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Todd Walsh wraps up the Button Shy Rookie series for now. I say for now not because I am promising to undertake this project again (odds are no), but to note that Button Shy Games is still pushing out good games at the same breakneck speed as ever. Hence Button Shy Games remains a place where many boardgame designers will earn their first publication, possibly even you. (Check out the design discussion section of the Button Shy Discord if you want to develop your 18 card design skills).
Before I say so long I do want to hit on a couple more things. First, check out this blog post on my regular Dr. Wictz blog where I discuss how the Button Shy Rookie series is a good example of how you can help yourself by helping others and why you should do it too.
Second, some of you started reading this series part way through, or are even just discovering it now. To help you navigate the posts I have created a series of links below ? that will let you pick the order you wish to read the series, including: the original order; least to most successful Button Shy Game debut; and least to most successful non-Button Shy Game.
And while you read it, or even reread it, do me one favor. Pick at least one designer, and play both of the games covered in the Button Shy Rookie series. When you play these games, take the time to experience the evolution and commonalities in the designer’s design. Really savor a deeper understanding of the person designing the games you play.
Original Order
00 - Motivation
01 - Dr. Wictz
02 - Jay E. Treat, III
03 - Chip Beauvais
04 - Daniel Newman
05 - Dustin Dobson & Milan Zivkovic
06 - Aaron Andrew Wilson
07 - Milan Zivkovic
08 - David Ghelfl
09 - Robin Gibson
10 - Joshua J Mills
11 - Jason Greeno
12 - James O'Connor
13 - Jon Simantov
14 - Rob Cramer
15 - Gabe Barrett
16 - Nat Levan
17 - Why Circle the Wagon Missing
18 - Todd Walsh
19 - The End, for Now
Least to Most Successful Button Shy Game (February 2022)
18 - Scisssorcards
17 - Trick or Repeat
16 - Upper Hand
15 - 3 Lands or King
14 - Tornado Chase
13 - Starship Babel
12 - Jewelers Row
11 - You Fool
10 - Area Z
09 - It Was this Big
08 - Smoke & Mirrors
07 - Ahead in the Clouds
06 - Cunning Folk
05 - Why I Otter
04 - Turbo Drift
03 - Rove: Results-Oriented Versatile Explore
02 - Liberation
01 - Skulls of Sedlec
Least to Most Successful non-Button Shy Game (February 2022)
17 - Robotech: Reconstruction
16 - Jackpot Payout
15 - Agueda
14 - Treasures of Microlandia
13 - Dust & Void
12 - Starforge
11 - Vamp on the Batwalk
10 - Hunted: Kobayashi Tower
09 - Cahoots
08 - Dead Man's Cabla
07 - Sovereign Skies
06 - Vekto Race
05 - Rocky Road A La Mode
04 - Welcome to Dino World
03 - The Grand Carnival
02 - New Bedford
01 - Set A Watch
Button Shy Rookie
The Button Shy Rookie blog pays homage to Button Shy giving new designers a chance by highlighting the Button Shy Rookies who later publish games with other publishers.
Archive for Dr. Wictz
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Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:00 pm
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Tic Tock Tic Tock Todd Walsh is a cuckoo clock. Not literally. Figuratively, at least in Todd's game design.
The fundamental core of Todd's first publication Upper Hand from Button Shy Games, and his most successful game, Set a Watch, is that both games are leading to a definitive end that ticks away before you. Will you achieve victory, or will time run out.
Upper Hand is a 9 card game inspired by the tradition of deciding which captain gets first pick on players for their baseball team by taking turns placing one person's hand over the other's hand until the victorious person places their hand on the very top of the baseball bat.
Todd replicates the hand over hand action by setting a card representing the bat end on one side of the table and two cards representing the hands on the other side. As the game progresses, the cards will creep closer and closer to the top of the bat until a Player's hand is on top, ending the game. While there are a few bonus points for your hand coming out on top, the main way to alter your point total stems from card play as the hands work their way to the top.
On your turn you either play a card from your hand or one of the cards below the top card. Each time a card is played, players score points and get closer to the end of the bat. Any cards left in your hand at the end of the game count as negative points.
CrazyzT describes the game as feeling like you really are working your way up the bat. Tactically, he emphasizes that players need to pay attention to the 3 point card. Especially on how to play the card for points; get it back into your hand; and how to make sure the card is out of your hand at the end.
Remember, you only have so many opportunities, once the cards reach the top of the bat, you are done, time is up.:strip_icc()/pic4162054.png)
Similarly, in Todd and Mike Gnade’s Set a Watch each action brings you closer to the 9th round, where either you will save the kingdom or be doomed as the horde overruns you and the kingdom. Prior to the 9th round players are fighting the evil unhallowed who are rising against the kingdom. Success or failure prior to the 9th round will make the 9th round either easier or harder in Set a Watch. Either case, the game ticks down to the 9th round and when the clock strikes, your fate will be decided. There is no going back to the past, you must contend with the ever present now created by each passing decision made up to this point.
For like all things in life, whether they are made clear as in Todd’s designs, or not, a clock is counting down to the end.
Todd Wash: Stats
Set a Watch - BGG Rank 1109
Upper Hand (362 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Wed Feb 15, 2023 12:00 pm
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I know you are sitting here anticipating the Button Shy Co-Design Super Star team Steven Aramini, Danny Devine, and Paul Kluka. There is no question these co-designers have produced hit after hit since their Button Shy Co-Design debut Circle the Wagons. At this point, who has not heard of their games Sprawlopolisor Agropolis, and is not looking forward to their upcoming game Naturopolis?:strip_icc()/pic7026988.png)
Notice something here though. All of these titles have something in common. They are all Button Shy Games. In fact all of their co-design masterpieces are all Button Shy Game titles. So while Button Shy deserve credit for publishing their first Co-Designed games, officially, they are not ranked on my list of Button Shy Rookies because the official requirement as stated in the very first post is to publish a game as a co-design team with another publisher.
Now before other publishers get any ideas, I am going to bet Jason is going to do his best to occupy all of these three’s time making more great games for Button Shy.
Circle the Wagons at PNP Arcade
Wed Feb 8, 2023 12:00 pm
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Mechanics within Nat Levan’s games are inspired by what he observes.
Nat's first game, Trick or Repeat from Button Shy, and co-designer with Josh Kohn & Duane Kolar, does not replicate the story of the movie Donnie Darko. Trick or Repeat does replicate the time travel experience of Donnie Darko, in the form of a trick taking game.
In Donnie Darko, Donnie is able to spend 28 days in an alternate timeline before being sent back to his own. Donnie does not know yet what his past has in store for him until he arrives back to it. In Trick or Treat you experience an alternate future by carefully constructing a hand of cards that you play from the original 5 card hand dealt to all the players. After scoring your alternate future, Nat gives everyone steps to recreate their original hand, representing their predestination past. The past hand must be played in the order the cards were dealt. The tricks and scoring outcome from your initial hand is your past, which like Donnie Drako, you cannot control.:strip_icc()/pic2591224.png)
Nat's New Bedford gameplay also links to the game's inspiration, the New England whaling industry. Ships need to be physically prepared to go whaling. Ships need to load up food to feed folks to go whaling. Food must be grown to feed the crew. Trees need to be cut down to maintain the ships. The whale population even decreases due to overfishing.
The game's mechanics are grounded in replicating part of the experience from history. Nat uses the diverse actions available in a worker placement game to connect real actions taken by folks from the past decisions you are facing today in his game.:strip_icc()/pic5512418.jpg)
Take your workers, they also can expand the town of New Bedford by building things. These new buildings provide new options for actions and represent New Bedford's development, again just like real life.
Nat's fascination with how things work should not be a surprise, he is an engineer. His fascination with how things work comes out in his talk on overthinking as a way for him to engage in board game design.
In the talk, he uses the example of designing a ship to emphasize the importance of detail in design. The design of the ship not only has to meet the task the ship is designed to accomplish, but also has to include a design on how to build it, how to fix it, and, when the ship is done with its usefulness as a ship, how to dispose of it. Neglecting any part of the life stages of a ship is failing to understand its full purpose and a failure in your design process.
Looking back at the talk, I really want Nat to design a game that deals with the experience of tackling a project where taking apart your masterpiece at the end of the game is just as important in building it in the first place. To use his background in engineering thinking to bring to a life another boardgame that replicates a new experience for us to imerese ourselves.
Nat Levan - Stats
New Bedford - BGG Rank 1503
Trick or Repeat (391 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Wed Feb 1, 2023 12:00 pm
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Manipulation, not of the other players, but of the game state, defines player success in Gabe Barrett's rookie design for Button Shy, Area Z. Area Z is a 9 card area control game where each team scores points for controlling an area, with bonus points for controlling the most areas of a particular color. Players can also score additional points by killing Zombies.
Actions are taken by selecting cards in either the action row or the secondary row. Be aware, when a card in the action row is selected it moves into the secondary row providing a new set of actions. And, if a card is selected in the secondary row, it moves to the Zombie row and starts programming what the Zombies are doing.
Sanchezja describes the 2 player game as cutthroat. To get ahead of your opponent, you need to manipulate the cards in the row to redirect the Zombies to go after your opponent.
The emphasis on using Zombies to manipulate the board state is twofold. First, to control an area you not only have to outnumber your opponent, you also have to outnumber the Zombies in that space. Second, Zombies attack all players' units sharing spaces with them. So forgetting about manipulating the Zombies is a recipe for defeat in Area Z.:strip_icc()/pic4975689.png)
Hunted: Kobayashi Tower is primarily a solo game where manipulating the game state is still key to your success. Thematically the game appears to be inspired by Die Hard, where you are trying to rescue your estranged wife from terrorists who have taken her and others hostage in a skyscraper.
At the onset you start with just a gun and you are cycling through Hunted Cards that provide you both opportunity and danger. Danger from terrorists seeking to take you out, opportunity in both resources and ability to progress in rescuing your wife from the terrorists.:strip_icc()/pic5989864.jpg)
The choices you take in good solo games are limited by design to place you in a position to strategically redirect your obstacles into your strengths and sway from your weaknesses. What may not be apparent, is the board you are manipulating is your health and resource board. Your health, your time, and your ability to fight decide whether or not you have a decent shot of surviving the cycle of hunted cards you must wade through to rescue your wife. Critically, you have to decide when you are ready to fight, with the risk of losing health and time, or hide, protecting your health, but guaranteeing you will lose one unit of time. Hide too often, and you will run out of time. Go to the rescue, with your guns blaring and your fists out, and you will exhaust your health.
Good players of Hunted: Kobayashi Tower know when to rest, and when to sprint. When to manipulate their board to give up health or time. When to focus on completing the rescue mission, and when to focus on setting up your health and resources, just like Area Z players make a tradeoff to take an action to directly push for control or setup the Zombies to overwhelm their opponents instead. Gabe uses game manipulation to consistently challenge players to look beyond the immediate effect of an action to the indirect implications that will decide the game’s outcome.
Gabe Barrett - Stats
Hunted: Kobayashi Tower - Rank 7772 on BoardGameGeek
Area Z (210 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Area Z Available at PNP Arcade
Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:00 pm
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Rob Cramer's first published board game,Turbo Drift, is a vanishing tile laying game. To be clear, that is not obvious at first glance. Turbo Drift is a car racing game that turns any open surface into a 1980s Japanese drift car racetrack. The Button Shy Wallet game uses the cards in the deck to create obstacles and provide nitro boosts as you dash to the finish line. Additionally, table edges, walls, and other objects between the start and the finish of the race serve as additional implements to completing the race.
So why do I call Turbo Drift a vanishing tile laying game? To get a better understanding of why I consider the movement cards to be tiles, I am going to compare Turbo Drift to Rob Cramer's most successful non-Button Shy Game, The Grand Carnival. In The Grand Carnival, multiple Carnivals descend on the town of Littletown where they compete with each other to draw the biggest crowds.:strip_icc()/pic6454811.jpg)
Each player has a player board where they will build their attractions in an effort to entertain guests. The attractions are built on what misleadingly appears to be a 4 x 4 grid. Misleading, because each grid can hold a single tile with a 4x4 pattern divided between walking lanes for guests and foundations to potentially build attractions. The foundations are needed to setup attractions to attract the attention of your guests. But poorly placed attractions without well planned walking paths will inhibit the ability of your guests to check out and enjoy (aka score you points) the attractions at your Carnival.:strip_icc()/pic6470558.jpg)
Tile laying in The Grade Carnival is double layered. The first lawyer is by setting up paths and foundations by picking a foundation available from the rail yard. The foundations and path patterns available will change as other players select tiles. Selecting a tile from the railyard not only results in a new tile randomly added to the railyard, but also alters what tradeoffs players must elect to take to acquire specific foundation tile. The second layer is created by placing attractions upon foundations. Attractions come in a variety of shapes and can be placed across multiple sections of the larger 4 x 4 grid as long as a foundation is properly prepared before placing the attraction.
Once the tiles are placed, they cannot be moved. They do not vanish. Their permanence is key, for they serve as the constraint players plan around in an effort to create routes to maximize tickets (points) earned from each guest attending your Carnival.:strip_icc()/pic3320155.jpg)
So where are the tiles in Turbo Drift and what makes them vanish? The tiles in Turbo Drift are the path cards. To move your car in Turbo Drift you use path cards to create a path your car must follow till either your car stops or you crash into something. The cards are laid down in a 2 x 3 grid, where you can either select just one card, a column of cards which you can place in any order, or a row of cards that you shuffle and randomly place.:strip_icc()/pic3320152.jpg)
The cards are your tiles, creating the path for your vehicle is similar in a sense to the foundation cards create paths for your visitors in the Grand Carnival. The difference is that once your car follows your path, the path vanishes. You pick up the path cards, flip them over to a new movement, and place them back into the 2 x 3 grid. The cards no longer serve as a permanent constraint on the way your future car moves. The path tiles vanish, and you can move your car over the same place again by laying a new set of path cards, aka tiles, to move your car.
That does not mean there is no constraint from the tiles. The constraint that exists in both games is players are limited by what tiles are available to draft on their turn in both games. In other words, a constrained draft. Turbo Drift’s limited tile options come from how cards are randomly placed in the initial grid and how the grid changes as cards are drafted each round. The reason players flip the path card is because each path card is double sided with different paths. Flipping the cards combined with players' choice on where they place the path cards in the grid creates a new, different set of tiles available to draft that constrains their opponent’s opportunities.:strip_icc()/pic5820942.jpg)
The railyard in the Grand Carnival limits what players can draft by linking each available foundation tile to a minimum action point to acquire it. Every round of carnival, each player has five different action pawns they can use to take actions. Not all action pawns are created equal, they must be placed on actions numbered 1 through 5, with 5 being the strongest. If a player wants the newest foundation tile, they must use their 5 value number, and place one of their action pawn’s on the 5 space on their Carnival board. The 5 value action will not be available till next round after the player uses up all of their lower value actions. If you already used your 4 & 5 actions elsewhere in the round, and the foundation tile you want for your Carnival is on the 4 spot in the railyard, well tough luck. Your draft is constrained.
To get around the constrained drafts in either game, you have to think ahead. If you really want the foundation tile currently sitting on the 4 spot in the railroad yard in the current round, and all you have left are 3 and less, you have to get creative. Everytime a foundation tile is drafted in the Grand Carnival, all the other tiles to the right of it shift down one to fill its place. So you can strategically draft a lower foundation tile to shift all the tiles to the right down one spot to make the foundation tile affordable.
The danger is all of a player’s hard work to plan ahead is messed up by their opponent. Making the foundation you want more affordable for yourself also makes it more affordable for other players to acquire too. Just as strategically drifting left in Turbo Drift opens a path to thread the needle between two obstacles only works if your opponent does not select path cards to deny you the ability to thread the needle and avoid a crash.
Either case, Rob has you dealing with the same three things over and over again. Picking up, placing, constraining. Your options are constrained by the draft of the tiles. Your ability to place the tiles drafted by the history of your tiles. No matter if the history is painfully recorded in your sight by the buildings and foundations laying in front of you, or by the invisible path you blazed but now vanished, leaving you only the current positioning of your car to represent your tile choices within the game.
Rob Cramer - Stats
The Grand Carnival - BGG Rank 2488
Turbo Drift (26 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Turbo Drift Available at Pnp Arcade
Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:00 pm
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Designer Jon Simantov wants you to confront the unknown in his game designs. Take his first published game, Liberation from Button Shy. David Wiley will tell you that the Liberation movement player must hide from the Dynasty player for at least three rounds and gain enough local support to win, while the Dynasty player must find the Liberation movement's secret base to end the rebel threat. The Dynasty player does not know where the Liberation player hid their base. The Liberation player does not know all the locations the Dynasty player has eliminated as potential locations for the Liberation base. Both players face the unknown.:strip_icc()/pic6531659.jpg)
Liberation relies on four cards randomly placed and rotated to create a custom map. Within that map The Liberation movement will place facedown a card from their hand indicating which city houses their secret base. The information problem that defines the game has been created. Now the challenge becomes how does the Liberation player protect that information while the Dynasty player seeks to uncover it.
All 12 cities are represented by a single city card. Therefore any card revealed to the Dynasty player is information to find the Liberation player. That can be cards that go into the Dynasty player’s hand, cards it peaks at in the city draw pile, or cards made public by Liberation play.
It must be noted, the Liberation base is not static, there is a way for the Liberation player to move their secret base. But…there are limits to how far the base can move from its starting location which is further constrained by the cards held within the Liberation player’s hand.:strip_icc()/pic5734714.jpg)
Like Liberation, Jon’s Vamp on the Batwalk is all about managing unknown information. The key difference now is the player you know the least about is yourself. Vamp on the Batwalk is a trick taking game, where you can see all your opponents cards, just not your own (you are a vampire, so you have no reflection). All you know about your cards is the suit. So you make educated guesses on your best card to play to take a trick by using what you know about your opponents hands to deduce what might be in your hand.
Honestly, I am suspicious that Jon is secretly trying to teach us a life lesson to be humble about our own life choices since there are so many unknowns in daily life. That said, only Jon secretly knows the truth, so I guess there is just another unknown Jon has created for us to deduce.
Jon Simantov - Stats
Vamp on the Batwalk BGG Rank 12126
Liberation (8 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Liberation Available at PNP Arcade
Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:00 pm
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James O'Connor's first published game is Jewelers Row, a Button Shy Select game. The premise behind a Button Shy Select title is that they have a physical print run by Button Shy of 250 copies because they are games that take risks in a way that creates a lot of uncertainty if anyone is going to buy them.:strip_icc()/pic5731251.jpg)
For You Fool, the first Button Shy Select game, Jason Tagmire, owner of Button Shy, perceived the risk was whether or not people would buy a boardgame with a clown theme.
For the other two Button Shy Select games, Feat on the Ground and Jeweler's Row, Jason perceived there to be two risks: a common risk and a unique risk. The common risk for both games was that they are both tile laying games, which easily might be overshadowed by Button Shy's most successful game at that point, Circle the Wagons. The unique risk for Feat on the Ground was that the mechanic was so different from anything else that Jason was unsure players would relate to the game. And for James' Jeweler's Row, the risk was that the game play is so similar to other computer jewel games, Jason was unsure if people wanted a boardgame version.:strip_icc()/pic4307061.png)
Welcome to Dino World also represented a risk for a young Ally Cat Games publishing company. At the time of release, BoardGameGeek listed a little over a hundred Roll-And-Write Games, with only a handful truly commercially successful. Many of the games were self published, and a number of the successful games at the time were pure abstracts, like Qwixx. Welcome to Dino World is about building and running your own dinosaur theme park. The game is meant to give you the feel of really being in charge and dealing with problems. There was no guarantee that players were going to transition into a thematic game played with only dice and paper.:strip_icc()/pic3565668.jpg)
And in a weird way, the risk for Alley Cat Games to publish Welcome to Dino World was even higher because of the potential reputational effect for the publisher. Welcome to Dino Word was the first game released from Alley Cat Games not designed by one of the company’s owners and their second published game. Additionally, there were some expectations of commercial success for Welcome to Dino World before publication that would have further hurt Alley Cat Games’ reputation if they were not met. Prior to being signed by Alley Cat Games, Welcome to Dino Word was unanimously named the official game of GenCant2017 and was a 2017 Golden Geek nominee for Best Print & Play.
Today there are almost 800 Roll and Write games listed on BoardGameGeek. Yet, James' Welcome to Dino World is still ranked in the top 40 of all time roll-and-write boardgames on BoardGameGeek.
* Thank You DrRobotRick for talking to me about Jewlers Row
James O'Connor - Stats
Welcome to Dino World - BGG Rank 2522
Jewelers Row (213 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Wed Jan 4, 2023 12:00 pm
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Pick your favorite cliche to say there is more than one way to do something, my personal favorite is there are two different paths to victory in a Jason Greeno boardgame.
Jason Greeno's debut publication, Tornado Chase, is a Button Shy 9 card game where players are trying to get the most prestige points from chasing Tornadoes. Points are earned by utilizing characters at key moments as tornado rips across the countryside.:strip_icc()/pic5422254.png)
That said, all the prestige points in the world will not do you a lick of good if an F5 tornado sweeps you out of the game. Not doing well with points? Do not worry, you can also use the character cards to increase the probability other players get eliminated as a second path to victory. If you are the last player standing, you automatically win the game.
Just like Tornado Chase, Starforge also has multiple paths to victory, either destroy your opponent, score enough command points, or bring back 3 of the 5 different resources to your home planet.:strip_icc()/pic5036395.jpg)
Starforge is a 2 player asymmetric faction game where players have the same three ways to win, but have different abilities based on their factions and customizable spaceships.
There are 5 different types of resources in the universe. Be the first side to bring 3 different resources home and you win. Of course you do not need to worry about being first to collect resources if you destroy your opponent's space fleet. So another path to victory is to blow stuff up.
The key to both games is sizing up the entire game state to decide what is the best win condition to pursue. In pocketkungfu playthrough of Starforge, the goo player looks at the starting game state and judges that a resource monopoly victory is unlikely and it should pursue a different path.
What is not said in the playthrough, though just as important is that the terrain player should also recognize that the goo player is probably not going to go for the resource monopoly victory.
In either Tornado Chase or Starforge, if you misread the intentions of how your opponents plan to win, you risk taking a move that helps your opponent at your expense. Sure something might give you more points in Tornado Chase, but if you are setting yourself to be targeted by a tornado you are playing into your opponents hands. Just like a move to grab one more resource instead of building up your defense ability can open you up to being attacked in Starforge.
Additionally, Jason's use of multiple paths to victory creates additional strategic decisions in what are otherwise highly compact worlds. Tornado Chase is a 9 card game, and Starforge uses 13 cards. Like Button Shy Rookie designer Robin Gibson, Jason creates a larger game with few game components by letting each card serve different ends depending on the path to victory each player takes.
Noticing a pattern here? Button Shy Rookie designers have a knack to create more with less, even for their games published with other publishers.
Milan Zivkovic Treasure of Microlandia is a single page game.
Dustin Dobson & Milan Zivkovic's Agueda evolved from an 18 card game.
Even Dr. Wictz's Robotech: Reconstruction creates a COIN like game with only 32 event cards, a fraction of event cards found in a typical GMT COIN game which range from 47 to 120 event cards.
That is no accident. That is part of the DNA of what it takes to become a Button Shy Rookie in the first place.
Jason Greeno - Stats
Tornado Chase (340 out of 461)
Starforge 193 own on BGG
Tornado Chase Available on PNP Arcade
Wed Dec 28, 2022 12:00 pm
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Button Shy postcard games drip with theme. Joshua J. Mills Scissorcards is no exemption. The Button ShyBoard Game of the Month Club includes a postcard game, traditionally centered around a central theme. Theme is especially important to a postcard game since the designer has to create enough excitement around the game to motivate the players to track down all the parts to play the game. Early Button Shy postcard games are only the rules and a list of generic components needed to make the games work. If I am going to get you to play Funkytown, my own Button Shy postcard design, I have to get you excited to groove and move your way to Funktown, otherwise, you just will not play or be excited to have the game in your collection.:strip_icc()/pic6669056.jpg)
Back in 2016 the theme was Cult films, and Joshua J.Mills first published boardgame, Scissorcards, was inspired by the movie Edward ScissorHands. Joshua simulates some of the clumsiness Edward faced with his scissorhands by challenging players to form a shrub out of cards in the shape of various items. What really hinders players' creative juices is that players have to put cards between their fingers and only use the cards held between their fingers to manipulate the other cards to form the shruby.:strip_icc()/pic4866153.jpg)
Now I am not saying that you feel the cold from the ice cream on your hands in Joshua’s Rocky Road A la Mode, but I am saying you do feel like an ice cream truck driver.
Exhibit A - your ice cream truck. Your ice cream truck moves through the neighborhood as you operate your ice cream business. The truck's movement represents the passage of time. The player's truck furthest in the back goes next.
Exhibit B - the music. To attract customers you need to play music. Each card in your hand has a number in the upper right corner indicating how long you need to play your music to attract the customers on the card to your truck. In case you did not grow up with ice cream trucks in your neighborhood, in many places in the USA ice cream trucks drive up and down streets blaring music from a loud speaker so you know to run out to the road with your parents' money to score some delicious ice cream.
Exhibit C - serving ice cream. To score points you need to serve all the customers ice cream you attract with your music. No ice cream means no sale, or in Rocky Road A la Mode, no points.
Exhibit D - to serve ice cream you must restock your ice cream truck to have ice cream. Restocking takes time, so logically, adding a card to your hand (restocking) advances your ice cream truck (time tracker) one space per card.
There is no escaping the world Joshua builds with his games. The theme drips over you like an ice cream melting onto your hand as you hold a cone in 100 degree Fahrenheit weather. You become the character in the setting Josh puts you in.
Be it a street musician in New Orleans - Big Easy Busking
A Soda Pop Kingpin - Top Pop
An Ice Cream Truck Owner - Rocky Road a la Mode
Or someone coming to terms that they have scissors for hands - Scissorcards
Joshua J Mills - Stats
Rocky Road a la Mode - BGG Rank 3207
Scissorcards (410 out of 461 Button Shy Games)
Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:00 pm
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