Fair Play
Posted by Jason on January 14th, 2010 — in Design, Medical Hospital
Mark Leyner fans rejoice! I’ve decided to focus my efforts on the abdomen for Medical Hospital. Other cool sets of procedures will come later, but the abdomen is totally disgusting and offers a lot of variety. Here’s the list:
CLASS C
LYSIS OF ADHESIONS
TRADITIONAL OPEN APPENDECTOMY
PERITONEOVENOUS SHUNT
UMBILICAL HERNIORRHAPHY
GASTROSTOMY
INGUINAL HERNIA REPAIR
CLASS B
ANTRECTOMY/VAGOTOMY; OR PEPTIC ULCER GASTRECTOMY/ VAGOTOMY
SPLENECTOMY (PARTIAL OR TOTAL)
ANTERIOR ADRENALECTOMY
PYLOROPLASTY/VAGOTOMY
SMALL BOWEL RESECTION
MECKEL’S DIVERTICULECTOMY
CLASS A
ADENOCARCINOMA GASTRECTOMY
HEPATECTOMY (PARTIAL OR TOTAL)
ORTHOTOPIC HEPATIC TRANSPLANT
BILLROTH 1 GASTRODUODENOSTOMY
So 16 Procedures, most of them in the gut, two with stuff going on in the neck as well. This is a really good way to focus my efforts, and the trauma cases will still be grisly whole body affairs. I’ll add a Class A dealing with the pancreas but I don’t have one yet.
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Posted by Jason on November 25th, 2009 — in Cowboys With Big Hearts, Design
Just playing around with format. The grey line indicates the actual card dimensions.
Well, actual as in 3.5″ wide and 2.5″ tall, anyway.
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Posted by Jason on November 19th, 2009 — in Check this out dude, Cowboys With Big Hearts, Design
More or less to see if they would fit, I condensed the rules for Cowboys With Big Hearts onto a single double-sided letter page, just right for folding up in a tuck box. They fit and I didn’t lose much color, although it pains me. Can you read this or is it an exercise in tiny type futility? That’s 8-point Garamond, which seems cruel.
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Posted by Jason on October 23rd, 2009 — in Check this out dude, Design
Nathan Paoletta has this contest where two people write a game with different constraints but the same title. My game is called The Plant and my constraint is “suitable for solo play”. The game I designed mandates solo play. Right now it is a little emo but I intend to re-write the fiction pieces – I think the mechanical pieces are just fine.
Please give it a try and let me know what you think.
It should play in twenty minutes or so. Basically this uses the Mountain Witch trick on you in a programmatic sort of way. My friend Remi pointed out that the really cool piece of the trick is the reincorporation by the GM of your input, and this cannot do that (I think it could, actually, but it doesn’t). I am enjoying Nathan’s thought-provoking exercise.
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Posted by Jason on August 17th, 2009 — in Design, Medical Hospital
The procedures are the heart of Medical Hospital, and I want them to be easy to create. Playtest feedback indicated that the super detailed, Gray’s Anatomy style images added a level of confusion but not an equal helping of fun. I had counted on the “fog of war” aspect, but it really is a bit too much.
I’m thinking now that I’ll divide the human body up into 18 sheets, at least initially. Each sheet will show the relevant organs and bone structures and blood vessels for basic play, and future sets can be all orthopedic, all vascular, whatever. If these are sized consistently (the sample is 8″ by 10″ which seems right), individual sheets can also be blown up into four quadrants for detailed work, like mitral valve replacement or whatever. I like this model a lot.
The keys will be to nail the level of detail and get a great, stylish artist to build out these sheets in a simple, colorful, accessible style. More thought required!
The sample above is the lower right abdomen, so that giblet-looking mess is the kidney, a loop of duodenum, and the devilish pancreas. I put a number on each physical feature and sprinkled a few around for “cut from #13 to #45, avoiding the artery” type instructions.
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