Summoning Detective by hamsel
No time for remebering how to code this weekend (haven't coded in years!) so I decided to do a print and play to just get something designed. All work done in Word. Font used: Zen Loop.
YOUR CAREER IS DEAD.
Who knew summoning that lost masterpiece was going to rain down lawsuit after lawsuit on your practice? Now you have an office full of mostly used pots of reagents and nothing else to your name. Today could very well be your final day of customers before you close up shop, so summon like a wizard weaving wild wonders and keep that dream alive!
This is a print and play.
No printing or actual dice required! All you need is 3 dice (or Google "roll 3d6") and the pdf. You can print it out, sketch the summoning circle on paper yourself or mark it up on your device.
How to play
See PDF
Rule clarifications
- Rolling for kind of item you are summoning also uses the Magical Reagents chart.
- For the "every set of 1/2/3 reagents with item type 2, the reagents do not need to be adjacent to each other.
For scoring item type 4, the rule should read "If not scored in 1. (above)"
It never made it into the PDF but the idea was that each reagent/item type were the following:
- 1: mundane
- 2: natural
- 3: living
- 4: valuable
- 5: sentimental
- 6: arcane I will add more here as issues arise!
Ratings
| Given | 30🗳️ | 11🗨️ |
It's very original and unexpected, well done!
Also, what to do with stored dices ? They are out of the game after ? I started storing dices on my last throws, trying to get plants and hearts. Worked for the hearts, not the plant...
Almost had that perfect circle. Really nice idea !
@hammerer I knew from the outset I wasnt going to have the time, but hoping for some coding next jam!
Thanks for sharing your playthrough! Score looks like 48 to me.
- 18 points for strings of reagents (1x1 point, 4x3 points, 1x5 points)
- 10 points for inside star is same
- 10 for star points are different
- 10 for scoring the heart item in the star (5*2)
I would have liked a little more time to make scoring clearer, but such is life!
Just tried it out. If I interpreted the rules correctly, I think I got 38:
- 20 for same symbols on outer & inner points of star
- 10 for 5 sets of 🟫🔵🟢
- 5 for string of 4 🔵
- 2 for 2x string of 2 🟫
- 1 for string of 2 🟢
I liked this a lot! It had quite a few interesting decisions. I thought it was a bit unfair that you didn't get any bonus scoring if you rolled a 1🟫 at the start (maybe this could be an introductory variant that you opt in to?). Storing a dice also didn't feel great, as it reduced my available dice until I used it. Perhaps there could be a way to "release" a dice from storage without spending it (eg: playing a reagent between two identical reagents).
Nice work submitting a board game - would be great to see more!
Unfortunatly, it looks like you messed up one scoring rule (points of star should unique) so thats -10 points. Don't feel too bad though.. The game in my screen shot I was summoning item type 3 but I placed reagents according to scoring for item type 2. Gah!
I played a bunch of games with my girlfriend and we enjoyed it! My feedback would be that it needs a tiny bit more friction in placing the items. Maybe being forced to use more dice or something as I found it realtively easy to execute the plan in my mind. I also found myself just using the workspace for the final few turns sort of as a 'reroll' mechanic.
Regardless of my criticism, it was an excellent entry, and cool to see something a bit different!
AH! Just need two more votes to get scored!!!!
One thing that felt a bit like a layout issue more than anything else is that when you're reading it for the first time, the "how to play" section doesn't make much sense until after you read the "scoring" section, because you have no frame of reference for when you might want to pick specific dice or save some for later and why. The way to play this to get a good score is to understand the scoring and what a good result looks like, and then work through how to get it with the instructions. So while it may seem weird in general to put scoring first and then how to play, it would make sense in this instance. Or maybe add a "goal" section with an in-universe explanation of what a good summon looks like above the instructions, and keep the more straightforward scoring section where it is?
Overall, solid work. It took a couple reads to click but that's common with pen and paper games and we are all spoiled by tutorialized video games :)
(Sorry for the late comment. I started writing it a few days ago and then got distracted and have way too many tabs open.)
Yes, I agree the rules need a bit of work! As I got close to done with typing up the rules for the game, I realised I needed to make some changes. Unfortunatly, by creating it in Microsoft Word, all the design was "hard coded" and I just didn't have the time to redo that, so I ran out of space for more or clarified rules! :sweat_smile:
If I do another print and play like this in future, I'll be thinking about which software I use a little more carefully. :eyeglasses:
During the whole process, I was mindful of the fact that most people wouldn't play much beyond html5 games in their browser while rating, so I did my best to make it as accessible as possible to all from the start. I did mess up getting the rules presented in such a way as to be easy to understand and play though. I think that would be my focus for next time.
I love that you managed to pull off your goal (or at least came very close; I was able to figure the rules out and it seems like lots of others did too!) and I look forward to what you make in a few weeks if you take part in LD56!