SSSS Monopoly game

[thegreyarea]

I suspect the virus warning I've been getting is because one of the included advertisements is from a site that AVG blacklisted...

I thought the Heaven/Haven thing might be a translation issue. I have to say your English is fantastic Grey, I would never have picked it as a second language!

Fading back the flags should look good (I initially read 'minnaized' as 'minimized' and wasn't quite sure what you meant Jitter! ). The font selections are excellent as well - Minna did make her own font for the comic and hasn't released it, but it looks great with the ones selected.

Colouring the Elegant Runes seems like the obvious choice for property groups. We could start with the colours on the flags as a base, and expand from there - clearly different shades of red, blue, white and yellow should do the trick - particularly if each base colour is only used once per country. Putting the country names on the Deed cards should minimise confusion as well.

On thinking about it, player death definitely should be included. I'm not so sure about instant death though...

One final note with the board. On my hex-design I placed prophetic vision adjacent to the dream world section because it seemed appropriate...

It's good to know. But you still get the warning every time?

Thanks! I try my best, but it's a WIP. I'm trying to improve since I started commenting and writing. Before I got involved in SSSS things I just read in English. Now I'm getting some practice on writing, but sometimes I have to check on a dictionary to be sure or a word writing and/or meaning... If you had read my first (and only) fanfic*, particularly in the first, non-proofread version**, you would surely see that English is not my native language

Now I'll work on the flags, and I'm glad that you and Jitter approved the fonts. It's not easy to find the right one, but I think that those work well.

I agree on your suggestions for the runes and cards. I'll try to use a limited palette... Let's see how it works. And adding the country names seems good.

On instant death I'm not 100% sure, just because it could be demotivating to get kicked out with just one moment of bad luck. On the other hand it adds emotion to each roll

I have no problem at all in switching the places to put Prophetic Vision next to the Dream World. I'll do that on the next board version.

* https://archiveofourown.org/works/21430231
** Thanks to my daughter, the actual, updated version is much better. The poor girl is now suffering through proofreading my second story, that's in the making

Grey, I agree with avoiding image overload! On that subject, the squares where you take cards have the card background picture on them, right? I’m sure you were already planning this, but maybe see whether the picture should be faded on the square. The places where the decks go on the board will have the picture as well?

For Tuuri the bonus could be +0-2 (or 3?) squares of movement as she’s the driver? Or lower rent on all properties for being such a smooth talker. And yeah, I meant the character rules to be optional. And tested

Grey* the properties I had were for the square board, in other words there are too few. For Finland we could add Toivosaari like Purple* suggested, or some other place from the map. I can take a look at the others or you can pick them?

* should I also pick a color for myself? Professor Purple**, in the Games room, with a very large deck of cards!

** I have noticed you are usually called “Wyrm” rather than “Purpe” for short, but there’s another Wyrm on the forum now. Nevertheless let us know which one you would prefer:)

Yes, I'm planning to use the cards image on those places. And also images for the travel companies, the other companies and the tax collectors. Also on the placers for the decks. And that may be enough It would be nice to have a final list agreed among us. On properties and their groups too.

On each country we have 9 spaces. It could be 5 properties, 1 travel company, 1 Fate, 1 Scavenge and 1 Tax/Commodity (2 countries with tax, 3 with commodities)

I was thinking on 2 properties groups on each side/country. A group of 3 and other of 2. They should be consecutive on the board, but not necessarily adjacent. I fully agree on whatever you choose on that, since you already agreed with me on Rana

Then we have the central space that would be for the travel company.
I have the following on my list, but its (as everything) open to suggestions:
FIN - Saimaa Canal
SWE - Sveavägen Line
DEN - Bornholm Harbour Island
ICE - Kraben Line
NOR - Longboat (?) - that would come from Dalsnes, since we have very little on Norway
Dream World (DW) - Reynir Dream Boat

Fate and Scavenge would be distributed among properties.

For commodities I have 3:
ICE - Tuna Fishing Company AND Seithur (Mages) Academy - but the tuna fishing could be in Sweden, maybe they have offices there...
DEN - Oresund Base

That would leave tax collectors for Norway and Finland sides. I'm sure Jitter as a Finnish will agree on that...

For Tuuri bonus I think less rent is nice and appropriate.

And so I'll be Mr. Grey, in the Library, with a painting brush!

There's another Wyrm on the board? OUTRAGEOUS!! But seriously, I prefer Wyrm but will happily answer to Purple, Purp, Purple One or any variation thereof. Call me what you like as long as you don't call me late for dinner!

Since you prefer Wyrm that shall be! Dinner is late back at home, around 21 (GMT). Today should be stuffed meat with spaghetti (if you prefer vegetarian we will manage something)

(Jitter, of course you're welcomed too)

[Jitter]

Transport companies / infrastructure:

We talked about changing Stage Coach for Iceland. Krabben line travels between Iceland and (at least) Denmark.

That way we would have one railway, one canal, one harbour and the coach network. Transport by sea is arguably the most important mode in the Known World and, and important in Norway nowadays as well.

Looking at the map I notice there is a shipping line marked along the coast, which most likely is by far the main way of travel in Norway. I suggest we take that call it just the Coastal Ferry (image being an excerpt of the map). Another possibility would be to name it Hurtigruten, which is the established name for the coastal line nowadays and could well make it to the future as well. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurtigruten

For the Dream World I'd either call it Reynir's boat or Spirit boat but not both. Will all the spaces between Havens in the Dream World be Dream World cards?

On the tax collectors, should one of those be something else? Something that gives you money instead of taking it?

I'll try and do a remake of the cards, dropping some of the more boring ones. Since we are far removed from the Monopoly now we don't need the decks to resemble the originals very much. I do intend to keep the Go to Quarantine and Proof of Immunity Papers though And several of the others too. What do you say, 20 cards on each deck? There are 16 on Monopoly I think.

Speaking of Qurarantine, will the corners also have a picture or just the text?

[thegreyarea]

Transport companies / infrastructure: We talked about changing Stage Coach for Iceland. Krabben line travels between Iceland and (at least) Denmark.

That way we would have one railway, one canal, one harbour and the coach network. Transport by sea is arguably the most important mode in the Known World and, and important in Norway nowadays as well.

Looking at the map I notice there is a shipping line marked along the coast, which most likely is by far the main way of travel in Norway. I suggest we take that call it just the Coastal Ferry (image being an excerpt of the map). Another possibility would be to name it Hurtigruten, which is the established name for the coastal line nowadays and could well make it to the future as well. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurtigruten

For the Dream World I'd either call it Reynir's boat or Spirit boat but not both. Will all the spaces between Havens in the Dream World be Dream World cards?

On the tax collectors, should one of those be something else? Something that gives you money instead of taking it?

I'll try and do a remake of the cards, dropping some of the more boring ones. Since we are far removed from the Monopoly now we don't need the decks to resemble the originals very much. I do intend to keep the Go to Quarantine and Proof of Immunity Papers though And several of the others too. What do you say, 20 cards on each deck? There are 16 on Monopoly I think.

Speaking of Qurarantine, will the corners also have a picture or just the text?

So we would have:

FIN - Saimaa Canal
SWE - Sveavägen Line
DEN - Bornholm Harbour Island
ICE - Stage Coach
NOR - Hurtigruten? Makes sense, but we don't have anything about it. We could use the image of a longboat (on the left of the third panel on page 199) for Hurtigruten? But then nobody but us know anything about it... Or we could assume that Kraben line does this service too on Y91, replacing Hurtigruten, and then we could use their image (from page 78).
Dream World (DW) - Spirit Boat seems better to avoid linking it directly with one of the players, even if Reynir shows in the image.

BTW did you notice that the ship from Hurtigruten that appears on the wiki is the Trollfjord?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Trollfjord

On the  tax collectors issue, I believe that we have the GO corner where you get money, to balance things. How much to receive and how much to pay on TAX is something to think...

The papers and what you say about the cards sounds perfect. and 20 cards will be enough, I believe. When the last one is taken we shuffle them and the pile starts again.

As for the corners pictures I'm not sure. I have some ideas, but on the other side I fear to overload the board.
I was thinking on developing the rest first, and after that I'd try to make images for the corners (the triangular shape doesn't help, though) and we try to get a consensus.

[steadfastjewel]

On the subject of playtesting- roll20 can be quite clunky when it comes to card decks, but you could whip up a dodgy digital version if people are serious about trying it out! That at least would allow for a shared board, although the concept of everyone printing their own is charming for sure  Also permits easy hit point troll injury tracking and digital dice rollin'!

Also- the design work looks great! Love the hexagon. Y'all are so talented.

[thegreyarea]

On the subject of playtesting- roll20 can be quite clunky when it comes to card decks, but you could whip up a dodgy digital version if people are serious about trying it out! That at least would allow for a shared board, although the concept of everyone printing their own is charming for sure  Also permits easy hit point troll injury tracking and digital dice rollin'!

Also- the design work looks great! Love the hexagon. Y'all are so talented.

You mean a 20-sided dice? Our beloved Google can provide! https://www.google.com/search?q=dice+roller (I swear I didn't knew that until now. What more those guys will do? It's fantastic and let's you choose the type, and number, of dice ). But I (and we, I believe) was thinking on using 2 normal cubic dice, the ones that come with Monopoly, for practical reasons.

Fully digital playing would be very very fun. I'm imagining Forum tournaments... But we will have to see how to do that...

Printing is nice, making things more palpable (he, he) and that's the general direction we are following. Let's see how it turns out.

Anyway thanks, and you are welcomed anytime to contribute.

[Jitter]

The picture for the coastal ferry could be an area from the Map of the Known World near Dalsnes where the shipping route makes many loops and it’s clear to see it’s a route along the coast calling at all towns on the coast.

An online version of the boardgame would require quite a bit of further work, and the kind of work I for example have no idea about how to do. But like I said before, even if not a single game ever gets played this is fun

(Although I should be writing the Fandom for Australia fics for our dear winner... or at least doing research*)

*bingeing on even more sweet EmiLalli fics

[LooNEY_DAC]

You mean a 20-sided dice?

No; read this.

[thegreyarea]

The picture for the coastal ferry could be an area from the Map of the Known World near Dalsnes...

An online version of the boardgame would require quite a bit of further work, and the kind of work I for example have no idea about how to do. But like I said before, even if not a single game ever gets played this is fun

(Although I should be writing the Fandom for Australia fics for our dear winner... or at least doing research*)...

Hi!
That's a good suggestion! I'll try that, together with the others, and post here to see what you, Wyrm and the others think. I fell that it's important to develop the travel companies together to reach a reasonable degree of visual coherence between them, as I did with the cards.

I'd love to have a online version, but, as you, I'm no game designer, and my programming experience was 30 or more years ago... (a game that works like the old DOS, with a written command line, does not sound very exciting). But I know that to make a nice online version, or any version, we have to define our rules, cards, board and so on, and that's what we are doing now. :-)
Meanwhile we can find (or be found) by a Minnion with the proper skills to develop and adapt our ideas. But, as you said, I think we are enjoying, much, the making of this game :-)

I can talk with that "dear winner" of Fandom For Australia, but from what I know you shouldn't worry with him :-) However, reading sweet EmiLalli stories will do you no harm (except, maybe, to your sugar levels).

[thegreyarea]

No; read this.

Thank you so much, LooNEY_DAC! As you can see from my answer to steadfastjewel I didn't get the reference of Roll20, at all!
BTW my apologies for steadfastjewel, too.

As far as I could see the Roll20 site is very interesting. However it seems focused on RPG games (D&D style). Maybe its possible, with some (lots of?) work, to create a version of our game on that platform. If we manage that it would be great.
However, before attempting to do that we have to advance a lot in the development of our game.

Maybe there's a Minnion familiarized with Roll20 that can advise us on that, or one of us can try to dig for it... But since we want something quite different from the usual D&D game it may be hard to get there. So I would choose to put that path on hold until we have perfected the game. Then we can go back to it. What do you think, friends?

That said, I had an idea that may interest our fellow LooNEY_DAC.

LooNEY_DAC, since you are such a great (and prolific) writer of SSSS stories (I'm quite enjoying the Redux and the Pirates series), wouldn't you want to give a try and write a short story for our game?

We could use a story to set the beginning of the game, one that worked as an introduction.

You see, our idea for the game (so far) is that the whole team is alive (including Tuuri) and they decided to compete against each other to raise money for creating an Expedition Agency. I would place that moment in the beginning of adventure 2, when said agency is mentioned.

Maybe if Tuuri survived Onni wouldn't go away, canceling the adventure 2 arc, and the team decided to stay together... But why travel to the 5 countries, competing to raise money? Maybe a bet? Whoever wins would rule the business? Did they loose all the money they won with the first expedition on gamble? Already spent it on useless things? The bank where the money was went bankrupt?

It would be fantastic to have a story to set this whole situation, to immerse the players in this game, and you, I'm sure, would make it a great story.
So, what do you think of that? I would love to have you in the team!

[Vulpes]

I am in awe, you folks are so creative! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread and wish very much that I had anything to contribute besides my admiration. I'll keep checking in... and if you need a test player, I'd love to try.

The design and concepts for how to play are brilliant. Well done, you lot!

[LooNEY_DAC]

We could use a story to set the beginning of the game, one that worked as an introduction.

You see, our idea for the game (so far) is that the whole team is alive (including Tuuri) and they decided to compete against each other to raise money for creating an Expedition Agency. I would place that moment in the beginning of adventure 2, when said agency is mentioned.

Maybe if Tuuri survived Onni wouldn't go away, canceling the adventure 2 arc, and the team decided to stay together... But why travel to the 5 countries, competing to raise money? Maybe a bet? Whoever wins would rule the business? Did they loose all the money they won with the first expedition on gamble? Already spent it on useless things? The bank where the money was went bankrupt?

It would be fantastic to have a story to set this whole situation, to immerse the players in this game, and you, I'm sure, would make it a great story.
So, what do you think of that? I would love to have you in the team!

Ideas so far:

• Tuuri and Reynir got into the office area just as the troll broke through the floor
• The race is to prove conclusively that going on an expedition with their service won't be an automatic death sentence, which is why they have to go through each of the nations
• Our Crew and the Stingy Quartet have pooled all their profits as the prize; the seed money for each of the racers comes from sponsors found through Trond's extensive network of contacts

Also, it occurs to me that there should be some sort of co-operative mechanism so players can team up against the trolls and murder-ghosts.

[thegreyarea]

I am in awe, you folks are so creative! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread and wish very much that I had anything to contribute besides my admiration. I'll keep checking in... and if you need a test player, I'd love to try.

The design and concepts for how to play are brilliant. Well done, you lot!

Thanks! This thread began very small, just as a funny picture, and is becoming more and more fascinating.

As for contributions, besides suggestions and already being enlisted* as a beta player , maybe we could think on something if we know a little more. You can send your CV to my email. You can tell what you like to do, or your profession. You're not by any chance a video game designer, are you?

* Should I say "conscripted"?

[thegreyarea]

Ideas so far:

• Tuuri and Reynir got into the office area just as the troll broke through the floor
• The race is to prove conclusively that going on an expedition with their service won't be an automatic death sentence, which is why they have to go through each of the nations
• Our Crew and the Stingy Quartet have pooled all their profits as the prize; the seed money for each of the racers comes from sponsors found through Trond's extensive network of contacts

Also, it occurs to me that there should be some sort of co-operative mechanism so players can team up against the trolls and murder-ghosts.

Wow! I assume that his means that you joined the team! I'm very happy with that!  (did I tell that I'm a fan of yours?)

I'm sure that your story will be great and help us making everything better. Those ideas are already very interesting!

Maybe they will also help with the cards, or at least some of them, providing a context for the "game story".

As for the co-op, it's something to think on. Maybe if the other player is in an adjacent space you could ask for help, and then if they succeed the player that helped get paid? What do you think, friends?

[Vulpes]

Thanks! This thread began very small, just as a funny picture, and is becoming more and more fascinating.

As for contributions, besides suggestions and already being enlisted* as a beta player , maybe we could think on something if we know a little more. You can send your CV to my email. You can tell what you like to do, or your profession. You're not by any chance a video game designer, are you?

* Should I say "conscripted"?

Haha, I'm pretty near useless for this! I'm not even a big player of board games, although that's more a function of circumstance than interest. I'm a biology prof, and my research area is insect ecology, so unless you want biologically accurate details on bugs of some sort, my professional qualifications are no help.    I can do a decent biological drawing, slowly and painfully, but I'm no artist. My computer skills are limited to the usual things one uses for work, the uni's "learning management system" (hateful thing), a bit of photoshop back when I had time for serious photography, and the only thing I really nerd out on is statistics, for which I use R. So sorry, no video game design skills at all! I suppose my most useful skill is editing... I guess that comes with reading lots of student work and doing peer reviews. I'm detail-oriented but also big picture, I like understanding how things fit together, which is perhaps what interests me about this mad endeavor.

Four weeks left of semester... so I will probably pop in sporadically to cheer you on, but have little time to do more than that! But I look forward to checking in when I'm procrastinating, and if I have anything useful to say, I'll say it.

[Jitter]

So we’ll sign you up as editor for the Tome of Rules? Thank you Vulpes

I haven’t done anything about the cards, I’m sorry! Stupid family things over the weekend!