The Great Robot Menace of 1939

The Great Robot Menace of 1939 will be my largest new project of the year, so I thought I should use some screen space to detail what the game is all about and how the idea came to be, hence today’s blog entry. Also, my wife is sick of hearing about it, so I need to tell others!

Each year, I try to develop new events based on games, novels, comics, films or television programs that have anniversary dates approaching, as people tend to get a little more excited about older media in those years. Three of my own favorites from similar genres happen to all have anniversaries in 2019: the Castle Falkenstein role-playing game (25th), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic (20th) and the film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (15th). So, I thought, what a great opportunity to mashup these three elements into a new game!

Before I could begin work on my new project, some decisions needed to be made on basic plot elements. My first thought was to just drop the League into the Sky Captain story, but I realized that this would severely limit the number of League characters I could introduce, since Sky Captain takes place in 1939 (after all of the events of League volumes 1, 2 and some of 3). And because of the technology used (such as the Curtiss P-40 Warhawks, which first flew in 1938), it would be quite difficult to move the story out of that time. Some of my favorite League characters are long dead in their own timeline, as well, so if I wanted to include them, I would have to either rework League tales or utilize time travel and I really did not want to rework canon League tales. As I started to consider the story possibilities involving time travel, however, I realized that I could change some aspects of canon storylines, chalk them up to the result of changes that were made to the past and then make the premise of the game to undo these changes, so that the canon events could then occur unchanged. So, in other words, if you lose, you’ll have ruined League canon, so don’t lose!

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I love miniatures. There’s just something about the spectacle of a decked-out game table that makes me happy. Castle Falkenstein, however, is traditionally a theater-of-the-mind game, as you may know. I really wanted to use some of the fantastic Victorian-era miniatures that have become available in the last few years, though, so I considered using modern miniatures rules for the end-scenes of each stage, but I wondered if that wouldn’t make the game too disjointed. So, after determining that Falkenstein rules could be used for 30’s-era vehicles, I discarded the idea. I will keep the miniatures, however, and run the end-scenes like any normal Castle Falkenstein game, just with visuals.

As I began to narrow my mini searches, I came across some terrific terrain pieces that fit really well with the genre as well, so then I just needed to assemble all of the pieces that I had into a cohesive, interactive tale…which I’m still working on. I don’t want to give away any secrets about the plot, anyway, but suffice to say, if you are a fan of The League and/or Sky Captain, you will find plenty of references to the original works. And lastly, though I originally planned on an 8-player game, I think that 6 players will be much more manageable in terms of stat tracking, Dramatic Character involvement and time handling, so I’ve made that change.

With that basic story structure in place, I can now finish reading all of my source material before getting into the adventure details. I am mostly finished with the League works and have read some of my source material previously, but I still have some work to do before I’ll feel comfortable meshing the characters from all of these sources together. The full bibliography of source material for my Great Robot project includes:

FILMS:

• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

 GRAPHIC NOVELS:

• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Omnibus (Vol I & Vol II)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III: Century
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen IV: Tempest
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo Trilogy
• Doc Savage Archives Vol I
• Doc Savage: Man of Bronze Vol I
• Flash Gordon • On the Planet Mongo
• Golden Age of Sandman Archives Vol I
• Green Hornet: Year One
• Green Hornet Omnibus Vol I
• The Shadow: The Last Illusion
• Spicy Mystery Stories (Aug 1937 – Oct 1938)

NOVELS:

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Gladiator
• Gulliver’s Travels
• The Invisible Man
• King Solomon's Mines
• The Living Shadow
• The Lodger
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• The Adventures of Pinocchio
• Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The Time Machine
• War of the Worlds

I will continue to update the Great Robot Menace project list and documents page on my dndgeek.com site as I find and acquire new elements, as well as post pictures to The Great Robot Menace photo album on Facebook, and the sidebar on this page. And I will inform you about playtesting opportunities for the project on the events page on Facebook, as well as the events page on my website, if interested, so keep an eye out for those. And feel free to post/send me your thoughts and suggestions on the project. I’m always open to new ideas.

Avast Ye, A Clear the Decks! Review

I was recently afforded the opportunity to preview the ship-to-ship combat card game Clear the Decks! (by Crispy Games Company) that first piqued my interest over a year ago, at the Connecticut Festival of Indie Games (CT-FIG). I've been wanting to share more details of the game ever since CT-FIG 2017 and I am now able to, so please read on to my review, below, and if my take tickles your whiskers, click here to get in on the Clear the Decks Kickstarter, which launched today!

OVERVIEW: Clear the Decks is a cooperative card game in which 1-4 players each control an Age-of-Sail era ship that is used to attack and defend against a singular enemy ship. Each player utilizes their three canons (18-pounders, 24-pounders and 36-pounders) via Ammunition player cards, while Officer and Tactic cards provide opportunities for other actions. Enemy ship cards that represent the crew, events and structure of the enemy ship are divided into multiple stacks (the exact number depending on the ship type) and discarded as they are "destroyed" by player attacks. Face-up enemy ship cards that are not destroyed by a player attack give instructions as to what effects they have when counterattacking or at other moments in the game (such as repairing damage or sending boarders on to a player ship). If the enemy ship's hull is completely destroyed and thus only the leak level remains, the players win, but if all of the canons of each player ship are destroyed or disabled (by boarders), the enemy ship is victorious.

PRESENTATION: This review is based on the pre-Kickstarter version of Clear the Decks!, but for a play test copy, I found the art, graphics, quality of materials and layout to all be well done. The terminology and other historical elements found throughout the game are a nice touch, as well. The rulebook does have some minor errors and could use a few clarifications, but I expect these items to be addressed in the published version. Likewise, I assume the enemy ship tiles will be of higher quality, but they were perfectly fine for a test copy and I like the efficiency of the design: four tiles for three different ship sizes. And I wouldn't change any of the art, as I think it all fits the theme and style of the game well. For a card game, I'd currently rate the presentation of Clear the Decks a 7 out of 10, but that will likely improve.

COMPLEXITY: Clear the Decks! uses a simple card-matching mechanic to resolve canon fire effects, but the cycle of reloading canons and the different types of ammunition effects vs. target type adds a welcome element of strategy to the process. Other elements that players must consider are the Counterattack effects , Consequences and special abilities of enemy ship cards, which can provide extra defense to attacks or additional damage by attacks, among a variety of other possibilities. Players will sometimes not be able to destroy all of the faceup enemy ship cards on their turn and so decisions must be made to lessen the damage to be taken on a counterattack. Limited sharing of canons and cards are also options that add to the decision-making. (If you give up your Grape Shot card now, will you be stuck without ammo on your own turn?) Although not a seriously crunchy game by any means, there is enough strategy to keep players interested and busy, but the rules are light enough for my 11-year old to comprehend. For a card game, I'd rate the complexity of Clear the Decks a 6 out of 10.

GAME PLAY: The mechanics of the Clear the Decks! are sound and simple enough to keep the game moving and fun. The game's scalable difficulty is simple to employ, but unless I'm doing something wrong, I think the game might be too easy, as the players have won every game that I've been in to date. This is easily remedied by adding more canon cards to the enemy ship assembly deck, but this will also extend your game. (In my experience, the length of game play for 2 - 4 player games has averaged about two hours.) A better option might be to boost up the abilities of the enemy ship cards for the published version. For a card game, I'd rate the game play of Clear the Decks a 7 out of 10, with some room for improvement.

VALUE: With 9 enemy ship types, 6 rule variations and 1-4 player options, Clear the Decks! has decent replay value, especially if it could be toughened up, but I think player-vs-player rules would really make this game shine. You know people are going to house-rule that in short order, so why not have official PVP rules that we can all agree on right away? With the cost as yet unknown, I will have to reserve my judgement on value, but in light of developer Chris Pinyan's remarks about pricing at 2017 CT-Fig, I believe Kickstarter backers of Clear the Decks! will not be disappointed.

EDIT: Pricing has been announced at $29, which I think is exactly where it should be, so you can be confident that you are getting good value for your money. Additionally, Chris indicated to me this morning that others have inquired about player-vs-player rules and that it might be doable in an expansion, which has me excited for the future of this game, as well!

OVERALL: Clear the Decks! is simple enough to play with your whole family, but with enough strategy to keep your gaming friends engaged. I would recommend it for anyone over the age of 8 with an interest in combat and/or sailing games. So, consider pledging for the whole nine yards, because time and tide waits for no man!