Mutation: More quick notes

 I wanted to get some ideas written down before I forget. I playtested a few times with Anastasia a month and a half ago and just realized I hadn't mentioned it.

The big notes:

1. Playing 2p was awesome, controlling 2 colors. What if you always controlled 2 colors? We tried "Between Two Petri Dishes" at 3p where we each shared 2 colors and it sort of worked. Lots of overlap but I think there is potential there.
2. Removing the assumption that dice MUST always match. We tried a couple of games where dice had to match at least one side instead of all sides and surprisingly it didn't break the game. It made it easier to have "good plays" so we were less often going fishing with bad die rolls to start new things. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it.

More mutation testable ideas

Dice are now STABLE or UNSTABLE.

no retools on a pair

Pair affects all stable adjacent dice to a players strain that match the pair value.

Mutation modification testing notes.

Quick mutation update ideas before I forget them like last time

STRONG DIE = same level adjacent dice < current level
WEAK DIE = same level adjacent dice >= current level

Only weak dice can be stacked on.
When doubles are rolled, player must remove if possible and it's any birds eye adjacent STRONG die.
May reroll double only if no legal removals.
Don't place a die on a turn when you remove one.
Give removed dice back to opponent
Game over after any player places their last die.

Mutation: starting to tighten this thing up

I had a couple productive playtests of Mutation yesterday, below is the feedback I received:

• Change removal rule to "Remove, then place. You can't place where you removed".  This is a far more elegant and simple rule to explain over the "only remove when adjacent to a chain of at least 2 dice" rule i've used for years.
• Variable end game condition, most likely first to 10 (value to be tested) or largest strain after 20 turns.
• Test a partner variant where you work together and win as a team when one of you has the longest strain.
• Work on 2 player game more.  
• Perhaps both players play two colors in much the same way a partnership game would play out.  
• Perhaps you roll four dice at a time (2 of each color) and place both on your turn.
• Asymmetric 2 player mode, one player is the bacteria and the other is an immune system or antibiotic fighting back. 
• Players have different actions available to them, bacteria spreads fast but the opponent is "Stronger" somehow.
• Tested some cardplay options. Nothing has really clicked yet, though I like the idea of a variant that uses card play to slightly modify dice and perhaps restrict double total numbers. 
• Tried 6 cards, one of each value, and you can spend them to induce a double or break the level 1 adjacency rule.
• Issues here are how it can slow down the game and potentially have odd stalemate moments where the first to spend the card will surely lose becasue the opponent can spend theres to come back and then both will lack the card and the second player will have the desired board position.

General consensus is that I DO have something here and it is close to done.  I just need to tighten up some of the rules, and increase the possible variant options to add value to the overall game.  There was also a feeling from everyone that Mutation isn't necessarily detracted by being a pure dice game.  I don't want potential customers to be turned off by the apparent lack of proprietary content.

More Mutation Musings

I tried a couple things out. Want to get some stuff down in writing.

Rolling 2 dice, using on on the board and one into the mutation pool seems interesting so far.

I tried a scenario where leveling up cost mutation points equal to the level attained.  Also you needed to roll a die pip that matches something in your pool to go up level.  If you miss then by definition you can add another die to your mutation pool and become even more likely next turn to level.  I put in an added "you can immediately legally place a number of die from your mutation pool equal to the Mutation Pool value - New Level attained" i order to try and mitigate getting behind from a bad roll not letting you level up at your first opportunity.  This seemed cool, but other players who DID get it on their first turn had a permanent lead on that unfortunate player and it wasn't good enough.

This led me to thinking about some sort of penalty for stacking, for instance paying a mutation point, but i'm worried that could really slow the game down. I am also thinking about possibly aiding the stacked player in some way, but "giving them a mutation point" seems odd and what value would it be set to? Perhaps they just roll X additional dice on their next turn where X equals the number of stacked die they had between turns.

A different Idea involves the Mutation pool collecting sets of dice with certain values.  For instance maybe you have to cash in X doubles from the mutation pool where X is equal to the new level.  This may have a bad effect of spreading out who has leveled based on luck even more.

Or perhaps you can always stack, but your level gives you a discount on mutation points for payment of the stacking?

Mutation Musings

This game is cool, it's just too simple. Thoughts:

• Have a pool where you can put dice to show your "mutation points".  Spend mutation points to level up your organism as a whole. You can't have two dice with the same value in the mutation point pool.
• Three overall levels for the organism.  The game always has the same 3 level up bonuses and then 3 random ones that are associated with each.  The 3 main ones are:
• Level 1 - No stacking (starting point)
• Level 2 - Can stack up to total height of 2
• Level 3 - Can Stack up to total height of 3
• "Random bonuses" are a stack of cards, three are dealt out at the start of the game randomly, they are associated with the three levels.  This means from the beginning of the game everyone will have a bonus that will likely differ from previous starting settings making each game start off feeling different.
• Take out "doubles = removal", they simply allow a reroll
• Possibly spend Mutation points (maybe die needs to match?) to do a standard removal action.
• Variable game end conditon, not sure what this is yet.

Small Mutation update

Mutation has now been played almost 10 times among the Berkeley gaming group and there has been a suprisingly small amount of changes that have come from these playthroughs.

1. You may re-roll a double if you don't want to take the removal action and do not like the number of the double rolled.
2. You may not removed a die that has been "blocked in" on all four sides.
3. 2 player is simply not fun and waaaay too dependant on die rolls. I am officially stating that it is not an option any more.

At this point I believe the game is well into a refinement phase and I do not expect to make any huge aditions to it's gameplay. i will continue to try and get it out there and played...and at some arbitrary point I will decide that it is finished :P

Oh and Mutation is BoardGameGeek.com official now!

now for the next game...

San Diego "Mutation" update

Since bieng in San Diego I have been able to get three plays of Mutation in, with three different numbers of people, and the feedback has been very constructive.

The first game I played was just with Mike in a two player mode. This was the first time i've played against someone else in two player and while it was fun, it was also a little autonomous. I will test out this mode more in the future but I am not sure if there is enough going on with only one other person to make it really great.

The next night we had a 5 player game in which I sat out and moderated. This game was played with the rules as they are stated in the blog post underneath this and it was very interesting to watch. The first issue that cropped up was the stacks of dice getting precariously tall. This has come up in pretty much every game that has been played so far, one or two stacks would get 5 or 6 dice on them. The second issue was the game needing a tie breaker condition since we had a tie. After discussion these are the two solutions we came up with for the moment:

Create a maximum dice stacking ceiling height. We discussed having it be at various heights and generally agreed that three high makes the most sense for the first couple tests. 4 high starts to get shaky, and 2 high just seems too short.

The tie breaker is the second longest strain.

This 5 player game ended looking like this:


This morning we played one three player game using the changes I mentioned above. There were some interesting strategy options that come out of having a dice max height, one in particular being placing dice on top of your own. Since you can not place a 4th die on top of a stack, the third die is a very secure position. The only way to lose a third stack die is to have it doubled off which happens much less then simply being able to cover it up. I really liked this interaction, it leaves the player with more decisions of varying risk. Do you cover an opponents level 1 die and increase your Strain (but leave it vulnerable to someone stacking a third on top and having that be very secure) or do you place a third level die on top of your second level die to better secure that position?

Having a max height also forced more sprawling which was not only more stable but also interesting because it creates more options to play with.

This game ended with Robyn winning (clear) with a tie breaker, all three of us had a largest strain of 6!


Every single game i've played has been very close, usually someone gets beaten back and somehow rebounds and is at least a threat to win by the end. The 5 player game took about an hour to play through, though there was some discussion and rule clarification in the middle. All told I am VERY happy with how this is progressing and look forward to getting some plays in at game nights back in the Bay Area.

Mutation rules and setup as it stands

First, a note on starting setups
One note that came from last night's playtest was the idea of having an initial setup of dice on the board to work from. I liked this idea so much I went out and bought a set of white die in order to have "neutral" die on the board to start.

Below are the 4 initial setup layouts for the different number of players, 2 and 4 in the first, and 3 and 5 in the second. 2 and 4 was pretty straightforward, but 3 and 5 were really tough. No matter how I arrainged the die, one of them was always closer to more enemies then the others. It is tough at the moment to decide which is an advantage and disadvantage. Being green seems disadvantagsous because it is nearer more two enemies as well as only having less open sides. however green starts with the greatest number of options for expanding, I hope this all works out in the end. Playtesting should shed some light there (in a mock 3 player game green ended up winning).




The Rules (as of now anyway)

This is intended to be a clear and concise ruleset for the next round of playtesting that I hope to have while in San Diego. There are some tweaks from our playtest last night.

1. Every player rolls a die to figure out who starts. The highest roll is the start player, reroll ties.
2. Each player takes 22 dice of their color, and then uses one of these to create the starting setup pattern that matches their number of players. All dice should be rolled before placing. If a 3 or 5 player game put the starting players die in the green position from the example pictures.
3. Whenever the term "adjacent" is used for the rest of the rules, this implies orthogonal adjacency. Diagonals are never considered adjacent. The top die on any stack is the only die that counts towards adjacency. Example: A die on top of 5 other dice is technically adjacent to a die orthogonally next to its stack but on the first level with no dice underneath it.
4. When the rules refer to a players "Strain" this is any number of adjacent die of their color on the board. A Strain can consist of one die.
5. The starting player rolls two die. They then place one of the die according to the following rules:
- Place the die on the first level, adjacent to one or multiple die of their color. The placed die's value MUST match ALL adjacent die of their color.
- Place the die on the first level, adjacent to any die which is not their color. The values do not have to match.
- Place the die on top of an existing die of a different color then the players. The covered die must be adjacent to a die of the players color as well as have the same value as the die which is placed on top. A opponents die cannot be covered if it is their last remaining top die on the board.
5. If the player rolled the same value on both dice, then they get to do a special removal action after placing their die in step 5. They may remove on opponents die permanently from the board with the following conditions:
- Opponents die must be at the top of a stack.
- Opponents die must be adjacent to one of the Player's Strains which is at least 2 dice in size.
6. The unused die from the player's roll goes back into their dice pool.
7. The next player clockwise now takes their turn starting at step 5.
8. If a player does not have 2 die to roll then they cannot take their turn and the game has ended.
9. The player with the largest Strain on the board is the winner.

In conclusion
I hope to get in a few playtest games while visiting friends in San Diego. Ideally i hope to try various numbers of players, especially 3 and 5. If you have any comments about the initial setups please let me know.

Here is the end of a mock 3 player game with the current initial startup. Green ended up winning but it didn't seem to have anything to due with it's bieng closer to more die numbers in the beginning.

Dice game "Mutation" update

So the un-nammed dice game now has a tentative name of "Mutation".

Last night I was able to play it for the first time with other people, and it was a full game of 5 players. I stuck with the same rules from the last post with the following exception:

- Rolling double now let you place one of the die following the rules, and then remove the top dice of any location that is orthogonally adjacent to the die you placed this turn.

It became obvious very early that this needed a stipulation added of "dice on the ground level can never be removed" since we rolled several doubles and before we could start stacking we had hard to manage holes in our playing area and Owen was completely knocked off the board twice. This brought the second change that will be in the next game, a player can never be completely covered, so if they are down to one die showing they will be invulnerable to bieng removed or stacked on.

One other note was about an alternative win condition. I won't be instituting this just yet but i'll keep it in the back of my mind, and that is having a "you win immediately if your chain gets to X size" so that there is alittle more tension if someone is exploding even though the game is only half over. We had that happen last night and by the end that player had the smallest chain of anyone. (Blue in the pictures below).

Testing will continue, i am super happy with how well this is already playing after 2 playtests. The final outcome is below, I won (I was the clear dice).

The name works for a tentative them of organisms in a petri dish fighting it out for dominance. The dice structures represent bacteria that are mutating and when they mutate right they can attack others and diversify their numbers and therefore make it easier for them to grow more. I like it.

Un-named dice game super preliminary first try

This blog has been dead for a while, I've decided to revive it with my next project (that i'll probably lose interest in halfway through again anyway, ha). The issue with Reliquary is that while it had some interesting decisions and my brain was in the right place for it at the time, it was too complex for my first real attempt at game design. I learned a lot, and it was very stimulating, but in the end it was just boring to play. I know I could have kept at it and ended up with a great game, but it was beyond me at the time.

I've known for a while that my next project will need to be much simpler. I really like abstract games, theme isn't that important to me, so I figured my next one should scrap theme entirely until near the end and just focus on interesting decisions and mechanics.

So I've had this idea knocking around my head for about a week that involves each player having a ton of dice and playing them on a board like tiles would be in other games. The main influence was Taluva, I wanted it to be 3d, and instead of people drawing random tiles and placing them strategically, they roll dice and use the outcome strategically. Ultimately I do not intend to have this game played with D6 spotted dice, I actually just bought 400 blank colored dice for this exact reason (it was a steal!) but for the groundwork I needed regular dice.

I shopped around, but didn't really want to drop 20-30 dollars on a bunch of D6 spotted dice that would only be used for the early testing of this game. Then i bumped into a thread online talking about "Dicetime" dice that are only sold at Dollar Tree. $1 for 10 dice, 5 colors, and two of each color. The dice are crappy and made in taiwan but this made perfect sense for my project. I ended up going to 3 Dollar Tree stores looking for them, two stores had some so i bought them out but that unfortunately still left me with only 7 packs. I was hoping for 10, oh well.

This morning after a protracted sleep in thinking about the mechanics for a while I decided to give it a shot with what I have rattling around in my head so far. The rules are currently:

• Each player has 14 dice of their color.
• Player rolls 2 dice at the beginning of their turn.
• They choose one of the two die and place it on the playing surface with the following conditions

1. A die can only be placed orthogonally next to another die of your color if its value is the same.
2. If you rolled the same value on both die, then you get to place both die on this turn instead of just choosing one.
3. You can place your die on top of an opponents die only if the value of your die matches the value of the die you are covering. You can only do this if the opponents die is orthogonally adjacent to one of your die.

• The game is over when one player has no more dice to roll on their turn.
• The winner is the player with the largest orthogonally connected chain of connected die in their color. Only the top die counts, so covered die are gone for good.

I played with three colors, each having 14 die total. I was surprised at how interesting the decisions were right off the bat, honestly I was expecting it to play mechanically and be completely boring the first time though. I of course played as all three colors, though I did my best to stay in the frame of mind of making the one i'm rolling currently do their best. This was pretty easy since it is a 100% open information game currently.

Red started out strong, and at one point even had a 7 die chain, but green and blue did their best to break into it. The very first die placed was two 5s that red luckily rolled on the first round, and by the end of the game I had a massive stack of 5s where there was heated competition. The first thing that stuck out is my "play both die if you get a double" seemed REALLY powerful. On one hand I really liked this since it can come at the right time to make a big bounce back, but on the other hand it makes the game more random then i'd like at the moment. One interesting result was rolling two of a number you don't have, so you place one adjacent to an opponents die with that value, and using the second die to cover the opponents since you are now adjacent to it.

In the end, Red rolled doubles more then green and blue and I have a sneaking suspicion thats why Red won. However it was a close game, you can see in the images below that Red had a chain of 4 and blue and green both tied for second with chains of three. Red ended up ending the game due to running out of die to roll, and blue and green were both left with at least 4 die leftover, so a big double rolling disparity.

All in all I am very heartened by how this went. I obviously need to do some tweaking to the rolling doubles rule. I want SOMETHING cool to happen when you roll a double, but placing both is simply too powerful. Plus I like the idea of every player getting the same number of turns and die placements and in this case Red had a 4 die on the board advantage over both blue and green.

I also need to come up with a nifty name...hmmm