First off, I'll post a link to the pdf of the rules we were all playing by:

Click on the icon to download the Project:Orbits v0.2 rules.

We played on a short track with three planets and 13 tracks arranged in a rough trapezoid (Forgot to take photos, sorry!) The three planets increased in Speed cost (renamed Escape Velocity at Matthew's suggestion - thanks, Matthew!) from 2 to 6 to 11. Luckily Matthew and Nick both recognized the bulk of the card-play as being derived from Mille Bornes, so that aspect of the game needed little to no explanation for them.

The real trick was in moving our rockets around the board, and there were a few modifications or questions that had to be answered as we played, things which just didn't come up in my earlier 2-player game with Jenn:

Since players only move into the next available space on the track when they break orbit, what do you do when you've got four players all trying to break orbit into the same 3 spaces? We ran into a little traffic jam early on as all four racers made it to the first planet on the same turn, and three were able to break orbit immediately, leaving one player stuck waiting for traffic to clear up. It didn't happen again at any other point in the game, and it may not be a real problem, but I can imagine someone getting frustrated waiting for the bottleneck to clear up.

Some of the rules governing Drifting were clarified - The rules state that you can drift only if you are in the 'slow lane', but I need to also explicitly state that you can't drift through a track hub or the starting base - though these only count as one space, they conceptually aren't in any of the three different tracks. Also, you can't drift past another player - if a racer drifts out of the slow lane on one card and into the fast lane, their drift ends. If you're drifting up behind them, you have to stop in the space behind them and either wait for them to move, or play a speed card that carries you past them. Also, if you forget to take your drift you missed your opportunity. You can't stockpile drifts and take them all at once, either. One space per turn, and if you forget, you lose that one.

In playing a four-player game, we ran into several looooong periods where each of us were waiting for that one specific card that would allow us to continue - I was trying to get some speed cards (my hand full of remedies and status cards), and everyone else was broken down somewhere on the track looking for the remedy they needed. Several possible solutions to this involved being able to either pull from the draw pile or to discard multiple cards from your hand, but differed on the mechanism to allow it:

Option A: Draw the top card from the discard pile, and save it for your next turn. Discard another card, take your drift if you can.

Option B: Player A trades cards with another player, whatever is considered a fair trade. Players then discards their excess back to the number originally dealt, and player A continues their turn, playing whichever card they just traded for.

Option C: Discard multiple of the same card to pull any card out of the Discard pile. This is similar in concept to being able to trade resources with the bank in Settlers of Catan.

Option D: Discard any number of cards at the end of your turn, rather than playing anything. At your next turn, draw back up to the default hand, then draw one more to begin your turn.

Any of these options will allow the game to continue moving when everyone's at a standstill, though being able to trade cards would allow alliances and partnerships to form, making for a slightly more social game. I think it would be worth implementing two of these options - allowing for trades and also allowing players to discard multiples cards. Worth doing some more testing!

It was also suggested that perhaps the balance of the cards is off, and increasing the number of available remedies might be in order. Another option might be reintroducing the extra four Equipment cards, and dealing them randomly, one to each player, before the game begins. The two players who were completely unprotected by equipment definitely had the harder time of making any progress in the game.

During our test game, I lucked into playing three of the four available equipment cards, but kept finding myself lacking in Speed cards, while the other racers were discarding high number speed cards for lack of a remedy to their situations. Having the three equipments paid off in the end, though, allowing me to catch up in lap 2 and maintain a neck-and-neck lead in the first three legs of lap 3. In the end, I came from a full lap behind to win the game by a leg. We were all glad for the game to be over - even this 'short' 3-lap game took the four of us well over an hour to play. Some mechanism to speed things up would definitely help, especially if I'm hoping to see people playing up to 8-player games with 6+ planet tracks!

One of these days I'll get around to testing the bit about playing for points rather than laps. If it proves to be too cumbersome I can simplify the score-panel part of the Player Dashboard considerably.

Played through one game, two new players. Matthew had studied the rules online, but Nick had not seen the game before.

The game lasted quite a bit longer than I was expecting, but it was interesting watching both players learning the shape of the board. It was clear the first several moves were pretty much just testing out the pieces and getting the feel for moving them around. Also, interesting to note that most of their movements were into the same quadrant of the board, toward column 9 (from their starting position). No movement was made into the other side of the board until after several pieces had been lost.

Pawns were lost fairly early on in the game, leaving both players with nothing but Mages for the endgame. It was suggested that the name 'Pawn' is somewhat misleading, and lends to a psychological willingness to sacrifice these pieces in favor of the Mages. Both players, while somewhat hesitant in the first two stages of the game, expressed that they enjoyed the challenge of the endgame.

Neither player made use of the ability to promote their pieces, which I take as a good sign. Promoting a pawn doesn't happen in every game of Chess, either. It's good to know it's a possibility, though.

Checkmate! White managed to corner Black using three Mages.

Some notes and suggestions from the players:

• I need to codify in the rules that White always moves first.
• Rename the pieces. 'Pawns' is just too suggestive of a piece that is there to be sacrificed, when in actuality they are very powerful pieces. Possible names suggested were Swords (with Mages becoming Shields?), Soldiers, Knights
• Being able to choose from two different objectives was appreciated.
• Have a third kind of piece with a different move mechanic. It was suggested that the board was quite empty and sparse at the beginning, and this made it difficult to be able to devise much of a strategy at first. By comparison, Chess is a very full board, with pieces taking up half the board at the beginning, and much of the challenge is moving pieces around each other without losing any of them.
• Institute a 'Ko' rule, as in Go, where you cannot make a move that would immediately restore the previous arrangement on the board. This would prevent two pieces from dancing back and forth endlessly.
• Similarly, in Chess, if both players make the same moves three times in a row the game is considered a Draw.

Feel free to come and discuss these possible changes over at the WIP: Yiora thread!

I have not seen many chess variants without some kind of promotion, but all the ones that I have seen share the same problem: games invariably end in a draw. Players will carefully exchange off pieces until just the kings are left. There needs to be an incentive to advance one's pieces, which after all will weaken one's own king position. (There are some games where nearly all the pieces can promote and gain new powers, and that's an idea that can also be tried.)

The biggest benefit I can see to allowing Pawn Promotion is that it adds a new layer of strategy to the game. It allows players to upgrade their pieces in the middle of the game, keeping the other player on their toes. Also, as is pointed out in the comment, it provides another incentive for each player to move their pieces across the board - there's a reward for doing so.

So, if I'm going to offer the option to promote pawns, there are a few issues that need to be addressed:

1. In regular Chess, there are several different kinds of pieces to which a pawn may be promoted, though generally players promote to a Queen, a piece whose superior movement has no parallel in Yiora. With only pawns and mages, there's very little room for promotion, and frankly Mages are less maneuverable pieces.


2. Likewise in Chess, moving a pawn to the other side of the board requires patience and strategy, knowing when to advance the extremely vulnerable, slow-moving pawn. Successfully making this trek can take up most of the game for many players.


3. Due to the geography of the Yiora board, there is no 'other edge of the board', leastwise not one that requires most of the game to reach. The board only has two edges, the inner and outer, and either edge is reachable in a single move. Even the opponent's 'opening area' can be reached in just three moves.
   

The second two points can be addressed with a single solution: Designating a specific space on the board as the 'promotional space'. It must be a space that is heavily guarded and difficult to reach, so the center of the board is out (since, again, any piece can reach it in a single move, and it isn't really well-guarded at all). It seems to me the most logical space would be the Overlord's starting space. Clearly the Overlord will want to defend this 'castle', but will be forced to move to avoid being captured by opposing pieces looking for a promotion.

To make this achievement even more challenging, I think I might take the Black opening space out of the A ring, and move it into Y-19. As it is now, it's only visually on the opposite side of the board. However, being in the same ring as the White opening position, it's really not as far away as it could be. Under the current rules, for example, Mages can reach their opponent's opening area in a single move, capturing a Mage in the process. Centering Black's opening position around Y-19 eliminates this vulnerability, and forces the players to make full use of the entire board.

Simple enough, let's run with this idea for now.

As to the first point, what does a promotion look like? In Chess, we're talking about promoting the slowest, most common piece to any of the other higher-ranked pieces, increasing its speed and maneuverability. But in Yiora, simply turning a Pawn into a Mage is almost crippling it, as Mages are less maneuverable. They can cover greater distances, but at a price.

But what if the pieces were more limited to start with? Perhaps instead of having a range of up to five squares, pawns and mages both were limited to three? And what if Promoting them simply increased their range? Each player, through promotion, could now have up to five types of piece on the board (including the Overlord).

Or, perhaps the pieces might have different effects from their Promotions. Let's say that Pawns, being footsoldiers, receive an increase in their range. But maybe Mages have the ability to resurrect a fallen piece. The new piece might reappear on any of that piece's initial starting spaces, which might have a significant effect on the game if an opponent is in a strategic position in that area.

While Promotion isn't something I'd ever considered before, I do think that its inclusion would open up more strategic opportunities for both players. I'll have to run a few tests and see which of these options makes more sense, but I'm also interested in hearing other ideas. Who knows, maybe some of these options will end up being simple variations.

I've started up a topic on the BoardGameGeek.com Game Design forums titled WIP:Yiora, if you have any feedback, please feel free to leave it there!

I thought this would be individually cheaper, but realized that GameCrafter charges for these cards by the sheet. The Micro-cards I was considering come 56 to a sheet, which would be enough for 6 full sets of 9 pieces each, so I hit on another idea: expanding what's included in the Boxed edition to include all of the variations I've got planned, which would require an additional four colors of pieces (for 6-person play!).

So, the release plan that I've now got in mind is to do the Primary Basic P&P set (based on the prototype pdf I released yesterday), followed by piecemeal releases of variations and additional individual colors until I've got all six colors of pieces complete. Then, I'll release a new P&P edition including the basic version AND all the variations and additional pieces, in tandem with the complete Boxed edition.

The sculpted pieces could then be relegated to a 'Deluxe Pieces' addition, which would not include the board or the basic rules, but would still include all of the necessary pieces to play all of the variations in the Boxed set, and would be released shortly after (since there's little new artwork to produce for this, the delay should be minimal).

I like that at this point I can still be this flexible and not worry about it.

At any rate, you can see the basic layout, with 36 columns of alternating black-and-white spaces, with the name of the game spelled out in columns 1 and 19. Players place their Overlord at opposing 'A' spaces, with Mages and Pawns arranged around them. The large area in the center is a graveyard for fallen pieces.

The current set is scaled to have the board be 24" round, but I'm thinking of scaling it down a bit since I found out about The Game Crafter, and their 18" quad-fold game boards.

I need to work up a few diagrams for piece movement and opening position, and then I'll post the updated Primary Basic rules.

Seven Little Monsters is an 8-page minicomic I created this year to hand out to any trick-or-treaters who come to my door (which, based on years past, should be next to none!). Click through to read the entire comic!