I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds...
A quote often used to represent someone looking at their creations, and fearing for the consequences. With one sentence on Saturday night, I fear my flatmate may have created his own epic doom...
To start with, we have played a fun team game called Pit Crew. You race against each other to get your car ready to race as quickly as possible, and as soon as you're ready you can start rolling the dice and move your car each time you roll a 6. It isn't great odds, but the pressure it puts on your opponents is fantastic. Once they finish their car, you check both cars for mistakes... the pressure from you rolling probably made them make a few of those right? Well every mistake they make moves your car along the track more. However how did you manage to finish so quickly and start rolling? Oh wait, you missed a bit here...
Too many mistakes will crash you catastrophically out, mistakes move your opponents, although taking the time to get things perfect can earn you bonuses... but those can all be undone by your opponent rolling a lot of 6's while you faff around. Anyway, great game, takes the real time stress of Captain Sonar but gives simpler tasks. Great fun.
I got a new game and we tried it out on Saturday, it's an old classic called Formula D. You get to race your tiny little car around the streets of Monaco by rolling dice. Shifting up a gear lets you roll a better, faster dice, however if you go through the corners too fast, you damage your car. So you have to drop down in gears to roll slower dice for the corners to make sure you stop enough times within them to not basically do a Senna. We had some fun with the game, I was pipped coming out of the last bend as Emma was right on my tail, and I rolled an 11 and she rolled a 15, meaning she was ahead and would therefore roll before me next round, and with the finish line less than her minimum roll away, victory was hers. Simon wasn't too far behind us. Jake and Leo were smoking ruins being dragged from the track.
It was after this game that Jake said "I see in the longer version of the game, the two lap race, you can pit to restore health... wouldn't it be great to combine this game with pit crew?"
What, oh what has he done?
I'm still mulling over whether to use pit crew rules to fix the cars and then you leave with the health you have or the result from a game of pit crew determines pit exit order... I mean, what if some cars are way ahead of others? A good pit may catch them up a bit but overtake seems unlikely? And what if someone chooses not to pit? Do they sit this bit out and wait? Or do I make someone do a round of pit crew against an egg timer just to get their health points back? They do it solo with everyone else watching, laughing at them, and then deciding if they feel up to the challenge of making a pit themselves?
I fear we have created a monster...
To start with, we have played a fun team game called Pit Crew. You race against each other to get your car ready to race as quickly as possible, and as soon as you're ready you can start rolling the dice and move your car each time you roll a 6. It isn't great odds, but the pressure it puts on your opponents is fantastic. Once they finish their car, you check both cars for mistakes... the pressure from you rolling probably made them make a few of those right? Well every mistake they make moves your car along the track more. However how did you manage to finish so quickly and start rolling? Oh wait, you missed a bit here...
Too many mistakes will crash you catastrophically out, mistakes move your opponents, although taking the time to get things perfect can earn you bonuses... but those can all be undone by your opponent rolling a lot of 6's while you faff around. Anyway, great game, takes the real time stress of Captain Sonar but gives simpler tasks. Great fun.
I got a new game and we tried it out on Saturday, it's an old classic called Formula D. You get to race your tiny little car around the streets of Monaco by rolling dice. Shifting up a gear lets you roll a better, faster dice, however if you go through the corners too fast, you damage your car. So you have to drop down in gears to roll slower dice for the corners to make sure you stop enough times within them to not basically do a Senna. We had some fun with the game, I was pipped coming out of the last bend as Emma was right on my tail, and I rolled an 11 and she rolled a 15, meaning she was ahead and would therefore roll before me next round, and with the finish line less than her minimum roll away, victory was hers. Simon wasn't too far behind us. Jake and Leo were smoking ruins being dragged from the track.
It was after this game that Jake said "I see in the longer version of the game, the two lap race, you can pit to restore health... wouldn't it be great to combine this game with pit crew?"
What, oh what has he done?
I'm still mulling over whether to use pit crew rules to fix the cars and then you leave with the health you have or the result from a game of pit crew determines pit exit order... I mean, what if some cars are way ahead of others? A good pit may catch them up a bit but overtake seems unlikely? And what if someone chooses not to pit? Do they sit this bit out and wait? Or do I make someone do a round of pit crew against an egg timer just to get their health points back? They do it solo with everyone else watching, laughing at them, and then deciding if they feel up to the challenge of making a pit themselves?
I fear we have created a monster...
Maybe leave the pit stop optional, but add some sort of penalty for skipping it, like the lack of maintenance increases the odds of a crash or something? Not sure if that's actually possible. I only played Formula D a couple of times, and those were back in the 90s, so I can't really remember any of the rules details.
ReplyDeleteWell the formula D pitstop is how you get health back, so skipping it is an option but you then have to be more careful... If I'm going to make it so that the health you get back varies based on ow well you do in Pitstop, then I have to balance it so that you can get MORE than without the game... if a flat 18 or skip entirely is already a balanced choice, well a max 18 but could be less would never get picked, it's a poor gamble... but what if you could come out of the pit lane with 24 hit points to play with? That makes it an interesting tactical choice...
DeleteYeah, something along those lines could really make it a more interesting play. Potentially. They could also just make it more complicated and time-consuming for no real benefit. Playtesting is probably needed to know for sure.
DeleteYou could make it just like F1, where you have to pit and change your tyres before the race finishes. Then depending on how much damage you have, and now much damage you want to repair, could make your pit stop last longer. Or you could risk it all, and just change the tyres.
ReplyDelete