Greetings friends!
So it's been a pretty hectic few weeks here at chez Loxley where me and my collaborator Tom have been busy little bees getting more rules ironed out.
Sometimes we're looking at small rules changes, just a small stat change here to boost or nerf something. Other times it's a massive rules change.
Take our game on Wednesday night for example:
I was playing Raiders, Tom was Trydan.
One of the major changes was I wanted to try with pre-measuring, something that until that point the game didn't allow. You see when I created the very first pre-alpha pack there was a specific reason I didn't want pre-measuring.
Then last week Tom asked me why I had opted for that and for the life of me I could not remember. Instead what I could remember was the times I had left my Units stranded in the open away from cover because I had declared I was going to walk thinking I could make it to the other side, but instead it was too far, and the only way I could have made it would have been to Sprint. Of course because of the Action Declare system this meant I was stuck at my walk distance with nothing in line of sight to shoot at, so my Interact Action was wasted.
By adding pre-measuring I did away with this gamble, and on Wednesday night would check the range for both moving and sprinting and then made the most tactical choice for the time.
One result was that the game was a lot closer, and it didn't feel like I was making so many poor decisions. Now this may have been my frame of mind, but I'm inclined to believe that adding pre-measuring was a big part. It meant that I felt more in control of my decisions and actions and less at the whim of a poor ability to gauge distance.
Of course none of this actually happened in Chez Loxley, it was all online as I was situated near London while Tom is in Wales, which I think says a lot about the modern state of gaming we are in now.
- I've been writing a few posts about it for Wayland Games Post 1, Post 2. Post 3 has been sat with them for over 2 weeks now, but has yet to make an appearance and they haven't told me why, so if you would like to read it give them a bug on my behalf eh?
Anyway, it says a lot that two people can co-design a game when separated by two and a half, to three hours car journey!
The games we just boot up the reverse engineered Infinity module for Vassal and try out a nee build.
The rules we edit on the fly due to a shared Dropbox folder allowing us to add, remove and change entire chunks of rules on the fly and the other person can see it as we go.
Throw in the occasional email and Skype and you have a recipe for game design without even being in the same country!
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So anyway; by now you have probably read Part IV of my latest story; Wetware which covers the adventures of a young kid hacker going by the name Jinn.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on where this is going, if you're enjoying the story? If it bores you? What you think of the 'Mantiverse?
I'm really enjoying writing this story and I get the opportunity to explore a side of the First Law Universe that I haven't had much of a chance to before, namely Mantic Space. After all, the game isn't all about bang-bang stab-stab! It's also got the subtleties of hacking and this was a great opportunity to explore that from the viewpoint of the hacker.
You see I've always liked the idea of Mantic Space, and I think it has a lot of potential. One option is to look into a Mantic Space game itself, maybe as an expansion for Override where it turns your gang on it's head and your soldiers/warriors become peasants and your weak hackers become the super heroes. Another option might be something more personal, maybe an arena style game, or maybe co-op with the players as a group of Hackers using their 'Mantic skills to bring down security constructs and all that.
At the very least, as we build up the world of Honos and start introducing named characters through the campaign system (you're going to love that) there is always the option of an RPG, and let's be honest, who wouldn't like to play an RPG where one game they get to travel to the Block and perform a drug bust on a Trydan-Red Claw exchange? Then next game travel down to the Dead Zone and rescue HMC Researchers from a Pha'Nur nest? Then playing another game session where they venture into Nova Casa in search for a rare plant or animal that has been created via the hyper-evolution-matrix of Honos' terraforming, in order to obtain a sample of venom or toxin to create an antivirus?
Anyway, that's all far away, and for now we still have a lot to do with the base game of Override.
I hope you're all enjoying taking this trip with me, and until next time; stay safe and be excellent to each other.
- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley
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