IMPACT! MINIATURES

Father · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 5:15 am Post subject:

A naval game in which small model ships navigate and fight with cannons and magic combined with larger scale deck models and crews (a zoom in feature if you will) for boarding actions would definetly wet my appetite.

Fantastic idea. Only potential complication that I see is that with boarding actions featured so prominently the layout of the different ship decks becomes very important (they are esentially the playing board) You would need to supply ship layouts for each ship type. Other than that I'm very interested. If you ever need a playtester count me in

For reference here is an old board game I used to play when I was younger.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/96

It's rather simplistic in it's rules and there is no RPG element but it sure was a blast to play and demonstrates that the idea has merit.

So sombody agree to design this and make me some gnome pirates, yaharr!!!

Ziggi · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 20

Bodhi · Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 195 Location: Stockholm Sweden

Anybody played the old TSR game "Snapshot" based on simplified Travellers rules? It's a great game that takes place in one little spaceship. One of the great things about it was that they had a geniously simple way for real damage effect. ALL atrributes counted as "hit points" and everytime a character got damaged points were deducted from all attributes (there were no "mental" attributes) so the characters would actually become weaker each time they got hit. It's a feature that far to many RPG and strategy games lack.
I've also pondered on the idea of the "zoom in" feature, combining two different types of game. With flat printed cardboard lay outs that shouldn't be to complicated (goes for both pirate and spaceship ideas). As soon as we start getting 3D about it though production costs would probably pile up quickly.

White Elk's Peyote Rattle · Joined: 09 May 2006 Posts: 39

Darkson · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 5:52 am Post subject:

For me, a Naval game hols no interest - I never was bothered by Man O'War either.

But I can see WERP (I am NOT typing all that!) is cming from on the similarities for the boarding/brawl - perhaps as 2 seperate rules?

Set #1 - the Naval game - ship movement, ship-to-ship combat etc.
Set #2 - the skrimish game - rules for fighing in enclosed spaces (bars, ship decks, dockside warehouses, etc) with rules for improvised weapons (bottles, pool cues, cannonballs, rigging, crates etc) and some eample lists.
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IronAge_Man · Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 8:58 pm Post subject:

I'd love to see minis for a tile-based (hexes or squares) dungeon crawl game (like Talisman, Heroquest, Warhammer Quest etc.), and I even once posted an outline for rules based on Fantasy Football blockdice on TBB. To create your very own game, you could use some custom combat dice, some well established generic ones off Chessex, or whomever else does dice. A nice, quick, 'beer'n'pretzels' type game, with simple stat lines and fast play.

The other thing needed would be printable floor-plans - I believe some companies do those too - one even does printable 3D dungeons! There are many free ones on the web too, for the aforementioned games.

The ultimate would be to launch the rules as Open Source, get other mini makers working on it too, and make some money selling floor-plan card prints (they'd be free to print under the GPL too), combat dice and scenic accessories, as well as minis.
Sharing with other companies would have the benefit of increasing the coverage the game would get, and increasing the customer pool for all the companies involved - it is rare that small, specialist miniature companies make competing products, I've noticed.

It could equally be adapted to post-apocalyptic/zombie/scifi/Space Hulk/horror/vampires etc. genres, and bar-room brawls too.

As Heresy already has plenty of demons and monsters for this genre, heroic figures would be a nice complement for this sort of game.

Mad Jackal · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 240

Ithilkir · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Fife, Scotland

Brief rundown of a game idea I've had floating around in my head.

Setting: Futuristic, but 'hive city', post apocalyptic or cyberpunk streets work best.

Theme: Remember the Speeder bikes from Star Wars? Didn't you always want one? Now you do... You (and the rest of your friends) start off with a lowly punk with a beaten up, busted speeder bike. Through competing in races with other bikers you earn cash to buy new parts for the bike and gain new skills which can improve your driving ability or bike customising skills.

Progression: Easy to setup balanced games, but if you want progression rules, you gain cash from competing in races. To gain skills, you must perform stunts. Whether it's overtaking, ramming, sharp turns or just wild showoff moves. The riskier the stunt, the more XP you'll get, however, you risk botching the move and possibly injuring yourself, damaging your bike or if going for some major stunts, writing off the bike or getting yourself killed.

Board: Two choices... Simply decide on a course with terrain scattered about, or use modular card pieces such as they did with Warhammer Quest to put together tracks (and you can combine packs with friends to make longer tracks)

Modelling Choices: Loads... Bikes are customisable to your hearts content and once a basic chassis is scultped then it's easy to add bits to make a unique bike as well as pilfering parts from various 'riding' miniatures to customise the riders :)
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Cheers,
Stephen

White Elk's Peyote Rattle · Joined: 09 May 2006 Posts: 39

So... equal parts Akira, Dark Future, and Shonan Bakusouzoku?

Depends a -lot- on execution: 'Car Wars' has the detailed version down, but a rules-lite version with emphasis on modeling might fly-

< mumbles> (...I'd still rather see Fantasy Pirates...)

Father · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject:

Evil Git · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 12:09 pm Post subject:

hmmm just had a thought. what about a wacky races type game

yeah remember the cartoon with dick dastardly et al. well mix that with death race 3000 (the film with sly stallone that inspired carmageddon) and we could be onto something.

you are a budding competitor in the local race scene. trick out your car with various oddball contraptions such as big hooks to pick up other cars, magnets, oil slicks etc. and race on a pre determined board like formula d.

you could have it so that the more tricks your car had the slower it became (so not as many squares moved per turn) and stuff like that. you could even have it as a one off game system or as a full league type system.

Dark Lord · Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 2682

I have to agree that generic sci-fi and fantasy minis would be the best. I know I'm more likely to buy minis that can "multi-task" if you know what I mean.

Open the monster manual for D&D and start sculpting!

Also super-hero minis would be cool too!

Bodhi · Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 195 Location: Stockholm Sweden

OH NO, don't open the monster manual! I've found that the best way to stay clear of accidental IP theft is to NEVER look at anything done by ANY other company. Better go to the mythological sources for various monsters and beasts. Stealing a 2000 years old idea and tweaking it a little to your own purposes is SO much more legally safe

djengis_khan · Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 80 Location: Mongolia

I'd like to see some "small" game you only play with only one squad...

like when I started to play warzone and Chronopia... or something like Warzone with small squads and loose the Uber powerful Individuals.. although it was cool to create them..

Chronopia ruled btw.. why don't I pay it anymore?

though some sort of racing game could be very cool but if you have to buy all parts and stuff it might scare me off if it's expensive...

Djengis

Torpor · Joined: 13 Apr 2006 Posts: 35

Ewan - Don't be worried about ideas having been used before. Most every basic concept has been used previously. How many movies are reworkings of 'Romeo and Juliet' or some Jane Austin book for example.

The bar room fight game sounds like a winner - small number of miniatures to start, potential optional add ons, minis can do double duty for the RPG crowd, and can get the beer and pretzel board gamers as well.

One of my favourite games from the early 80's was precisely this sort of game. It was published by Yaquinto and was part of their Album game series (not sure if that was the actual title of the series, but they looked like fat record albums as the box folded out to become the board). It was called "Swashbuckler". It had two boards - a bar and on the other side of the interior... two ships. It was a bit clunky but for half an hour you could be one of the three musketeers throwing beer mugs and furniture at one another in addition to swinging on the chandelier. It had cardboard pieces as was common for the time, but if the concept were updated to have miniatures, it would be great. Yaquinto also did a futuristic bar brawl game in the same series called "Adventurer" but that wasn't as good.

As you can see from the other posts, there have been other games in this niche, but I cannot think of any on the market now or even still in print. So it is unclaimed territory for the current generation of gamers. Make your own version of 'Sense and Sensibility' Ewan and flog it to the wide world. Some people may recognize what you have been inspired by, but you will succeed if you give it a tweak or twist and above all make it entertaining.