Zombie Golf -- Changes and Prep for a Kickstarter

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Created: Friday, 08 March 2019 03:53

Written by Super User

A little story of an unplanned CON...

So I went to PAX Unplugged this year thanx to the urging of a friend, and it was a good call.  I went to several panels hosted by folks in every aspect of the industry, from CEO's of large companies to small Kickstarter based ones.  one of the things they all said was make your first Kickstarter product one that's easy to fulfil orders.  Such a product lets you complete the kickstarter successfully, even when you hit the inevitable bump or road block.  
I took these words to heart, I want my first kickstarter to be as big a success as my last one, I want to do this right so everyone who wants to can play my games.  So after discussions and game playing with my friends, a decision was made.   Rather than kickstart Panic: The Bad SciFi Movie Board Game first, which had lots of parts and complexities from a fulfillment perspective, it made sense to kickstart Zombie Golf first.  So Below is a card and some info about zombie golf.

 
Zombie golf is a card/dice game based on this simple premise:

All the Frustration of Golf.  All the Satisfaction of Killing Zombies.

Up to 4 Players are on a golf course playing 3 ,6, or 9 holes, while being attacked by zombies after every swing.  The goal is to win the bet: Who is the best golfer in the apocalypse. 

There are 4 types of zombies; Walkers, Shamblers, Runners and Biters, each with their own special way to mess up your golf game.  When you hit into a hazard you gain frustration, too much and you quit.  To many wounds and you quit.  Yet there are trophies for the longest drive, holes in one, first on the green and winning the hole.  These trophies help your golf game and lower your frustration so you can win the bet, and be the best golfer in the zombie apocalypse.
More articles and such coming soon, but for now here is a picture of the Brenda zombie...      

GhengisCon 2019 -- A Resounding Success

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Created: Monday, 04 March 2019 06:15

Written by Super User

So for the past few weeks I have been off the web creating, updating, and preparing for Ghengis Con in Denver.  
The Plan was to test Zombie Golf, Panic, and the newest (and after this weekend final) version of the Conflict System.  The Con was a rousing success for me and the games.  every game played really well, several rules changes/variants came about.  Finally we have a couple of very cool taglines for Conflict RPG System.

First it was a great con, I would love to say thanx to all the players who tried the games and talked to me about them.   I got a ton of great feedback, great ideas, and most importantly some fun games.

So lets talk about the 3 games, how they played, what I and the other players liked and what did not really work.  

Zombie Golf will be the first discussion, I am going to do highlights in this article and a more detail in later articles.  Zombie golf played well, but with the new zombie values it turns out to be very hard to win.  Between the frustration buildup from hazzards and the greater wound values the hordes built up and then people start dying or rage quitting.  I also noticed that there was a need to get more trophy cards out, gotta have them to play them. Another good suggestion was to change the dice from a d12 to a 2d6; this would give a better spread, playrs could better anticipate when to use a bonus or not. This will be an alternative mode in the base game, and a bonus for the ProAM expansion.
The end result was the creation of two levels of play, Regular play and Horde play.   In Horde Play the wound values double, how long a person keeps their trophies are the major differences.

Panic was a different story, it played just fine. Very tactical and fun when doing lines. However 2 things, the narration mechanic needs to be done for all scenes, not just successes.  Then other thing is its the second time I was asked for a party game version of Panic. A Party version would take the tactical movements of the board out and focus on the funny narrations. I figured out a way to create table read rules.  No board everything else the same.

The Last was Conflict System X40 (as I am calling it) Using the World of StrikeForce:2136.  The X40 System is a design I tried in different ways, but never in this way. The goal has always been to minimize the effect of the roll on the players ability to take actions and do more at the table.
The issue with my math based (or Lee math systems as my friends would say) systems was the attributes. I always felt the attributes needed to be in any skillset.  Thats adding 40 or 50 points, then add skills in and now 80.. and so it grows.  Then you think about ADnD and 2E, the specific reason the attributes were there was to bonus the rolls.  James Bond used them to set Skills and then the roll.
So I figured out that the abilities sets the characters Skill Depth. The Skill Depth sets how many Paste Events, Main and Subskills a player can add together for a SkillSet.  That total, the SkillSet total, determines a players success.  So the roll becomes a limiter, not a binary success failure.  This allows me to set all the skills to a range of 1-4, a SubSkill value of 2, and a Past Event value of 1.  This means the Skillset become a range of 1 - 40.  And now a roll of the dice does not stop you from succeeded, it makes it harder.
A tage line comes out of all this:
Conflict System: Never let a Roll Stop You!

So all good innovations and design ideas from every one.  More details on all of this in future posts.  

Oh and one more thing Zombie Golf is going to Kickstart, April 1! Be ready!

Designer Diary -- Zombie Golf

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Created: Friday, 07 December 2018 15:41

Written by Super User

Zombie Golf

All the Frustration of Golf, All the Satisfaction of Killing Zombies

So after PAX Unplugged I was super motivated to start a project I have had on my desk for months in index card form.

The idea is simple; the end of the world is here.  A nuclear accident caused a mutation in the avian flu, making people and parts of the environment zombies and zombie like.   You and your friends have a standing bet on who is the best golfer and this is your last shot, winner takes the title.  So you grabbed your clubs, losing some in the rush, and met them at Demon Sands Country Club for a quick 9 holes.

So simple game using cards and a single d12.  You take a swing, advance your ball up the map of the hole (avoiding hazards) and then the zombies attack.  4 types of zombies, Walkers, Shamblers, Runners, and Biters.  The first 3 do wounds, the last turns you into a zombie and out of the game.   You roll the D12, add you position on the hole, club and card bonuses to get to the green, or land in hazard.  Once on the green you roll the d12 and have to be within 2 of the putting number, using any card or club bonuses.

First player to win a majority of holes, first to putt in wins.  You can also play for score for a longer game.

That's it a simple game; so I started creating cards...  Here are the first testers..  Enjoy.

Hole #1 The Devils Turn (Par 4)

Player Card

and of course a Zombie