The Brick Mill Games Blog
As I’ve stated in earlier blog posts, there are times when I go into “radio silence” for a variety of reasons. Whatever the underlying reason(s), the silence aspect of it usually boils down to two explanations: I have nothing coherent to discuss, or posting something somewhere (besides flippant Facebook posts) is “yet another thing to…
Continue ReadingGrapeshot [greyp-shot] noun: in artillery, grapeshot is a type of shot that is not one solid element, but a mass of small metal balls or slugs packed tightly into a canvas bag. [Wikipedia] Dice Service Migration Status The migration of the old KenWare dice service to the Brick Mill Games site continues apace. It is not…
Continue ReadingIt didn’t take long for Steel & Steam to move back to the front burner. A couple of days ago, Marc Guenette, one of the administrators of the Stack Académie Montréal Facebook page, sent me an invitation to join their group and attend their annual game convention in Montréal, which is taking place from May…
Continue ReadingThe genesis of Steel & Steam came from numerous playings of the Avalon Hill classic, Rail Baron. Rail Baron was a favorite of my son and his mother and we enjoyed playing many games together. However, over time, it became apparent that the game experience was not as rich as it could have been. Under…
Continue ReadingThe latest playtest of Steel & Steam was, in my opinion, the most successful yet. As to why… Pace We actually finished a game within 4½ hours. The faster trains solved the pacing problem w/o adversely affecting game play. My primary concern with making the trains faster was that it would reduce game tension among…
Continue Reading“When we last left our intrepid hero, he was elbow deep in PC innards and busily updating his Canvas tools…” Not long after I wrote my last blog post, Virus 4 hit me with a vigor only seen in criminal assault cases. While I was in Seattle at Game ON!, Claire had warned me that…
Continue ReadingSome algorithms are more difficult than others. The brute force (obvious) method might work, but it also might take more time than you’re willing to spend, both in development and in the actual running of it. I finally figured out the fast method and the data was indeed well worth the effort. As an alternate…
Continue ReadingThe design and development of Steel & Steam is extremely data-centric. All the stops and spaces have names and latitude and longitude coordinates. All the payoff amounts are based on shortest-path algorithms that take into account the cumulation of track mileage between the lat/long coordinate positions. All the property values are based on their ability…
Continue ReadingAs I’ve written before, I’m sorta stuck on the game’s victory conditions. Saturday’s play test session drove the point home, albeit indirectly. If the victory conditions are solely based on net worth, if cash on hand is equal in importance to property values, why buy properties? This conundrum came up as four newbies started the…
Continue ReadingThe image below shows the updated player aid card. Locomotive speeds have been increased and updated locomotives have a wider range of maintenance levels, giving increased reliability when highballin’. Arrows also show the progression of maintenance levels from better to worse.
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