[B] Legend of Sword Master

hockleonggoh

15866162769 replied at 2024-3-12 20:01
本帖最后由 15866162769 于 2024-3-12 20:03 编辑

Very interesting board games, the proposed video o ...

Thanks for the review and suggestion! Let me figure out how to get an account and upload to BLBL.

卡牌帝国

This is so wonderful and I see lots of strategy manipulation methods. Especially between sword, strength and Qinggong, there is a strong connection that we could take advantage of. Decided to put this on Kickstart or 新物集 yet? I really admire Sir Hockleonggoh, and would it possible for you Sir to share the WeChat contact so as to have a further talk?

hockleonggoh

Mason replied at 2024-4-1 14:13
An innovative game, integrating worker placement and movement point mechanisms very well. Especiall ...

After I collate all the icons together, indeed there are many icons in this game. I hope this iconography summary will help players to understand the game. Hopefully, with just 1 playthrough, players can understand these icons without referring to this summary. In the card, I try to use both words and icon together as much as possible to reduce the need to refer to this summary.

拂兰爵

Dear hockleong, It's quite a coincidence that I noticed a similarity between my submission for the competition and your content. While your work revolves around the world of martial arts, mine leans more towards "xiu xian 修仙" which refers to cultivation and immortality pursuits.

From your work, I can tell that you have a comprehensive understanding of Chinese martial arts culture. As a Chinese, I have some tiny thoughts regarding your game, which I'd like to share with you:
1. For the icon part, I don't really understand why are the herb and Ginseng appear at two distinct categories, I suggest you either combine these two icons together to form one category (because Ginseng is the herbs, and herbs are the raw material for making elivirs) or just use only one of them,  for the Elivir part, if you mean the "sphere medicine", you could just use it as a individual icon and no longer needs to expand it further because it could be very confusing. Otherwise if you mean "effective and high quality herbs", than just use herbs, no need to add ginseng as a single icon.
2. For Qing Gong, I know you want to be more cultural so use this word to express the velocity of the character, however, Qing Gong in Chinese does not really mean this, it's means a set of all the prowess and skills that could help the character to make the body light and float longer in the sky. Here I suggest you use the word "flexibility" to replace qing gong, which I think it will make more sense.

hockleonggoh

拂兰爵 replied at 2024-4-14 06:40
Dear hockleong, It's quite a coincidence that I noticed a similarity between my submission for the c ...

Thanks for taking time to review my game! Yes, I use to read most of Jin Yong's novels and, of course, watched many TV adaptations. Yes, i agree that the icons can be reduced further. The resources are now two tiers corresponding to rarity and potency - metal vs meteorite metal; herb vs ginseng. Basically, i just want a simple icon to show that it is rarer than normal herbs. so the herb is used to concoct potions for the disciples while the ginseng is used to concoct elixirs for the master. let me ponder whether these icons and mechanics can be merged to simplify the game.
Yah, the Qing Gong is meant as one of the martial prowess for the battle. but i decided to also use it to allow player to take more actions in a round in the worker placement mechanism. Indeed not as neat.

拂兰爵

hockleonggoh 发表于 2024-4-14 21:10
Thanks for taking time to review my game! Yes, I use to read most of Jin Yong's novels and, of cou ...

I see! I think a better way to show the rarity for the herbs could be to set up a standard of showing different level. For example, just like the western Michelin stars (1 star, 2 stars, 3 stars). If the herb is rarer than another one, you could put two stars to show its rarity (for the normal one you can just put 1 star or no star).
Also, if you want to be more orthodox to the Chinese culture, I can provide you an idea. In Chinese Xuanhuan culture, we use different colors to represent the qualities of the variety of items (this includes herbs, clothes, weapons and other stuff).
From the worst to the best, the color follow as white<green<blue<purple<red<orange.
Here, the color white represents the most common and valueless objectives. The rarity and potency of the objectives increase as the color move forward from white to green, till orange, which illustrates the rarest and strongest items.
In this case, you could dye the margins of each card to show its rarity and potency, and I can assure you every Chinese knows this as long as they are interested in the theme of your game.

hockleonggoh

拂兰爵 replied at 2024-4-15 07:33
I see! I think a better way to show the rarity for the herbs could be to set up a standard of show ...

Thanks for the great suggestion! I do not know that Chinese culture has order of colour. i thought gold or purple will be for he royalty and there are colours of official gown for different office tiers. The colour concept is great although we should be mindful of games for fellow players with colour blindness. i think the star as a subscript will work. Thanks!!

拂兰爵

hockleonggoh 发表于 2024-4-15 08:31
Thanks for the great suggestion! I do not know that Chinese culture has order of colour. i thought ...

The color set was derived from multiple series of online wuxia games from 30 years ago, not from the novel. And yes, in China we think purple and golden color represent good fortune and royalty respectively. There are different opinions between which color is the most sacred (some people say gold some people say red or orange, purple is the color that usually considered to be an exalted color but not the best in most of the online games since it not a color to show the sovereignty.)
I think for color blindness group you can add some ornamental figures or how do you describe it? Ruffled? Considering normal weapons are neat and do not have too many describtive contents, high level items relatively have better appearance.

史叔

Intreresting game！The worker placement mechanism in this game requries player to consider multiple dimensions (master/disciple, MP, number) throughout the game, optimizing benefits in the process. This core mechanic harmoniously aligns with the game's complex rules, offering a deeply strategic play experience.
(很有趣的游戏！作为底层的工放机制需要玩家从多个维度去思考和优化收益，包括选择大师/弟子、分配移动点、放置的数量等，核心机制的深度与游戏整体所体现出来的复杂度是相匹配的。)

However, with such a complex game, complexity for its own sake isn't advisable. My recommendation is that complexity needs to reflect a certain level of meaningful immersion or significance in the gameplay experience. I recommend considering both the uniformity and diversity across various game components. On one hand, strive to simplify where possible by standardizing unnecessary complexities. On the other hand, ensure that the rules which remain distinct are more intuitively thematic, aiding players in memorization and comprehension.
（但这种复杂的游戏，也不能为了复杂而复杂，我建议复杂需要能够体现某种代入上的意义。建议考虑不同要素之间的统一性和差异性，一方面尽可能简化不必要的复杂度，进行统一，另一方面让仍有区别的规则更符合某种代入，方便玩家记忆与理解。）

Given the reasons outlined above, I am appending several concrete examples for your consideration. Please grasp the essence of these thoughts. Ultimately, the decisions regarding any modifications still rest with you and require your own judgment.
（基于上述原因，这里附上几个具体的思考作为例子，请理解并把握其中精髓，最后如何修改仍然需要您自行考量。）

The first point concerns the relationship between the number of disciples and the constraints on their advancement. Currently, the rules governing this aspect seem somewhat contrived and artificially restrictive, lacking a natural fit with the thematic context. From a thematic perspective, it makes intuitive sense that with more disciples, the master would face limitations in time and resources, leading to a less focused cultivation. Consequently, individual disciples might not become as powerful as they would under exclusive training. This logic aligns well with common sense and allows players to balance their gains according to their available resources and strategic preferences—opting to either intensively train a single, stronger disciple or distribute efforts among multiple, weaker ones. This underlying rationale coheres neatly with the primary worker placement mechanism, also providing multiple dimensions which requires player to balance.
（第一个是关于弟子的数量与弟子获得提升的限制，目前这一部分的规则有一些刻意而为之，人为进行了一些限制，而不像是符合某种代入。从代入上考虑，弟子越多，掌门由于时间与资源的限制，分散培养从而弟子不容易比单一培养某个弟子更强，这是比较符合直觉的逻辑，并且也能够让玩家根据自己的资源和策略路线去平衡收益——玩家可以培养1个更强的弟子或者分散培养多个弱一些的弟子，平衡多个维度的收益也跟主要的工放机制的底层逻辑相统一。）

Secondly, concerning the expenditure of Movement Points (MP), the current system somewhat artificially segments action cards, imposing upon players the need to remember rules about spending two points for cross-zone moves and one point for moves within the same zone. If we consider thematic integration, introducing a terrain map could make the MP consumption more intuitive. By directly marking the MP cost on the pathways of the map, the game could become more immersive. Furthermore, set-up randomness through card placement at various locations could add variability and replayability to the game. For particularly significant actions, random locations could be at strategic transit hubs. This way, players' planning and expenditure of MP would be more visually guided and thematically coherent, enhancing their engagement with the game mechanics.
（第二个是关于移动点的消耗，目前是将行动牌进行了类似分区的处理，玩家需要记忆跨区2点同区1点的规则，如果从代入考虑，可以引入地形版图，直接把mp的消耗标注在版图的路径上，并且可以通过卡牌在不同地点上设置的随机性，来丰富游戏的变化和可重玩性。对于一些更为重要的行动，可以在一些充当交通要道的地点当中进行随机。这样玩家对于mp的消耗和规划直接看地图来也更为直观和符合代入。）


Thirdly, regarding card simplification, Adventure cards and Encounter cards share a similar mechanism, suggesting a potential consolidation into a single category. At present, I haven't discerned a compelling thematic necessity for distinguishing between these two types of cards.
（第三个是关于卡牌的简化，冒险牌和遭遇牌共享同一套机制，似乎可以考虑合并成同一类牌？目前我没有发现这两种卡牌，其差异性在代入感上的必要。）