I've received a bunch of entries, so here's what I want you to provide in this thread:
Your name
The name of your game
Whether your game's an entry or an honorable non-entry
How many players
How long to play
A couple sentences about what it's about
A link to your game
If you aren't hosting your game somewhere else, I'll be glad to host it here. Include a note to that effect, I'll put your game up and insert a link.
If you'd rather not link to your game at all, that's cool, please still post your name etc.
If you're not entering, you should feel free to heckle and cheer the entrants in marginalia.
Oh and PRIZES! I have two prizes. One is a beautiful set of 3d6 made out of ... um ... agate maybe? that I picked up at the Smithsonian back when we visited DC. The other is a copy of Mechaton, including mechs. Winner chooses, runner up gets the other!
1. On 2006-05-30, Ben Lehman wrote:
Ben Lehman
Shanghai Poker
Entry
2-6 or so, I guess
5-10 minutes per hand
Deception, falsehood, bluffing, and getting filthy filthy lucre out of your friends.
Hmm... I will dig a link up and marginalize it maybe eventually.
This makes...
KM go "Deception, falsehood, filthy filthy lucre? I'm in."
Christian Griffen
GodslaughteR
Entry
2-4
Single Battle, starting from half an hour. Campaign, several hours.
It's a wargame where you roll dice to establish and represent your units. For example, an archer unit is 2x1 dice (one column of two dice), a dragon is 3x3 dice (three rows of three dice each). Depending on how you initially roll, your unit will have weak spots the enemy can exploit.
Units can attack enemy rows, columns, individual dice, or do special things (roll up friendly units, take dice from enemy unit and attach to your absorbing Horror, etc.), having to beat the enemy dice values to be successful. E.g., want to take out that archer which rolled 3-5? Do a frontal attack and roll 8+ to destroy it completely, or a flank attack against the 3 that would only take out that die.
I'll host it in a few days when the kinks are ironed out and the different factions and units written down.
Anyone who has played regular checkers a few dozen times grows bored of it. Checker Wars takes checkers to the next level, combining regular checker rules with simple ideas from war gaming. The game adds an element of chance plus opportunities for strategy and tactics.
Justin D. Jacobson
POMPEII (I insist that you use all caps.)
Entry
2-4 players
Less than 30 minutes
Recreates the final moments of Pompeii as Vesuvius spewed forth ... wait for it ... hot, molten mag-ma upon its unsuspecting citizens. You play gods, trying to lead your faithful to the boats before they get B-B-Q'ed. Quick gameplay, but presents interesting play style choices.
The game will be up on my website shortly on the following page: http://www.bluedevilgames.com/pompeii.htm
Game: Shannon (Named after my loving girlfriend whose playtesting was incredibly helpful.)
This game is an entry.
Players: 2 Players
Length: 10-15 minutes, depending on the level of strategy or aggression you're playing with.
Description: An elegant abstract game in which you place dice on a chess board, converting your opponent's dice to your color hoping to score the most points at the end of the game. Beware, as the dice that are the strongest at conversion are not necessarily worth the most points, and vice versa.
Your name
The name of your game
Whether your game's an entry or an honorable non-entry
How many players
How long to play
A couple sentences about what it's about
A link to your game
Bryan Hansel
Burning Monsters Now! with Stakes
Entry
2 to 4
20 to 40 minutes
It's a game about tying down monsters to stakes and burning them.
http://www.momentarylapsepress.com/misc/bmnws.zip
Charles Perez
Musashi
Entry (a retread)
Two
5-15 minutes
This game is designed to evoke a sword duel between samurai. Combat effectiveness is measured in dice of various sizes, which are lost as a combatant is cut.
(no link)
This makes...
NinJ go "Well, I'm certainly into this one."*
CEP go "You'll need dice. Lots of dice."*
NinJ go "Dice? We got dice. We were called a "Goddamn hippie game design commune" on this very blog!"
The players are part of a major corporate malfeasance scheme, together they build up lots of money, blow the whistle on their co-conspirators and desperately try to get as many beans as possible before the feds catch wind of the cover-up.
In this game, you help taxi drivers (who are all named Bernie*) drive around a fantasy city, dodging bizarre hazards in order to deliver passengers safely and collect Cash.
I have been unable to playtest this game, but it rocks anyway*
My Name: Tristan
Game's Name: Grimwald's Court
Entry
5 players (which sucks...)
Maybe 30 minutes to play
Grimwald's court is a troubled place. Everyone knows King Grimwald has his eye on one of the young court ladies, but unless Queen Florence dies, the church won't let him marry her. Prince Roderick is desperate to be king, as soon as possible, and wants rid of his father fast. Baron Jex seeks the death of King and Prince, to end the royal line, and Queen Florence, a hopeless romantic, just wants to spend her old age with King Roderick.
Whispers of an evil sorceror, bent on corrupting the court nobles to serve his evil masters, are surely nothing more than rumours.
Players are secretly given one of the five roles at the start of the game. Each round they are dealt cards, which they distribute to other players. The cards are then played on the four court nobles, giving them treasure, guards, and assassins to deal with, and also giving the players some clue as to which player has which role - the king will want to avoid giving assassins to the prince, for instance.
At the end of the game, nobles score points for treasure, and for reaching their goals. The sorceror scores points depending only on how corrupt the court became. The player with the most points wins.
Me: Tristan
It: Inferno's Fall
Entry
2+ players
Couple of Hours Playing time
The first rumblings of war...as civil unrest and violence spreads in a small country, factions are formed, and soon skirmishs between rival groups are common on the streets.
This is a dark near future skirmish game, a la Warhammer 40K. The system provides integrated morale and suppression rules, and uncertainty about your troops actions. Leaders are useful more for their ability to command troops, than for having uber-stats.
Activation/Suppression/Morale are all on one dice roll per team. Hitting/Damaging are all dealt with with one die roll per shot.
I don't understand this, but it appears I can't Email you, Joshua...
computerspeak follows
----------8<--------------
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
EMAIL REMOVED
It appears that the DNS operator for glyphpress.com
has installed an invalid MX record with an IP address
instead of a domain name on the right hand side.
This makes...
NinJ go "What the crap?"*
TB go "Whoops"*
Mendel Schmiedekamp
Domination
Honorable Non-Entry
2 players, about 10 minutes
A simple playing card game of territory and conflict. It can be found here(pdf).
Mendel Schmiedekamp
FTL
Dishonorable Non-Entry
2 players, about an hour
A ship combat wargame based on relativistic space travel, with FTL weaponry. The flavor is warped, and the game play lies largely in cat and mouse guessing of your opponent's moves, while obfuscating your own.
It can be found here, along with some demo materials here(pdf).
Name: Eero Tuovinen
Game: Conservative Order
Entry
Players: 3-10
Time: 2-4 hours
A challenging card game about European diplomacy in the 19th century. The players are European royal houses vying for control of the continent by force of arms, political marriage and the occasional (more like: constant) assassination. Negotiations are handled by different gestures like handshakes and hugs, usually ending up in a merry dogpile of players.
Chris Goodwin
Cars
Honorable non-entry
2 or more players
15 minutes to an hour or more
When we used to "play cars" as kids this is how we'd play it (only without dice) Here
My not very good, very rushed, dishonourable non-entry!
Slime Octopi and Coral
3+(3-6) players.
1-3 hours. Link!
Call of Cthulhu meets Age of Empires. Players play Elder Godslike creatures who arrive on Earth and try to conquer humanity. Humanity has one players rooting for it.
Character creation has you answering questions and picking options from a list to build your Slime Octopus, you get to pick powerZ to help you bend reality to your will.