Zakharov

Thinking more about the rules for simplified version: You can't move followers. This allows for a bit more long-term planning, as you have some idea of who will be influential in each committee at the start of your turn. You can still assign new followers. The central committee gives cards to players; each card has an ongoing effect. It's too hard to design interesting global rules changes. Start with six followers. Don't start with a leader. Followers: Party member - no special effect Commissar (political) - gains an extra vote if it is a player's only follower in their committee. General (military) - wins ties. Bureaucrat (administrative) - gains an extra vote when voting for someone else. Overseer (agricultural) - does not count towards your follower limit. Can be reassigned each turn. Spy (intelligence) - player gains one point when the player the spy votes for wins the vote. Foreman (industrial) - gains an extra vote if you have at least two other followers in the same committee. Brainstorming ideas for Central Committee cards (should be 10-14 of these, 7 used each game): You can reassign two of your followers from any committee to any other committee each turn. You can have up to five followers in any committee (the normal limit being three). Gain an extra 2 points at the end of the game for each of your Central Committee cards. You can see every other player's Agenda card. Your spies gain an extra point for voting for the winning player. If your general successfully breaks a tie, gain an extra Party Member. Your foremen gain an additional vote if someone else votes for you in that committee. If your bureaucrat votes for the same person as at least two other players, gain a point. Your commissars gain an extra four votes if there are fewer total followers in its committee than any other committee. Your overseers gain an extra vote if they are on the same committee as another of your overseers. Brainstorming ideas for Agenda cards (should be 7, 5 used each game): Gain (6/8/11/14) points for each set of (4/5/6/7) different followers, plus one point for every other follower. Gain two points for each Commissar or General, plus one point for every other follower. The above, for different pairs of followers.

I'm having a lot of fun with Sombra. My main strategy is to drop a teleporter beacon in a safe spot, go invisible and run in behind the enemy team, hack a health pack, try to kill someone, then return to safety. Going anywhere unsafe without a beacon up inevitably results in my death. I still can't figure out the best way to use her ultimate; it counters Lucio, McCree and Pharah but only if you're in the right place at the right time.

I think I'll begin by building a simplified version. Instead of gaining a card when you win a vote, you gain a special follower. The Central Committee still has yes-or-no-vote agenda cards.

I'm trying to decide who people should be playing as. Staying accurate to history would give you Kruschev, Malenkov, Beria, Molotov and either Kaganovich or Bulganin. That could be confusing due to names sounding too similar, particularly Malenkov and Molotov. I'm leaning towards Kruschev, Molotov, Beria, Zhukov and someone else whose name starts with a different letter, and use the first letter of their names as their icon.

The game will have to be playable on mobile, tablet or desktop. Screens needed outside of game Title screen, with buttons for Host Game, Join Game, and Instructions Host Game screen Join Game screen Instructions screen Screens needed inside game: Message view, allowing you send and views messages with other players Committee overview, showing what card is available this turn in each committee (might omit this in mobile view), which followers are in what committees, and allowing you to indicate which followers should move on your next turn. Detailed committee view, showing for the selected committee which cards will be available in future turns. Card view, showing what cards each player has, letting you select which card to play, and what options to take on that card. Vote view, letting you vote on each committee, and showing you which of your followers are located in that committee (after your follower moves have taken effect). It shouldn't show opponent's followers, as they might have moved before the vote. Scoring view, showing each player's current known score.

Comrade Stalin is an attempt to make a game that's based on the good parts of Diplomacy - long-term planning, secret negotiations, simultaneous turns, and backstabbing - without the player elimination, seven-player requirement or 12-hour playtime. It adds a randomized setup, but once the game starts it's fully deterministic. There are seven committees. Each player starts with 10 followers (all party members) and one leader in the Central Committee. Each turn, every player can move each of their followers. Followers can only move to an adjacent committee. Each player can only have three of their followers in any committee except the Central Committee (this can be modified later by cards). Each committee has a deck of ten cards, seven of which are drawn and laid out at the start of the game. Each turn, every player with followers in that committee votes on which player gets the card for that turn. There are five types of cards: Immediate effect, e.g. gain a follower in this committee. Continuous effect, e.g. your per-committee follower limit is increased by one. One-time use, e.g. your vote counts double this turn. Score, e.g. gain one power (victory point) per follower you have in the Political Committee at the end of the game. Policy - followers in the Central Committee vote whether or not to enact a policy that affects everyone, e.g. followers in the Administrative Committee contribute no power at the end of the game. There are several types of follower. Every follower provides a vote. Leader - cannot leave the Central Committee, is not affected by cards. These represent the player character. Party Member - no special power. Commissar - counts as two votes if it is a player's only follower in their committee. General - wins ties. Diplomat - counts as two votes when voting for someone else. Bureaucrat - does not count towards your follower limit. Spy - player gains one power when the player the spy votes for wins the vote. On your turn, you must select where your followers are moving, what cards you are playing, and who your followers on each committee are voting for. You have 10 minutes (configurable, and doubled on the first turn) to do this. During this time, you can send messages to other players to get them to vote for you on the committees you care most about, and in exchange vote for them on other committees. Once everyone has chosen, all the moves are executed and the cards handed out, and the next turn begins. At the end of the seventh turn, players reveal their secret agendas and gain power (score points) according to the agenda. The player with the most power wins.

A diplome-a-like for five players. Comrade Stalin is dead. Only you can protect the glorious motherland from her enemies. Enemies that are plotting to take the power that is rightfully yours. Each player takes on the role of a member of the Politburo. They must negotiate the support of other players to gain power - but they can never know whether they will be betrayed. Each turn, all players negotiate with each other for support, lock in their decisions, then resolve them. First, players can move some of their followers between the seven committees of the Supreme Soviet. Then, players play cards. Finally, players vote on the agenda of each committee. The number of followers determines the number of votes. Usually, the players vote for which player should get the card assigned to that committee that turn, which either has a continuing effect, or can be played once later on. Sometimes there will be a yes-or-no vote which changes the rules of the game in some way. The game lasts seven turns. Each player has a secret agenda which determines their scoring at the end of the game. Every card that can be gained from each committee each turn is visible from the start of the game, so players can plan their strategy in advance, although your colleagues will of course be plotting to throw a wrench in your plans. The game can be played in real-time or asynchronously, online or face-to-face. Played real-time, it should take around 80 minutes.

I think that picture is a result of the Timurid empire collapsing, releasing loads of independent states.

If you're going to do this, watch the Civ Battle Royale. 63 AI civs on a giant map with regular narration.

The problem with both modern XCOM games for me is that the early game is too difficult relative to the late game. You'd hope they'd make that better with the expansions, not worse. I wonder if any mods address the issue?

I wasn't able to get the game working on itch.io. Itch uses https, which means I have to use wss for my websockets, which I can't figure out how to get working. I also decided to change the name of the game from Sports to Computer Processing Unit, because Sports is a terrible name for a game.

I've been working on polishing this up a bit, fixed some bugs, moved the image hosting off of my dinky little server. I'm now trying to get it onto itch.io; I need to figure out how to open a websocket from html served on itch.io to my server.

The game is working! It's hosted at http://www.robotball.xyz/

I've almost beaten the game into a working shape, and that means I need playtesters. Anyone want a go? I'm in Australia, so that makes timezones a little tricky, but I'm free for the next two days. Video of a turn being played: http://webmshare.com/eR3bR

The game is working! Mostly. Visit http://www.robotball.xyz to play! ----------------------------------------- You are three robots. You must get the ball into the goal. You must not let the opponent get the ball into their goal. You do not have enough instructions to do what you want to do. Neither do they. Computer Processing Unit is a multiplayer game where both players give each of their three robots four instructions from a set of sixteen available instructions. Once both players are done, the robots execute those instructions, attempting to maneuver the ball into their goal. Ten of these instructions move your robot: forward or backward up to three spaces, or left or right up to two spaces. Grab makes your robot grab the object in front of it, either the ball or another robot, moving that object to your robot's location. Throw throws a previously grabbed object three or four spaces ahead. Steal lets your robot steal the ball from an adjacent robot which has grabbed it. Escape lets a robot which has been grabbed escape the clutches of its kidnapper (a grabbed robot is otherwise immobilized). The robots execute their instructions in order, with the red (player 1) robot executing its first order, then the blue (player 2) robot executing its first order, then the pink (player 1), green (player 2), yellow (player 1) and purple (player2) robots. After every robot has executed its first order, the second row of instructions are executed in the same order. Starting player alternates each turn, so in the second turn of the game the blue robot goes first, then red, then green, then pink, etc.. The object of the game is to either push or throw the ball into the goal at the end of the field. Scoring a goal immediately ends the round and moves the ball to the center of the field, but does not change the positions of any robots. Play continues until one player has scored three goals.