Things have changed.

      Ominous as those three words may sound – doubly so when on their own line – change is not always an ill omen of dark days to come. I have changed for the better (I hope) since I last spoke about Goon Game. In that time, I have tried, failed, tried, and failed again to make even the simplest of digital prototypes. This cavalcade of failure and graveyard of malformed, self-terminating code is the byproduct of my change. The product of ramming my head full steam into a brick wall, day after day, is one of perspective: I can not code to save my life. I can read code, work with prewritten programs, and even understand parts of the process. What I can not do is go from a blank scripting block to a functioning program. By the end of it, I will have a throbbing migraine and a bloody hand stuck in my monitor. As obvious as this may have been in retrospect, it’s only so clear because I am only now looking at the past without the grandest model of improvement, and I can now recognize where my limits are and how best to expand them. With this new awakening came a restructuring of expectations. I still want to make games, video games in particular, but due to technical limitations, the avenue to that goal now has to be more roundabout. Hence, from this point onward, Goon Game is no longer destined to become a turn-based strategy video game but a turn-based strategy Tabletop Game.

New Plan, Same Idea: Recycle what we can.

      Going into more of the game design reasons for this shift, rather than the existential ones detailed above, the game was just not fun. I had tested a paper version of the ruleset I was trying to make in Game Maker, then Godot, and later Unreal 5, and it wasn’t fun – to me, at least. Playtesters seemed to have a fine time with it, but watching them play disappointed me with the wasted potential within the system. Nothing within the game got the player into making interesting choices, so they made the simplest and safest choices available, further highlighting this disparity within the core design. So, regardless of the eventual form, a rework was needed to address this issue. Said rework comprises tossing the game into a pot and boiling it down to base components so I can see where it all went wrong.

      Hyperbole aside, I was advised to take things down to basics and start from there again. This also helped the transition to tabletop as it helped clarify certain design issues and cognitive bottlenecks. Looking back, for a game that was trying to be simple and understandable, there sure was a lot of bullshit the player needed to familiarize themselves with and the first thing to go. As an example of this in practice, units used to have two damage calculations they had to go through each time they attacked. First, they calculated Hit Chance by taking the attacker's HIT and subtracting the defender's AVO; then rolled a d100: if they rolled below the sum of HIT-AVO, the attack landed, and then the damage was calculated by taking the attacker’s ATK and subtracting the defender's DEF.

As you can see, that’s a lot of math to do every time an attack is made. Originally, the excuse I used to defend this was that this math was going to be handled by the computer. With that no longer being the case, the math was made simpler. Now, when a unit attacks, it only does HIT-AVO. The dice for these rolls have also been changed to d6s; that way, the math can be done faster in a player’s head. So rather than seeing this:   

      Players now see this:

      Both of these stat blocks are for the same unit; only now has the essence of the unit been boiled down to its core elements. This unit is meant to be the primary damage dealer with a chance to do double damage, but with a 50/50 base hit rate. Hopefully, when players are given this stat block, they will see how this unit fits into a game plan better than before and have to devote less time and brainpower to doing math homework between attacks. This alteration can be seen across the game in the remaining features: Objectives, Commanders, Abilities, Threat Assessment, and Turn Order.

Turn Order Changes.

      One of the more notable shifts between digital and tabletop was that the game required at least one other player to function. Not only would the whole game need to be balanced around creating a fair set of rules and abilities for all players, but it also needs to be ordered when players get to take certain actions. First-turn advantage also rears its head in this scenario; as before, the solution was to give it to the player as they were playing against the AI, and they won’t complain about always going second. Funnily enough, the solution to this problem was to give the first turn to the AI so the human players had a common board threat to push in on and dissuade turtling. But more on that later.

      The game is divided into individual player turns housed within Rounds. Each player chooses a role at the start of play, which determines their spot in the turn queue, trading turn advantage for abilities and game plans that benefit from going second. A round starts with the AI player, the Automaton Army, taking their turn. This is a turn collectively controlled by the players at the table based on a set of parameters set by the game’s rules. Once the Automatons finish, the first player takes their turn. When the last player finishes their turn, the round is over, any Round End events trigger, and a new Round begins. This continues until someone wins the game.

Commanders.

      Commanders have always been the main engine component in gameplay. If you have ever played a game of EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander, AKA Commander) in Magic: The Gathering, the core concept is the same. Your deck in an EDH game is built around combining with your Commander, a legendary creature with an effect that either kickstarts your win con or gives it gas for you to reach the finish line. Similarly, Commanders in my game originally acted as major play-makers who helped certain goon types perform better. This, however, was found to have lackluster results with players not playing into the combo the Commander set up.

      In retrospect, this was due to poorly established player goals on my part. See, in a game of EDH, every player at the table knows what their goal is from the rip. Partly because most built the deck from scratch, but even those playing constructed know what their deck is building towards. Bear Hug wants to stall out the game with Enchantments and set up their Alt Win-con, Elf-Ball wants to ramp up and get as many elf tokens and lords into play as possible before swinging, Voltron wants to get enough equipment into play and keep it on a single creature before going in with extra combat spells to knock at least two other players out. Across all of these decks and deck types, the Commander feeds into that game plan consistently because it sets the goals for the player according to their abilities.

For example, one of my decks, Magda, Brazen Outlaw, is a two-drop, so I can play her early on, and she makes a treasure whenever a dwarf taps for any reason. I can then sacrifice five treasures to search my deck for a dragon or artifact card and put it onto the field at instant speed (at any time, for those of you unfamiliar with Magic). 

So, my gameplan with her is simple: play her turn 2, then play as many dwarves as possible – as fast as possible – along with things that tap them without having to attack (vehicles, for instance) so I can get up to five treasures and slap a dragon onto the field as soon as possible and start knocking heads in the air.

Dwarves are my start, treasure generation is my mid-game, and Dragons are my end goal. And I, and everyone else at the table, know that just by reading what Magda does at the start of the game.

My game lacked a clearly defined end goal for players based on who they chose to play. And now that it is multiplayer, this problem becomes game-critical as there needs to be clear and somewhat separate goals for each player, so they feel as if they have options when playing, especially if they are getting outplayed by their opponent. I devised three general play styles and gave each a unique goal tied to its chosen Commander.

	Brawl	Swarm	Plot
Objectives	Gain 1 VP for every opposing unit detained. Gain VP equal to the difference between your VP and Automatons' VP scores. Gain 1 Mana whenever you take an objective.	Gain 2 VP each Round for every objective you control. Gain 1 Mana whenever you reinforce more than one unit. Place this Mana only on units that entered play this round. Gain 1 Mana for every player you outnumber on an objective at the end of the round. Place this Mana only on units holding objectives.	Gain 1 Mana whenever a Reverb card is drawn. Place this Mana on any unit. Gain 1 Mana at the start of each round, even if you have 0 Forbidden Fruit. Place this Mana on any unit. Whenever a Plot card is drawn from the Reverb deck, gain 2 VP.

Combined with the commanders’ new abilities, as shown later, these objectives aim to create a better goal structure for the players at the table.

Brawl players want to be getting into and winning fights and can gain a lead by doing just that, and their Commander allows them to permanently raise combat stats so they can do so more effectively without having to expend resources turn after turn applying those buffs.  

Swarm players can get ahead by controlling more objectives than their opponents, making them a threat even if they just control one; more so that their Commander can call in more units to the board per turn and give their units a burst of power to help hold an objective longer to score points on.

Plot players can cast more powerful spells (discussed later under Abilities) faster than their opponents and win by forcing more draws from the Reverb deck. While also using their Commander’s ability to alter said Reverb deck with cards that sway more in their favor. 

	Brawl	Swarm	Plot
Spells	Rec Pack: 2 Mana – Cast only on your turn. Choose one of the following that has not yet been chosen and apply it permanently to all allied units. Discard 2 Mana from Commander after casting. *Better Gear +1 AVO *Better Sights + 1 HIT *Better Tools +1 DAM	Turn the Tables: 2 Mana –Reinforce after casting to any Objective you have units on. Strength in Numbers: 1 Mana – Choose an objective: all allied units on the chosen objective gain +2 Damage and +1 Hit until the end of the turn. Discard a Mana from Commander after casting.	Stack the Deck: 3 Mana – Cast only on your turn. Search the Reverb deck for X cards, remove them, and then shuffle. Or add X cards from the Plot deck to the Reverb deck, then shuffle the Reverb deck (X = TA+1).

At the time of writing, these changes have not been tested. However, the overall direction is more solid than before, as there is at least a clear goal and throughline for said goal baked into each unit now. So, when a player sits down to play, and they look at their respective Commander, they should be looking at how their game plan is going to be structured going forward, and not just a list of miscellaneous abilities for them to pick and choose from.

Objectives

      As mentioned above, player objectives change depending on their Commander. However, there is still a universal objective all players are playing on the map that rewards more points throughout the game than these individual commander objectives. The goal here is to create conflict between players and force interactions. Since every player is fighting over a shared resource they all need – or, at the very least, want to stop the others from getting – they will be forced into situations that require them to interact with one another. If they don’t and leave the other players to their own devices, that just gives them time to set up their own winning combo or widen the gap to victory.

Plot players, for instance, may not want to take the main objective, but Swarm sure as Hell does, and if they do, they’ll start racking up Victory Points quick. Brawl players may not care about Mana, but Plot does, and if they are allowed free access, they can start peppering the board with all kinds of new effects that will slow them down while gaining them more points. And every player wants to keep the Automatons from getting any ground because if they pull ahead and win, they all lose.

Abilities

      Probably the second largest overhaul, next to commanders, as many of these overlapped. The problem being addressed here was players ignoring half or more of a unit’s abilities when playing and just defaulting to their standard tool kit. This mainly falls on me for overloading players with text and keywords they didn’t know, which didn’t really help them either way.

             So they and the commanders went into the pot to boil down into base components. During that boil, a new system arose that, to me at least (I haven’t tested this as of the time of writing), helps better showcase all the tools available to the player more accessibly. This begins with removing most of a unit’s additional abilities, boiling them down to just one and a passive:  

      In this streamlining, I wanted to focus more on simple and succinct language and noticeable effects. Basic Attack was also removed from the unit’s toolkit and made a universal action that all units, regardless of type, can use, as it was causing confusion among playtesters about whether or not it was a separate action from attacking. Now, the rules text is clear on what constitutes an attack, what is required for an attack, and how a unit interacts with that action. What is also clearer is a unit’s role in gameplay. Take the example above: the DPS unit. Gone are their abilities to do ranged attacks and buff their HIT, replaced with just two lines of rules text clarifying what this unit should be used for: hitting things. This then combos into their Unit Spell, which, when active, increases the chances of a critical hit, further guiding players as to the purpose of this unit.

      Unit Spells (and spells as a whole) are that new system I spoke about earlier and come in four flavors: Unit, Universal, Commander, and Reverb. Saving Reverb for last, as it works a little differently from the rest – Unit, Universal, and Commander spells all share a similar function of adding variety to the round. All spells are cast using Mana; Mana is generated by holding Main Objectives (or from certain abilities) and is assigned to individual units, similar to how Energy works in the Pokémon TCG. Unlike Pokémon, each unit has an upper limit to the amount of Mana they can have assigned to them, and some units can’t cast certain spells due to specific factors: Commander spells, for instance, can only be cast by Commanders. However, once a unit has Mana attached to it, it can use its action to cast a spell from the universal spell list; similarly, they can also activate their unique unit spell, like the one listed above. This is the main engine part of each unit and is what helps them perform at maximum efficiency once properly fueled, adding another layer to the strategy that encourages players to move towards their set goals, as that is another great way to gain the Mana required to get those engines roaring.

But that is not the only thing Mana can be used for. All players can use a whole list of universal spells that give them an immediate advantage in the moment, such as rerolling a dice roll or fighting back when their unit is attacked on another player’s turn. These spells are again here to force confrontation but also shake up the board state turn to turn, giving each player a set of tools they can always access but that other players can restrict access to if they play a certain way. There is also the chance of a major shake-up in the form of a Reverb: spells that trigger once a round that auto-cast for no mana and that affect every player. These spells, while random, can also be played around with spells like “Check the Deck” that allow players to reorder the Reverb Deck or, as some players may want to do, increase the number of Reverbs per round to blanket the board in chaos. Regardless of the intent, all players know what each other player is capable of to various degrees, so now the question is who can play to their strengths the best while exploiting their opponent’s weakness to prevent them from doing the same.

Threat Assessment

Finally, let's talk about Threat Assessment and the Automaton Army. Originally, Threat Assessment was a variable that the game would use to judge how effectively the player was playing and dynamically alter the game’s difficulty to adjust to whatever level of efficiency they were able to maintain. While still a variable and more or less tracking the same thing, its application is less complex. Threat Assessment starts at zero and builds when the following happens:

·        Total Attuned Mana for one player >=5.

·        A Chaos player scores ten or more VP in a single Round.

·        Two or more Spawners are removed from play.

Each of the above raises the TA by one before maxing out at three. When the TA rises, the Automaton Army (the AI-controlled player) becomes more aggressive and hits harder while also growing in numbers. Their role is to be a common enemy for all players so as to discourage turtling tactics: slow plays based around bottlenecks and small, prodding advancements. Since the Automatons start closer to the main objective, they have a head start in gaining VP and other resources from the human players, again, to force conflict. Certain factions also gain bonuses based either on the current TA level or the standing of the Automaton army. Plot players also want to raise TA purposely as it makes their Commander Spell more powerful, and Brawl players will want to gain a VP lead on the Army as they gain VP depending on how far ahead of the Army they are, further playing into the goals set by each faction and what I want players to be paying attention to while playing.

Conclusion

There is still a lot to do. At the time of writing, I am getting the board reworked to accommodate all these new changes and, after that, playtesting the new rule set. But I wrote all this – screamed it into the void – for two reasons. The first is to document the process, but the second is to set a precedent. I grew tired of the project when it was designed with a digital end goal. A state of mind born from my frustration with the slow progress and lack of tangible results week by week. But, frustrated as I was, it was no excuse to give up. Game design is hard, Sisyphean at times, but at least this rock has a chance of staying at the top of the hill. My goals were foolhardy, and for that, I have made recompense. But that stone still needs someone to push it, just to a different spot on the hill. So I go back to it, rolling the boulder up. Watch it tumble back down. Record. And repeat until it sticks. Expect an update every two weeks.