"Have to get them over the hump!" He grins a bit, then rolls the dice again. Finally looking to set up a Camel Colony.

D9: Explorer Fleet, Engineering/Intelligence cumulative TN 12 Remaining: 5d10o10k4 28

Having seen Mal-Chin complete the Camel colony, Izumi scooped up the nice.

"Lastchance, comeonOtoris!!!"

Yet again the colourful dice scattered across the table. Once they had been collected and added up the Fox sighed.

"Ohwayshortofthetarget, crapcakes!!"


--

D9 Chiruha's Game. FOXEH BUILD COLONY! Eng/Int,Last VP for skill, Last Power cube, Otori bonus Cumulative TN 78: 6d10o10k4 22

50/78
All Power Cubes spent.

"Desperate measures are called for," Akagi decided. "We'll try for the wormhole...!" The fate of the Gecko Group lay in the balance as the Scorpion tossed the dice....

-
9LA Explorer Fleet, wormhole jump, nothing can go wrong with this!: 1d10o10 5 lost in spaaaace!!

Seeing that Mal-Chin has already set up his colony, Nishida tried to cath up with him.
"I use 2 Power cubes for my next roll" he declared and throwed the dice.

[D9:LA] Explorer Fleet Demo; Engineering/Intelligence; Cumulative TN75 Using 2 Power Cubes: 6d10o10k3 29

(64/75)

"Hmmmm." a bit underperforming, but still a major progress towards a colony.
(4/5) Power Cubes

"It seems the Camel Consortium is the first to claim Hokori! Congratulations, Mal-Chin-san! This gas giant is filled with rich resources that will give you a place to call home and gain power cubes in the future, potentially a jumping point to other worlds you can explore! As for the others, unfortunately, you bid on the planet is lost and you must relinquish control to the Camel Consortium. However, all fleets are willing to work with each other and you will still be able to shop for power cubes here but at a higher difficulty while Mal-Chin-san receives a founder's discount," she nodded at the three fleet leaders at Hokori.

"As for the Gecko Group..." she said as she turned to face Akage and drew a card, "unfortunately never gets to Hokori. However, you would end up in a different region that could have another planet where you might start discovering and setting up a colony! The game would continue as our fleets travel to each end of the galaxy, discovering planets, gaining more resources and becoming the greatest fleet in the galaxy! The game also factors into your actions as well, the more things you do, the more Prestige you gain. Prestige allows you to gain bonuses from the Great Council that you can trade for other favours to encourage further exploration and adventure."

"Aaaand that is Explorer Fleet, thank you for playing everyone!" she gave the table a bow with a beaming smile.

Final Score
Otori Otokodate: 50/78 development, ending the game with 1 Prestige Point
Gecko Group: Lost in space!
Ferret Federation: 64/75 development, ending the game with 2 Prestige Points
Camel Consortium: Complete!/75 development, ending the game with 3 Prestige Points

Izumi grinned back.

"OhcongratstoyouAsako-san. Youhaveareallyfungamehere! Ihopeitdoeswell."

He then turned to the others.

"CongratsonwinningAsako-san, althoughYasuki-sannearlygotyou. HopetheGeckohopeyouhavefunwhereveryouendedupBayushi-san."

"Thank you, Kitsune-sama! While I have a lot of ideas here, it's not exactly quite finished yet, just barely finished painting some of these miniatures," she giggled as she picked up one of the wooden ships for show, "I'm hoping to get some more testing data to fine-tune the game and get some artisans to do some art. Then maybe, maybe, I'll consider seeing if I can get it published. Still, it would be fun to pull it out from time to time to just play for fun or just have a short run of it made."

"Of course, I'm here to gather opinions too, if people are willing to share. Everything is still a work in progress, so I'm open to potential changes in the future. Bayushi-san, I hope you didn't find being lost in space for so long detrimental to your experience, at least?"

"Congratiulations, Asako Mal-Chin-san." he said to him and bowed a bit, after wich he turned to Chiruha.
"An intersting concept you got there Chiruha-san. From my first impression i would say you should either emphasise the exploring or colony part more. Like scouting anomalies on the planet or at PoI on the grid?" he suggested.

"It's interesting, the need to figure out how to use the dice you roll to activate the fleet." He bows to everyone.

She nodded soundly at Nishida, "I do hope to have more things on the board so that there are more objectives than going for planets. Ultimately, if Kitsune-sama was going to be successful in his venture at the asteroid, he would gain more Prestige points. They didn't have much use in the demo but I was thinking that they could grant bonuses for rolls, like ship upgrades or maybe the ability to invoke a founder's discount, even if you don't own a planet. At the same time, I'm also hoping that everyone interacts with each other too, otherwise it's like everyone is playing their own game on the same board."

She looked to Mal-Chin, "Do you mean the use of power cubes? I was hoping to emphasize their value too. Kind of surprised nobody threw in all of their power cubes once they go to the planet, seems very interesting to see everyone playing a more long-term game."

"It's a little of the order of operations, the decisions you have to make. Moving the ships is different then building the colony." He tries to explain.

(OOC: trying to explain dice rolling when it was skill based and not just pure luck.)

"Icouldhavestayedattherocks, butmakingacolonywastheobjectivesoIwentforthat."

The Fox gestured at the corresponding pieces as he explained.


--

/ooc . . . I treated the power cubes like VPs and though only 1 a turn could be used . . . oopsie.

"I was a little worried that my bad start would keep me out of the running the whole game," Akagi admitted. "But I liked the wormhole mechanic that gave a chance to catch up, or an opportunity to develop somewhere else. If we played longer, maybe discovering a planet on the other side of the wormhole would've ended up paying off!"

"Fun game overall, though!" he said. The Scorpion began to help put the game away - picking up tokens and cards, sorting them into their respective sets before putting them back in the box.

"Hm, I suppose there is a bit of complexity here when it comes to decision trees, calculating the amount of speed needed in travelling, forward-thinking and also relying a bit on luck on top of it. I kind of find it neat personally to have a game that could scratch all those itches but I might not have my younger cousins play this game probably," she nodded at Mal-Chin.

"Thank you, Bayushi-san! I'm sure the outcome of the game would have turned out very differently if we went on," she chuckled, "I suppose there might have been less of a race at one planet but a race to get as many planets as possible then meeting at the centre to get the last few planets when you have all of your Prestige and resources as your disposal for an intense end game? Hm, but it might take a few hours to get to that point. The game seems long based on my testing but that might not necessarily be a bad thing!"

Mal-Chin nods, then asks, "Is there a limit to the amount of power cubes you can have at once?"

"That's something I haven't determined yet..." she said with a tap of her chin in consideration, "maybe everyone starts at five and is able to gain a higher cap by trading their prestige for upgrades to their fleet as a whole? Getting more power cubes does take time, especially when you could be doing other things to cement your place in the galaxy. However, it might feel ridiculous at some point if someone that slams all ten or twenty of their power cubes to almost outright win anything. Maybe?"

"I think it's okay if this kind of explore and build up game has a long play time," Akagi offered. "As long as there are things for players to do the whole time, and no one feels like they've been mathematically eliminated early on."

"As for the power cubes, I liked Kitsune-sama's idea that we should only be able to use one per roll," he added. "I think that would be a good way to keep them from being overpowering."

Chiruha gave a few nods in consideration as she mentally took some notes. "That could be worth testing, Bayushi-san. I was initially thinking that the cubes could be used to bridge the difficulty curve between new players and those who are more experienced in this sort of game. But seeing as there are a limited amount of them, to begin with, maybe it won't work so well in that regard."

"Maybe you could do something like how Go handicaps players," Akagi offered. "Where the newer player gets more stones - or in this case, power cubes to start with."

Chiruha smirked at the idea and couldn't help but look at Yasuki Nishida for a moment before looking back to Bayushi Akagi. "That good be an idea, actually. Or maybe a prestige advantage too. I was thinking of potentially adjusting the factions to start off with a certain amount of prestige. Hm, that would require different strengths to balance too. I need to know what people would rather do if given the choice. It seems that mining didn't seem particularly popular, which is something the Gecko Group would do well."