And then... Ninjas!

+Erik McGrath

Sudden Death might be my favorite thing we've come up with at Inspired. It combines my interest in simple gameplay with ninjas, in a package that takes less than five minutes to play.

That's not to say I don't like complicated games, but I prefer ones where the complexity comes from the strategy, not from complicated rules. Go is a classic example of the type of complexity I prefer. It has very few rules, but a tremendous amount of complexity during play.

Sudden Death's rules are extremely simple, and while it is nowhere near as deep as Go, it does have some complexity in how one forms their opening hand and tries to control the flow of the game.

With that said;

Sudden Death

Behold the new prototype!


The card back is my doing. I painted the characters and did the text as well. It took this proof for me to notice the letters aren't properly aligned though. So that's the first thing to revise for the next version. Every time I look at it I find something I want to tweak. :)


The more important side has a lot more going into it. The art is sketches from +Laura Hamilton. All other layout is the work of +Christopher Andersen . He made the frame and sized the images to fit.

Playtesters Wanted

There's no substitute for playtesting in game design and the most useful kind is that provided by people who don't have the creators hovering over them or playing against them.

So we're looking for people who want to get a playtest version of the game and ruthlessly tear it apart while documenting the process. There will be a form for that and more info in our next post once we finalize our end. Until then, feel free to ask any questions you have or volunteer yourself to CJ or Erik.

Downloads

+Erik McGrath

It's been awhile since I stepped back and looked at everything playable that we've done. Other than the unformatted 16Bit tactics rules these are all presentable PDFs that aren't embarrassing to have people download. Luckily I don't embarrass easily so the ugly one is up here as well.

16 Bit

16 Bit Adventures v2
Adventure in Firstown
Stopover in Secondville
Five Burrows Fiasco

16 Bit Tactics (unformatted)
16 Bit Tactics Jobs

RPGs

Celestial Warriors v3

PNP

Sudden Death PnP v4
Squabblin' Corbies v1

16 Bit Adventures and Sudden Death updates

+Erik McGrath

Wu Tang Flan Ain't Nuthing ta Mess Wit

Prepare to enter the 36 Chambers of the Wu Tang Flan and defeat all nine powerful members to free the settlement of Five Burrows from their tyrannical rule and depredation.

Five Burrows was a peaceful town set into the rolling hills before the Wu Tang came and turned the old monastery into their lair. From there, the Ricearector and its disciples raided the town and carried off all its treasures, leaving barely anything  in the shops and fields. Most of the disciples are amorphs of one kind or another with flan taking on all the leadership roles and more common oozes used as foot... er, slimesoldiers.

New PNP 

Ninjas may end up on the back burner from time to time but they are never far away. To the right is one of the new cards for the Sudden Death PNP pdf that you can download below. If you want to see us finalize the art and get it printed on actual cards then download it now, play it and tell us what you think.

Downloads

Sudden Death PNP

16 Bit Adventures Current Rules

Inspired Updates 8/19/2013

+Erik McGrath

I've been focused on 16-Bit Adventures a lot lately, and I'm still working on it but this week I want to take some time to give some updates on the current state of everything else as well.

Battle Tank

As I have mentioned before a board game that needs as many pieces as Battle Tank is an expensive undertaking and Inspired can't afford it right now. We are considering our options on physical production but they look a ways off. 

So instead we are working on making a PNP version so that those who have expressed interest can at the very least try it out. Once we get some feedback on that front we want to work on how to improve that experience. 

Sudden Death

The game is ready, the artist is lined up, what we are missing is the time to really promote it. This is probably my favorite thing that Inspired has designed for its simplicity. We will get this made, its just a matter of getting CJ and I in the same room to do the details. 

The most important of those details I think would be videos to showcase the game and talk about why we made the decisions we have with the art and gameplay.

Drachenheim

Magnus by
+Laura Fallon Andersen 

I'll admit this one has been pushed to the back burner pretty hard. I return to it every now and again to poke it and see if any new ideas fall out. It feels almost done to me but the gameplay is just a little too clunky and there is too much reliance on dice rolls for my tastes. 

Its a boardgame where the board is defined by the cards in play rather than a pure cardgame so I'm ok with some dice rolling but I prefer the decisions of the players to be the most important piece and leave the dice to decide limited things. If I can get to a point where the dice are only thrown to decide the outcomes of battles I will be very happy.

Celestial Warriors

Our first RPG is in the midst of a fourth version and it is a long time coming. With this iteration I think its time to add some art and sharpen the formatting skills I've been working on with 16-Bit Adventures to make it look more interesting and so that it reads more easily. 

16-Bit Adventures

We didn't get a chance to play with the whole gang this week but we did come up with a solution I like to the fact that DEF could still go over 10. That answer is that separate devices give separate DEF ratings so if you have a Shield and Armor you don;t add the values together, instead you check all incoming attacks vs both values. 

We call this effect Double DEF. If an attack is under both then you only take quarter damage from that hit. If its under one but not both you take half. If its over both you take normal damage. 

Wrap up and Downloads

So that's were we stand right now. We'd love to hear your comments and feedback about any or all of our games. 

PDFs

16- Bit Adventures V2

Sudden Death

Celestial Warriors v3

16-Bit Adventure Playtest and Updates for Sudden Death and Battle Tank

+Erik McGrath

16-Bit Adventures

This past Sunday we playtested 16-Bit Adventures. I GMed and the 5 PCs were:
+Jillian McGrath as Monk
+Laura Fallon Andersen  as Thief
+Alysia Haneef as Black Mage
+Christopher Andersen as Red Mage
+Rashid Haneef  as Fighter.

Starting equipment was sparse and starting GP was not even close to enough to outfit everyone so just like in the source material they were forced to go out into the wilderness under-equipped.

I wanted to create a strong feel of old school gaming in this so the townspeople acted much like 16-bit NPCs and talking to everyone was vitally important to learn about the surrounding wilderness as well as to gain some quests and eventually learn where the nearest dungeon was.

I've added a pic of the character sheets for Red Mage and Monk so you can get an idea of what is tracked in play. The main thing to notice is that mages have fewer lines in their inventory, 5 instead of 10. This matters since each line can only hold 1 item, though some items can stack. A Wolf Pelt takes up an entire line on its own, but Potions can stack to 10. A single Potion still fills the line though.

So let's have a look at what I've learned from this experience.

The Good

The system itself ran smoothly with the offense vs defense of the classes and monsters working as expected.

Combats were very, very fast. The longest one took about 5 minutes which was good since we played through about 3 dozen total.

XP from monsters defeated and quests completed worked out well. The PCs earned a total of 161XP, 45 from quest completion and the rest from straight out grinding. The quest rewards could stand to be about 10-25% higher in my estimation. PCs need 100XP for level 2 and 400 more for level 3 (500 total). Monsters are worth Level^2 as a base, Goblins are 1XP, Skeletons are also level 1 but they are worth 2. Wolves are 4xp while Ghouls and Slimes are 6.

The Needs Improvement

The rate of GP gain was much too low at first though so we had to wing an increase in play that seems about right. Monsters each have a basic amount of GP they drop and the PCs get to roll for loot after the fight using the highest Agility Die of the party for each type of monster with a bonus for the number of each type. In this case it was the Thief's D12. On 4, 10 and 16 the loot of the monsters improves based on monster type and level. A party with a level 2 Thief also enjoys the Finder 1 ability which automatically improves all loot rolls to the next tier which is in many cases the only way to get the 16+ loot drop.

I made up all the loot as we went and will be using that to make some solid tables now that I know what feels right in play.

Monster AI took too much time to emulate. Instead of choosing how the monsters would act and which of their abilities they would use I randomized it all and it simply took too long. For instance a Goblin attackign the party had to roll to determine target (which was 2 rolls in the inefficient way I was doing it) and then roll again to pick its attack (Standard or Goblin Punch) and then it rolled the actual attack vs the target's Evasion.

A faster way to do this is needed, assigning numbers to the party based on marching order and combat row before hand seems the best way.

Sudden Death

Sudden Death has hit a plateau, I think its time we go for it though so look for a How to Play video in our next blog post.

Battle Tank

Time constraints due to the sudden inspiration for 16-Bit Adventures coming together have slowed down adapting the art for our PNP but its still coming along otherwise. One advantage of this idea is that we will be able to do Assault on Laser Shark Lagoon in this format pretty easily and if that works the other planned expansions will follow quickly.

New creations and updates for Sudden Death and Battle Tank

+Erik McGrath

Its been a month since I've posted which is a terribly bad habit that I intend to break immediately. At the very least I will be posting on Sundays from now on since its the day I have the least to do.

So first some news.

Due to a mad fascination with 8-Bit Dungeon by +Levi Kornelsen  I have decided to make my own adventure game aimed unabashedly at emulating Final Fantasy at the tabletop. And because this is a sequel I have update the graphics to 16-bit.

It's called 16-Bit Adventures. You can see a the Job write-up for Fighter and Thief to the right. That page contains every thing you need to know to play those Jobs from levels 1-10.

Sudden Death

Playtesting is going well if slowly due to my and +Christopher Andersen's time constraints and technical difficulties (frex, at our last gaming night the only toilet in the house broke and it became plumbing night). After this round of feedback is in we will be making a dedicated effort to get a kickstarter going so that we can publish the game with finalized art by +Laura Hamilton.

On the right is Laura's sketch which the current Sudden Death playtest version uses for its artwork. On the left is the final version she did which will be used for the production version.

The PnP doc will also be updated with the finalized art if the campaign is successful, albeit at a reduced resolution.

Battle Tank

The realities of being a tiny, part-time  gaming outfit have harshly taught us here at Inspired Press that we just can;t afford to produce Battle Tank for the price point we want and we aren't yet prepared to handle going for a higher price. Making the game cost more will require a massive upgrade to the board art and token sculpts that we are not in a position of pursue.

But that doesn't mean we intend to abandon the project, we're just going to tone it down. Since my main goal is to make it so other people can play it we've decided to create a PnP version using our existing art and some modified drawings for foldable stand-ups for the tokens. The board is already done so its just the tokens that need to be put into usable form. Once complete it will be free to download on our webstie at Inspiredpress.net.

Too much silence, and then suddenly... Print & Play Version 3

+Erik McGrath

Once again it has been awhile, and I should post more often, but I don't like to post when I have nothing to say so sometimes this will happen. What I can say now is that we have a new version of the Sudden Death PNP and it is ready for another round of playtesting to handle the slight rules changes that come with the new art.

An end to endless circling

Most importantly is a tightening of the language and the removal of extended circling phases. We found from our last round of testing that sometimes the game would just stall because people refused to attack first. That is now no longer a problem because circling is regulated by a set number of "circle actions".  A circle action can be used to either draw 1 card, or play an action card from your hand.  At the start of the game, each player gets a chance to use one circling action each before the battle begins.  During the battle, what we were formally using as Withdraw cards are now simply Reaction cards that negate attacks and give you one circle action before returning players to the battle.  No more returning to a circling phase where things can stall out. That should speed up play considerably for anyone who has encountered that side-effect.

The language should be straight forward, all the keywords are explained in the 2 pages of rules we have posted. The goal for the card text is to have it be very brief but not arcane. The cards benefit greatly from having as much space as possible for +Laura Hamilton 's artwork.

We want to take the game to the masses soon, but first we want to get more people's opinions. I think you will find the art much more interesting now and hopefully it will pull you more into the game as it has done with us.  Please provide us with any kind of feedback you may have for us.

Click HERE to view and download the latest version of our Print & Play demo.

Rest is for the Weak

Ninja can rest when they're dead

+Erik McGrath

Good afternoon everyone; it is a sunny Sunday in Braintree, MA today so what better weather in which to discuss ninjas could there be?

Progress is steady once more on Sudden Death and this week we have some new card art to show off. We are preparing a second Print-and-Play PDF with the new material and the latest revisions due to our ongoing playtests.

The most notable revision is the change to how a ninja can withdraw from the action. Previously the stand-off that resulted could drag on for many turns before someone attacked, but now there is at most one round of circling when each player can either draw a card or play an action from their hand. Once that is done it is back to the fight.  We are also testing ideas that streamline the circling process so the action and fighting is maintained, rather than broken up.

After a Hushed Silence, the Ninja Are Back

+Erik McGrath

So it's been awhile since I have said anything about Sudden Death and it's time to rectify that. The past few weeks have seen me get a new job, which stole most of the time I had been using for Inspired, but now that I am used to it things should get back to normal.

On the plus side we haven't been doing entirely nothing these past two weeks on the game front, as we have more images to share today as well as a tutorial video being edited together.

Sketch art by +Laura Hamilton 

Card Art for Sudden Death

+Erik McGrath


The art for Sudden Death is now fully underway thanks to +Laura Hamilton. Her stuff is fantastic, as I'm sure many of you already know, and the challenge for us now is doing the typing and setting up her images with the necessary hardware to make them into full on cards.

This is all in preparation to use Kickstarter as I have mentioned briefly in past posts. By getting the artwork fully settled before we even try to get funding we hope to show our commitment to this project beyond a shadow of a doubt. To that end we've commissioned a half dozen images from Laura to whet appetites which should help us reach our goal so that we can afford to have her do the entire set.

So here's a few of the works in progress:

Sudden Death Playtest results phase 1

Concept for the card border.

+Erik McGrath

Last week we sent out a call for playtesting using our Print and Play document and the first batch of feedback has been received and reviewed.

There were a lot of useful suggestions and several things that came up from almost every tester and it's those latter suggestions that I will focus on now.

1) Attack Order

The number one point of confusion is how cards are played, so we will be making a sample of play document and video in the near future. Specifically, people tend to infer that there is a turn sequence where one person plays a card, the opponent responds and then the process begins again with the opponent playing an attack.

In retrospect I can see how that opinion is formed, but it is not how we intended Sudden Death to operate. Instead, the first attack card played creates a chain of events that has no gaps unless they are created with a Withdraw card. Each Melee, Trap, or Ranged attack not only defeats the card before it but must be responded to in turn.

Example: CJ vs Erik: CJ goes First
Circling Phase
CJ: Katana (melee)
Erik: Punji (trap)
CJ: Arrow (ranged)
Erik: Kusari-gama (dual melee/ranged, played as melee)
CJ: Smoke Bomb (withdraw vs melee or trap)
Return to Circling Phase

2) Keyword updates and clarifications

The wording has been tightened and all terms printed on the cards will be clearly defined keywords. Foil has been removed and the Withdraw cards are now Reaction type.  Draw, Discard and Reveal will now specify specifically who does the action (so it will be You Draw 3, or They Discard 2).  This should allow us to develop more card types and actions without having to change our style in the future.

Additionally, we have added new keywords, most importantly:
Negate for Antidote and Heavy Cloak so that they simply remove the card draw/discard effect as appropriate.
Effect for fire and poison
Dual for Kusari-gama, Cunning Decoy and Crossbow.

3) Cards with multiple keywords

There are 3 dual attacks (melee/ranged, ranged/trap, melee/trap), 3 attacks with the fire effect and 3 with poison. The dual attacks can be used in more instances than other attacks but once played they are identical to any other attack. Only one of the attack types is used and it is declared when played, the other type is ignored. So if Crossbow is used as a trap then it must be countered with a ranged attack.

Cards with an effect (fire or poison) can be defeated by any card that beats either their attack type OR their effect type.  So Poison Gas (a poison melee attack) can be defeated with a trap (counters melee) or an Antidote (withdraws from poison, negates poison effect).

4) Changes and improvements

Traps can now initiate attacks, instead of being only able to respond to melee attacks.  Insight now reveals the opponent's entire hand. Art of Misdirection now makes the opponent discard 2 cards. One additional action (Know Your Enemy) and reaction (Copycat) are planned. Know You Enemy steals a card from your opponent's hand and Copycat reflects an attack back at your opponent (thanks +Graeme Henson for the copycat idea).

Print & Playtest Sudden Death: Ninja Attack

+Erik McGrath 

It has been a whirlwind of activity for Sudden Death in the past two weeks. It's gone from an idea to what may end up being the final rules of play in that short amount of time, and we are now working on the artwork so that it can become real. 

To that extent, Inspired Press is now working with +Laura Hamilton  to provide the artwork and hopefully everyone else will love what she's doing as much as we do. Once we have the first batch of images we plan to use Kickstarter to fund the rest of the artwork for Sudden Death:Ninja Attack and get a finished version into people's hands and so that Laura can get paid what she's worth for her work. 

But before we can do that we need more people to get the opportunity to play the game themselves, so we have a basic Print & Play PDF ready to go. This PnP version is low on art but contains all the rules and cards needed to play. 

If you are reading about this for the first time, Sudden Death: Ninja Attack is a game for 2 players that uses a 25 card deck to simulate a battle between two ninja who encounter each other in a bamboo forest. With a plethora of weapons, traps and cunning tactics you vie to be the last ninja standing.  The rules are simple and once you've printed the cards, you can be up and playing in minutes.

If that sounds interesting then check out the PnP PDF, print it out and give it a try. Then after you've played a few rounds, let us know how you feel by commenting here or emailing us at inspiredpressgames@gmail.com.

Links: Sudden Death Print & Play

Sudden Death, The Mechanics of Play

+Christopher Andersen

Got to playtest our new prototype of Sudden Death: Ninja Attack at Battleground Games & Hobbies yesterday, and it received overall positive reviews.  I've very confident that all we need is some really good card art and we have a very salable game here.  We are shopping around for artists willing to work for contingent Kickstarter pay (if we don't fund, we don't go forward with art).  We're currently in negotiations with one artist right now, but we'll continue searching if we can't get her.  Speaking of art, we also met an art student there, +Mike Coleman,  looking to get his name out there, so we'll be happy to take a look at his work (so far looks good) and see if he can collaborate with us on some future projects.

Now for the meat of the post; the mechanics of how Sudden Death plays.  As I've mentioned in other posts, Sudden Death: Ninja Attack is a small card game using one deck for 2 players, meant to simulate a deadly meeting between two ninjas in a bamboo forest.  The ninjas will fight using melee attacks, ranged weapons, and deadly traps until only one of them remains standing... or both perish.

There is the initial Standoff, where players are dealt their initial hand of eight (8) cards.  They choose five (5) of these cards to keep for themselves... then pass the other three (3) to their opponent.  Then each player chooses one card to discard, leaving them with a starting hand of 7 cards.  We then move on to the Circling phase.  When circling, players have a chance to prepare themselves further before committing themselves to the fight.  The player with the least number of cards goes first. If both players have the same number of cards then the ancient, ninja art of Janken (aka Rock-Paper-Scissors) is used.  Every time ninjas circle, there is at least one round of drawing/actions before attack cards can be played.  After this time, players can continue to draw or play actions, or they can Strike and start the fight.

Battles between ninjas follow a Janken-like style, fights can be started with Melee or Ranged attacks, and then begins a furious exchange of attack and counterattack.  Melee attacks can be countered by Traps.  Traps can be countered by Ranged attacks.  Ranged attacks can be countered by Melee attacks.  Players play one card after another; a melee attack, countered by a trap, countered by a ranged, countered by a melee, etc. until either one player cannot counter an attack, or a withdraw card is played to Foil the attack.  If a player cannot counter or withdraw, they die.  If they withdraw, both players start another Circling phase to prepare themselves for another round of attacks.

Overall games are very short, usually no more than 5 minutes, and take very little time to learn. The deck is small, only 25 cards, but every card is unique, and we've balanced it well so that no one card is a "win all" strategy.  We've had playtest games where one player started out strong, only to have the game turn on them later (it was me... I lost).

Currently we have posted The Rules for anyone to take a look at, and we hope to soon have a Print & Play version out sometime in the near future.  Until we do, Erik and I will be visiting Battleground periodically, so keep an eye out for us and we should have a copy on us to playtest with you.

Sudden Death: Ninja Attack

It was half past midnight when he reached the bridge, stopping to stare up at the moon as an all-too-familiar sensation prickled his consciousness. He was not alone, and whoever was out there was broadcasting the intent to kill. A slow smirk creeped across his face behind his mask, one hand reaching down to select a few smoke bombs from the pouch at his side. A quick flick of the wrist in the direction of his opponent and thick veil of smoke became his only friend -- the fight was on.  (Blurb courtesy of +Jillian McGrath)

 -CJ Andersen

So on Monday, while in the shower, I was struck with a sudden and deadly idea for a game.  Two ninja, locked in stealthy combat, in a back and forth battle which can only have one winner... or none.

So in the next few hours, after Erik and I hashed out some basic rules, Sudden Death: Ninja Attack was born.  We had a prototype of 25 cards the next day and tested it out at our trip to Battleground Games & Hobbies on Wednesday.  Using traps, melee and ranged attacks, each player uses their arsenal of cards, shared from the same deck as their opponent, in an attempt to gain the advantage, and find the one weakness the enemy has no defense for.  We found it works well as a basic game, and flows generally the way we want it to.

We designed the card game to have periods of quiet, preparing your arsenal, circling one another looking for an opening.  Those are followed by quick rounds of attack and counterattack (and counter attacks to your counter attacks) until either one ninja is dead, or a card is played that allows the players to withdraw back into a preparation phase.  Games play out fairly quickly; only a couple of minutes from start to gruesome death.

It's been interesting to figure out how the cards interact in a way that is asymmetrically balanced.  Attacks and counterattacks are based on the ancient art of 両拳 (Rock/Paper/Scissors), with other cards thrown in to make things interesting.  The challenge going forward is to tweak the balance so that there aren't any single cards that act as "I get this, I win" cards, and to add some cards to make the deck slightly larger.  We hope to eventually have this out in a free print-and-play version, as well as real cards you can buy (probably via DriveThroughCards).  Expect more updates on this game soon, with pictures.

UPDATE:  You can now find the rules HERE