My Print and Play May

I had high hopes for PnP projects in May but I didn't end up going as crazy as I thought I would. Really, it's for one major reason. Printer ink :P While switching to laser instead of ink jet has made our ink dollar go a lot farther, I still don't want to make art heavy projects will nilly.

Despite that, I still have a few games that are either made or in the process of getting made.

After not looking at it for years, I have been looking at the website Good Little Games again. (It's at http://www.goodlittlegames.co.uk/ by the way) It's a collection of free prints and play games that are by publish designers, although some of the games have gone on to actually get  published.

I started with Combo, since it was just two pages of cards with no extra components and I figured the toddler could mess around with it, even if he wasn't ready to get all the rules yet. Frankly, it has the feel of a pre-Love Letter micro game. Which is to say, very simple without challenging ideas or mechanics.

But that has led me to start working on Good Little Trains, which looks to be a much more interesting game. It's not really a train game. Instead it's a salesman dilemma game where you are rearranging a maze to visit different spots. But it looks promising.

And it is a compromise with myself over another game PnP project I keep looking at, Country Trains. The idea of combining Carcassonne with pick-up-and-deliver is very appealing. (I don't count South Seas as pick-up-and-deliver although I do like it) But, despite being around for years, Country Trains has had very little commentary and a lot of that has been meh. Heck, I don't think the files are on BGG anymore, although I have them downloaded.

And, really, between games like the Great Heartland Moving Co and BUS and DIG, I already have light pick-up-and-deliver games. I'm sure I'll eventually cave and make Country Trains but I think that Good Little Trains will prove a better game.

Outside of Good Little Games, I'm planning on making a laminated board for Village Run, a tiny little race game whose biggest claim to fame is that you just have to print out one piece of paper to make it. It's pretty much a random first but I do like the random power up element, giving it a faint hint of Mario Kart. The toddler is getting close to be old enough for it, which is the real reason to try it.

And, part of my recent spike in interest about Michael Schacht let me learn that there are some PnP versions of Don and I'm making one. Don't know when I will get it played, since it requires at least three players, but it seems well worth making.