You never discussed what happens if a player moves their own piece such that an enemy is now pointing sword at the side of the piece just moved. Do you lose the piece instantly, or can you use a second action to then move further or rotate? Also, what happens when you push an enemy piece and their new location has a sword pointed at another piece? Many options there.... if I push them so that my own sword is pointed at their piece, it makes sense they lose the piece. But what if the push places their piece now sword pointed at one of my pieces? Do I lose my piece? What if I push their piece and we now have ANOTHER sword point to sword point situation? Do I push them again, do they push me? What happens when a sword is pointed at the handle of an enemy sword? It seems unlikely you would ever prefer to turn around, but at the end of your "dark plays poorly" example game, if dark has a piece close enough to attack the light piece at the gate of the fortress, it would make sense to advance even from behind and rotate to point back toward your own fortress. Or can pieces only ever point forward?
I built a board and play tested a bit yesterday. I think this game has great potential, I like it a lot. While testing we made some variations to the rules and I thought I'd share. Starting we play with one piece less and you aren't allowed to move into your own fort, else there is rarely, if ever, a reason to leave it. Banner movement was too powerful so we constrained it to only the starting squares. We roll two dice and choose one as banner position for your opponents move. I still feel banner is a bit too powerful. We modified the combat a bit as well. We mostly tried playing where you need to move into a piece to interact with it. Will need to test the original rules a bit more on this I think. Moving in point first to side or back will kill the other piece and vice verca. Moving in side or back to other pieces side or back will push up to one piece in your move direction, friendly fire is on. Point to point we rolled a dice each, looser dies, on doubles both die. Looking at this vid again I really like the elegance of being able to push someone to the side. Will do some more testing trying to incorporate that.
I have no problem with abstract strategy games that use dice. Backgammon's a great game and I'd say the randomness of that game ADDS depth. However, if I could think of a ruleset that removes the die (though it likely has severe balancing issues), then I'd make it so the second player decides where to first place the banner. Then the players would alternate between moving orthogonally and diagonally, so the second player would always have a bit of an advantage despite the turn deficit.
rule questions regarding the clash 1. what if you can't move the other player - sorry didn't finish 2. what if by moving the other player it will be in a stabbing position from one of my stones 3. what if by moving the other player it will be stabbing one of my stones 4. what if by moving the other player it will be in a clash position with one of my stones. To me the clash push has still a lot of edge cases. other than that it sounds like a nice game
Very interesting design, nicely done! I personally like the dice mechanic. I am interesting to know if you testing the game with the chess capture mechanic of having to move into the space to capture and if you did how that affected the game for better or worse? It feels like it would be a more intuitive rule, but hard to know how’d it’d change the game without trying it myself
I tested out capturing like chess today. It messes up the push mechanism. Hmm…I’ll keep tinkering. I like these kinds of suggestions so I thank you. Glad you like the dice mechanism!
@ I would have thought that it might make the push mechanic more intuitive since you’d be moving into the enemy space and would have to push their piece out of the way. All good if it doesn’t feel right to you tho, your game in the end. I still think it’s a great design and wish you luck on a release!
It’s pretty new. You can never playtest enough. It needs to be played a lot more and by people who are “into” the hobby rather than friends and family.
Looks interesting, but there are a couple situations you didn't address, for example: -What if you move, and have an enemy poiting to the side of the piece you moved? -What if you push an enemy into a position where is pointed to it's side? -What of you push it and it point to the side of one of yours? I guess you can go a bit deeper into the rules, and it will be a pretty interesting game!
OMG! I have made an abstract game with the same goal of invading the enemy's "fortress". I would love, if it is possible, to send you a video or something like that so you could give me your opinion! You made me ennter all this "abstract game" fandom somehow hahahah.
I worry about the banner being moved at the end of turn 1. There seems to be about a 1/12 chance (or more) that the first player can win immediately by rolling a 4, and then an odd number to move the banner diagonally towards their side, leaving the opponent with no valid moves. EDIT: Ah, thanks to zachary I checked again, and it is a 1/12 chance to give your opponent only 1 possible piece they can move. Still, that seems a bit too strong and restrictive, and compounds the first-player advantage.
I was gonna say there’s a 25% chance of getting the banner on your back squares, but each of these leaves at least 1 piece for the opponent. So it’s not possible to win off of the first move. I believe the earliest you could win is the first players second turn (if the opponent plays very poorly).
Hi, this feels like the result of "what amount of twists is needed so I can play checkers with dice?". Your starting layout is checkers with the 3rd rows of pieces removed, arrows painted on the remaining pieces, the token played on the inner (B7:G2) white squares and a regular die added, at least.
I’ve never actually played checkers. It’s a solved game which turns me off a bit. I understand it has a jumping capture mechanism and an entirely different game objective. The only thing they have in common is that the board, which I learned later, is the exact board for Filipino Damas.
the banner should always be rolled on the 2nd player side. 1-2 first square 3-4 second square and 5-6 third square. it's already an davantage to start taking space and placing fighters in the middle make them more likely to be active as well. having the banner closer to you at the beggining is too much of an additional advantage. the second player not only have a move laye but he already have less choice both to move his fighters but also always have to fight black against you bringing the banner further to your side if the banner start on the 3 dark side square and both players try to bring it to their side it will remain in the middle which is fait and you have to force your opponent to make a move that is not toward him to lose the advantage. also randomising where you move the banner is weird for this kind of game especially if this is such a central mechanic. you might play in order to give your adversary 50% chance of being forced to give you the advantage. random at the start is ok. random every turn is weird. maybe the banner could only be reset to the if it touch the border or when a soldier dies. so that the random aspect is less sistematic and used to reduce snowball( even then it could be place in the center based on where it left) in your current version odd is better at reducing oppenent choices which is not a good design either, if you only roll odd you create an advantage just based on luck. all those problems make possible for the second player to only have 2 fighter to move if first player rolls a 2/4/6 into an odd number, that's 1/4 of the times a huge advantage for the first player and a very frustrating start where 2nd is already at disadvantage but also doesn't have many choices
I like the basic idea of this game but there are a few things that I would consider, why would I ever choose to move my sword out of my own fortress? That leaves me in jeopardy. In this game, I'm never really able to set up my next move because someone is always going to move the banner into the least optimal place for me so I'm always left attempting to play two random moves ahead, I'm not in love with that. Lastly, it seems like the real game here is squash enough of your opponents and steal the flag so they can't move. Unless I'm mistaken, it would be very easy to never lose because of the fortress, and only lose because of the banner.
Since theres nowhere to go, the fortress piece can be pushed and eliminated instantly, which makes it not a good strategy to keep a piece there imo Also, yeah, I feel like the rules should make it so a stalemate is a loss for the stalemating player instead of a win
@@iCarus_A that seems to defeat the entire purpose of having a "fortress" if the character that is in the fortress is immediately the weakest character on the board. I would also wonder why I wouldn't just bum rush the fortress every single time since I'm guaranteed to push the poor bastard in the fortress off the cliff instantaneously.
Maybe if you roll a 6 you can choose and if you roll a 1 it stays in the same place. Otherwise it will be more numbers for the diagonal move of the banner.
what a really nice game and it having a healthy amount of randomness makes it more enjoable
Thanks! 😊
You never discussed what happens if a player moves their own piece such that an enemy is now pointing sword at the side of the piece just moved. Do you lose the piece instantly, or can you use a second action to then move further or rotate?
Also, what happens when you push an enemy piece and their new location has a sword pointed at another piece? Many options there.... if I push them so that my own sword is pointed at their piece, it makes sense they lose the piece. But what if the push places their piece now sword pointed at one of my pieces? Do I lose my piece? What if I push their piece and we now have ANOTHER sword point to sword point situation? Do I push them again, do they push me?
What happens when a sword is pointed at the handle of an enemy sword? It seems unlikely you would ever prefer to turn around, but at the end of your "dark plays poorly" example game, if dark has a piece close enough to attack the light piece at the gate of the fortress, it would make sense to advance even from behind and rotate to point back toward your own fortress. Or can pieces only ever point forward?
I built a board and play tested a bit yesterday. I think this game has great potential, I like it a lot. While testing we made some variations to the rules and I thought I'd share.
Starting we play with one piece less and you aren't allowed to move into your own fort, else there is rarely, if ever, a reason to leave it. Banner movement was too powerful so we constrained it to only the starting squares. We roll two dice and choose one as banner position for your opponents move. I still feel banner is a bit too powerful.
We modified the combat a bit as well. We mostly tried playing where you need to move into a piece to interact with it. Will need to test the original rules a bit more on this I think. Moving in point first to side or back will kill the other piece and vice verca. Moving in side or back to other pieces side or back will push up to one piece in your move direction, friendly fire is on. Point to point we rolled a dice each, looser dies, on doubles both die.
Looking at this vid again I really like the elegance of being able to push someone to the side. Will do some more testing trying to incorporate that.
you can also play this using the diagonals of a chess board
Very interesting game
I have no problem with abstract strategy games that use dice. Backgammon's a great game and I'd say the randomness of that game ADDS depth.
However, if I could think of a ruleset that removes the die (though it likely has severe balancing issues), then I'd make it so the second player decides where to first place the banner. Then the players would alternate between moving orthogonally and diagonally, so the second player would always have a bit of an advantage despite the turn deficit.
Looks fun!
Thanks!!
rule questions regarding the clash
1. what if you can't move the other player - sorry didn't finish
2. what if by moving the other player it will be in a stabbing position from one of my stones
3. what if by moving the other player it will be stabbing one of my stones
4. what if by moving the other player it will be in a clash position with one of my stones.
To me the clash push has still a lot of edge cases. other than that it sounds like a nice game
4:04 - 90°
😬 haha thanks. Oops.
Very interesting design, nicely done!
I personally like the dice mechanic. I am interesting to know if you testing the game with the chess capture mechanic of having to move into the space to capture and if you did how that affected the game for better or worse? It feels like it would be a more intuitive rule, but hard to know how’d it’d change the game without trying it myself
I tested out capturing like chess today. It messes up the push mechanism. Hmm…I’ll keep tinkering. I like these kinds of suggestions so I thank you. Glad you like the dice mechanism!
@ I would have thought that it might make the push mechanic more intuitive since you’d be moving into the enemy space and would have to push their piece out of the way. All good if it doesn’t feel right to you tho, your game in the end. I still think it’s a great design and wish you luck on a release!
Some really interesting ideas. How much have you play tested it?
It’s pretty new. You can never playtest enough. It needs to be played a lot more and by people who are “into” the hobby rather than friends and family.
@@offearthgames I would recomend to talk with someone to make AI test it If you can
Looks interesting, but there are a couple situations you didn't address, for example:
-What if you move, and have an enemy poiting to the side of the piece you moved?
-What if you push an enemy into a position where is pointed to it's side?
-What of you push it and it point to the side of one of yours?
I guess you can go a bit deeper into the rules, and it will be a pretty interesting game!
OMG! I have made an abstract game with the same goal of invading the enemy's "fortress".
I would love, if it is possible, to send you a video or something like that so you could give me your opinion!
You made me ennter all this "abstract game" fandom somehow hahahah.
Send me an email offearthgames@gmail.com
Pushing seems to be the soul of this interesting little game, and having these situations be ambiguous is a severe problem.
I worry about the banner being moved at the end of turn 1. There seems to be about a 1/12 chance (or more) that the first player can win immediately by rolling a 4, and then an odd number to move the banner diagonally towards their side, leaving the opponent with no valid moves.
EDIT: Ah, thanks to zachary I checked again, and it is a 1/12 chance to give your opponent only 1 possible piece they can move.
Still, that seems a bit too strong and restrictive, and compounds the first-player advantage.
I was gonna say there’s a 25% chance of getting the banner on your back squares, but each of these leaves at least 1 piece for the opponent. So it’s not possible to win off of the first move. I believe the earliest you could win is the first players second turn (if the opponent plays very poorly).
Hi, this feels like the result of "what amount of twists is needed so I can play checkers with dice?". Your starting layout is checkers with the 3rd rows of pieces removed, arrows painted on the remaining pieces, the token played on the inner (B7:G2) white squares and a regular die added, at least.
I’ve never actually played checkers. It’s a solved game which turns me off a bit. I understand it has a jumping capture mechanism and an entirely different game objective. The only thing they have in common is that the board, which I learned later, is the exact board for Filipino Damas.
the banner should always be rolled on the 2nd player side. 1-2 first square 3-4 second square and 5-6 third square.
it's already an davantage to start taking space and placing fighters in the middle make them more likely to be active as well.
having the banner closer to you at the beggining is too much of an additional advantage.
the second player not only have a move laye but he already have less choice both to move his fighters but also always have to fight black against you bringing the banner further to your side
if the banner start on the 3 dark side square and both players try to bring it to their side it will remain in the middle which is fait and you have to force your opponent to make a move that is not toward him to lose the advantage.
also randomising where you move the banner is weird for this kind of game especially if this is such a central mechanic. you might play in order to give your adversary 50% chance of being forced to give you the advantage. random at the start is ok. random every turn is weird.
maybe the banner could only be reset to the if it touch the border or when a soldier dies. so that the random aspect is less sistematic and used to reduce snowball( even then it could be place in the center based on where it left)
in your current version odd is better at reducing oppenent choices which is not a good design either, if you only roll odd you create an advantage just based on luck.
all those problems make possible for the second player to only have 2 fighter to move if first player rolls a 2/4/6 into an odd number, that's 1/4 of the times a huge advantage for the first player and a very frustrating start where 2nd is already at disadvantage but also doesn't have many choices
I like the basic idea of this game but there are a few things that I would consider, why would I ever choose to move my sword out of my own fortress?
That leaves me in jeopardy.
In this game, I'm never really able to set up my next move because someone is always going to move the banner into the least optimal place for me so I'm always left attempting to play two random moves ahead, I'm not in love with that.
Lastly, it seems like the real game here is squash enough of your opponents and steal the flag so they can't move.
Unless I'm mistaken, it would be very easy to never lose because of the fortress, and only lose because of the banner.
Since theres nowhere to go, the fortress piece can be pushed and eliminated instantly, which makes it not a good strategy to keep a piece there imo
Also, yeah, I feel like the rules should make it so a stalemate is a loss for the stalemating player instead of a win
@@iCarus_A that seems to defeat the entire purpose of having a "fortress" if the character that is in the fortress is immediately the weakest character on the board. I would also wonder why I wouldn't just bum rush the fortress every single time since I'm guaranteed to push the poor bastard in the fortress off the cliff instantaneously.
Maybe if you roll a 6 you can choose and if you roll a 1 it stays in the same place. Otherwise it will be more numbers for the diagonal move of the banner.
Really like this. I may use this. Thanks
The game looks great, but you need to get better at explaining it.
20 minute video, and still a lot of questions of how the game works