Re: [piecepack] An Appology

[Porter TwoThreeFive <porter235@...>]

At 08:55 PM 8/19/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>    First off, I think that perhaps the group thinks higher of me
>despite the insults. Not to excuse, but to simply inform... I am
>only 20 years old, and well, fairly recent to creating games- taking
>game concepts further (1995 with Portal for Magic The Gathering
>which was my first step into more "higher games"). A Brief time
>being employed by WOTC also helped.

I believe NONE of us here are professional game designers.

>  As I posted earlier in my
>blowing off of steam, I simply do not have 40 bucks to spend on one
>German-style game, let alone enough to buy more than one to take
>concepts from to form my own game.

Check out boardgamegeek.com There you can download translated (english)

rules for scores of games. Reading just the rule set can be a great
FREE 
resource from which you can draw. Once you know the rules... check the
net, 
some of these games have FREE online implementations such as all of the

games at <http://www.brettspielwelt.de/gate/jsp/base/index.jsp> (they
even 
have Puerto Rico!) Read reviews and comments on the games at 
boardgamegeek.com... lots of people will tell you what they like and
don't 
like about the games... use this info to your advantage, and it's FREE.

Read The Games Journal <http://www.thegamesjournal.com/> an online
monthly 
gaming magazine which is FREE.

>  In Fact, being the Author of
>Piecepack Workshop, I dont even own a "real" Piecepack, I made my
>own out of paper, ergo, that is why I created the workshop.

Hey me too. I spent very little and made my own outta wood.. cost me
bout $20.

>  My
>concern is simply that one of the guidelines was  "" The game must
>utilize a piecepack and preferably should make use of some of the
>unique aspects of the piecepack. ""  and I think its hard to do
>this, when you have other board games/game systems in mind before
>piecepack. We all need a common base to have as foundations to build
>new Ideas...  The alphabet and even a deck of playing cards
>illustrate this.

Just because you use the same "common base" as a foundation does not
mean 
that it can not have many different variations and facets. The alphabet

used here is also used for french, and spanish. Just because I know the

letters that are in their language does not mean that I know their 
language. Have you ever tried to teach someone their first trick taking

game. Not an easy concept to grasp at first, but once learned it can be

applied to hundreds of games... all of which have their own merit.


>However I feel that if a majority of a game is
>rehashed it looses value in a game of itself.

Please read the articles I mentioned about reuse... "rehashing" often
leads 
to BETTER games!

>  I have still to read
>any of the other rulesets..

A good start if you are going to criticize them.

>but it will be interesting to see how
>the coins will be "spent"  in this game...  perhaps it will shed new
>life in a mechanic that seems to be near death.
>
>I did what I could with what I was given, and with what I have. I
>thought that a fresh look at games with Piecepack.

OK.. and it wasn't as good as other entries. You must learn to live
with that.

>  I am sorry that I
>tried to force this view down everyone else's throats.

Feel free to express your opinions, please don't whine though.

>  This is all
>appoligize for, because I do not want my creative talents to conform
>to what every else says it should be, the "meta-game" of game design
>would lose all fun with me at that point. I am sure that the group
>would agree with me on that.

I might if i understood your point.

>Eric


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