So, I playtested Paper Knaves with my friend, Gallo Pinto, and discovered a few thing. The game is remarkably well-balanced, not allowing either player to ever gain a supreme advantage over the other. However, it is also a much longer game than I figured. It has a depth of strategy as-yet unexplored, but thats always a good thing.

A few tips: multiple stables or barracks are useless except to block movement.

sacrificing characters is nearly useless, as you can only make one per turn.

Consider all your moves carefully, and remember, you can move pieces diagonally!

So, I was talking with ruby, and we did a quick mental exercise I like to do. Basically, you take a specific genre or game, and your goal is to design a version that is as stripped down as possible. A few simple rules: All the rules must fit on a sheet of paper, and your ultimate goal is a game easily played on pencil and paper.

First, here’s my game, based off the RTS genre, which I call Paper Knaves. (If you have a better name, let me know!)
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Happy new years everyone. I hope everyone had a good time on the holidays, I did.

I’ve been really busy this last month with work. Its retail, so, for the whole month of December, I didn’t really get any days off. Okay, I got three days off. And two half-days… but those don’t really count.

Frankly, I’m exhausted, and I really did not feel like making any posts at all. I apologize for that, and will work much harder. But, I have a few stories to share.

I can’t give more information than is already available on this page, in the interest of where I work.

So here it goes:

There were three main categories of annoying people this holiday season:

Wii-shoppers

These are the people calling each and every store that may concievably carry a Wii. And not only do they not call in the morning, as a reasonable shopper would, no, they call at 5 minutes to six, when we close! And of course, they expect us to stay open for them if we do happen to have a Wii.

I rule the world

These are the people that expect us, overworked and underpaid employees, to go our of our way, to call 15 different stores, to research topics for an hour, and to move over 5000 pounds of merchandise for a box, for a two dollar item.

They believe that what they want comes above all considerations of common-sense, decency, even fairness. We make money on commission, and a wage as well, and that much work for a two dollar item is not anywhere near worthwhile. So, don’t have a hissy fit, when we actually try for five minutes, and don’t find it. Don’t yell at us, or threaten to call our boss. Here’s a secret: I don’t care. And he won’t either. We don’t want you as a customer if you’re going to freak out over a two dollar item.

Last minute shopper

This is pretty classic but come on! Last day before Christmas, and you’re shopping for major items, that haven’t been in stock in days… and you’re looking for them NOW?! Like, say iPod Touches, iPods, a Wii here and there, maybe a Nintendo DS… oh, of course we’ll have them on the last day before Christmas!

So yeah, that explains why I’m tired.