Antarctic Food Web is in playable format. Here's a Dev Game

https://www.wargear.net/games/join/81321552

Defender defends with 5-sided dice when attacked by anything higher up the food chain.

When a player controls a food source and ALL of its natural enemies they are "safe" and receive a continental bonus equal to the number of those natural enemies.

Concerns:

Max number of players?

Should there be starting neutrals?

Board Name?

Are the Dice mods and continental bonuses right?

Card values?

I could use help checking for missing borders and dice mods. Here's the board explorer..

https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9524/Board%20Explorer

Some of the food chain lines are questionable. E.g. Do smaller toothed whales or elephant seals eat zooplankton??

I guess I'm on a roll..

https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9525/Board%20Explorer

No, it's not a "Circle Mode" design - I cut all of those holes ;}

There are some borders I'd like to alter. Couldn't figure out a meaningful way to have continental bonuses, so I'm considering Hordes, which I've never done before. Any thoughts/objections?

M57 wrote:Antarctic Food Web is in playable format. Here's a Dev Game

I could use help checking for missing borders and dice mods. Here's the board explorer..

https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9524/Board%20Explorer

Some of the food chain lines are questionable. E.g. Do smaller toothed whales or elephant seals eat zooplankton??

^ = good

x = look into/fix

? = look into

^- Baleen only eats krill. feeds small tooth whale

^- other seals eat krill, carnv zooplankton. feed small tooth whale

^- carnv zooplankton eat krill, other herb zooplankton, ciliates. feed other seals, other birds, fish

x- other herb zooplankton eat phytoplankton. feed squid, krill, fish, carnv zooplankton ((NOT SPERM WHALES))

x- squid eat other herb zooplankton, krill, fish. feed elephant seal, fish, penguin, sperm whales, small tooth whale((fish both ways, alternate dice. not humans on the chart, but makes sense theme wise))

^- elephant seal eats fish, squid. feed small tooth whale

?- sperm whale only eats squid. feed small tooth whale ((spose you could say they eat other herb zooplankton, but no necessary drawn direct connection))

^- other birds eats, carnv zooplankton, krill, fish. feed leopard seal

x- fish eats carnv zooplankton, krill, squid. feed other birds, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid, humans ((again dual mod with squid))

^- penguin eats fish, squid, krill. feed leopard seal, small tooth whale

^- leopard seal eats other birds, krill, fish, penguin. feeds small tooth whale

x- small tooth whale eats baleen, other seals, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid. feeds noone ((wonder if humans, not sperm whale would be better themewise?))

x- humans eat fish, krill. feed noone ((no line for squid, could add line?))

^- onesies along the bottom

weathertop wrote:

^ = good

x = look into/fix

? = look into

^- Baleen only eats krill. feeds small tooth whale

^- other seals eat krill, carnv zooplankton. feed small tooth whale

^- carnv zooplankton eat krill, other herb zooplankton, ciliates. feed other seals, other birds, fish

x- other herb zooplankton eat phytoplankton. feed squid, krill, fish, carnv zooplankton ((NOT SPERM WHALES))

x- squid eat other herb zooplankton, krill, fish. feed elephant seal, fish, penguin, sperm whales, small tooth whale((fish both ways, alternate dice. not humans on the chart, but makes sense theme wise))

^- elephant seal eats fish, squid. feed small tooth whale

?- sperm whale only eats squid. feed small tooth whale ((spose you could say they eat other herb zooplankton, but no necessary drawn direct connection))

^- other birds eats, carnv zooplankton, krill, fish. feed leopard seal

x- fish eats carnv zooplankton, krill, squid. feed other birds, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid, humans ((again dual mod with squid))

^- penguin eats fish, squid, krill. feed leopard seal, small tooth whale

^- leopard seal eats other birds, krill, fish, penguin. feeds small tooth whale

x- small tooth whale eats baleen, other seals, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid. feeds noone ((wonder if humans, not sperm whale would be better themewise?))

x- humans eat fish, krill. feed noone ((no line for squid, could add line?))

^- onesies along the bottom

This is awesome. Thanks Weathertop!

M57 wrote: Antarctic Food Web

Are the Dice mods and continental bonuses right?

Should there be starting neutrals?

dice mods looked generally correct.

not sure on the continents as some included the object, some didn't. (eg. elephant seal included ES & SMW; but Flagellets and Ciliates don't have a predator; and then bacteria includes its food and not predator); so i think you should go thru and look at them again.

maybe starting neutral 1s or 2s on the top of the food chain(s) so they can't start and work their way down easily

also;

• thinking that some of the smaller things (bacteria, phytoplankton, squid) may be hard to tell ownership of as currently filled (hard to tell off board explorer) UPDATE: after looking at your DEV game, should be fine.

• read thru your DEV game comments. don't change the arrows. it's "intuitive" if you think arrows designate what feeds what. take the big red arrows for instance. Krills FEED alot and thus the arrows are going from Krill to "Predator", then Krills eat the Phytoplankton, so Phyto feeds Krill and so does that red arrow go from Phyto to Krill. the borders/advantages/disadvantages should then follow suit. if you 'follow' the arrow you're going at disadvantage, if you go against the arrow you have advantage (which sorta need to figure out on a couple that go both ways (fish/squid for instance)).
• you may need to limit the colors. normal Red, Green, Blues are not showing up well. they need to be in the "highlighter" color spectrum i think. to really pop out (Ozy's teal works, but none of the rest do). Does board designer show this well when you 'fill'? can you tell there?

M57 wrote:I guess I'm on a roll..

https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9525/Board%20Explorer" target="_blank"> https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9525/Board%20Explorer

No, it's not a "Circle Mode" design - I cut all of those holes ;}

There are some borders I'd like to alter. Couldn't figure out a meaningful way to have continental bonuses, so I'm considering Hordes, which I've never done before. Any thoughts/objections?

Don't have any objections about hordes, they may work ok here. You could add in some basic big geographical continents (eastern - everythin from MN & AR east, rockies - everything between eastern and west coast, west coast - Glacier and all CA, OR, WA, non-continental - AK, HI).

Might need to move Sequoia & Kings Canyon text to the left and use an arrow.

weathertop wrote:

x- other herb zooplankton eat phytoplankton. feed squid, krill, fish, carnv zooplankton ((NOT SPERM WHALES))

☑

But then Sperm whales would only eat squid. (see below)

x- squid eat other herb zooplankton, krill, fish. feed elephant seal, fish, penguin, sperm whales, small tooth whale((fish both ways, alternate dice. not humans on the chart, but makes sense theme wise))

☑

I missed the dual modifier. The orange line has Humans eating squid.

?- sperm whale only eats squid. feed small tooth whale ((spose you could say they eat other herb zooplankton, but no necessary drawn direct connection))

☑

You can follow the blue line in serpentine fashion from Other herbivorous zooplankton to Sperm whales uninterrupted. Unfortunately you can also use the same route to argue that they also feed penguins and smaller toothed whales. There's no easy fix, but it's unreasonable to say they only eat squid, so I'm letting the zooplankton feed Sperm whales but not penguins and smaller toothed whales.

x- fish eats carnv zooplankton, krill, squid. feed other birds, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid, humans ((again dual mod with squid))

☑

x- small tooth whale eats baleen, other seals, leopard seal, penguin, elephant seal, squid. feeds noone ((wonder if humans, not sperm whale would be better themewise?))

☑

For some reason I had a border between smaller toothed whales and Spermwhales.

x- humans eat fish, krill. feed noone ((no line for squid, could add line?))

☑

No need to add line. The existing orange line does the trick.

This was very helpful. I fixed a number of borders and changed few missing modifiers Thanks again.

zooplankton to sperm whale *is* interrupted by squid (to be pedantic) but I'm not hard up on you keeping their supply using another source, I get the need for it.

totally missed the orange line from squid to humans! must have been covered up by the explorer arrows 🙄😥

weathertop wrote:

totally missed the orange line from squid to humans! must have been covered up by the explorer arrows 🙄😥

I hear you. Those lines had me seeing cross-eyed a few times while setting things up, but I think the spaghetti-look and feel has its charm and is engaging. It would be easy to ruin this one. Just giving the background a textured look might be too much on the eyes. It's no masterpiece but I think its minimalist albeit not so elegant look manages to convey the idea that ecosystems are complex.

I think one or two more test runs and I'll put this up for Review.

National Parks of the U.S.A. is still a work in progress. Eventually it will have a hordes bonus structure, but if you would like a sneak preview ..and perhaps offer a few suggestions..

https://www.wargear.net/games/join/81321691

Idea for a board: Ransack the Planet

Players compete to control various fossil fuel industries, like gas and oil production/pipelines, and mining. Someone else will have to design it because my conscience won't let me. 😥

we've got a couple of those already (sort of) Miners, Pipeline, There Will Be Blood. But if the game play and graphics are worth it a new one will get some play

Just checking in on everyone. I’d love to play test if needed

I've been otherwise distracted, and probably will continue to be through September. Nat Parks.. is waiting for hordification. But I suppose I could submit Ant Food.. for review. I'll try to go over it this weekend.

Let’s push this back till after the new year? We can have a 2023 competition and probably have more entries?

Seems fine to me. I haven't had as much time as I thought I would. I need to get a response from Tom though about the json vs. xml issue, to figure out what I'm going to be able to do.

that's good, cus i finally got a new laptop. haven't been able to touch mine in better part of a year...

National Parks is up and running. Finally got around to getting the hordes bonuses in. At least I think that's what they are; this is my first hordes board. I made it such that players get an in-hand bonus of 1 unit for every territory they hold that is entirely bordered by territories also held by that player.)

I just play-tested a two-player game with a light neutral count. It ended a bit too quickly so I'm boosting it to medium. I think a little extra neutral-bashing is appropriate with the theme. Regardless, it should play well with more players so I set up some games below. I'm totally up for creating separate scenarios for different # of players. I'm thinking that with 4+ players I can tamp the neutral count back down to light.

DEV games below

four players..

https://www.wargear.net/games/join/81358480

three players..

https://www.wargear.net/games/join/81358479

Key bump

"noooo waaaay".

there's no way it's been 3/4 of a year since i last thought about this. i wonder if i have time to deal with this...