Lore
A world for Volcanique
In Volcanique, you play as a clan of fervid critters who follow their ancient spirit’s dreams. Desperately trying to outmanoeuvre the other critters that crawl across the limited lands in an attempt to be the first to resurrect your creator-spirit. Trigger volcanoes to gain passive powers, sacrifice critters to summon new islands and pay resource tributes to unlock secret points and powers.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, when the Australian continent pulsed with molten fire, the Earth gave birth to ancient spirits.
They sculpted life not with gentle hands, but with eruptions that split mountains into rivers of lava. Their creations were small, flame-tempered critters that thrived around the inferno. But when the seas rose to drown the land, the spirits spent their last embers shielding their favoured critters up onto tiny islands, before sinking into the asthenosphere to dream.
Now, their slumber is restless.
Continue reading...Silence
Then suddenly, finally a few big ideas
Some serious questions I’ve been putting off. 7 resource max from the get go. This speeds up the game to the ‘fun bit’ once players work out they can potentially activate a volcano in turn 2 with the correct moves. But can also save for an easier ‘double retaliation’ with volcanic soil planning.
Should I keep the uno tiles. Or just drop their total amount even further.
Is diversified biomes just a bonus to the player who is already almost certainly in front making the scores seem less realistic of the game that played out? Is rotating the tile under the volcano too complex - I am leaning towards yes and to turn it into a power only.
Continue reading...Making a bot
For full blown, playtesting analysis
Whyai oh why
Trying to teach AI Volcanique
This was a hair pulling experiment, out of the 30 or so people I’ve taught the game, this felt the most frustrating by far.
It is the first time I have tried to properly push it through its paces. The second playthrough was significantly better (we at least could finish the game), there was less, though still many mistakes that I had to continuously correct. Unsurprisingly, it’s better played with friends, but I also don’t want to bug friends to test every scenario and game state I devise and need testing. This is also absolutely not the way to build this kind of model, but I’m (sort of) having fun.
Hexing a code
Deciding on a grid system
Better images
Setting in place the framework for more interactivity
For some unknown reason, I haven’t been using a spacer when creating all of my diagrams. Just eyeballing it. I hadn’t noticed much in light mode on the site unless I really stuffed it, but when put against the darker background of Photoswipe (more on that below), it was painfully apparent.
Incomes the spacer to slowly but surely fix all of my diagrams:
Museum musings
Design direction, lava, and cool rocks
Kill your darlings, darling
The game is too long. The rulebook takes forever to load. Fix that.
New powers
Gunning for 30
Some new power ideas. It’s a bit of a brain dump in an attempt to really flesh out lots of different playstyles and potentials for the game.
I’ve been toying with other ‘playstyles’/ways to win, including a Parasite, a ocean/tidal manipulator, maybe an ‘architect’ style that can modify the board and one that goes all in on a singular powerful critter (demigod/hero creation).
One of the biggest identified elements - are a way to spend 3 different resources. My favourite is the ‘appeasement’ or the stealthy point style.
Continue reading...