Post by Diggsworth in TOPOG: A Dice & Hike Game comments

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Pretty fun, actually.
Took me a minute to figure out the chart - I had printed it in black and white, but I realized after seeing the colours how the elevations work.

There were a few things I'm still not 100% clear on;

Dice Pool - after rolling, from left to right, do I place the dice: Highest - Player's Choice - Lowest - Player's Choice - Player's Choice?
Negativity - do I use all the bubbles on the row, increasing the amount of negativity I accumulate? That is to say, if I have accumulated negativity 5 times I will I mark the "-3" bubble on my fifth accumulation?
Backtracking - do I collect 1 negativity per tile backtracked across, or 1 negativity total, and then I can backtrack to an empty square, or, do I collect 1 negativity per cardinal line travelled. This is to say if I've trapped myself in D6, and the last open tile is A1, how much negativity would it cost me?
Error Fixing - I'm honestly the most confused about this. I believe that I can use leftover 1s from the pool after marking the score track(s), but I'm not sure whether the number of fixes is limited or unlimited. If I have a green 1 in the pool, and I want to fix an error, would I elect not to take a nature score and then scratch out 1 of the 4 "green" bubbles?

Overall I really enjoyed the puzzle of trying to match my rolls to connect elevation lines, while trying to minimize the amount of backtracking and missed connections.

I think this definitely succeeded as a one-page RPG, and the rules are clear enough that I was able to play and enjoy myself.

Additionally, I could definitely see this being a bigger game, where you're following/creating an overarching story across multiple map pamphlets.

HINOKODO1 year ago

hell of a review! Thanks for playing!
1. Dice Pool, it's arranged in an alternating patter. The highest number in the far left position. The lowest in the middle.
The far right position is the 2nd highest. The position just left of middle is the 3rd highest, and the position to the right of middle is the 4th highest. It's much easier to show than it is to squeeze into a sentence ha!

2. Fill the negativity bubbles 1 at a time, from left to right as they occur. You'll total up your negative points at the end of the game. (So if you fill in 6 bubbles, I believe that's -10 points)

3. For backtracking, you just mark 1 negativity bubble and pick the empty tile for the round.
(And when you mark all your negativity bubbles, you max out)

4. Error Fixing, I think you've got it. 'leftover' would be, after you've filled in a category box (all the 3 dots), you can't fill any more in, so if you have any leftover, you can spend them on error fixing (as many as you want, as long as they match the colors). It's not a rule, i ran out of room, but in general, once you start to fill in a box in a category, you should finish it before doing the error fixing option.

But thanks for the review and the time to write and play! I'll see if there's a way I can rework the instruction to be clearer in this small format.

Diggsworth1 year ago

The Dice Pool pattern will certainly make things a bit more challenging, but it makes sense with the visuals.

The clarity on the negativity bubbles and backtracking makes sense, and matches with how I interpreted it.

I'll be playing again tonight for sure.

Thanks for another cool game!

Domergue1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

"It's much easier to show than it is to squeeze into a sentence ha!"

Maybe you could show it, then? something like this? I also stumbled on this part during my read.

(edit: just noticed that that is the point of the numbering under the dice! I didn't notice at all they had differents numbers! a few arrows should help)

Diggsworth1 year ago(+1)

Looking at this again right now, I can see the desired ordering with the numbers.

Don't know what was going through my head last night looking at it.

Fresh eyes, fresh understanding.

Now I feel silly.

itch.io

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