504 games in 1?

SuperflyTNT wrote: The trend toward "smaller", "Micro", and "elegant" has utterly sullied the soul of the hobby.

Shit on this, and anything like it.

Here's my new novel based on this evolving pattern in gaming described by SuperFlyTNT. It's "smaller, Micro, and elegant." I'm accepting donations to write a sequel and will start a Kickstarter campaign.

The entire novel:

Chapter I
Human beings interact in a setting which is described; you learn characters' names and personalities.

Chapter II
Disaster strikes; evil arrives.

Chapter III
A hero appears; gathers allies.

Chapter IV.
Hero fights evil, averts disaster; some allies perish.

Chapter V.
Hero gets girl/boy; hero receives reward/personal revelation.

Chapter VI.
Setup for sequel.

The End.

*Rated #1 by Anonymous Reviewers. Fred says: "It's quick to read, deep, and life-changing."--Fred

How does one activate the Barnes-Signal? I'd like to get his take on it as gimmic vs. design.

I'd make some obscure punk band reference in hopes he could chime in on 10 bands better/more obscure, but all I got's NOFX.

VonTush wrote:

Egg Shen wrote: I agree with JJ. I think Friese is coming at this from more of an art project/experiment standpoint.

If it is supposed to be an art type piece I'd rather have seen him put more teeth in it, make more of a statement and name it "Modern Game Design - The Game".

Yeah he could certainly do that. However, he is still in the market to make money and keep his company in business. He isn't crowd-funding this and there are still lots of risk involved on his behalf. So yeah while it's experimental and sort of like an art piece he is still going to try and market it and sell it. Which I'm fine with. He could have just made it a pet project that he worked on and made a few dozen copies and never released the thing. I'm glad he didn't do that.

I just got done watching an interview with FF from the Gathering of Friends and he talked quite a bit about 504. The "theme" of the game is that you are inventors and you've come up with a machine that will create different worlds. Your job is to experience and find out about the world you create (lots of paraphrasing on my behalf...but I THINK this was the gist). He mentions that he has been design the game for over 3 years. The first year was to get the idea to work. The second year was to make sure all the games were playable. The third year has been to make sure the games are actually fun and interesting. The game is going to cost about the same as Terra Mystica or Caverna...so it ain't gonna be cheap, but it's going to have lots of stuff in the box (including a spiral bound book). He claims that there are game variations within 504 that are good enough that if taken on their own he could polish them up and market them as a game. Now to me that's the ballsy-ist statement I've heard and I hope the game can back up such a claim. Time will tell I suppose.

Mad Dog wrote:

JonJacob wrote: Perhaps Babylon 5 or Mad Max? I always wanted a good Mad Max game.

The Babylon 5 CCG is one of my most played games even though I haven't touched it in a decade. Would be perfectly suited for an LCG format too. Warner Brothers owns the licensing, iirc.

And Mongoose did the B5 miniature game and had some success with it.

Eh, I give him credit for an interesting concept. Presumably with enough play testers, all 504 permutations have been tried, or certainly will be before long. I'm not sure if the value of any particular combination matters as much as the novelty of the idea, though. But if the integration is seamless enough so you really can slap each type of thing into place without a bunch of funky rules tweaks each time, then why not? Presumably at least a few of the 504 might be particularly good. (#137 is great, but #33-84 are just meh.)

I agree with the idea that a few of the games might be decent. In fact, that may be how this came about, in a way. Designer is struggling with a game design that started with mechanics instead of theme, and finds himself at a decision point where he needs to decide what kind of game it will be. The decision is tough because either one seems like a valid choice. So the designer thinks to himself, why not do it both ways? Then he realizes that the underlying structure of the design so far could easily support either option as scenarios, and then he takes that flexibility and runs with it. Inevitably, I think that the theme will be extremely weak in these games, and the gameplay with be fairly samey within groups of similar games.

Betrayal at House on the Hill was the ambitious AmeriTrash equivalent, more or less. Some of the scenarios seem like dramatically different games, while others are only minor variations on a theme. Unfortunately, the structure of the game made it really hard to playtest Betrayal at House on the Hill. And even with all the errata now, I still find it a coin toss whether a given game of Betrayal will be fun or not.

SuperflyTNT wrote: The trend toward "smaller", "Micro", and "elegant" has utterly sullied the soul of the hobby.

Shit on this, and anything like it.

Wha? Nothing about 504 is small or micro (or arguably even elegant).

Several dozen terrain tiles (probably double sided), hundreds of wood bits, special power cards, dice, a specially made mix/match rulebook - this is going to be a big expensive game.

It is absolutely true that none of the games are likely going to be as good as a version of the same game that was specifically designed. That's not the hook of 504. 504 is the ultimate medium/heavy euro for the cult-of-the-new gamer. .

At this point I have pretty much all the games I could want. I have lots of great DoaMs, Euros, Abstracts, Dex games, Dudes in a hall type stuff, economic games and on and on and on...

So 504 is very appealing to me right now. As a novelty game mostly but also just for the sense of discovery. Which is a big part of board gaming. It's like it gives you the luxury to continue to play your favorite games and when the desire for something new pops up you could just play this.

If I could find a copy of his Fast Flowing Forest Fellers as well I'd totally nab that up. My old man was a forester so the theme really appeals to me. In fact if anyone has a copy I'd gladly trade something more valuable for it.