Page 1 of 2

Review submitted: Hegemony

PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:33 pm
by pfischer
GAME TITLE: Hegemony

REVIEWER NAME: Per Fischer

1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 9
Feedback: This game uses almost every ingredient extremely well. The only teeny weeny grudge I have, personally, is the word Steel. I agree that Steel points sound cool, but to me they don’t really invoke that far-future feeling. In the next edition, I would suggest changing Steel into something as cool as the rest of this incredibly well designed game. Hegemony features the best time ingredient incorporation I have seen so far, and there’s quite a distance to the next best, I’d say.

2) CLARITY (1-10): 6
Feedback: You wrote 39 pages of rules in a week? And they are almost entirely coherent? That’s an effort in its own merit. I did have trouble grogging all the rules, and phases, and especially how to count damage in between sessions, but to hell with that, I enjoyed reading every bit anyway.


3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 7
Feedback: Sadly, this huge monster of a game in not complete. Chunks are missing, and it is not playable in its current state. That said, I will personally be the first in the queue to order any future edition that is more complete. The sheer scope of this massive multiplayer game is wild.


4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 6
Feedback: This is a new slant on roleplaying. I probably couldn’t play it as it is without quite a bit of work, but as a whole it’s nicely executed.



5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 10
Final Feedback: I loved this game, I wanted to play it NOW, and it’s even suited to my internet-based lifestyle, where I can play in a small group but participate in a much bigger game at the same time. It’s a new genre of roleplaying, it just has to be.
Anyone who would chose to take a game in this class and scope has to be completely insane. And that’s a good thing in my book. Hobert Roward, whoever you are, I bow to you. My favorite game so far this year.



TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 38

PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:35 pm
by spaceanddeath
Hobert Roward, whoever you are, I bow to you.

If we had a pool, my money would be on this being Andy K's pseudonym. Andy... you a Conan fan?

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:47 am
by pfischer

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:35 pm
by Andy K

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:22 pm
by spaceanddeath

PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:00 am
by Graham Walmsley

PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:05 am
by Destriarch

PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:27 am
by kleenestar

PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:11 pm
by DevP
Creative and Effective Incorporation of Rules: 8

I definitely like the use of the Steel attribute, and the little bit of pseudoplot about how "steel" is the one word to keep it's meaning among all the factions of humanity. However, Actor and Team are a little weak here - you're more of a Committee, if anything. On the other hand, the "10 sessions of 1 hour" thing is absolutely perfect, and gets points for me by being a sorta clever subversion of what I'd *expected*, i.e. 10 sequential sessions, rather than having them sorta overlap each other.

STEEL!

Clarity: 7

The rules are clearly written, given their complexity. However, the organization of the rules overall suffers a bit, although it's getting there. It was a bit odd to start with describing session 1, then going into increasingly high detail WITHIN its sub processes, then go back to the high-level view of each session. Perhaps go the other way - show how each of the sessions will break down in terms of time, and then go into the details of how you can play with the various submechanics to make things work.

Completeness: 7

Almost there. The crises, sciences and secret agenda are missing, and the political offices could use some going over - to some extent, it feels like you're missing the crunch. The choices in these categories need to be satisfying, both in terms of strategy and in terms of the fiction that is evoked. It's a challenge, but it can be overcome.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: 8

A lot of the rules seem to click together, and if the crisis/science/agenda stuff comes in, there will be plenty of opportunities for players to make meaningful choices for their faction. Playtesting will be needed to get the Steel economics (between factions, and driving towards the final session) to work out int he end.

One thing to consider: what if there are consequences among the players about facts to be narrated in the course of an argument? If a player wants his War Minister wants to make a reference to the slaughter of the sentient robots in the past, while another player thinks this doesn't jibe with his view of what his faction was about, then is there a good way to resolve this difference? Can you offer some source of authority on the matter?

It seems that the three sperate groups need to be in the same geographical area, since in the final session the representative from the other factions must be present. Is that true, and can you imagine a way to get around that fact?

I gotta ask... is the Radical Politico thing a good idea? While I appreciate the radicalness of the idea, I feel like letting the guy single-handedly destroy the last session could just ruin everyone's fun. It might be more fun to have him instantly wipe out 90% of the Steel Reserves or something, and still have the last session.

Swing Vote: 10

I love good, galactic scale political science fiction. I love strategic games. I love politics. I love god games like Civilization. I want to play this. I want to play this. I want to play this.

Final Score: 40/50

By the way: I totally feel like this game could be better served if you organized games through a web-based interface to manage turns/submissions/etc., and that this would be for the best. It should probably be easy to find a person with those talents in the Forge/Story-Games circles; I'm tentatively offering my services to that as well. It's that awesome.

PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:17 am
by Adam Kleizer
Hegemony

REVIEWER NAME: Adam Kleizer

1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 7
Feedback: Very cool idea structuring the 10 sessions to 3x3+1 sessions - gained extra points for the game. Team is the strongest of the ingredients used. Actor is weak and so is Steel. Actually the word Steel could be replaced by "Resources" or something like that, while Actor just isn't really there.

2) CLARITY (1-10): 8
Feedback: Without seeing the sheets, the process of cross-faction communication wasn't easy to comprehend. On the other hand, it's 38 pages of clear text and made me smile a couple of times.

3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 7
Feedback: It's not complete but I don't think it needs too much work. At least sheets and cards are needed to make it playable though.

4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 8
Feedback: It's complex. While this isn't a bad thing, it is a factor that's determining when we're talking about effectiveness. It needs 12-21 players. That's significantly larger then a "normal" group of roleplayers. The good thing is, there are rules to eliminate the uncertainty coming from such a large group of individuals playing together. One other thing I wanted say because it's very positive: this game is really caring about being a roleplaying game even with all the strategy behind the scenes.

5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 9
Final Feedback: The idea and the realization are both totally cool. Very nice game. I hope I can play a complete version in the future!

TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 39