move/stop elevators. The crux of the game is basically that a player is likely to never be able to move the elevator to the lobby to drop off a bunch of guests AND have their Bellhops waiting for said guests… at least not all on their own. Collaboratively, they very well may do that. So there is a bit of working together and a lot of backstabbiness, which makes the working together part interesting.. and tricky. You’re never able to do quite as much as you’d like, which in my opinion, is the hallmark of a good game.

So, this last week, I’ve been thinking lots about Bellhop and how I could possibly make it even MORE interesting without adding unneeded complexity and playtime. Changes to Bellhop may or may not be necessary, depending on your perspective, but as it is still unpublished, I’m wondering if it is slightly too dry/analytical for people’s tastes. Hence my ruminations on a minor update.

What I’ve done is a couple things; I added guests in the lobby which need to be taken UP to a floor (all guests previously started on a floor and go to the lobby) and I added roles. It’s the roles which I think might make this game even better. I realize that roles in a board game are somewhat de rigueur and possibly passé but oh well. I like the idea of having the ability to do a little something extra to help yourself out on a turn that isn’t a ‘take that’ mechanism. Roles in this game are slightly different than how I’ve seen them implemented before, which is not to say they haven’t been done this way. Just that I haven’t seen them done this way.

Each player is dealt a role at the beginning of the game, placed face-up in front of them. On a player’s turn, they may play their role, for the cost of 1 point on the scoring track. It does not cost them a ‘play a card’ action. They must then trade their role either with an opponent’s role or with one of the extras. To trade with one of the spare roles does not cost them anything, but to exchange it with an opponent costs them an additional point on the scoring track. Some examples of the roles are:

• Elevator operator – The cost to move your choice of elevators is 2 less than normal (total) this turn.

• Chambermaid – Move one column of guests to the top of one elevator.

• Shift supervisor - Exchange one of your cards with the card on the top of the discard pile. It may not be more than 3 points higher than the card you exchange.

There are more roles, but these are just to pique your curiosity…

I’ll be trying this new implementation today; I’ll post my impressions later.

Making their use intriguing, strategic and interesting is what I’m still working on…. but I’ve got some ideas. It’s the rest of the game that might be formulaic and boring. Ah well, you can’t win at everything.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a game successful. Now obviously, the word ’successful’ is rather vague. What I’m referring to is simply the number of boxes that a certain game sells. This includes reprints, initial runs, and expansions.Basically, why does one game – X – outsell game Y when they both have more or less equal ratings on the Geek? I’m very aware of the obvious reasons as to why Ticket to Ride will outsell Die Macher. What I’ve been pondering is whether or not you could design a game deliberately to be a success. As in, ignore what YOU, as the designer really wants, and attempt to discern what the public will actually buy, en masse, and design the game to fit that mold. That’s obviously a pretty shallow idea, but is it completely implausible?

So, let’s look at the elements that (possibly) make a game receptive to the mass market. Please note that ‘mass market’ does not only include Wal Mart shoppers and people who browse games at Toys R Us. I’m talking about gamers here as well. The games I’m considering ’successful’ are ones that are not only sold in big box stores – Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Sorry, Life, etc etc – but those games that have been wildly successful both with non-gamers and gamers, like Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne. So what makes them uh… tick? Here’s my take:

 (please note, the following are not in order of importance)

Theme. First and foremost, for a game to be successful in a broad sense, I believe the theme must be familiar and interesting to a wide variety of people. The idea of building railways or settling a new land is not very foreign to many people; not only that, these themes evoke a certain sense of nostalgia (thanks, Hollywood) and romance in many. The theme of a game is a tough sell to a lot of people unless they can mentally tie the activity within the game to something else they are familiar with; ie: ‘yes, Supernova is kinda…. like Risk. Sure.’… ‘Yep, in Acquire, you can put buildings on the board, so yeah, it’s similar to Monopoly.’ I know these statements are pretty out there, but I’m sure there have been even more head-scratching comparisons made. I don’t believe that an uncommon theme deals a death blow to a game, but it certainly is more of a stumbling block to many than one that is less foreign. The first entry on this geeklist elicited some interesting feedback, specifically with respect to this point.

Accessibility. I believe this is possibly the biggest factor in making a game successful to a mass market. It really doesn’t matter how pretty, cheap or familiar a game is, if it can only be played by 5 people in 3.5 hours, most people won’t buy it. Eurogames have earned their rightful place as a hugely successful market niche simply because this is one of the primary tenets in their makeup. Interestingly, a games’ accessibility isn’t solely related to it’s length and number of players, it also extends to the theme, the box size, the time involved to set it up and the ease with which a player might be able to get their friends playing it. This is one of those factors which is a tricky variable to figure out. Many people are comfortable with dice (not just wargamers/amerigamers); so having many dice in a game may not be foreign or repulsive to them. However, put in a stack of 300 cards with unique information on each, and they may be loath to even try a game. For some others, it may be the exact opposite.

Price. Yes, I know… build it and they will come. Blah blah blah. Not necessarily true. A good game could be completely ignored if it is priced outside of the range of what the majority consider an acceptable value for their dollar. Since they are, as yet, unaware of how much fun they may/may not have with X game, they are likely to pass over it if it is $54 and they had only wanted to spend $45. On top of that, the discrepancy of cost between your tried-and-true Monopoly/Risk/Clue/etc and Euro/American/Designer game is quite great so many games are fighting an uphill battle from the start. Of course, price can be easily combatted by the game’s theme and accessibility (and good sales staff) so this isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker… just that it has the potential to be.

Reviews/WoM. What is WoM? Word of Mouth. This broadly includes articles in newspapers/web, friends’ recommendations, sales staff suggestions, even the number of games proudly proclaimed to have been sold on the box (a la TtR). Many gamers are never going to actually read a review of a game before they buy it. WoM is likely far more important to them than reviews are. In fact, many gamers are likely completely unaware that there are such things as board game reviews or ratings. A game’s status as #43 on the Geek (yess, that is TtR) is likely completely unimportant to them. Or if it is #607 (Catan – Struggle for Rome) either. It’s the WoM that’s going to affect their buying decision. But then there’s the gamers (like yours truly) who likes to take both WoM, game weight and Reviews/Ratings into account before considering a game.. possibly because we’ve already got 60-odd games, upwards of 40% of them unplayed (really?? that many??? sigh). So adding another game to the collection (read: trying to find room to cram game in closet while also sneaking said game past dubious/game-hostile spouse) is a serious decision that warrants much thought. Especially if the game is expensive/large/difficult to hit the table.. in this case, overwhelmingly positive reviews and ratings might help to tip the scales.

Target audience. This could fall under accessibililty but as a person may not be buying it for themselves and certainly isn’t only playing it by themselves, it’s definitely a factor. Before I really discovered what types of games I liked, and when I was just getting (back) into board games, many people would give me recommendations… their favourite game, what they’d played at a friend’s house. Well, someone told me how much fun they had playing Killer Bunnies, and how great a game it was when you have a lot of players. Hm. I was intrigued. So when I went to a game night where someone suggested it, I jumped all over it. (This is obviously due to the WoM…) I was very unimpressed. The majority of the game, I felt like I had little, if any, control over what was going on. It was interesting, the way the cards interacted, and sure, there was some humour involved… But they really thought it was great?? Then the end of the game arrived. So, let me get this straight… if I have the carrot card that matches the original one, I win? If I don’t, I lose? WTF? So the only way to potentially win is to collect carrot cards like mad in the hopes that you actually get the right (lucky) one. In our game, the player who had ONE carrot card won. Yeah, that’s fun. BUT, and here’s the point…. some people LOVE this game. So the audience is a huge factor in how well a game goes over. This game just won’t be going over anytime soon at my house.

Mechanics. How complex is it? Are the mechanics intuitive – and by ‘intuitive’, I mean – does the way you do things match up to what a player might expect? This is a difficult thing to discern as a jaded hardcore gamer might find a simplistic mechanic dull as they’ve seen it a million times, whereas a new gamer might find it clever and exciting. How do you find that middle ground? This is a tricky question, without a clear answer. I feel that the best way to balance this is to offer a game with mechanics that feel simplistic/familiar but yet still offer depth and replay value. So what the heck does that mean? Use mechanics that integrate with other mechanics to provide several (if not many) ways of achieving similar goals, while at the same time making them unique to your game, or at least, implemented in a unique way. In addition, make them simple enough for people to remember what they do on each turn and when.

I’m sure these are not the only factors in a game’s success or failure. But could you tailor the elements of a game to address all of these? Certainly. Does that mean the game will be a success? Not at all. The reason for this (in my opinion) is simply that these are not discrete parts of a game. And these parts really do not make up the whole. They are all far too intertwined to be able to treat them as separate bits. Although to some degree they are separate, none of them can exist unto themselves. Mechanics affect a game’s accessibility. The theme directly influences your target audience. And everything, ultimately, is either dictated by or influences the price, depending on your perspective.

So where does all of this leave designers? Should we ignore these things and leave it to the winds of fate? Should we outline each element individually and address it specifically within your gameplay model? I really think that both approaches are likely the only way to create a successful game. Yes, you have to address and be aware of these elements. But you also cannot design a game around them; that is simply too short-sighted as a game’s purchase often comes down, to a person’s opinion. Or a gut feeling. Or maybe just because they like the art. And heck, your game’s theme might be changed by the publisher anyway.

In reference to an earlier entry, the only thing I feel I can do is to create a game with interesting, impactful, and tense choices. Ultimately, that’s what will make it appealing. The unfortunate drawback to this simplistic response is that there is no ‘formula’ that will make your game successful. Anyone can make a game with interesting choices just falling out of the box, but it could sell like week-old Wonder bread. So that alone won’t move boxes. And should that be the objective anyway? Frankly, I don’t even believe that that should be a designer’s goal; too much focus on that will simply cause you to lose sight of the importance of the designing itself. Games should be created for the audience, for the love of gaming, and for the enjoyment derived from creating the experience. A game designer should do it for the love of the craft, so to speak. Or should they?

To be continued…