Gears of War: The Board Game analysis

This week me and some of my classmates sat down and played Gears of War: The Board Game. I haven't actually played any Gears of War game but I've seen others do and I've heard quite a lot about it. We had no idea what to expect because how would you translate a 3rd person shooter into a board game? Our first impression was that this game is huge. There were so many components after opening the box. We spent about an hour unpacking everything and reading the rules to make everything was in the right place.

Us trying to figure things out.

Introduction

After setting everything up we were ready to start playing. The game is played by one to four players. You play as one of the characters in Gears of War, a COG member and you fight the evil locusts. The game is played through several missions available that is also in the video game. You start by choosing a mission, then according to what mission you chose you setup up the game according to the instructions. There is a lot of preparation to be done for this game. Each player chooses one out of four characters who have different bonuses. The amount of enemies and how the level looks are specified by the mission you chose. There is some randomization during setup so each mission will never play out the same.

A typical level setup

Neat figures that represents the enemies in the game, locusts

The first mission in the game is emergence, it's kind of like a tutorial level for noobs. The goal is to seal up an emergence hole from which locusts spawn from. The game is played in turns and a player starts by drawing two order cards. Order cards are basically your actions, you can use them to perform certain moves like move three areas or attack an enemy. Some order cards allow you to attack several times in one round or move extra far. 

After you're done with your actions you draw an AI card. These AI cards determine what the enemies do and after the AI turn is done the turn is passed to the next player. The AI cards can be anything from attacking the nearest player or spawning in a swarm of locusts at an emergence hole. The combat is done with two types of dices, attack and defense dices. All players start with three different weapons and ammo for them. The weapons determine how many attack dices you get to roll. In emergence you have to seal the emergence whole and you do that by throwing a bolo grenade at it.

The Good

Gears of War: The Board Game is a very immersive experience once you get the hang of it. You really feel like you're being overrun by a swarm of enemies. You constantly have to make decisions that determine your survival. You can tell that a lot of thought went down into the development of this game. It's very well made, everything ranging from the beautiful figures you get with the game to the amazing level design is gorgeous. Everything about this game is high quality; it's visually appealing and feels polished.

From what I heard from my classmate Simon who is a Gears of War fan, it is very accurate to the original. It is a great abstraction of the video game, the mechanics and the aesthetics all fit the series very well. I've never played a board game that actually manages to capture the feeling of a 3rd person shooter until I played this.

The Bad

After praising it so much there surely couldn't be any faults with it? Well there is but I don't think it's that bad of a flaw. The only thing about this game that was subpar was the fact that it took a painfully long time to learn. The learning curve of this game is very steep and even when you think you know everything something new pops up. 

The only way to fully learn this game is to play it, this means that the first couple of missions you play might not be the full experience because you will constantly be checking the rulebook to find out what's going on. One short mission takes about 30 minutes to prepare and one hour to play so we're talking about a lot of time going down into just learning the game. This means that it's advised to play this with someone who have a played it before so they can explain the rules for you. The instructions can be very overwhelming at first but don't let that scare you away.

The Interesting

The most interesting thing about this game is the order card system. You start the game with six order cards and you draw two each turn, you can have a maximum of six so you'll have to discard if you have too many. They are basically actions that can work in a multitude of ways. Some action cards lets you move the enemies toward you so you can ambush them and some let you draw another order card and gives one of your allies an extra turn. Some are very ordinary and let's you move three areas and perform an attack but they are all important and not a single one of them feels wasted. 

There are three types of order cards; guard, dodge and follow cards. If you have a dodge order card you can discard it during a fight to increase your chances of survival. If you have a guard card you can discard it to fight back when an enemy attacks you. My fauvorite of them is definitely the follow card; the follow card can be discarded to let you travel with a fellow player during their turn. This means that if you all have follow cards on your hand in the first turn you can all four move up the level like a deadly assault team.

Oh did I forgot to mention? The order cards are also your health. If you lose all of them and are attacked by a locust you are knocked out. A fellow player can revive you if you are on the same space by discarding an order card. You have to balance and manage your order cards very carefully.

Two order cards, the left one being a guard type and the right one being a follow type.

Target Audience

While this game is obviously aimed at Gears of War fans, this game is for everyone who has played a multiplayer shooter. I've never played any of the Gears of War games but I enjoyed this just as much as anyone would. It captures the feeling of working in a squad of soldiers very well. The game is made for people ages 18 and up who enjoys working in a squad of elite soldiers exterminating deadly aliens. I believe that because the game is branded with Gears of War it might scare away people who would really enjoy this.

Core System Nr. 1

The most vital system in this board game is the order card system, it enables the player to take action but also works in a multitude of ways. It is what drives the game forward and makes for many interesting situations. You have to carefully balance your order cards to make sure you have enough of them to move forward. If you end up using all your order cards on helping your teammates or guarding you are very vulnerable to locust attacks. We noticed during the game that when you were attacked you always had to make a choice whether you should discard the dodge card to increase defense or if you should hope that they roll low on their attack dices and take the hit. When you discard a card to increase your dodge you still lose one health since the order cards are your health. 

Core System Nr. 2

The other core system was a tough choice for me; it would either be how the enemy worked and the AI cards or how the game was setup with missions. While both of them are important to the game everything revolves around the locusts being the antagonists. The amount of locusts are determined by the mission but what actually determines what happens is the AI cards. When first setting up the mission you take out certain AI cards according to the mission and shuffle them in a pile. Because they are shuffled it means that anything can happen when you draw from it. It is also what makes the locusts attack the players. If a player is lucky they can go several rounds without getting attacked by locusts but that means that sometime later they are going to get all dangerous AI cards at around the same time. This adds a lot of replay value to the game which means that you can play several missions over and over. It is also optional to increase the difficulty of the game in multiple ways, this means that you can always increase the challenge if you feel like there is none.

Conclusion

Gears of War: The Board Game is a very advanced and interesting game. It brings the video game shooter genre to life in a traditional board game. The overall quality of the game is very high and everything feels polished. The instructions can be very heavy and it is quite hard to learn. The game itself makes up for it faults though, as long as you give it a chance I promise you that you won't be disappointed. If you got the time why not try it, it's not that expensive. Thanks for reading.

Roll out the mechs, 3D week 3

Hello again, last week's blogpost I said that I would make a vehicle from one of four concepts. Since it's too badass to resist I chose the mech. I felt like it was the logical thing to do because it seemed like an interesting challenge. When I finally decided I immediately went in to pre-production.

The mech I decided for

Besides the concept we were also to choose a game in which this model we are to make would fit in. At first I started thinking that this mech would fit in the Metal Gear universe or ARMA. Those games were good matches for the mech but it wasn't perfect and then I suddenly started remembering a game I played a lot a couple of years ago, Battlefield 2142. This mech is perfect for Battlefield 2142, if you've played it you would know what I mean. The game is basically battlefield with big mechs like the one in the picture.

The first step was to find good reference pictures that matched what I was going for. I found a lot of good references by searching for tanks and robots. Since I was going for a desert feel I included the M1 Abrams tank in my references, it also looks totally badass. The M1 Abrams also has a very nice deserty plate armor which I'll try to include in the mesh and textures later on. This here below is my gathered references, it's not all of them but it's the ones I found most important.

I also researched a lot about hydraulics, I really wanted to know how this machine works and moves. Understanding how it works is an important step to get good results. I went to Youtube to find moving reference material of quadroped robots. It was really cool but sometimes creepy to see how they work. Here are some of the videos I found useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQicXbj5Ivs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0KMDNtEpvc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-KF1Prj5ZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

After researching a bit I created a prototype in 3DS MAX to see how it moves. I created a fast rig and started animating but I found it incredibly hard to do. The other robots I've been checking material on has mostly been robots with spider legs. The legs of this mech wasn't as flexible and efficient as the spider legs, this one had more of a turtle's legs.

I struggled with the animating part so I can't really show what I did because it didn't turned out very well. I at least have a general idea of how to do it now. All this research will help me when I get into modelling and designing the mech.

Oh yeah almost forgot, last tuesday the entire class went to a museum about almost everything from the stone age to the 19th century. We were to take pictures of some of the objects in the museum for reference. It was really interesting and I got a lot of good reference photos. I'll end the post with a few photos I think turned out well, these are times I wish I had a better camera. Thanks for reading, I will probably post an update during the week of my progress on the mech.

3D Week 2

Hello again, just wanted to do a quick update on what's been going on lately in my 3D progress. This week is the second week since I started taking this course about 3D, for this week we made some crates. I chose to do a Sci-Fi crate with a clean borderlands look. It took about a five hours to make and was made quite hastily but I'm pretty happy with the results. I even did a fancy animation for it because why not. Making stuff like this in haste is a pretty good way to improve your workflow and everytime you repeat a simple process you've done before you get more efficient.

Besides the crate I got a very interesting assignment from my teacher. I am to make a vehicle from some concepts I've received. The challenge is to make it complete and ready for importing to a game. This includes modelling, baking, UV-mapping, texturing, rigging and animating. I'm very thrilled for this since I lose a challenge. Here below is the four concepts I'm to choose from, I haven't decided yet which one but I'll keep you informed. Thanks for reading and sorry if it was a bit short but I'll make up for it in the coming weeks.

Munchkin Analysis

Introduction

So I got this awesome assignment from school to play a board game with some classmates and analyze it, what better game to play than Munchkin. I will now take a look at the card game Munchkin and try to analyze it. For those of you who haven't heard of Munchkin before I'll try to explain what it is. Munchkin is a highly competitive card game with a comical twist. If you've played it before I'm sure you know what I mean and if you haven't you'll see what I mean by the end of this analysis. Before I start analyzing the game and finding out why it's so good/bad I need to explain how it works.

What is Munchkin and how does it work?

Munchkin is based on the typical fantasy roleplaying games we know and love but with a comical twist. Munchkin is a popular game with tons of different versions of it, they are basically the same but with different themes such as Munchkin Cthulhu based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft or Star Munchkin with a Sci-Fi Twist. The version I have been playing is Munchkin Pathfinder based on the roleplaying game Pathfinder and it is that version I will be analyzing.
Munchkin is played with four or more players, preferably with good friends or mortal enemies. A fun thing about this game is that cheating is allowed if no one sees you doing it.

The basics of Munchkin is to kill monsters, betray your friends, gather treasures and level up. All the players start at level one, the goal of the game is to reach level ten first. In Munchkin there are two types of cards, door cards and treasure cards. Door cards include monsters, classes, factions, curses and other various effects. Treasure cards consists of items, effect cards and go up a level cards.

Go up a level cards can be played immediately and adds a level, this can not be the game winning level.

Let's go through the beginning stage of Munchkin. Two decks, one with treasure cards and one with door cards are shuffled and then each player is handed four of each. This game is turn based so one player is selected to go first and after his or her turn the next player clockwise or however you want to do it gets to play their turn. Before anyone starts their turn any player can equip or use items, play class or faction cards and go up a level cards. After your turn you must discard cards so you don't have more than five on your hand. You can also sell treasure cards and buy from other players, when you got 1000 gold pieces you level up and your gold is reset. A level from gaining 1000 gold can not be the game winning level.

Let's say we start our turn first. We equip our armor and use the Eagle Knight faction card. Our faction is now Eagle Knight, this means that we cannot use another faction card unless another card says we can. Our armor of insults gives us a +2 bonus, this +2 bonus plus our level is our combat strength. So we are level 1 and we have +2 from our armor which gives us 3 in combat strength.

Each turn the player must kick the door. This means drawing one card from the door deck face up so everyone can see it and something happens depending on what type of card it is you drew. If I draw a curse I am afflicted by it's effect like this one below which makes me lose by best item, this would be my armor of insults in my case.

A typical curse card. If I start with a curse or draw one face-down I can use it against other players.

Let's say I didn't draw a curse and I drew a monster card, I now have two options and that is to run away or fight it. I've encountered a Level 1 Hobbled Goblin, its combat strength is equal to its level which is 1. This monster is no match for my +3 in combat strength and I defeat it easily. After defeating it I get to loot the room for 1 treasure which I draw facedown from the treasure pile and go up a level making me level 2 and my combat strength +4. Monsters always wins ties unless you have a card that says otherwise.

Let's say the monster was level 6 and I attempted to run away. When running away I roll a dice and I must get 4 or higher to successfully run away. If I fail in running away I am inflicted with the monsters bad stuff which is descriped on the card. Bad stuffs can vary from losing levels, losing items, getting a permanent -3 in combat and even dying. Upon death a player throws away all their cards except class or faction cards that are in use and wait upon their next turn to draw four door cards and four treasure cards. Levels are retained even in death.

If I neither drew a monster or a curse card I can either play a monster from my hand to battle it or take a face-down door card and end my turn. If I battle I cannot draw the face-down door card at the end of the turn. Players are welcome to trade cards with each other and assist each other in combat. When assisting someone in combat you don't get any levels but you can discuss the reward for your assistance, for example two treasure cards. When fighting together your combat strengths are added together. That's how your play Munchkin basically, the rules might seem hard at first but once you get into it and actually start playing you'll learn it in no time.


Munchkin, Round 1, Fight!

Enough of the rules, let's see how it went for me and my classmates when we played our first round of Munchkin. Me and four of my classmates gathered around the table to play Pathfinder Munchkin, all but two of us hadn't played the game before so we started with a test round to figure out the rules. It started out with everyone equipping themselves up with items, factions, classes and so far it was pretty fun and not much conflict. After a while, I was in the lead, level 9 and that's when it went chaotic. Because I was so close to victory everyone started working against me, this included cursing me by removing all my items, reducing my level and messing up my combats with effect cards. If I were up against a monster who had 16 in strength and I had 18 they would strengthen the monster so I ended up dying and losing everything. After being abused by all my friends I was almost out of the game, no cards or items left to use.

An effect card that can add +3 in combat strength to either side.

The game went back and forth a lot after I was weakened. Everyone had been stocking up on cards that could be used against other players, to undermine their progress and secure their own. The outcome in this stage was near impossible to predict but after a while everyone ran out of steam, no cards left to play. One of my classmates, Martin ended up winning because no one could stop him.

This game escalated so quickly when players started getting higher levels, I could barely keep up. The randomness of it all makes it very enjoyable. I was so close to winning and yet it turned around so quickly. We noticed afterwards that everyone had been cheating in one way or another during the game whether it was holding to many cards or slightly bending the rules. Keeping track of everything becomes really hard when the game is nearing its conclusion. Amidst the confusion I had eight cards on my hand while I was only allowed five yet no one noticed. What was supposed to be a test round turned out to be loads of fun. This round took about two hours to play.


Munchkin, Round 2, Fight!

Now we're all familiar with the game, by the beginning I already noticed the evil grins of my fellow classmates. This start involved a lot more trading than the round before, we would sell and trade items to prepare ourselves for the oncoming onslaught. This round I wasn't in the lead which I believed was a good thing, I was saving my items for the end and played quite passively. Unlike the first round, when one player would face up against a strong monster everyone else would offer their help in exchange for a fitting reward.

By helping the weak players progress we get stronger ourselves. Things escalated as before into chaos as my classmate, Simon was closing in on victory. As every round went on we threw everything we had at everyone else, hoping that when our turn came we could secure our own victory. Martin ended up winning again and we could do nothing to stop it. It all felt like a giant lottery, we were just increasing our chances. This round took about one hour to complete, considerably shorter than the first one, perhaps due to the first one being more of a learning experience.

Round 3

This round was very much like round 2 but more diverse. Four players, including me was around level 7 and 9 when one was level 3. We were three level 9s competing for the victory while the two other players who were low level was only sabotaging for us with higher level. I won this round by manipulating others into using all their stuff on the others with high level. I started noticing around now that this was much like poker, you can't reveal your hand too early and bluffs can be very effective. This round was about one and a half hour long.

Round 4

The last round we played together was a close one, everyone had been learning and adapting to each others playstyles. We had been testing different tactics and figuring out what worked effectively. This ended like all the other rounds in total chaos. The first player to go for the victory is almost always guaranteed to be sabotaged. I won this won too but it was extremely close, everyone was level 9 waiting for an opportunity to claim the victory. It was really cool to play such a competitive round without an underdog, goliaths facing each other on fragile ice.

Target group interpretation

Munchkin is fun for any group of people I think, but it is definitely more enjoyable by people who get the references and has a roleplaying game or fantasy background. It is aimed at teenagers and people under 30 who grew up with roleplaying games but I think it's enjoyable for everyone as long as they have the right mindset towards it. The comical aspect of the game appeals to many young people but many children won't get most of the references so I wouldn't recommend it towards anyone under 12. I also believe it gives adults an opportunity to be childish.


Summary

Munchkin is a great card game, a heap of fun. The balance of the game is that there is none, the most important part of Munchkin is the social aspect. The chemistry between the players is the best thing about the game. It creates situtations where we hate and love each other, the group dynamics are amazing. The rules are not set in stone and the game is very flexible in a way, because why not cheat if no one notices anyway. We only have one goal and that is to reach level 10 first. The cards are designed in such a way that it feels like they are there to empower us, they are tools for our victory. We might hit a wall and be in last place but we always have the opportunity to mess with our fellow players. One bad thing about the game is that if you're unlucky it can be very slow and unfair. There are curses that make you lose all your cards in your hand and then you have to wait a lot of turns before you can recover from it. Even though the randomness can sometimes be bad it can also be a blessing in disguise, it allows for a lot of funny situations and much replayability. I love Munchkin and I will definitely play it more in the future, thanks for reading.

Blog revival and 3D Week 1

After a break in the summer i'm back into the blogging game. I've started a new course in 3D and I will for ten weeks post 3D related stuff. This week I will be analyzing three different screenshots from different games and I will also be posting some of my work I've worked on throughout the week. I will start with the screenshots. I will talk about what makes them good and/or bad from an artist's perspective, let's get started!

Screenshot 1 - Batman

I haven't really played this game which can be good because I'm a bit impartial.This screenshot oozes of action and suspense. You can feel the strength of the composition from the slanted camera angle, this makes for a very exciting screenshot. I like that the camera is positioned in such a way that it feels like it's me lying next to Batman. The center of attention in this screenshot is obviously the dude with the gun. His armor gives him an artficial look which is cold and intimidating, he looks like a killing an assassin. He has so much power in this picture and I will explain why now. All the details in the screenshot is focused on mostly him and a little bit on batman. His silhouette is reinforced by the lighting, the color and the blurry background, he really stands out.

Conclusion: A very simple and straightforward screenshot, they want us to look at the dude with the gun and I think they've succeeded with that pretty well.

Screenshot 2 - Bioshock Infinite

Now this is a game I've played, Bioshock Infinite. If you haven't played this game already I highly recommend it. Enough praise, let's chop this up and analyze it. The first impression I get from this is the color and the architecture. I feel that this picture is trying to show me that this is just like an ordinary town, but way better. There's no litter on the streets, everything looks like it's in top shape, it's too perfect, in an eerie way. The focus in this picture is the statue in the middle, everything around it, the buildings, the people is all gathered around it; almost as if the statue was there way before the city was there. Utopia is the right word for this screenshot, the architecture and the constructions feels very warm and cozy unlike today's skyscrapers. The people and the vegetation makes it feel more organic than it is. The skyrail and the propellers merges in with the rest of the picture well, it makes the picture more interesting than it already is. I feel like i'm watching from a cat's point of view which feels a bit meh to me. I would have preferred a human's perspective but I guess it's to make you feel small.

Conclusion: A beautiful, colorful, playful and interesting screenshot to look at. There's not really any cinematic feel to the picture because nothing is really into focus, everything points to the statue but my eyes often wander off towards all the other interesting stuff unlike the earlier batman screenshot.

Screenshot 3 - Dishonored

Dishonored is also a very good game, definitely recommend this one too. This picture feels like a mix between the earlier two pictures. This one feels slightly cinematic, perhaps due to the first person perspective like we had in the batman one. This picture really sucks you in, i'm drawn to the building in the middle because it takes up so much of the space in the picture. The boat and the building indicates my direction and where I should go. The focus of the big building is reinforced not only by the detail but also by the color and light Of all the houses in this picture the big one is the only one where we can see inside, we can also see that the lights are on indicating it's a place we can go. Because the houses are in a row of eachother it helps me understand the scale of it all. We can also notice some color on our friend on the boat, it indicates that he is someone of importance to us, he is guiding us to where we need to go. This screenshot gives a vibe of industrial london, a very rough place to live. There is almost nothing organic in the entire picture expect from our friend on the boat and the reeds in the water.

Conclusion: This picture is tough and merciless, we are making our way through this industrial maze of houses. Amongst this abundance of small houses we see this one destination reinforced by the entire composition. I like this one because it tells both me and my eyes where to go, it doesn't feel forced.

Now that I'm done with the screenshots I will show you a little off my work during this week. I'll start this off with what I learned from a monday lecture. I was introduced to way of prototyping a game level quickly in the modelling software 3DS MAX. The idea is to use simple 3D shapes like boxes, spheres, cylinders and cones to quickly get an idea of what you want to do. This saves a lot of time in the pre-production phase of developing games. I created a quick level with the game Uncharted as an inspiration and the word danger as a theme. This took about two hours to create, with plenty of practice it will go a lot faster.

I also wanted to show off this fairly low poly knife I made in 3DS MAX and Photoshop. It took about a day to create and I like my results given the time I spent on it. I experimented with a texturing software called DDO by Quixel, if you haven't tried it you should check it out. Thanks for reading!