Seven days ago, I stepped up to a challenge. The premise was simple, could I create a simple dungeon raiding card game in a scant 7 days? The idea behind the game was based around the room clearing concept of Gauntlet but, as time went by, started to incorporate elements of classic Zelda and even Prince of Persia 2. You may have seen 4 of the 7 days detailed last week here on the CBlogs and while I wrote tiny blogs for days 5-7, I will only post them here if, and only if, people are interested in them.

Keep in mind, this entire concept has two major handicaps against it. The first being that it has no official title and the other being it has not been playtested at all. The purpose of the rush wasn't for playtesting, simply getting something together. The game, in question, runs $23 currently to make a print from The Game Crafter so once I have it in my hands and ready to test, I'll be playing the hell out of it and hopefully it will be ready for sale sometime in mid June. So with that said, let's take a look at the game currently referred to as Mini Dungeon Raiders: Lich Slapped.

Before looking at anything else, let's look at the Scenario Cards. The game, in it's current form, sports 6 different Scenarios. At the beginning of the game, you randomly draw one of these scenarios and set the dungeon deck up accordingly. As you may notice, some require a set amount of standard dungeon tiles and there are 29 of these standard tiles which means, of course, you're not going to play every tile in every game. It also calls for special tiles and these are found on the lower right corner of the dungeon tile. So once you have these set up, you shuffle the tiles according to the scenario and place them somewhere within the reach of all the players.


Next, you set up the entrance tile. Each character must occupy one of the 4 spaces the Lich Summoning Circle is in.


Now let's talk about the turn Queue and how it begins. You may notice there are 5 cards, each having a number. This number is ONLY relevant in the beginning of the game. The Lich will never move but every other character can change places in the queue as needed. This can only be done once per cycle. So let's say the Thief has already gone but the Knight needs the Thief to activate a switch. The Knight can then exchange her place in the queue with the Thief, giving the Thief another action this cycle. After four character actions have been performed, the Lich will move. Then the cycle begins anew.


So now, let's talk about the characters, the Ranger, the Thief, the Knight, and the Wizard. Each have different stats and abilities. So let's look at the Knight in more detail. She has 8 HP but only 4 movement. On her turn, she can move up to four spaces. She attacks both Skeletons and Blood Slimes. Her death radius is an 8 way square. Most importantly, if an ally is going to take damage within her death radius, she can take the damage instead. So she's short range and slow, but can be used to mitigate damage to other, much weaker allies. All four characters have these kinds of stats. Who they can kill, how much damage they can take, how far they can move, their death radius, and any special talents. Now, it ANY monster they cannot defeat is in the same space they are, the monster is destroyed but they take 1 damage. If their damage reaches their health, they die and the game is over.


So we've looked at the characters, now let's look at the monsters. You see, after every character moves, a d6 is rolled and based on the result, a certain type of monster activates. So on the cards, you see who will activate based on the roll (you might have also noticed, previously, that the spawn points all look the same as die faces. In the full version, there will be a Custom Die, but for how, a standard d6 is all you need. Rolling a 1 will activate the Lich, so don't do that. But let's take a look at a different monsters behavior. In general, when a monster is rolled, you move all the monsters and then spawn new ones on the matching points according to player proximity.

So let's start with Blood Slimes, indicated on the board by red cubes. They only move 2 and they never respawn. However, if one or more characters are present in the room they are in, they do split into 2. Like all monsters, their top priority when moving are any characters (except their enemy... the Knight) within 2 spaces of them. Barring that, they seek the Wizard. Going from there, Goblins. Since only the Thief can kill Goblins, these can become quite a danger. Not only do they spawn twice as fast, multiple Goblins may occupy the same space. Be wary of this as a single stack could potentially one turn kill a character. Next are Skeletons. They move 3 and seek The Wizard. Perhaps most dangerous, they can travel through Spawn Points, making each Spawn Point a potential ambush for the poor Wizard. Wraiths not only move fast and seek the Thief, but they also move through walls and across pits. Good thing the Wizard has a big Death Radius. Finally, we have Flash Cats. Quick, and more importantly, they can teleport from room to room, seeking the Knight as their target. Naturally, someone could cheat and make these monsters move away from the part but what's the point of that? This is about challenge and winning would be glorious in these circumstances.


So when you explore (exit a room), you draw the top Dungeon Tile from the deck and put it next to the current room with the black arrow acting as the entrance to that room. Most rooms have some monsters and that's it but let's take a look at a Puzzle Room.

This is a standard puzzle room. In the lower right hand corner is a switch for the thief as well as several traps blocking the wizards path to the Tome which would activate the bridge and open the colored gates. This room spawns both Flash Cats and Skeletons. Skeletons will seek the Wizard and Flash Cats seek the Knight. So the trick here is the Thief must stand defenseless on the switch so that the other three characters can pass the traps without damage (Hope there are no nearby Wraiths). The Wizard needs the Knight as an escort and the Knight is vulnerable to Flash Cats so the Ranger must come along as well. Once the wizard reaches the Tome, the bridge is activated and the gates are ignored. To signify this, place a Black Cube on the Tome to signify this puzzle has been solved (in case you have to return to this room). Solving this room takes several cycles so be quick about it because The Lich is coming...


If the Lich ever occupies the same space as a player, they instantly die, ending the game. That, in a nutshell, is the game I made and ordered from The Game Crafter last night. I'm sure it's busted and broken as all hell, which is why I refuse to sell it until it's ready. Naturally, as the game is refined, portions of the artwork may change, new tiles added or removed, and more scenarios are possible. After all, there are only 44 Dungeon Cards in this set and more scenarios will add more chances to add thrills.

What the hell? Name change?!? Actually, the final name of the game wasn't going to be Dungeon Blitz despite that's what the project name was. I typically ramble off a name, design the game, refine it, and come up with an eventual final name. For example, Imps Vs Puppies sported both the titles of Violent Young Imps and That Deplorable Crate Game. So the title, Dungeon Blitz, signified the challenge of the project and the intent of the game. So why, then, did the name change earlier than usual?

Well, put it simply, I got the nicest darn "cease & desist" letter ever. In fact, it wasn't even that. It was a private message that basically said, "dude, game looks great but we may have a problem." Turns out there is a F2P MMO called Dungeon Blitz and thanks to Google (snitches get stitches, google), they were alerted to the name I was using. They, however, were damn decent about it and sent the "Hey, that's our name" email before the lawyers. So despite not knowing anything about the game, I suggest people check out their product since they seem like decent folk. It's certainly the opposite of what I've received in the past over these kinds of mistakes.
[url]http://www.dungeonblitz.com[\url]


What's the new name? I'm very tempted to ape the idea behind Jame's Ernest's Totally Renamed Spy Game. But for now, I'm focusing on just getting it done. Let's see what I want to call it after I have it further completed. So for now, it's simply called the Dungeon Game.

*sigh* So, where am I? I'm actually at the point where progress has slowed nearly to a crawl. I'm coloring the monsters and that's all I'll be on for a while. But when working last night, it occured to me that I made an idiot mistake. You see, manipulating and moving cubes works much easier with a reference point and I created two monsters which could be considered green cubes. And so I present the left and right result as the Slime becomes a Blood Slime. YAY!



Next up is the Skeleton.... ooooo, he does NOT have the hips to pull off that look.



Which brings us to the Goblin....



Tomorrow, Flash Cat, Lich, character sketches, and who knows, I may even start coloring the characters.

Like all print services, The Game Crafter cannot deliver 100% accurate cuts to the cards. This is the reason why, when you buy board games (if you buy board games), you notice the color of tokens and such go beyond the cut lines. So if a top tier manufacturing outlet that prints up thousands upon thousands of Fantasy Flight Games cannot deliver this, The Game Crafter cannot be expected to. This is why their templates are a boon in that it hints towards how the cutter may drift through production. The general rule is nothing important outside the dotted line but in general, Drift hits the back of the cards the hardest so I might be safe. Just remember this in the image below as the potential cut border could be between the dotted and solid white line. The other potential issue is the puzzle room gates don't contrast enough and it's not always clear what objective will open the room. To make certain the types of gates needed and that the gates are visibly present, maybe I just need to make the gates an energy barrier akin to the energy bridges. Their color portrays the necessary trigger at a glace and the gates don't do that. This will have to be taken into consideration as time allows.



Likewise, the original concept was 11 different objectives and this should be shaved down to 6. Currently, I have 4 figured out and will design 2 more scenarios as I get more time. Also, there are currently 17 rooms fully designed and the only thing missing is the Lich Entry Glyph. But the current roster of rooms are in the image below.



This of course left the question of what to do last night and that question was answered by working towards the monster illustrations. As I feared, this takes a bit more time than I had anticipated. Last night, I finished the Wraith illustration and started, but did not complete, the Slime. Both of which can be seen below.



So at this point, as I've been showing the progress to people, the questions keep coming up, "Just what the hell is this game and how do you play?"

Well, first things first is that this game requires all four characters to play. So the Knight, the Thief, the Ranger, and The Wizard need to be in the game. What ISN'T required is character assignments. So you could play this by commitee (all players agreeing on a turn) or each player controls a character type, or this game is 100% compatible with Solo gameplay. Next, you draw a Scenario and prepare the Dungeon Blitz deck.

Let's say the game is "Seek the Forbidden Texts." The first thing you would do is shuffle the standard tiles (of which there are 34) and set aside 14 tiles. Next, grab all the tiles specific to "Seek the forbidden texts" and shuffle them into the deck. The goal of the game is now to navigate the dungeon and find the three forbidden texts to win the game.

So let's go over the characters for a second. Each character will have certain stats like Health, Speed, Death Radius, who they can attack, and other skills. Consider each party member a walking turrent. So the Ranger can attack Flash Cats so this means if any Flash Cats get within a certain radius, they are instantly detroyed. But she cannot kill Wraiths so Wraiths that enter her space will cost her a health. No complicated combat rules, no combat die rolls, each character simply marches death upon their designated targets.

At the end of each characters action, a die is rolled. On a roll of 2-6, look up the matching monster (for example, a Slime is a 2) and begin their action. Each monsters acts differently. Slimes, for example, do not spawn so even though they start on a map, no more come from their spawn points once activated. BUT, if someone is in the room with a Slime when they activate, they all split in two after moving 2 spaces towards their target. Meaning anyone but the person who's good against Slimes can quickly get overwhelmed. Of course that leaves the question of "what happens on a 1?"

The exact same thing that happens after all four characters have moved, The Lich activates. Consider the lich the games doom clock. He cannot be bartered with, defended against, or defeated. The Lich marches on towards the party. Since he moves slow, there is no immediate danger for a fast moving party but spending too much time in puzzle rooms, or simply rolling too many 1s will lead the party to disaster. If he is within 3 spaces of a character, they will lose 1 Health. If he touches a character, the player instantly dies.

Which leads to the next point. Either you succeed within your dungeon blitz or if any one character dies, the entire party fails. That, in essence, is this card game. It combines the horde fighting of Gauntlet with the puzzle rooms of Zelda. It is designed to be, win or lose, played in 30-60 minutes, making it an ideal lunch break game.

The primary foundations complete, today is all about Tile creation and room designing. On grid paper, I hammered out 12 rooms that would be standard to the dungeon and 8 rooms designed around various scenarios. With my own super creative symbology, these rooms are easy to understand for the criminally insane. But on top of that, they have the added bonus of showing me exactly what types of tiles I need to fulfill the basic design.




At this point, the number of tiles have increased significantly, as shown in this collection. With the information shown, you can start to decipher how many of the rooms will work.



Which is good because the rooms translate directly to their final form in the following ways.



In other words, Day 2 is complete and I have a strong foundation to complete a quick and dirty prototype. I'm well ahead of the 7 day challenge, but coming up next are two distinct problems. First is the character artwork and the monster artwork needs to look good on a standard poker sized card. Next is how to represent the scenario on a card and include the setup instructions.

Tune in tomorrow to see what happens next!

Note: This idea only appeals to board gamers or people who are interested in a hurried concept series.

One day, in a chat, someone mentioned an inability to make the classic game Gauntlet into a card game. Within a minute, I had a solution which they so cruelly cast aside. But my concept was sound, hopefully balanced(as this challenge has NOTHING to do with playtesting), and figured I would SOOOOO love to design a coop dungeon crawler that plays in 60 minutes or less. I wanted to do all this and more importantly, have it ready by Geekway to the West which, under the best case scenario, gives me about a week to go from concept to printable design.

The game, Dungeon Blitz, foregos most concepts of combat and assumes anything reached within a radius by a certain character is dead. But I also needed something to push those bastards through the dungeon and so I needed a Pyramid Head constantly stalking behind the players, forcing them through. Win or lose, the concept is to get the game over with in 30-60 minutes and more importantly, have a concept go from txt to printable in only a few days. How appropriate that I will document this progress as the Dungeon Blitz Challenge...

Day 1: The Game Crafter, Square Cards, and Monster Sketches.

Since I plan to use The Game Crafter as my printer, I start by downloading some templates for Mini Poker Cards and Square Cards. The Square Cards are 3.5" x 3.5" which, designing this game around placing squares (Zombies, House on Haunted Hill), I had to consider how many spaces I wanted on each card. Being the clever bastard that I am (not), I decided Legend of Zelda style rooms should be best for the concept.


The various monsters. The very bottom right is an instant death character that will force players through the dungeon. The others are Skeleton, Slime, Flash Cat, Wraith, and Goblin.

Each game should also be slightly different as well as have certain types of challenges only solvable by teamwork. Hell, let's even go with scenarios, and pop 10 of them bastards on. So with the workable space on the cards, I could have a 6x6 room with a little over 1/2" squares, or a 7x7 room with 7/16th inch square, or an 8x8 room with 3/8" squares. Keep in mind, these squares WILL feature reused asset with the intent to just hammer out a shitton of rooms.


One hour, several tiles...

With only a basic concept going, these tiles worked well in creating this very basic room.


That's all I got done in a limited amount of time. Tomorrow, I plan to map out simple rooms on Grid Sheets and yes, MAOR TILES.

Those who know me know that I am, as Adam Corolla puts it, Hyper Vigilante. Tiny things annoy me, minor issues explode into universes of grievances, and it can take it's toll over a prolonged period of time. This is a story which many could consider off topic, I consider it the long journey to a Kinect.

You see, I am by no means a skinny person and though my face is slightly ill formed, when added with a paunch, it just seems tragic. And so, with a friend, I decided to join a Gym named Cardinal Fitness. This gym was cheap, down the street from my home, and was typically just busy enough to have people, but not too busy that you couldn't get on a machine.

Of course, the advantage was that I could read books while running in place, and boy did I. The time I spent on the ellipticals meant I could read board game rulebooks, D&D player guides, fiction and nonfiction, etc. I did, however, lack an MP3 player and so I heard everything.

Among the things I heard were conversations that did little to impress upon me the plights of the common man. As an example, hearing two ethnic women discussing the "good news" of a cop that died recently trying to stop a domestic disturbance was depressing. Of the other things I would hear, a sorority girl had troubles convincing her boyfriend that she wasn't into choking, Obama is apparently a communist trying to convert American lifestyles, Jesus loves you but hates gays, a couple top strategies to convince ones significant other into a three way, and how disgusting and out of place fat people like myself were at a gym. These were common conversations everyone seemed to think nobody else could hear.


The entire gym was also very aggressively against those trying to improve while providing an environment appealing solely to those who are improved. Were I a vain man in my physical appearance, this place was a palace of mirrors and a testiment to my awesome rather than a penance to be served for the guilt of being out of shape. Instead, I take vanity in my mental capacity and have mentally masterbated at the turn of a phrase. Mirrors don't help in that case, instead offering a reflection of a doughy man so woefully out of place in this Beautiful Peoples Club.

Time passed and most of these issues could at least be tolerated so long as my friend forced me to continue to go but eventually he moved and my ability to work out was limited to self-control and who REALLY wants to go to an environment they despise. But I continued, solely because I was paying for it.

Then something weird happened, Cardinal Fitness became Charter Fitness and with it came a new influx of members, lower prices for those members, and a general crowding that kicked my hyper vigilance in overdrive. If I felt out of place initially, this was where I REALLY felt like a leper at a dance off (protip: Lepers have real problems with taking the left foot out during Hokey Pokeys). You see, the situation went from "at least I can get on a machine quickly" to "damnit, I gotta wait around for 15-20 minutes for a machine."


I, by nature, am a wallflower. Though I am willing to take center stage, it's often on my terms and when I'm in a situation where attention can easily be paid to me, I try to be as unassuming as possible. In a room full of mirrors, standing behind a row of elliptical trainers and stair machines, and my standing behind this row waiting for a turn for a prolonged period of time, the perception of my character can and was misconstrued on multiple occassions. Though I wait my turn, any which way I turn my gaze has a line of well defined asses. Though my intention was just waiting for my turn, I am aware of how I look. Loose jeans, generic t-shirt, possibly one of the nerdiest pieces of literature ever to be dragged into the gym (most recently, the rulebook to the miniatures board game Dreadfleet), standing nearly motionless in a perceived lecherous intent. As time passed, my willingness to throw myself into this role evaporated completely.

But then I remembered a period where my love of gaming helped me lose weight. I was addicted to early music games and among them, Pump It Up. If you're not aware, let me put it this way. DDRs pad was up, down, left, right, essentially giving you six potentially centers of gravity you could shift to. PIU had 5 buttons in a cross shape, gaining access to 10 potential centers of gravity. Likewise, PIU had what was widely regarded as the best choreographed dance game stepcharts in the industry. As an obsessed idiot, I played the hell out of this game (remember, I can take center stage but only on my terms). More importantly, I lost hella weight. As arcades died, I lost access to these machines and as such, gained weight again.


Of course you COULD always go to the easy fitness games but I tried those before with problems. The biggest being that I have downstairs neighbors who would likely prefer I not frogstomp all over my living room. Next, keeping things fresh in these programs is a huge challenge. After all, how many times can you run in place before it bores you?

But wait, one of my favorite studios makes a dancing game, only I don't have a Kinect and if I buy it, discover I don't have the room for it, well, I'm out cash, right? Right. So I had a couple friends with Kinects and after pestering them for months, one finally lent me his Kinect. After clearing out some space, I discovered Dance Center is NOT running in place or hopping related exercise. With Target's sale this week, I acquired my Kinect and now plan to lose weight in an area where I don't feel weird or out of place, my own home.

Sometimes the world just has to realize how intimidating and hostile of an environment the membership gyms are... maybe THAT'S what is selling so many Kinects. I know that's what sold mine. See? Gaming related after all!