Metatopia - Bank Job (Working Title)

I was in the subway coming home one night and thought about the song The Bank Job by the Barenaked Ladies. It's a lot of fun, it's a great song and I felt like I should make a Bank Job game. Not much behind it other than that, I hope that it works as well as I want it to.

What is it, or the Elevator Pitch.

You play a group of bank robbers trying to get as much money as you can, while double crossing the others out of their share. 

The Slightly Longer Pitch

You play cards and bid on various jobs. These jobs give you bonuses, but of course depending on the situation might get you screwed over. Before you bid for the jobs, each person will determine what job they want to screw over. 

What does the game do, how does it work?

Each player gets a set of cards. These cards are valued at 1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5. You reveal the bank, and then each player decides what role they want to screw over and then you bid on the various jobs hoping that you end up getting the jobs that don't get screwed over even if you're the one who screwed over that job. 

What are you hoping to get out of Metatopia for this?

Really, a whole helluva lot. This is something that just came out of my head very quickly. I don't know if it's even a good idea, or if the game works. 

[Need a Catchy Contest Name] - Webcomics!

I was recently at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) and I got to thinking. There was that whole kerfuffle in the community about licensed products and their viability and blah, blah, blah. Lot of people complaining about games and kind of missing the point.

Make games that you want to make, and play games that you want to play. By all means experiment and try new things, because doing nothing but the same thing rots your brain, but play what you like.

With that in mind, I had an idea. Why don't we see if we can do that. Pick a webcomic that you enjoy and try to turn it into a game. Find what makes the comic work and then try to turn that into a game. Any game fits. A card game, a board game, an RPG. Let your imagination fly.

Despite the utter failure success of the last contest, I think doing another one quickly is good. Keeps the creative juices flowing.

GIANT WARNING RIGHT HERE!
Just because you're doing stuff with a web-comic, doesn't mean that you have their permission. That means you can't use any of that artist's art, unless you have permission and at that point in time you'd probably just go ask if you can product the RPG/Card Game/Board Game for them anyway.

You don't have to go that far, but you can if you want. They key thing is to replicate the feel of the comic.


How do I enter?

1. Well, post here expressing your interest and what webcomic you're using as your inspiration.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.

Deadline
Well, this last contest went until September, how about we call this one for January 31st, 2012. That means you've got four months to get your stuff together and see what you can come up with.

Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.

The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?

Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.

I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.

That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.

[Need a Catchy Contest Name] - Post your Final Product Here

For all of you not paying attention, we've got a contest that's going on where you have to Blood-bowlify a winter sport. The original thread is here if you missed it. Well, with a month and a bit left to go I thought I'd post the link that allows you to put forward you finished product.

Something Cool - Handcrafted Dice

Someone just posted this over at the Self-Promotion page at the free rpg forums and I thought I'd share.

It's someone who does specialty dice. Holy crap they look cool.

Check them out. They even have an "open source" how to guide on how to do things yourself.

http://dicecreator.wordpress.com/

Succession - A Board Game

So David and I were going to do this game as our first DCG, but it just didn't really fly as well as we'd hoped. It was a little too complicated and a little too much, but it was an awesome idea.

I worked it and worked it until it came out as a Boardgame. I've just finished redoing the rules, and now I need to redo the cards, but that should be a couple of days. Then I'll have something playtest worthy.

I think it's going to be awesome.