Ramblings of the Day!

I should by trying again on the blog post I wrote last night but I don't feel like it.  I am feeling pretty groovy and I am in no mood to visit the past.  So onwards and upwards.  The problem is that I am having a hard time coming up with a subject for a long post.  So I think I'll just write a bunch of little things until I am happy.

     I realized at some point today that my disapointment with the movie Bag Man stemmed from my own desire to watch another David Lynch movie or show rather than any actual problem with the movie itself.  The movie starts weird and it has the potential to get weirder.  I wanted it to go all out and to show that the world we know is just a scab over an infected wound and when we pick at it just a bit all sorts of crazy shit starts to happen.  The whole set up doesn't make sense.  Cussack has a bag and he has to go to the hotel to protect said bag.  Then for whatever reason it seems like everyone and their mother know all about the fucking bag and they are trying to take it from him.  Everyone from the creepy hotel owner, to the tall black man and his Russian midget friend, to some fake FBI agents, to the local insane cops.  Everything from the way the movie is shot, to its bizzarre lighting, to the case showcases a situation that defies any sort of sense whatsoever.  Best of all Cussack's character realizes this and he's facted with the constant question of what the fuck is going on.  Interspersed will all this is his menacing boss slowly but surely making his way towards the hotel.  To what end?  Who knows?
    However, as the movie goes on everything gets explained, and not in some stupid hand wavey fashion either but actually explained.  Best of all is that they don't hand hold you through the explanation.  For awhile I couldn't figure out the motivation of the girl.  The girl, like David's Prometheus, had all the information as to what was going on but didn't want to share it.  Then right as I was about to go home I figgured out her endgame.  It is a damn clever movie that will only be seen by like 10 people and appreciated by maybe 4.  It isn't quite at the level of Way of the Gun but it is pretty close.

     I still want a new David Lynch movie or at least someone trying to rip off his style.  Fuck.

     I like to kick around board game design sometimes.  It never really goes anywhere but it is a type of creativity I don't get to use very often and it is a fun and interesting challange.  I like to write out a list of goals and then institute designs in order to meet them.  Currently I am kicking around a post apocalyptic base building game.  It is worker placement but closer to the style of Eclipse or Twilight Imperium than say Agricola.  Each player will have a base and some nearby reasources that they can gather.  However, in order to progress they are going to have to venture out into the wilderness where they can discover lost technology, better sources of goods, specialists to help them build things, and whathave you.  I want the whole thing to be card based because it is easy to break cards out and it is easy to make components for card games.

So each player will have a starting hand of cards that has stuff that is specific to their faction.  There will also be other decks of basic cards that everyone can build such as warehouses, farms, houses, that sort of thing.  However, if they want to get their economy going they are going to have to explore the wasteland which will be in the form of a deck in the center.  The center deck will have things like, NPCs that you can trade with, permentate resource gathering spots, special artifacts or technology, skilled workers, essentially a mix of permenate wasteland features and temporary ones.  It will take fuel to get to the wasteland and to get home again.  Making trips to the wasteland will be the main source of victory points for the players.

However, there will be overlapping victory conditions because I want combat to be a thing.  The way I want combat to work is first the player needs to move a raiding force into the wastelands.  Since most wastelands cards will have some sort of combat involved this isn't in of itself suspicious everyone will have to do it.  However, then once the raiding force is in the wastelands it can then target another player.  It will take one turn to get to the wasteland and another turn to get to the other player's base and the target of the raid has to be announced a turn ahead of time.  This will give the defending player one turn to prepare.  This represents the defending player's scouts and whatnot.

The thing is that I am having a hard time deciding what sort of combat I want.  Initially I was just going to go with attack total +modifiers vs defense total +modifers= number of d6's rolled 5's and 6's are successes and whomever wins gets stuff.

However towards the end of my lunch break I was thinking that maybe instead I might wanna make combat a bit of an event.  Something that involves a hand of lets say 3 rock paper scissor like cards and three special cards unique to every faction.   I am thinking I like this better because I want every faction to play radically differently from each other and having more stuff that the other guy doesn't have will help this out.

The basic design goals of the game were to allow the players to feel like they are building a little settlement.  To have it seat anywhere from 2-6 players.  To be asymmetrical.  The be expandable in all sorts of different and exciting ways.

Currently it is at the minimum on the heavier side of things and it is staring to resemble more Clash of Cultures, Merchants and Mauraders, Eclipse in terms of game play style.  Considering that the original concept was a deck building game we've made quite a drastic shift.  Like I said I want to keep it wholely card based because they are easier to transport.  I am still in the vauge concept phase now but I think I'm going to start hammering out fine details.  If I get to that point I'll ask for help.

Alright I am satisfied with the amount I've written time for Minecraft!