Dominant Species by BoredMormon

Board games are my current obsession, expect to see a few more of these reviews coming up

The feel

The ice age is coming. Food is scarce. Competition is not. The landscape is changing dramatically, fertile oceans quickly become icy wasteland. Resources that were once abundant disappear in an instant. Life is balanced on a knife edge.

The board represents this changing landscape well. The board never stays the same round to round. Long term planning is difficult. Strategies tend to be short term survival measures.

The game plays well at both ends of the player spectrum. With two players it’s a battle of wits, reducing your opponents ability to score is as effective as increasing your own scoring potential. Six player strategy tends to be more defensive, exert too much energy attacking and you’ll find yourself vulnerable.

The rules

For a game this complex the rules are rather simple. It’s not a game you can teach as you go, you do have to invest about twenty minutes explaining the game to new players. But once the game starts you rarely have to go back over a rule.

The short version: There are a bunch of actions you can take each turn. Players compete for the best actions. Then the actions are executed one at a time. Then the board is reset.

The competing for actions phase takes the longest and is most prone to AP. Determining the board position after twenty odd actions by players with differing strategies and motives before any of those actions occur is near impossible. Its this level of uncertainty that gives the game its complexity.

Executing actions is where the fun happens. You get to adapt, change the map, add more cubes, eliminate your opponents’ cubes and score points. You find out just how sneaky and underhand your opponents are. They get to see your sheer brilliance.

The game has two scoring mechanisms on each tile. Being the best adapted to your environment give you access to cards. Having the most species give you access to points. The game is full of interesting situations where you need to choose between scoring a tile with good points and gifting points to get the best card.

No discussion of Dominant Species would be complete without mentioning the cards. The cards vary greatly in power, making the first domination (scoring) action is more valuable then the last. Of course choosing the first domination action means you have second choice on all the other actions. All of the cards are visible from the beginning of each round, allowing everyone to prepare for their potentially game changing effects.

The game is won by being the most abundant animal at the end of the game. Actually the game is won by having the most points, and the biggest point swing comes in final scoring. In our plays so far the game has never been won by the person out front when we go into final scoring.

Likes

- You’re only ever one turn away from disaster.
- Setup is relatively short for players who know what they are doing
- Individual actions are very short, even with six players there is very little down time
- The game works well across the entire players range

Dislikes

- Not intended for casual play
- High powered cards and a high bias towards the endgame scoring mean new players get smashed. This is after repeatedly emphasising these two facts.

Reccomendation

If you have a group that enjoys heavy games with lots of moving parts then buy this one. This is not one to pull out after dinner for casual play.

Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

With the movie hitting the big screen I thought its time I see what the hype was about. Its been a long time since I stayed up till one reading, and woke up early to finish a book.

!!!Spoiler Alert!!!

That wasn't strictly needed. But there was this one time in highschool that I let slip that Gandalf didn't really die in The Fellowship to a girl I had a crush on. She didn't talk to me for a week. Good thing too, I'd been on the verge of pursuing a relationship with someone who hadn't read LTOR. Close one.

If you've seen the movie trailer or read the back of the book you can surmise the entire plot. Not a single twist. Not even the simple 'wait I thought we killed him earlier' variety. Twilight requires a higher IQ. But if you like a straight forward adventure this is your book.

“I don’t know how to say it exactly. Only... I want to die as myself... I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”

This is supposed to be a major theme, but the monster doesn't stand a chance. Katniss never makes a real kill. Sure she kills in self defence, she gets angry and takes revenge, and generally kicks ass. But she never has to turn on her friends or even stalk down one of the villians in cold blood. It was a little dissapointing.

And the ending is not too crash hot either. I won't spoil it, because the suspense is pretty good.

My rating? Read the book, expect to be entertained, don't expect to think.

So it starts tomorrow

And like normal I am nowhere near prepared. Its been said that people will take ninety percent of the time doing the first ten percent of the task. That leaves the bulk of the work to be done in the shortest amount of time.

So it was with my planning. I could finish off the rest of the work, but in the true spirit of NaNoWriMo I will wing it.

Wish me luck.

It all has to happen somewhere

Yup, today I'm looking at setting. You may find it strange to look at setting this early, right after structure. But let me explain my reasons.

Setting is key to so many elements of a good story. For a start setting decides what can and can't happen. A plot about escaping a shipwreak only makes sense on a large body of water. An evil wizard taking over the world only works if magic exists. And try writing a romance without a predefined concept of gender.

Setting is also key to characters. Characters are born, grow up, live, love and die, all within the setting. A story in modern New York will have very different characters from one set in the ancient Mesapatonion jungle. You guessed it, time is just as important as place.

Some settings require more work then others. A completely fictional setting requires lots of work to make and keep it consistient. For example you can't have a literate population without both a paper and printing press equivilent. Okay, so thats one of my pet peeves that nobody else seems to notice, but you get the point. A familiar place will provide you with ready made details, but it will also constrain you. Everyone knows there is no alley way between first and fifth street.

My story will happen in a fictional modern earth city, it may look suspiciously similar to New Zealand. I want all the benefits of writing on earth, but none of the constraints of a real location. I'm somewhat nervous about this, my comfort zone is completely fictional locations. Current period. I might throw a chemical factory in the mix too.

Incidentally I will be trying out writing using the new beta of Scrivener for Windows. Set the structure up this morning.

Outline

So here it is, the first stage of my planning process

Begining - 10,000 words - The good guys are hanging out
Middle - 30,000 words - The bad guys show up and make life diffficult for the good guys. The good guys fight back, but get it handed to them on a platter.
End - 10,000 words - Just when all hope is lost the good guys get their act together and manage to save the day. They live happily ever after.

This may seem like a trivial exercise. But it defines what the project is, and what it is not. For example, it is not a romance, by this stage a romance would already look completely different. Nor is not an epic.

Next I'll think about the where.

NaNoWriMo coming up again

Its amazing how fast the year rolls around. Seems like it wasn't that long ago that I was writing The Adventures of Zeek, learning wonderful things about writing without an outline. But its just a few weeks until everything starts up again.

After last years effort I'm not expecting to come in anywhere near target. There is this thing called life that just keeps getting in the way. While I admire those that put writing as their top priority, its not something I'm willing to do. Got a wife and two kids who I love spending time with. Got a job I enjoy that pays me too much to slack off. I'm sure someone will visit, get sick, and I'll discover a new book or video game that can't wait.

So that's all my excuses out of the way in advance. Now I can stop worrying about them and get on with the job at hand.

Like normal I'm going to approach NaNoWriMo differently. Last year was about not having a plan. This year will be about ignoring physics. Completely. Pure fantasy with no regards to cost or consequences. Let their be earthquakes and volcanoes (without destroying the local ecosystem). Let there be walking through walls. Let there be epic battles between good and evil, just because one side is good and the other is evil.

I'm thinking something along the lines of X-Men. If you're lucky, and if my daughter keeps deciding that Daddy should be getting out of bed at five in the morning, I'll share the rest of my planning process here.

Please comment and share your thoughts. I'll include as many as possible in the project.

BM out

No More Mister Nice Guy

I'm currently rereading Robin Hobb. One of my favorite authors. Very well thought out convoluted plots. Very distinct characters. From the Fool to Nighteyes to Captin Kennit, even the bad guys are well developed.

That's when the penny dropped. I have no bad guys, not a single one. Sure I have 'villians', characters who want something different from the hero. But none of them are evil, just moving in different directions.

A few days later I was sitting in a versatility workshop at work. The guy was presenting on different social styles. All these pennies could make me rich, if the Americans ever get their economy together. All of my characters are basically the same style. Sure, they have completely different backgrounds. They have different motivations and goals. But they go about problem solving the same way. They react to stress the same way. Deep down inside they are all the same person, me.

Are these the real reasons my manuscripts consistently stall twenty thousand words in?

I believe the solution is simple, I have to exaggerate my characters, make each one is unique deep down, not just on the surface. Of course none of this will happen unless I find some time to write. I love getting my paycheck each month, but full time work has some definite disadvantages.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.