Iro fulfillment and what's next
Hi everyone,
The last few weeks has been an excruciating exercise in patience. I was more or less forced to sit around twiddling my thumbs as all of China went on holiday for almost a month.
And that is not just in regards to fulfillment for Iro - but also our next game as well. You see - I have also commissioned Longpack to make a prototype of the next game in preparation for upcoming Kickstarter. They also went on holiday and what is usually a two weeks turn around became over a month. Very frustrating indeed.
So at the moment I am not quite ready to show off anything new - but I can share with you the name and the basics of the it. The project has been tentatively called Voltear (Spanish for flip) for much of its development before finally arriving at the final name of Sayū (左右) meaning influence, control, hold sway.
Sayū is an abstract strategy tile-laying, tile-flipping for two players. It is played with 49 two-sided octagonal wooden tiles and uses no board. The objective of the game is to have more tiles with your color facing up than your opponent once all the tiles are placed. Each tiles has eight possible rotatory orientations indicated by the middle arrow and three directions of influence indicated by three outside arrows.
Players take alternate turns placing a tile - if that tile has influence over an opponent's tile (your tile has an influence arrow pointing at an opponent's tile and that tile does not have an influence arrow pointing back) then flip your opponent's tile over to your color and rotate it to the same direction as the tile that converted it.
What makes Sayū interesting is that once you convert a tile - you treat the tile you have just converted as though it has been place. Check if further flips can be made and repeat this process until no more conversion is possible. It is entirely possible to string together a huge series of conversion and make dramatic comebacks even in the moments of the game.
There are few more rules but that is the basic of the game.
The inspiration for Sayū came from a particular game mode of a mini-game in Final Fantasy 8. Triple-Triad is a card game played on 3x3 grid; each of the four cardinal directions on the card contain an attack power. If the card you place has a higher attack power than your opponent's card, that card get flipped over to your side. There is a particularly vicious variant of the game has a rule called COMBO where conversion can result in further conversion. The 14 years old me absolutely hated this rule as my AI opponent would seemingly turn the tide of the game out of nowhere and ruined my day. As I grew older and more mature I realize how fun this could be given the right circumstances. If you could see all the tiles available and nothing is left to chance - you could out-think your opponent and plot out an amazingly intricate domino to win the game. The desire for this particular feeling coalesce into Sayū.
Originally the game was tested on square cards which is fun but there were a few problems - the biggest one being it was difficult and frustrating picking up cards. The switch to cardboard/wood pieces made it easier but with squares it was still difficult to pick up each piece without disturbing its neighbors. The final refinement came in the change to octagon pieces - this create a gab in corners where four pieces meet and allow for easy pick up. The change also doubles to potential orientation of each tiles - allow for nearly four orders of magnitude increase in possible game state.
Play testing Sayū has been incredibly fun. There were moments of absolute hilarity when you thought you plotted everything out perfectly only to find once the tiles started turning that you got your directions wrong and no you didn't make a 17 points swing like you thought, you made 4 points and now your opponent is dying of laughter. There were moments of triumph when it all came together; you are flipping tiles after tiles and your opponent make increasingly more and more incredulous sound as their lead grew slimmer and slimmer.
I cannot wait to show Sayū off to you all.
In the meantime I know most of you are waiting anxiously for your copies of Iro to arrive. I know - I feel the same. I really cannot wait to have you all play it as well. It won't be long now I promise.
All the best,
Khanat.