I've made a game
Currently it's between beta and blind playtesting stage but I could really use some help, and also some confirmation that it is a fun game and worth releasing. The beta bit that is left is just balancing the length of the game, all the rules/mechanics are set and the balancing between that side of things seems fine. I also really need some feedback from people who don't (really) know me, to make sure it is actually worth releasing and also worth selling rather than just doing a print and play version.
The game is called Trot Wars and is a satirical game about far left trotskyite organising, being produced under the Proletarian Democracy banner. Profits will go to Boycott Workfare, LDMG and Urban75 server fund.
The game is for 3 - 13 players (best with 5-10) and it's a "party game", so not a deep strategic analytical game, but one meant for a large group of players, and which is more towards the fun end of things than the serious thought end of it.
In the game, you start as individual sects, and through the game you can either try to unite with other players to create the one true vanguard party with which to lead the proletariat into glorious revolution, or you can decide that other players parties are reformist / counter-revolutionary / deformed workers parties and that the real interests of the working class lay in building your own party and selling the paper.
You setup united fronts, organise public meetings, demonstrations and strikes, book speakers and try to keep your annoying members away from events (or send them to other party's events). You can also hijack other peoples' events, and the nature of the mechanics gives rise to the possibility of entryism (which in terms of games design makes me feel like the theme and mechanics work well together).
It's a card based game, with united fronts/events/speakers/hijacks on the cards, which you play out, mostly in a 1 minute timed round (racing against the bosses trying to rob a hard won concession from the working class). Then there is the ideology checks where people decide if they'll unite their parties or go their own way, dividing the party / united front membership amongst them according to weighted dice rolls.
I'm looking for games with 10-13 players to last around 2 hours maximum. Lots of that will depend on how much role playing goes on, as in some of the test games I've played there have been long denouncement speeches upon a split or hijack, and the secterian interventions have been played out too. With 3-5 players, games have tended towards 45m-1hr.
So I've got some card sets printing, and I have 3 to give to anyone here who would like one and will play it with friends and give me honest feedback about the game. You don't have to be in the far-left political scene to enjoy it but it certainly helps and that's the group of people that I think would play this game.
You would need to supply generic components - activist tokens, money counters, dice and a 1 minute timer. You need quite a few activist tokens, but this is where the balancing of the game length comes in - the game ends when all unaligned activists have been recruited to a party, so less activists = shorter game. I started with 10 per player but have reduced this to 8 and would like it if I could bring it down even further. Matchsticks will work for this. I haven't tried playing with a monopoly money set, but it should work except that you'll not need the 500s, and will probably not have enough 1s/5s.
If anyone wants a set, pm me an address and I'll get them in the post to you at the end of next week when I've been told they'll arrive. My aim is to release the game in time for Christmas.
Really like the co-op in that one and the different roles for players with different powers.
