1KM1KT Free RPG Community

Creative and Effective Incorporation of the Rules: 7

I think the ten-session mode fits, although it may end up being to many. (I see this as being more like up to ten 1-hour sessions.) The glass beads and emotions was pretty good, although I don't think the committee component contributed greatly. This was still solid enough, and I don't think I'd suggesting changing how you did the ingredients.

Clarity: 8

The rules are really clearly written (given that there is some complexity along the way, this is impressive) and the examples of play really make it clear what's going on. I do think there is some confusion about the tone - are we pretending we're a committee? Are we the players a committee? Are we telling or retelling a story? I think the tone of text could better deal with the reader's expectations.

Completeness: 9

I'd like to see more examples of how Climaxes work and how to conclude a story, but it looks like a lot of the ideas are solidly there already.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: 8

There some really interesting mechanics here about investment in story elements and reward over time, and it basically creates this emergent framework for collaborating on any kind of story. All the pieces of gameplay look readily available, although I'm curious how well the investment/payoff economics of the glass beads will work in actual play.

Swing Vote: 8

This looks like an interesting universal storygame framework, possibly like a more "pull" kind of Universalis, letting the mechanics subtley reward those who introduce elements that that are more invested in by the group at large. The specific angle - sprucing up tired old stories - helps to get players out of the initial confusion of what to do with such a broad set of tools.

Total Score: 40/50

This was a very difficult game for me to review. On one hand, I liked the ruleset. On the other, I found the text really difficult to read. I'm afraid I come across as slightly mad in this review.

1) Creative and effective incorporation of rules (1-10): 5
Feedback: The time restriction is used in the sense of "an hour is about the right length to play" and the multiple of ten is really hardly used. Fair enough. As for the ingredients: emotion is strongly used; committee is (I feel) weakly used in the sense of the group of players being a committee; glass is used in the sense of glass beads, which is a little weak.

I'd prefer, if this game goes on to be published, that the glass beads be replaced with differently coloured dice. Then you don't have to swap beads for dice during the game.

2) Clarity (1-10): 5
Feedback: The text does convey the rules. However, I'd prefer the rules to be explicitly stated in the text. Some of the rules - such as Emotions travelling with characters - are only mentioned in the examples and I find that detracts significantly from the clarity of the rules.

Some of the rules seem to be implicitly assumed: for example, that each player should have differently coloured glass beads. This might seem obvious, but I found it quite confusing, so I'd like it to be stated. I'm also not sure how many beads each player starts with in the first phase. Is it an infinite number?

3) Completeness (1-10): 8
Feedback: The ruleset looks fairly solid. I have a couple of queries: for example, what happens if there's not enough characters with two beads for each player to have a character? But it's pretty much there. It does need playtesting to see how the currency works.

4) Estimated Effectiveness in Play (1-10): 7
Feedback: This looks like quite an effective game. All the story elements are there. Climaxes are particularly good to bring an ending to the story.

The reason I'm not giving this 10 marks is because I'm not absolutely 100% convinced that this kind of character-driven rework of a story will keep people occupied for 10 sessions. With these kind of story games, I find it hard to tell. But, on balance, it looks like an effective game.

5) Swing Vote (1-10): 5
Feedback: There's a lot to like about this game. The ruleset looks solid and there's a lot of fun in playing various characters and reworking a story. And I always like story games.

I do find some parts of the writing style offputting. I have two things to mention in particular and, as with all criticism of writing style, take it with a pinch of salt.

Firstly, the text is obviously written by an American. Coming from England, I feel that this game isn't aimed at me. For example, the text starts "If you're reading this, you're within the reach of the 21st Century American cultural sphere". Perhaps this is true, but that sentence makes me feel this is a game for Americans.

The example characters also talk in American English - "Dude!", "Cool", "Hey, guys" - and use American examples (George Lucas). Michael might find that, if he changed this, the game became more accessible for an international audience.

Second, I find the examples slightly odd. They use a comic style which is almost a pastiche of comedy dialogue: "We could play without you if we wanted", "Men!", "Look at all these juicy beads...". I find this - and apologies to be so blunt, but it seems important - irritating and not funny. It also makes the examples very wordy, which, to me, makes them less useful.

I'd prefer a more soberly written game text, with less jokes and more focussed examples. On the other hand, that could just be me.

I do wish Michael luck developing this game.

Total: 30