Magika does look pretty cool and got a kick off of the video they had on their homesite.

I agree with rude (hope youre feeling better!), think it'll be better with no board, and having the seats as position. aAn idea that can change the positions is if everyone is assigned a position #, example 1, 2 ,3, 4, 5 (5 players) and 1 can only attack positions 5 and 2, and cards can change positions on players. Thats just an idea, to make positions moveable while gladiators manuever with cards rather than "static" spots without having to get up and switch chairs.

On the cards, to facilitate combo manuevers and team assists, we can use CC's idea of having 2 actions on a card. 1 Instant action and another primary action. Typically the primary action is more powerful, but can only be played during a players turn. While the secondary action are instants played out of turn, usually assists, blocks, attk/def modifiers, etc. That way, you'll also save alot on the # of cards in the deck. Just a thought.

BTW i'm done with my game. I'd like to try it out sometimes! It looks fun, BUT i'm sure thats just my enthusiasm talking or my ass.

| Magicka

Hey I would play Magicka, especially for $3.50. I am out of town with no PC access though. Any chance you could gift me a copy? I'll hook you up with The Adventures of Wily Beamish or something when I get back.

Oh and take notice everyone: Rude and I decided, we all need to play L4D2 again, since we only played for like 5 minutes last year!

Games looking good so far!

| save vs sick

Man, I got the gnarliest cold last night while at work. I mean, went to work perfectly fine and over the course of 8 hours or so I totally succumb to the nastiest head cold :( I guess I would have woken sick and this time just got to experience it happen live. SUCKS! I had to cancel my meetup with your Pasadena group Jael! I hope they don't think I'm a flake.

Speaking of 4e, I'm talking to a D&D group out in Burbank (near my gf/vandams house) that I might joined for Wed at NOON games! Man, who plays D&D at a comic book store at NOON in the middle of the week? ME, maybe! The wed game is going to be Dark Sun with 4e rules and maybe some Gamma World :) The DM seems pretty hardcore and runs like 5-6 games a week at all these different places (apparently there's a lot of gaming at comic book stores in the valley that I was never aware of.) Chatted with him and he seemed nice so gonna check it out. Have no exp with 4e other than maybe the stripped down version in the Ravenloft/Ashardalon games.

On the game Rudicus Maximunt: I don't think there should be a board. I thought of that too, but I think for it to work and be quick, the less items outside of cards the better. While sure, it could be fun to move a mini around a grid, I think that's another level of play we don't need to meddle in. Let's keep it simple and abstract, at least in that respect.

If we were to "direct" players to have a particular setup at the table, I pictured maybe an octagon with players little pyramids of cards in front of them, and in the center of that octagon could be draw decks representing weapons, traps, or whatever else is in the arena "space". But that's already probably over thinking things other than "in the center of the table are the draw piles", period.

Like J's idea about maybe hidden factions and the 3 tiers to a character/levels/years. One thing I liked about the D&D Mini's games was that you could flip the character card over to have the level 2 version of the same dude, with upgraded stats. Back to Bang, I liked their multiple characters with different strengths and weaknesses. For this one I imagine different colorful arena characters, maybe even straddling the fantasy line a little - maybe more on the Spartacus side than Lord of the Rings.

REQUIRED VIEWING: Season 1 of Spartacus. So good. Super campy but it just got really good by the 4th or 5th episode and it has tons of these cartoony/gruesome/gnarly gladiator fights. There's an episode called "Thing in the Pit" which was amazing! Netflix only has episodes 5-10 on streaming, Pit is ep 4 :(

Quick synapsis: Sparty needs to make some dough for his boss so he gets taken to the "pits of the underworld" which are the SUPER skeezy underground death fights. There you got your gnarly Conan/Mad Max freaks fighting to the death. The fights have to draw bones to find out what weapon they get. It's bad ass!

Also, another classic gnar-gnar gladiator scene was from the 2nd season of Rome.
The 13th!!!!

Ugh, gonna take some nyquil and knock the F out. Work 3 more nights :(

Steam sale has some jams today like:
Magica - $3.39 (let's do it! 4 player hi-jinx!)
Plants vs Zombs - $3.39 (who doesn't have it tho)
And some other jams.

Ok, night :(

| In summation

Here's a quick summation of ideas, and some more that I'm sticking in:

- Arena gladiator based game, maybe 3 - 8 supported

- Fast play, multiple rounds needed for victory

- Single goal of 3 "victory points" that can be earned through winning the arena, or through hidden victory conditions based on event draws, faction based, etc.

- Fluxx-like card play where each player turn is fast, and cards in each players hand can be played all at once to make super attacks, super defence, combos, or since there is a Fluxx element, a series of "exploding" card sequences (one card causes other cards to be drawn, played, etc.)

- Interrupt cards can be played out of turn by other players.

- Since there is a faction/hidden victory conditions element, maybe there is also an ability to assist other players.

- "Location based", meaning that where you sit at the table determines where you can attack based on what equipment you are using, or what maneuver cards you have played. Location could also be represented on a simple board so players could run away from each other, group up, etc. The board might be too much location restriction rules, I'm thinking 1st vs. 4th ed D&D rules where 4th is a very strict map based game, and 1st is totally free flowing.

- Equipment could be location based too, so a shield card will be placed to better protect attacks from certain sides/players.

- Cards have 0 - 3 values on them representing attack, defense, and combo/maneuver. There are also event cards that can be played to change the rules of the game, maybe? Each turna player can attack another player by simple attack values, or playing a combo card that might need a certain # of total attack/defence/combo values to be played along with it. These combo cards might cause disarmament, a missed turn, inability to attack/defend, reduced hand size, etc. I see this as awesome finishing moves or setups for allies to do some wicked awesome tag team kills, etc.

I don't want to discount Jon's hole punch idea, but like I said, I think it would be totally awesome in a spaceship game.

Hayden was adorable! Youre just a Hayden hater because you don't do any cool reviews on you tube and get free games from publishers.

I started imagining a "romanesque" theme but then rather than going on a tangent, decided to focus on the "arena" theme but I can see how this would work also for classes like senators, assassins, generals, etc. Anyway, back to gladiators, I started thinking, how about the objective of the game could be to get the "Rudius" and win your freedom! In order to do that, you'll have to be crowned champion for 3 non-consecutive rounds. (3 years time span). The trick however is that you can't just kill anyone. You'll be given a color code (faction), and you'll have to figure out who youre trying to kill. Each player Matt also has a different specialization, ie. Trident/net, Heavy shield / sword, Double sword, etc.

Ok, take it away...

Here's a video review of Bang that should be at your level of comprehension Jael, BANG!
Bang Review

I don't remember really liking it much but I think I may have only played it once or twice a few cons back.

EDIT: Ok, now that I was refreshed on what Bang was (I was thinking of the game with the foam guns), I can kinda picture a gladiator "proximity" based game with mutliple people. You can say that certain weapons/hand-to-hand only allow you to attack the persons directly next to you, while other weapons like a Pike would open up attacking the person 2 or more spaces from you. Players might also need to decide if they're going to defend/evade this turn instead of attacking, and if you've got a shield or something like that, if you defend in a certain direction (Johnny keeps beating on me from the right, so I'll shield that way next turn), leaving you exposed on the other side.

| chitty chitty bang bang... (remember Mrs poppins?)

damn... that's a lot of physical activities rude, but sounds really fun! Boxing though, id hate to get punched in the nose. I know most people start out as mush and training stuff for noobs is really non-contact, but at some point you might change your mind. But dude, get ripped! you might look like Jon tong soon.

Eric: I haven't played bang yet, so probably have to try that first...

| Fast Play

For our first endeavor, I was thinking more of a fast play game, like BANG!, but of course, lots more fun. Hands are cycled through quickly, maybe all at once if you stack your cards for a big attack or combo, lots of interrupts from other players, etc. Maybe even a little Fluxx-ish, if that doesn't turn too many people off!

Like 15 - 30 minutes I'm thinking.

I think the hole punch cards sound like a sweet idea for a spaceship combat game with the hit holes in the cards match up with different locations on the ships.

Jon - Like that idea of cards with holes in them. So is it like, imagine a card has 3 stripes on it with different functions: Attack/Defense/Item or whatever. Then if you place another card on top of it, the holes will highlight numbers on the cards beneath?

Jael - Cool diet :) I've been nuts on activities lately, so with a more controlled diet, I should get into better shape. Twice a week I do dragon boating which is mostly core-stuff, then I joined a boxing gym which I'm going about 3 times a week. That's fun man, makes you feel like a warrior :)

As far as 2+ players for the game, maybe we can start by looking at it as a 2-player game with the ability to expand if you combine another set bringing it up to 4. Besides the weird balance issues Thunderstone had, it handles a big group of players pretty well. But instead of building your deck to fight monsters, you're fighting each other?

Steam: SpaceChem is only $5 bucks today. It's fun and HARD, but when you successfully beat a mission it feels great. Really interesting puzzle game.

Conan: I never played it either! I would be interested in maybe trying it. I remember it got pretty dismal reviews. Didn't live up to the hype of what it was supposed to be like. But FREE is pretty hot and I'm willing to give it a shot. I'll go d/l the client and then we can try it out someday soon in the future :)

Jon - Brilliant!

Maybe the cards could have holes in them, in different places, like punchcards. And if you place a card on top of another card, in way that shows both its attack values, you get to use both numbers!

(Side note: Rude, I can't remember if you tried Age of Conan or not. It just went free to play, and I've always been kinda intrigued. Any thoughts?) (Side note 2: picked up Recettear for $5 in the Steam Sale!)

July 4th weekend!

Started a new diet and workout regimen. Balance of carbs and protien - carbs are for energy, so I eat a carb heavy breakfast and lunch then a low low carb diet at dinner time so the carbs won't be stored as fat. Protein are hard to digest, so I take 20-25 grams of protien breakfast lunch and dinner and spread it out evenly. Goal is to gain 10 lbs of muscle and lose 10 lbs of fat! Makes tons of sense huh!

On Gladiator:
How hefty should the game be? 2 player would be much simpler, 4-6 players is going to be the challenge in terms of determining the game mechanics while keeping the # of cards manageable and that has viability of fun and fast with an average gametime around 45 min to 1 hour?

RE: Gladiator Card Game. I wonder if it's a deck-building game (sort of the in-thing for a while now) or something else. What would the table look like to someone walking by? I'm maybe picturing each player having a spread of cards in front of him maybe representing his fighter. When one player attacks someone else, they remove/tap/something another players particular stack of cards.

Interlude: One thing I may or may not need to quell is how whenever an idea is thrown out I immediately try to think of something that already exists that sounds like it. I guess that's inevitable but I don't know if that's counter productive. For example, when you said a gladiator combat game I thought of JAB . Never played it (not sure if it's even out yet) but the pictures of how the cards are layed out his awesome! Look at the pic gallery.

Back to Gladiators, one thing I think of from tv/film examples of that kind of combat is how there can be random weapons up for grabs. Also, wild animals (if things aren't moving along fast enough.) These things could be cards.

| AT = The Crowd

Design by committee, sort of. Just a bunch of crazy concepts and ideas about a game, be it feel, favorite mechanics, genre, what have you, and bounce the ideas around for a while and see if anything sticks and maybe try to get some basic rules together, iterate the rules, publish it, make millions! I'll start:

A gladiatorial combat game that uses cards. Should scale from 2 - 6 players, cards are used for attack, defense, and events. Each card can have some, all, or one of the att/def/evt values and can be played together to increase a value, or in a sequence for sweet combo chain effects.

Something to be played at conventions. Fun, fast, good balance between flexibility and simplicity. Combos should be something special to behold, but not impossible to pull off.

Now someone else take the idea and add to it, change it, tear it a new one, or build from it! Aaaaaaaaaaand GO!

I totally don't know what crowd design source means, but if it means we make games or something, I'm in! What do you mean?