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Friday, July 6, 2012: I combined the title "Funny Food" together with the idea of playing with real food. First came The Idea: You have a number of snacks to play with, and the players choose in player order one after another to have a battle with these snacks. Second came Research — that is, I went shopping for snacks (game material).
Friday, July 13, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, July 20, 2012: Facts:
-----• Important: Whatever you win in the game, it's yours to keep — you can eat it.
-----• Very important: The snacks must be sealed because I'm not happy to eat something that was already in everybody's hand.
-----• Idea: Calories as VPs.
The first "game": The snacks will be in different cups. The calories are VPs. The players add special, hidden bonus markers to the VPs to make some changes. In turn order, you take some snacks to keep or take snacks to give them to another player to trade for what the other player has taken. Whatever is in front of you at the start of your turn is safe and you can put it somewhere else.
Strange: This is almost the game as it is published now. For me, it was very important to make a simple, short game with these snacks so that you can play it at the start of the game evening to distribute the snacks on the table, then play something completely different while eating all of these acquired snacks.
Friday, July 27, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, August 3, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, August 10, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, August 17, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, August 24, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, August 31, 2012: Nothing for this game.
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Me first!
Friday, September 14, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, September 21, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, September 28, 2012: Okay, after some weeks spent working on the promotion for Copycat, I came back to Funny Food. I added the most important rule to the game: The first player takes one snack. The next player takes exactly one more than the player before him or steals from another player; this other player is then allowed to take one snack from the cups as "replacement" for the stolen snacks.
The final game doesn't have exactly this same rule, but it's close. In the end, it was clear to me that this first rule will not work because it's possible that every player would just steal from the person who has taken the previous turn, and then this game is no fun at all. I wrote a new rule, and in that rule each player has the chance to take exactly one more OR ONE LESS than the player before him. This is the actual existing rule now.
But now the main problem started: The scoring. At this stage of the game, everybody wrote down the target snacks he wanted to have, and the difference will be calculated in calories as negative VPs (Losing Points? LPs?!)
Friday, October 5, 2012: The first real played game with real snacks:
-----• 12 Tütchen Goldbären mini (42 kcal each)
-----• 8 Streifen Fritt Orange (48 kcal)
-----• 3 Riegel Milka Vollnuss (254 kcal)
-----• 8 Knoppers (137 kcal)
-----• 13 Hanuta Mini (58 kcal)
-----• 22 Merci Crocant (22 kcal)
It was a lot of fun. And one more rule for the final game appeared: When the cups are empty, the game is not immediately over. Each player takes one snack after another of the last taken snacks and whoever has none left of this type can just steal from others. This rule was untested, but I can tell you, it worked.
The last major problem: Two players who are stealing only from each other and doing nothing else.
Friday, October 12, 2012: I only changed the scoring rule. Still very complicated. Unplayed.
Friday, October 19, 2012: (No blog entry because of the Essen fair) The first official tournament for the game took place at my stand during Spiel 2012 in Essen and I won!!!! Okay, the scoring was confusing. I was the only person who understood it and got the most points. Unfair, but I won!!!!
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Goodies in play during a Spiel 2012 demo game (Image: haarrrgh)
Friday, October 26, 2012: I decided to make a version of the game with cards in place of snacks for two reasons:
-----1. To find out whether the game is still fun (without real snacks).
-----2. Not to be forced to eat so many snacks each time that I test this game.
Friday, November 2, 2012: Still two main problems: The scoring and the tit-for-tat stealing.
Friday, November 9, 2012: I got a new scoring idea, wrote it down, and found out afterwards that the idea creates a broken game.
Friday, November 16, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, November 23, 2012: I had the idea of using markers for the snacks to change the value of each sort. Markers, of course, allow for hidden placement to get hidden information and to avoid kingmaker situations. The first idea was to use these markers as multipliers, and I calculated a lot to get the right distribution of markers for differing numbers of players because with more players there are more markers...
Friday, November 30, 2012: Now it's possible to have snacks with negative VPs and in the rules there's no chance to pass. I added the rule for exiting the game earlier.
Friday, December 6, 2012: Wait, not a Friday you say. Yes, but in Fiji it was already Friday. I played more often on Fiji-Friday than on other days, and the game release party starts on Fiji-Friday. Important rule changes:
-----• You're now allowed to steal from the player before you.
-----• You do not get random scoring chips, but a complete set and one random (which will be exchanged for a "?" later).
-----• You still look at one stack, but each stack will be shuffled and one marker revealed.
Friday, December 14, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, December 21, 2012: Nothing for this game.
Friday, December 28, 2012: The new title is "Fight for Food".
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Friedemann explains the rules at Spiel 2012
(and yes, even his drink starts with an "F")
Friday, January 11, 2013: New rule: You do not look at one complete pile. All piles are shuffled and the topmost marker is revealed. Next new rule (very important): Whenever someone steals from me, I take one piece from the stolen, not from the middle. This means that whatever is stolen "shrinks", so there is no more tit-for-tat stealing. Another new rule: You do not take so many parts and draw randomly; instead there is a fixed number and some random parts are added. For the production cost, this is much better because not so much material is needed.
Friday, January 18, 2013: Changed the values of the snacks to lower numbers for easier to calculate VP scores. I started searching for the right material for the production of the game and started on plans for the game-release party. It must be a Friday because this is the end of a five-year long project.
Friday, January 25, 2013: Some mixed ideas, mostly depending on whether the game is good with two or six players and whether the game would still be a good game with complete information. Again, some problems with numbers being too high to easily calculate the scores.
Friday, February 1, 2013: No successful ideas for the two-player game.
Friday, February 8, 2013: No successful ideas for the very high VP values and the calculating problems.
Friday, February 15, 2013: No successful ideas for the game.
Friday, February 22, 2013: No successful ideas at all.
Friday, March 1, 2013: Preparing for test games (buying sweets).
Friday, March 8, 2013: Still trouble with the high values. A new idea to solve it, but not a successful one.
Friday, March 15, 2013: Nothing for this game.
Friday, March 22, 2013: Waiting for the right idea.
Friday, March 29, 2013: Two plays in the family. Undocumented.
Friday, April 5, 2013: Finally the idea. I had lowered the point values for the snacks to have better numbers to calculate, but multiplying generated high values — but now with the values being in a lower range (with the differences between them not being so high anymore) it's possible to add values instead of multiplying. Done!!!
Friday, April 12, 2013: Only a new name — "Feinschmecker".
Friday, April 19, 2013: Henning Kröpke plays the game in the U.S. at the Gathering of Friends (without me because of my two small children), and I decided on the name Futterneid.
Friday, April 26, 2013: I think the last important idea: Instead of having all fixed numbers that are added to the values, one of the markers will be a copy marker, which copies a marker from another player. This adds some replayability and fun to the game.
Friday, May 2, 2013: (Not a Friday here, but somewhere on this globe) Still happy with the new copy action and now set to use the "?" as the symbol for it.
Friday, May 10, 2013: I got it. I designed a game that's very easy to understand, very easy to play, fast and short. It was what I always wanted to have. I do know that it is not very strategic because it is only 25 minutes long; I still believe, though, that one can design games with a very theoretical concept behind them and design the game to fit perfectly to that concept. I know the problem sometimes comes up that I try to design the game to fit the concept best and not to design the best game (whatever "best" means). Whatever — I designed a very fun game to distribute the snacks on the gaming table.
And I added another idea to use the cups in the game: Snack achievements for every game. You need only five cups and five rules for achievements. Fill the cups with something delicious and start playing. The game will be different because some players will change their strategy to get more snacks instead of getting more VPs. I like this a lot.
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Overview of the game components in Futterneid
Friday, May 24, 2013: Only angry about the company I asked for the cups as they did not respond.
Friday, May 31, 2013: Just changed the number of snacks to ten per player and forty for two players since you simulate four players.
Friday, June 7, 2013: Very important: Do not play the game for only one round. If somebody at the table doesn't understand the gameplay and the scoring, it can destroy some of the fun. The second round is always much, much better, so this will become part of the rules. And even if you play this game with people who already know it, the second round has a special link to the first, so the game is complete only if you play the two rounds. Hopefully the gamers out there will do it and hear what the author has said.
Friday, June 14, 2013: Finishing the game by writing the actual game rules.
Friday, June 21, 2013: Drunk, nothing for this game.
Friday, June 28, 2013: BGG entry, first graphics.
Friday, July 5, 2013: The best idea to "force" players to play the game two times. In the game are ten scoring values. In the first round you need only five of them, so you have to play two rounds to use all of them.
Friday, July 12, 2013: Worked on the material question, artwork issues, and an idea for using the material and the artwork for a better handling.
Friday, July 19, 2013: Preparing for Mallorca.
Friday, July 26, 2013: Played with people from the gaming scene in Mallorca with horrible Spanish sweets. Great fun. Decided to make the game release party when Friday starts on this Earth, meaning Thursday noon in Essen.
Friday, August 2, 2013: Working on the wording of the rules, box text, press text.
Friday, August 9, 2013: Searching for the right place on Earth to use for the game-release party and found Fakaofo.
Friday, August 16, 2013: Showing some artwork to the public.
Friday, August 23, 2013: Bought 2,300 pieces of sweets for the game release in Essen.
Friday, August 30, 2013: Only some blog endtime things.
Friday, September 6, 2013: Some finishing on the print files for the rules.
Friday, September 13, 2013: Only some blog endtime things.
Friday, September 20, 2013: Only some blog end time things.
Friday, September 27, 2013: Writing the first part of this designer diary.
Friday, October 4, 2013: Writing the second part of this designer diary.
Friedemann Friese
Play, win, eat!
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