Re: JCDpiecepack sample

["porter235" <porter235@...>]

First off, thanks. Second, no need to worry about offending me, I have asked for your opinions, and am eager to here them. I have made this primarily for myself, but I enjoy the feedback. 

I have not owned or even played with a piecepack to date, so I currently to not have the notion of the "right" way in my head. As well, I have read a lot of the archives here and am trying to incorporate some others ideas that are not necessarily addressed by the currently available products.

The consistancy of the Aces I feel is important, wheather that is the swirly (which I like) or an "A" or some other mark, I don't think is as important as the consistancy. Unfortunately, using the suit symbol is not possible if you want to have a single symbol for the Ace, as the coins require suit information to remain hidden on the "rank" side. So I feel that it needs to have a Suit and a Rank, and that the Rank symbol should be consistant.

Which brings up a suggestion made by Ken "Toren", "to add the suit symbol to the remaining 2 sides of the numbered die." At first I was thinking that I had it right leaving it off for consistancy sake (with the coins) but it really should go back on seeing as NULL and ACE are RANKS just like 2,3,4,5 and should always be treated just like the 2,3,4,5 are (as far as design is concerned). For this reason, I will be adding the suits to the NULL and ACE sides of the numbered die.

As far as colours go, I would probably eliminate black as a suit colour and stick with RED, BLUE, GREEN and YELLOW, using black only for non suit information.

I chose to implement the "Arms" suit as anchors for a couple of reasons. To me, the Fluer de Les does not mean Arms or Army, but instead, French. I have seen a shield design for arms, which I personally like better. My anchors come from the long assoiation of Crowns and Anchors within games throughout history. I named them "Arms" for the ease of use with printed instructions. I think I will change it to "Anchors (Arms)" for my set. 

I have thought about the pawn issue, and for myself I have come up with a couple of solutions.  I plan on painting or otherwise attach a suit symbol and directional marker to the standard pawns (not practical for mass production). In addition I have disc pawns that are thick coins, which have the suit and directional marker on both sides, having one side inverted in colour to show an alternate state. (these are the stars on my pdf) These get cut out and glued to a thicker coin to be used as a pawn.

Finally to address the "right" way issue. I myself have not yet played with a piecepack, and so am not yet influenced by said notion in this case, though I understand it completely. No offence taken at all. I am truly enjoying myself to date, and am finding the feedback very helpfull in making me think about what is going on with the set. I look forward to settling on a v1.0 JCD piecepack, and getting it made so that I can start to work on my entry in the competition (what drew me to piecepack in the first place, thanks to boardgamegeek.com). 

Please, if you have any further comments, keep em coming. Thanks all.


--- In piecepack@y..., "Karol" <karol@m...> wrote:
> Okay, you asked for it. :-)
> I love the pdf, very nice work as I've said before. This could just be a
> preference, I'm not sure, but I don't like the swirl being used on the tiles
> in place of the suit aces. Of course you are free to do what you feel is
> appropriate and heck even just what you prefer. :-) But you did ask, so I
> share what I think. I feel it is distracting to have the swirl instead of
> the suits. I don't know if James (piecepack creator) evaluated the merits of
> this in the beginning or not. I'm not gonna hazard a guess or assume
> anything. I will say that usually the first way something is introduced is
> sometimes seen as the "right" way -whether it is the best way or not - and
> that could be coloring my opinion -plus I make the sets for MG and we did
> them just like the very first set we saw from James. (He used green for his
> crown and that's why we did the same with 1st and 2nd Editions). [Before
> anyone blasts me about using "right": think about cross over songs on the
> radio, if you listened first to a pop song and then you happen to hear the
> very same song on a friend's Country station you'd recognize it but you
> think "huh, that's not right" - not that you don't like it or do like it,
> just that it seems different and "not quite right".) I'm not saying there
> isn't room for improvement or that even the majority of folks won't disagree
> with me- I could be the only fish in this pond with his particular stripe.
> Another reason for my opinion (subject to change w/o notice) is that keeping
> sets true to the original design makes it much easier on consumers and also
> designers when they are writing up rules that use specific suits. (I do
> think your Anchor makes a nice addition but I think it should be a Fluer de
> Les or not called "Arms" (altho that term does help keep the set true in a
> sense to the original design)- I guess anchors could be weapon, but even a
> feather could pierce if it has enough speed right?). The natural thing seems
> to have an expansion with the 4 typical playing card suits, I've thought
> that from the beginning, however how do you tell the pawns apart? This is
> one of the issues I am working on for MG.
> 
> One of the issues I've seen folks have is with the pawns, I like them, but
> they are also non-directional. I'm working on a way of making directionality
> optional with them, through an accessory maybe a whole different pawn but as
> an addition and not a replacement. It's sometimes difficult to put an idea
> into action, especially when we are talking about wooden pieces, finding
> premade pieces is very cost effective, having a new design made, we are
> talking about minimal orders of 5,000-10,000 pieces or more.
> 
> I really enjoy this forum, and I am very glad that you have decided to join
> in the piecepack fun! And I really hope no one takes offense at my opinions,
> that's just what they are and like I said subject to change w/o notice. ;-)
> 
> Karol MMB