{"id":123,"date":"2016-09-22T22:13:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T03:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/?p=123"},"modified":"2016-09-24T10:39:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T15:39:58","slug":"emperor-prototype-and-playtesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/2016\/09\/emperor-prototype-and-playtesting\/","title":{"rendered":"Emperor Prototype and Playtesting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-105\" src=\"http:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/alpha.png\" alt=\"alpha\" width=\"121\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/alpha.png 121w, https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/alpha-91x300.png 91w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 121px) 100vw, 121px\" \/>We have tested various ideas around the Emperor boardgame that we&#8217;ve been working on. \u00a0Emperor is really getting good. \u00a0It&#8217;s everything I love about a strategy game. \u00a0It has the potential to be quick, but it is hard to plan ahead because there are so many possible moves each turn &#8212; keeping you on your toes.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to design a game that allowed a player to use another player&#8217;s pieces against them. \u00a0Emperor is the result of that desire.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve tested with 2 and 3 player versions and the game is surprisingly stable and balanced. \u00a0Because there are three ways to win, each player is constantly trying to adjust to the actions of their opponent(s). \u00a0If someone is going for the Emperor&#8217;s Favor Victory, opponents needs to keep that play in check &#8212; if someone is going for the Court Influence Victory then other players need to either win more quickly or begin manipulating more pawns each turn. \u00a0Lastly, don&#8217;t take your eye off your third pawn, while you want it close to keep it useful, if it gets too close you can lose the game by having an opponent manipulate your pawns into a Conspiracy Victory by surrounding the Emperor with another player&#8217;s pawns.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a closeup shot of a prototype. \u00a0The game looks even better than this now, but this is a shot I have on hand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version=\"7\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\">\n<div style=\"padding:8px;\">\n<div style=\" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;\">\n<div style=\" background:url(data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC\/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5\/P8\/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo\/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI\/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf\/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BJzBzOHh3cF\/\" style=\" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;\" target=\"_blank\">Next iteration of #emperor. Black  was winning, but lost because rumors led to a conspiracy. #prototype #boardgamepieces #Protospiel #bgg #3dprinting #boardgames<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;\">A photo posted by Ryan Ziegler (@oakheartgames) on <time style=\" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;\" datetime=\"2016-09-01T02:55:47+00:00\">Aug 31, 2016 at 7:55pm PDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async defer src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have tested various ideas around the Emperor boardgame that we&#8217;ve been working on. \u00a0Emperor is really getting good. \u00a0It&#8217;s everything I love about a strategy game. \u00a0It has the potential to be quick, but it is hard to plan ahead because there are so many possible moves each turn &#8212; keeping you on your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[11,24,26,40,39,42,31,38,43,41,29],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-2-player","tag-3d-printer","tag-3d-printing","tag-abstract","tag-abstract-strategy","tag-alpha","tag-boardgame","tag-emperor","tag-game-design","tag-prototype","tag-update"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oakheartgames.com\/boardgames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}