Introducing DinoProof!- The (nearly) dinosaur-apocalypse game

[gmanrocks]

Hi All

I've been working recently on a fun and frantic skirmish wargame called DinoProof. It's a game im developing with the hopes of releasing it soon. I already have a publisher interested and currently playtesting and getting quotes from artists (so things are moving nicely).

I thought I'd introduce it to you all with a little battle report. Hope you like it

So the story (i'm still working on this but...) Major cataclysms have happened on modern day Earth and BOOM! dinosaurs have reapeared. The areas they occupy are called DinoVilles and it's you're job to act as half reporter, half hunter... A Slayer!

First lets create a couple of Slayers

Each Slayer has stats, Brain (good for all manner of things), Brawn (good for hitting things), Dex(good for shooting things and not getting hot) and Chutzpah (good for not being a wuss)

Here's Player One



he wants to be a shooty guy. Most of his points go in Dex, plus some in Brains, and lastly he uses the rest of his points on the others. The better the stat, the better the modifier.

He also works out his Brain Range (it's how dinos sense you), this is a D8 + Brain mod.

He then gets to pick a skill...he's shooty so picks a skills that gives him a shooting bonus when a dinosaur is getting too close.

Then gets to spend his monies. Rifle? Check! Light Armour? Check! Ammo? Check! bandages? Check!...Crowbar just in case!

And he's done!



Player 2 here wants to be well 'ard! So she's mostly Brawn with a bit Dex...She's sadly not too bright though.

She gets a skill that lets her make a devastating charge attack and then gets herself a Pick Axe (and a Fire Axe just in case), a stab vest (heavier armour) and the rest is spent on bandages.

They both have a Defence Score. 6+Dex Mod+armour Mod...Player 2 is a bit tougher but has no ranged attacks.

Here's DinoVille...It's a ruined city!...Think we need to populate it!



Each player gets a number of points to populate it. These can be spent on dinosaurs, traps and others bits, but for now, lets concentrate on dinosaurs.

Player 1 wants a T-Rex, a couple of Rapters and some dilophosaurus'



Player 2 goes for some bigger beasties. A Triceratops, Anklyasaurus and two Pterodactyls



Time to put them into the city. Each player gets to place them were they like, and also a supply crate for ever brains mod they have (player 1 gets 1 and player 2 doesnt get any)



With everything set up, it's game time, so they have to roll to see who goes first (its player 2)...Coming up...The mayhem commences!

[gmanrocks]

So this is a simple scenarios...Kill the most dinosaurs, and player 2 gets to go first. Now she needs to parachute in to DinoVille...She wants to land here in the park, but the winds picked up and is blowing her off course...If she had a good Brain modifier she'd be able to pull the parachute back into position...



But she's not so actually lands on the other side of the wall




Player 1 wants to land a little bit further south. Right here

The wind would blow him 1" off course, but luckily he's pretty smart and with his +1 Brains mod, can bring his parachute into position and lands just where he wants.



Now it's fighting time! Player 2 charges the first dino she sees. Unfortunately, its got a big clubby tails, which allows it to make a free attack against anyone getting into close combat with it.



She takes to wounds to the gut, but no worries, she still whacks him for 3 damage. Its health 4 so is wounded but not out!



Seeing the dinosaur on its last legs, Player 1 become what's known officially as "a kill stealing git!" and takes out the dinosaur. Due to this he gets 1 in his moment gauge (when this gets up to ten, then can take a special action). He also gets some XP to use after the game.

Miffed about the stolen kill, she decides to take her aggression out on a T-Rex. Using her special Bum Rush skill is able to charge the T-Rex from behind and crush it in one go...She must of been pretty mad!



Player 2 now gets to control the dinosaurs who can sense Player 1, and since he used a rifle (which has a loud trait, meaning dinosaurs can hear him), she gets to move all the dinosaurs that were in range



Rather than fighting the oncoming dinos, Player 1 decides to go for the supply crate (cunningly disguised as a D20)



WHAT'S INSIDE?!!!!  



OOOOOO A bandage! They're always handy!

He then gets to control all the Dinosaurs sensing Player 2, as they move around the broken wall to get to her



She runs up and smacks a dilophosaurus in the chops! and spends another turn applying a bandage...Better safe than sorry!



Mean while the second dilophosaurus  sneaks up on Player 1. It's just out of range of close combat, but they have a nasty venom attack. Luckily for Player 1 his armour just deflects it!



Leaving Player 1 with little options than to fight it. Now rather than making a movement and an attack, he can make a Full Round Attack, this allows him to make the max number of attacks his weapon can make, in this case, 2!...bye bye bad dinosaur!



Further North, the Ptrodactyls swoop in on Player 2. They have the ability to grab a Slayer and fly off with them, but luckily Player 2 is fighting them off!



Bad news for Player 1 is that he's got the attention of a couple of Rapters. Worse news is that they can jump over terrain that would other wise block the dinosaurs, which one does here to cause 2 wounds to Player 1



Even worse news i that they are pack hunters and work better in groups! Another 2 wounds to Player 1



he's able to take one out, but that still leaves the other, and there's still a matter of a Triceratops, who's gaining ground! (just off shot)



After dealing with those flying pests, Player 2 does a runner to get back into combats, it's a close run game, and could come down to the last dinosaur! (She blames that on the early kill steal)



The Raptor wounds Player 1 for another 2 wounds...This isn't good news!...You see, a Slayer only has 10 wounds, and he's lost 6! Ever 2 hits they drop a level, Bumped, Bruised, Battered, Bleeding and finally Broken!...Now Player 1 is Bleeding he can only make 1 move action per turn.



And when things couldn't look any worse for Player 1, the Triceratops charges...It has a specific skill that means it can make a thunderous charge, dealing a whopping 4 points of damage!..>Could this be the end for Player 1?



Luckily it's a miss!, but only by 1...He should thank his lucky star!...Phew!

It takes Player 1 a Full Turn Action to dispose of the Raptor, but there's still the Triceratops to deal with. thankfully it cant make its charge unless it has room to move, so thats something!



hell hath no fury like a Slayer scorn...Player 2 uses her Bum Rush skill to charge the dino and smush it! Normally she couldn't do enough damage to take it out, but he skill gives her an extra wound...That'll teach Player 1 to kill steal!



Player 2 wins, she killed the most dinosaurs...Just! They now get to spend all that hard earned money and XP!


Well thats the basics. There's still lots that needs to be worked on, but it's fun, which is the main thing, and great for groups to play!

If you've enjoyed reading this and would like to get involved in the play testing, just let me know. I always need more eyes on it, and just through this first play test I know there's lots that need doing, even though the main mechanics seem pretty solid.

Hope you enjoyed it, and please let me know some comments, questions and feedback from what you've read here.

thanks for reading

[gmanrocks]

Hi All

If anyone got a chance to read through this, what did you think? Would this be a game you'd be interested in trying out some time? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it

[Constable Bertrand]

Seems pretty fun and easy.

Its nice to see a game with stats like diablo which level up. I guess that will make your job hard to build a skill table for each skill.

The players are obviously allies, perhaps there is exp sharing if in close proximity (like the raptor thing?)
Perhaps they can choose to enter Dinotown via, parachute, bike, truck etc?

Cheers
Matt

[gmanrocks]

Seems pretty fun and easy.

Its nice to see a game with stats like diablo which level up. I guess that will make your job hard to build a skill table for each skill.

The players are obviously allies, perhaps there is exp sharing if in close proximity (like the raptor thing?)
Perhaps they can choose to enter Dinotown via, parachute, bike, truck etc?

Cheers
Matt

Cool ideas!

Slayers are sort of allies...You can buy traps which you deploy with your supply crates and do various things an opponent Slayer opens it. You can also build up a Momentum Gauge which fills after 10 kills. This allows you to do one of 3 actions. A super attack, a super heal or force a opponent to make a live news report, which takes them a turn. They can refuse but it depletes their Momentum Gauge...So it's still competitive and you can do sneaky things to slow others down to so can bag the kills.

I'll have a think about the sharing exp. It's a cool idea.

Vehicles are something I want to put in, but I was thinking if it's successful enough to do a supplement with them. The book so far is rammed with all sorts of goodies for the campaign games, such as "Off Camera" jobs such as making red carpet appearances... They work kind of like turf in gang management games. But i really like the idea of coming in on a vehicle

I'm working on a little demo pack that I will upload onto here, so if anyone wants to give it a go, they can do

Thanks

[Brummie Thug]

Seems interesting. Very similar to S.D.Z.A Superhero Dinosaur Zombie Apocalypse over on the Future Wars board. Only using Survivors and the Dinosaurs parts.

Have you tried big big dinosaurs in it yet? How does it scale up for the big boys?

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=69184.0

[gmanrocks]

Seems interesting. Very similar to S.D.Z.A Superhero Dinosaur Zombie Apocalypse over on the Future Wars board. Only using Survivors and the Dinosaurs parts.

Have you tried big big dinosaurs in it yet? How does it scale up for the big boys?

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=69184.0

Each dinosaur has a set of specific skills (although some share the same ones), for example Rapters have Jump and Pack Hunter skills were as a Dilophosaurus also has Jump but has Venom Spit instead of Pack Hunter...Some have size skills, Small, Large or Colossal. Small can walk over supply crates without destroying them. Large get bonuses to hit a Slayer if they are in a tripped position and Colossal get the Large skill and gain no benefit from being behind light cover (they all tend to have stats to match their size).

One thing I found with the play test was that fights with the big dinos weren't as epic as they should be...The T-Rex getting whomped on for example...These are things I want to iron out and really make the big dinos feel BIG!

[gmanrocks]

Hi All

Demo playtest rules are now available!

They contain all the rules you need to play, plus 4 pre-generated characters! These are play test rules so will likely (certainly) be fine tuned and also proof read etc.

If anyone is interested please PM me and I'll sort out getting you them. Those who do play test, if you'd like to make any comments and feedback or write up your battle reps, please put them on this thread so they're all in one place.

Thanks

[Gailbraithe]

Almost ready for our playtest:

[gmanrocks]

Cool! They look awesome! Great selection of minis. Can't wait to see how you get on!

[Gailbraithe]

So we ran the playtest scenario tonight.  Here's my battle report!

First the models:


At front are the Slayers: Duke (Slayer One), Paxton (Slayer Two), Rebelle (Slayer Three), and Hawk (Slayer Four).  It was only once we began deploying that I realized I was short two Velociraptors, so we ended up substituting some "velociorks."  You'll see them later.

And the board:


We deployed dinosaurs, then airdropped in our slayers.  I forgot to photograph my (Rebelle) own deployment.  Paxton and Hawk landed within Brain Radius of dinos, while I landed a bit further away.  Duke landed up on the mountain at the edge of the map, which would become important later.



We immediately ran into questions about initiative order -- we settled on rolling a d8 and then going around the table.  The other thing that was confusing was the dinosaur movement phase.  The dinosaurs don't have any rules covering what they do when they can't sense a Slayer, so they just sit there doing nothing. It's fairly obvious the rules were originally written for a zombie game, and as a result the dinos act like zombies, which we all found unsatisfying.

In the first two turns Duke killed a T-Rex, Paxton killed an anklyosaurus, Rebelle killed a velociraptor, and Hawk killed two dilophosaurus.  Paxton was quickly mobbed by velociraptors and panicked, but was able to hack his way free. He was reduced to the second level of Bleeding, but was able to use his free Momentum attack to kill the last velociraptor before it got in a killing blow.



Meanwhile Hawk hunted down the other T-Rex.  The rules didn't say anything about pre-measuring, and Hawk's player Jim took full advantage to optimally position himself just out of the T-Rex's move range, but within it's LOS, forcing it to charge him. Due to its really low defense, he took the T-Rex down without facing any real risk.  We all agreed that the T-Rexes were disappointing.  What should have been a juggernaut of death ended up being far less threatening than the velociraptors.

After sniping the first T-Rex to death from his perch, Duke got into LOS range of the triceratops and -- because it acts like a zombie -- it dutifully marched to the base of the mountain and allowed itself to be shot to death.



Meanwhile Rebelle was grabbed by a pterodactyl.  This was cool in concept, but the rules had nothing to say on what the pterodactyl does with a Slayer once they are grabbed.  The pterodactyl's player flew Rebelle across the board towards himself.  This paid off when Rebelle broke free and dropped to the ground close to Paxton.



He ran up and killed it with one blow with his powerful pickaxe.



That left two dinos on the board, and Hawk got close enough to get them to charge towards him, but Rebelle and Paxton weren't far away.



Hawk killed one and Rebelle got the other one.



But thanks to the mob of velociraptors, Duke won the game handily:



I will get into our impressions of the game tomorrow.

[gmanrocks]

Looks amazing! Very cool board!

Can't wait to see you impressions. There's actually a few things I've been working on that would address a few bits

A) I'll need to re-edit the playtest pack...I thought that covered initiative, but you actually did what is planned anyway.

B) Dinosaurs who aren't in the brain radius of a Slayer need something to do. I was thinking each Slayer gets to move D4 dinosaurs who arent in the radius of anyone at the end of the Dino turn.

C) I know what you mean about some of the bigger dinos not being as tough as they need to be. I'm looking at changing these about and making them tougher. In the campaign game there will be Star Factor, this is basically your level. Im thinking biggers dinos can only be selected once a Slayer has reached a certain Star Factor. So a T-Rex can't be taken by a starter Slayer and pulverized...After all, they should be scary!

D) Interesting about fighting on different levels...This is something I was looking at, but yet to figure out. Obviously dinos with Jump can scale different floors but others dont meaning they just stand there and get shot...In my experience, Slayers who hide up and just shoot dont often win because its more of a slow process to kill dinos than charging a mob...Any ideas on what you'd like to see to change this?

E) Flyers with grab was meant to be more of a hindrance. They'd grab you, and fly about, not hurting you, just taking up precious turns and of course, the player who controls a dino that's grabbed a Slayer can get up to all kinds of mischief. I'd like to do something more cinematic with this though...Maybe adding nests that they can drop you off in?

I'm also working on new rules for having to swap out ranged weapons when in close combat...I've found that just makes gunmen too tough!

I hope you had fun. This is a playtest so everything very rough around the edges right now, but if you had did have fun, then I think that's a good start for a solid end game

Thanks so much, I really do think your battle report was a fun read, and will be actioning your findings.

[Gailbraithe]

Okay, sorry for the delay.  Our impressions of the game.

We all agreed the concept of the game is awesome, and it has tons of potential.  We love the theme, and want to see it taken up a notch.  A lot of people took interest in the store, and they all loved the concept of forcing other players to do live interviews.  That said, overall we felt the game was underdeveloped and would need significant work before it gained replay value.

Here were our main issues, going from my post-game notes:

Dinosaurs don't act like Dinosaurs:  This was most noticeable when the triceratops was forced to ineffectually approach Duke on the mountain.  We all agree that the Dino AI needs a lot of work.  I think that the Dino phase should be split into a Prey Phase and a Predator Phase, with Prey dinosaurs moving to terrain features (watering holes, jungles) and the Predators tracking after, maybe even attacking, the prey.  Predators should hunt after Slayers, but Prey should run from gunfire and slayers.  Having to chase down your kills and compete with the predators would make the game far more interesting.  One players suggested cards for Dino objectives, but I don't like cards.

Dinos aren't scary. They're too easy to kill and not much of a threat overall.  Only Paxton, who had no ranged weapons, took serious damage and nearly died.  Individual dino species with special abilities also need individual rules -- the venom spitters ought to stop at venom spitting range and spit at least once before moving in, and pterodactyls should take Slayers somewhere when they grab them.

One suggestion was making the T-Rex unavailable as a player choice, and rather making it a scenario specific creature that is far more powerful.  Also it should roar as a free action

Everyone hates attribute-based modifiers.  The modifiers are the only thing used, so they should be the attributes themselves.  You could go with attributes from -2 to 2, or set them at 1 to 5 and up the relative difficulty scores.  All the attribute tests should be based on 2d8 not 1d8, so that all the rolls are 2d8.

Traps are boring and confusing. Everyone who had traps wished they had more dinosaurs instead.

The monetary rewards for dinosaurs should be much, much higher.  This really just a theme thing, but if a velociraptor was worth 15 thousand dollars, that would be way better than 15 dollars. Just make bullets cost thousands of dollars and it will all balance out.

There could be cameras on the board.  One player suggested special rewards for performing signature moves or getting awesome kills in view of the cameras.

The fixed damage and low hit points of the dinos makes the pick insanely better than all other weapons - it one shots most dinos, while all the other weapons take at least 2 hits to kill a dino.  The numbers in general seem fairly arbitrary.

Gear management is a good feature for a zombie game, but felt out of place here.

And that's my notes.

[gmanrocks]

Okay, sorry for the delay.  Our impressions of the game.

We all agreed the concept of the game is awesome, and it has tons of potential.  We love the theme, and want to see it taken up a notch.  A lot of people took interest in the store, and they all loved the concept of forcing other players to do live interviews.  That said, overall we felt the game was underdeveloped and would need significant work before it gained replay value.

Here were our main issues, going from my post-game notes:

Dinosaurs don't act like Dinosaurs:  This was most noticeable when the triceratops was forced to ineffectually approach Duke on the mountain.  We all agree that the Dino AI needs a lot of work.  I think that the Dino phase should be split into a Prey Phase and a Predator Phase, with Prey dinosaurs moving to terrain features (watering holes, jungles) and the Predators tracking after, maybe even attacking, the prey.  Predators should hunt after Slayers, but Prey should run from gunfire and slayers.  Having to chase down your kills and compete with the predators would make the game far more interesting.  One players suggested cards for Dino objectives, but I don't like cards.

Dinos aren't scary. They're too easy to kill and not much of a threat overall.  Only Paxton, who had no ranged weapons, took serious damage and nearly died.  Individual dino species with special abilities also need individual rules -- the venom spitters ought to stop at venom spitting range and spit at least once before moving in, and pterodactyls should take Slayers somewhere when they grab them.

One suggestion was making the T-Rex unavailable as a player choice, and rather making it a scenario specific creature that is far more powerful.  Also it should roar as a free action

Everyone hates attribute-based modifiers.  The modifiers are the only thing used, so they should be the attributes themselves.  You could go with attributes from -2 to 2, or set them at 1 to 5 and up the relative difficulty scores.  All the attribute tests should be based on 2d8 not 1d8, so that all the rolls are 2d8.

Traps are boring and confusing. Everyone who had traps wished they had more dinosaurs instead.

The monetary rewards for dinosaurs should be much, much higher.  This really just a theme thing, but if a velociraptor was worth 15 thousand dollars, that would be way better than 15 dollars. Just make bullets cost thousands of dollars and it will all balance out.

There could be cameras on the board.  One player suggested special rewards for performing signature moves or getting awesome kills in view of the cameras.

The fixed damage and low hit points of the dinos makes the pick insanely better than all other weapons - it one shots most dinos, while all the other weapons take at least 2 hits to kill a dino.  The numbers in general seem fairly arbitrary.

Gear management is a good feature for a zombie game, but felt out of place here.

And that's my notes.

Great notes. Thanks for getting them up...Lots of good points, and lots of things to think about. We've been playtesting like crazy for the past few days and we have lots of new things that we think are going to really make the game so much better, these include:

1) A total change of how dinos are deployed. You now only deploy a smaller amount and over the turns bring them in. This makes the game far less static and allows you to really move about and adds a new layer of tatics to see which dinos you want in play.

2) Weapons are having a huge face lift and are now going to be categorized. Melee having fists, single hand weapons, double hand weapons and power tools. Ranged getting rocks, pistols, rifles and assault weapons. Gone are the number of attacks in exchange for set number of actions. It makes things a lot smooth and manageable.

3) Dinosaur instincts phase. This is something we're still playing about with, but gives dinos things to do when not sensing Slayers. there's a couple of ideas, but i think it'll be kept simple but in character.

4) Another big one is working out the stats, i think they need to be streamlined. Got a few ideas but need to iron these out. Basically: No stats that just need modifiers!...Just need to do the maths on that one.

5) Bigger dinosaurs are now much harder but only accessible once a Slayer gets to a certain level. There's now also a couple of new dinos and there's a sort of tier, beginner, intermediate and hard dinos...A T Rex shouoldn't be one punch killed!

6) Hiding up on a ledge will no longer be a wise option, there's new ways dinos can get around this including shaking structures to knock Slayers off.

7) The momentum gauge beind lowered to be filled allows way more madness and much more fun!

A few other bits and pieces here and there too (my fave being what has become of the Grab attack )

I'm glad people took an interest, thats great news when developing any game! Cheers for the input, lots there to go on and all really fair points.