GeekFight Rules finalized

[Josh]

Looks like the rules have been finalized for the game. I've looked them over and while they still retain the same balance issue inherent in the idea of a game played with a 7 card hand the rules themselves are sound. I imagine Charon will be posting them in the forum at some point to let people have a look at them.

I'm hoping to get another shot at playtesting before everything goes to print though, I'm fairly certain I can still build an invincible 7 card hand.

[Charon]

Though they are sound, I have found that they are very confusing for the uninitiated. I am doing an all day overhaul on them tomorrow followed by a proxy building spree. The resources have been alotted for the combatants and their toys, now the costs just need to be balanced out.

Also, a couple of the cards you were abusing were neutered. They have been changed to reflect their original intent. The change to letting a combatant spend and attack in the same turn broke a couple of cards. There are also limits to how many items a combatant can hold and item control has been improved. I think some of the new tactics are going to be seeing more play as well.

If all goes according to plan and I slack off just as much as I plan to we should have ourselves some play testing this Saturday. I would also like to start working on the deck rules, but they do not have to be complete this weekend. I like that you tried to translate the hand rules into a deck format, but that was never my intention and you saw how many things were lost in translation.

[Josh]

That translation was impromptu, once we're sure of the hand versions rules I'll extrapolate them to a deck version for you. It will take maybe 45 minutes. We were just playing around with the last version of them.

I still think that I will be able to create an unstoppable 7 card hand in the hand version. Are you coming down for play testing + dinner this saturday at my place? We're all going down the riva saturday during the day.

[Surfeit]

I'm going to drive Kalan down after he gets off work at 6. If you don't think you'll be home by 7, we can wait a little bit before leaving.

Looking forward to playtesting.

[Josh]

We're going early, like 10 am, should be back at the house by 5.

[Charon]

Well, the rules did not really change. However there was a pretty sizeable paradigm shift with the dropping of a resource type. Fortunately that has nothing to do with the art or cards since only one card has gone to print, and everything is being adjusted.

Also, we are not making random packs. 6 different fixed packs, that is all. Easier colation, and if a person can drop less than $10 on a set, and still have money for adding duplicates for a deck I can actually see us selling out.

[Josh]

Had a mini playtesting session with Surfeit yesterday using the deck version. Couple of issues we found, we need a rules clarification when using Unattended Child and choosing to steal an item with a forfeit ability.
Can the item be forfeited instead of handing it over to the child (Caffeine as an example) or does the child take it without any chance to forfeit it?

The other issue is that the Sword of 10000 souls promo card comboed with the Noob is incredibly powerful, to the point that even using my monster setup to get a guy doing 18+ damage within the first 3-4 turns and killing like 4-5 geeks before losing my first one the deck using the Sword of 10k souls was able to come back and one shot everything. The problem with the interaction isn't so much the strength of the sword, it's the mechanic of removing your character from play, then allowing your opponent a turn, then playing a new geek and swinging.
Because your opponent doesn't get an opportunity to attack a geek it essentially is allowing you a free attack against your opponent. I think since the Sword of 10k souls is a promo the issue can be solved by only allowing 1 in a deck. But it may not even need to be changed since it IS a promo card after all.
Everything else played very well. I like the improved power of the Tactic cards. They are much better balanced now since they add a permanent bonus to a geek until it dies. Much better.
Another possible balance issue was the number of items you can have in play at a time. Only allowing 2 items to be in play makes healing items like Caffeine and the Ramen less valuable because you would have to sacrifice the opportunity of having 2 weapons out in order to use the healing item. This may be intentional due to the power of healing items, but I think it should be examined. A possible option might be to allow only 2 "equipped" items at a time but to allow say 3 items to be in play, or even 4. Or to just create another card at some point in the future that is a "Backpack" that allows you to play items into it and forfeit items that are in the backpack, but not get any other benefit from them.
We verified that Grognard with 4 resource generation is indeed broken as hell, so the change to 3 is good. Lan Tourney being increased to +4 was a good choice, but I think with its lower cost it might be too powerful compared to Geek Rage, I might say increase geek rage to +4, reduce Lan Tourney to +3 and make Lan Tourney give the L33t Haxor (Or possibly Video Gamers in general) an additional +2. Or possibly reduce it to +3 and add a special ability to the Haxor that gives him an additional +2 from it since he doesn't have a special ability.

I might have more suggestions after the full playtesting session today, but everything is looking REALLY good and playing really smooth. We taught my brother how to play and he was able to pick it up in a few minutes. So, everything at this point is just little details that aren't critical to balance or gameplay, just minor tweaks and suggestions. I really feel good about the game.

Unfortunately I won't be able to go to DragonCon because I have to go to Gainesville, FL that from Thurs - Tues over that weekend for work. So I won't get to promote the game as much as I want to. But It's hard to turn down a 2000$ weekend worth of work. Sorry guys.

Josh

[Charon]

I am really glad you like how the game looks and plays. It is almost time!

[guitalex2008]

I believe a good starting hand is Random Anime Character, Sci Fi Guy, Man-Faye, Obsessive Fangirl, Crony in Training, then draw one Sword of 1000 Souls and Concession Stand/Cosplay Contest. :)

Play Random Anime Character, spend 4 for Crony as an item for +9 health, spend 0 for Sword, sacrifice Random Anime Character. +9 health and +10 damage is a pretty nice boost for anyone coming in. Only PWNED!!!one and Unattended Child can stop it :). Man-Faye will then proceed to take care of... whatever business Man-Faye takes care of........ :-/