PnP Wednesday #7
Last week we had nothing to really make for the print portion of Print and Play. We made that up to you this week with Kronocell. Not only did we make out our own board and tokens, the usual stuff, we also made cards and a tuck box! Following the standard format we'll talk about the game then go into the successes and failures of our new crafty methods. We are also evolving a little bit to try to talk more about how the game plays before doing the GBU. We are also going to try to start adding links to the supplies we used in the production process so you can find them yourselves. We aren't being paid to do this, we just figure that if we like the stuff and it works for us we will pas on the information accurately. If someone happens to want to sponsor the blog with some material exchange we would be down for that though.
The Playing
Kronocell is a two player terrain control game designed by Peter Ivancek and you can find the files here. It is highly analogous to turn based tactical combat video games like Shining Force or Final Fantasy tactics. The designer pulled this off with a pretty clever use of cards and turn counting. At the start of the game the players determine how many units they will be fielding, 1-5, and secretly select which ones they will use. Each unit has a standee, a token for the health/capture/stun track, and 4 action cards. There is no mechanism in the rules for selecting your units so I had players take all 5 tokens in hand then place the ones they wanted to use face down on the health track so they could do a simultaneous reveal.
Once you have your units picked out you take all their action cards and put them in hand, select how to deploy your units then begin. The only random aspect of the entire game is determining first player. After that play gets pretty intense pretty fast. You can either move one unit up to his printed move value, or take one action with a unit. When a player plays an action on his turn, he has to declare which unit is activating and pick the action for that unit. He plays it face down though because after the action declaration the non active player gets to play a reaction. When a player reacts he simply selects any card action for any one of his units and plays it face down. The first player then reveals his card and targets it, then takes care of any movement portions of the card. Then the defending player reveals and the two players compare the Execution Values, numbers in the upper left corner. The faster card executes first. The most important thing here is that if a unit takes damage or is stunned before their action executes the action has no effect so figuring our what you opponent might try to do to you is critical and can be a huge game changer. After you use an action you place it on the refresh track based on the refresh rate located in the upper right corner. Kronocell is a just as much a bluffing game as it is a tactical movement based game and it is incredibly fun. I could very much see lifting the mechanics to make a more robust multiplayer version of the game.
The Good
Chess is often described as a game in which the winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake and that is a spot on description of Kronocell. I'm not saying it is chess, but man it feels close. The amount of tactical choice you have in this game is amazing and it is made meatier by the reaction system. The nice thing is that when you lose you feel like maybe you could have won if you had just figured it out. In theory, games play fast enough that you could play through a few in a row, but sometimes you get those important turns that make you sit and think. Your ability to read the other player and work through multiple play lines simultaneously helps significantly in this game. Also, don't be afraid to lose a piece or two, another great chess quote fits here and made me lose a pretty epic game. "To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." I still keep thinking about how I threw the victory away to save a rifleman I didn't even need. Even one of the players who wasn't too keen on the game kept coming back trying to figure his way through it. So if you like it even a little bit Kronocell will get its hooks into your brain. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just move a unit and let the other guy commit himself.
The Bad
The board is clever for a print and play because it is three 8 1/2" by 11" sheets, but ultimately I wish the turn/stun track were integrated into the board a little better. There were a few times that we missed moving the turn track which is detrimental to gameplay considering how important that is for capturing and refreshing. Having to look away from the action to remember to move that when you are getting into tricky situations is a bit of a buzz kill for the action.
I also think that point capture happens a little too quickly considering that if a player just moves a unit he or she is able to advance the turn track without the opponent being able to react. With the three turn structure this can cause an issue with actions that allow for movement such as the Guards charge, the Scouts run and stab or the Demolishers rocket jump. If they move as a react and land on a capture point then the player only has one turn to try to stop the capture because on both of the players’ turns they will be able to just move a unit and not have to worry about dealing with a react. This might seem like an unlikely event but when you consider the size of the board it is actually a lot more likely than you would think. Since it only takes 1 capture in a small game and two in a large game this can be an issue.
The Ugly
The art is gorgeous in the files but way to dark to print well. This leads to a minor issue for the cards and a pretty major issue for the tokens. It was very hard to see the faces on the tokens and the stars in the capture markers. Speaking of the capture markers having a spot on the board to show the number of captures rather than just placing your capture token on the captured spot itself was a bit unnecessary. The rules state that a spot can't be captured more than once, so why not just put the token directly on the board so that both players are aware of the points that have been captured.
Unit balance seems a bit off, most specifically in the Rifleman, and the Guard. The Guard is super fast, super strong, and also super defensive. The rifle man, on the other hand is pretty slow and also not that great on the range. One of his attacks, Cripple, has exactly a 2 range but is still slow at speed 4 and does no damage with only a 1 turn stun. As the game is played more this might turn out to not be an issue but it was noted very quickly by almost everyone who looked at the game and played it.
Wrap up
Kronocell is a game that exists in multiple levels and can be very heavy and thoughtful or very fast and light. This is a game that would do well to have a chess clock to keep certain types of players from taking an hour to make their play. If you like tactical strategy games this is definitely a winner, but be warned that there is a steep learning curve and like Chess of Magic it is easy for an experienced player to trounce a new player.
Designer Observations:
One change I would make is to increase the number of turns required to capture a point to 4. This would mean that no matter what you would get two chances to break up the capture, alternatively make doing damage push a capture back by two turns.
Additionally I would look at modifying the action values a little bit. Balance is always hard but currently I think the Rifleman needs a little bit of something to make him worth being a one shot kill. I would suggest taking his Cripple action and making it 2-3 range with a 3 or lower speed. This would give him a somewhat defensive attack that could also be used to strategically stop a capture or interrupt other actions something the unit currently lacks. It would also give some utility beyond pellet shot and give the Rifle Man a somewhat tool box effect.
Making the Game:
I had a lot of fun making this game because I tried out some new stuff just to see how it would go. The board and tokens were simple. The tokens were a nice standard 3/4 inch circle so label paper , chipboard , and a handy circle punch were all they took. Similarly the board was easy because it was designed to be three sheets of paper put together end to end. Three pieces of chip board and some tape was all it took to make a three piece fold-able board. As I said above the colors were a bit dark and I think they may have been RGB so they didn't print as vibrantly as I would have liked. For the standees in the file we printed them on 110 lb card stock and used an x-acto to cut them out. The scout was a bit annoying but once I had a decent method it went quickly. All in all, the standees were designed quite ingeniously and didn’t even need additional support.
The real fun came with the cards. I decided to use a new method from the Board Game Geeks forums. You can find a full description of it here. Essentially you use 65 lb linen card stock to glued together in order to get some nice looking cards. To do this properly you need to print out the fronts and backs, then use a light box, or in my case a handy desk lamp, to line up the two sides.
Once you have them lined up properly, tape the two halves together. If your printer is as inaccurate as mine, and I would assume most consumer printers are, you will have to cut one edge so that it lines up perfectly. Use this edge as a fold line by tightly taping the cut edge then removing the tape from the other sides. This will allow you to open the two sheets up like a book for the gluing. The gluing is the key step in normal card making that gives them the snap and full opacity. If you can get your hands on some of the glue with graphite in it that they use then go for it. Otherwise just pull out the handy spray glue, liberally coat both sides, let it air dry for a few seconds then carefully fold it back together and go to town with a brayer or rolling pin to flatten out the cards.
That seems like it takes a while, but the slowest part of the whole process is lining up the images. Once you have it all glued and brayed just let it set up over night and you will be ready to cut in the morning. Make sure you use a corner rounder for that finished look. I just use a small hand held one I got at Hobby Lobby to clip all four corners of each card. It takes a while but is pretty idiot proof so you can do it while you watch a movie or some other activity that doesn't require the use of your hands.
The three issues I ran into with these methods were that the cards were not very stiff. This wasn't a huge issue since you aren't shuffling the cards in Kronocell but if you do have a deck that needs to be shuffled just realize that these won't do it. Second they are not fully Opaque. With the art as dark as it is in Kronocell this also ended up not being an issue but this method won't work for anything with light backs. The last issue was that the toner didn't fuse as well as I would have liked. If you have messed with a laser printer much you know that handling prints can make the toner rub off some, unfortunately this is a big issue with playing cards. I am going to work with a variety of sealers to see which one works best. My first test is with standard super hold hair spray. I'll let you know how it goes. If you have another idea let me know.
The other cool thing I tried was making a tuck box out of chip board. To do this I measured the stack of cards then drew out a net on the chip board. For those who don't remember middle school mathematics a net is just a three dimensional figure that has been taken apart and flattened. The net I made worked pretty well for free handing it, it fit the cards perfectly and closed but it left a ridge along the back where the pieces folded over to glue. I think I'll take a few measurements and try again with a bit more precision. To dress it up a bit I added one of each card back to the box. It may seem like a pointless addition, but it really helps with presentation and storage.
You can find out more about kronocell by following them on twitter @kronocell
If you want to get your game in the PnP library at our local store and get a write up and play through find us on twitter @Blankwallgames or head over to our website Blankwallgames.com and send us an e-mail with the files and some info about you.