Long SHot: The Dice Game
About
1-8 Players | 20-30 minutes
Category: Animals, Dice, Racing, Sports
Mechanisms: Betting, Dice Rolling, Dice Icon Resolution, Paper-and-Pencil, Variable Setup
Long Shot: The Dice Game, designed by Chris Handy and published by Perplext, captures all the excitment and tension of a classic horse race. Strategize and push your luck as you buy horses, place bets, influence race movement, and utilize special abilities. The roll of the dice determines which horses move and the options available each turn, so be ready to adapt your plans. Once three horses cross the finish line, earnings are totaled. While there are many ways to earn money during a horse race, only the player that makes the most money will be declared the winner. Will you play it safe, or risk it big on a long shot?
SERVICES PROVIDED
Game Development
Content Design
Editing
PROJECT OVERVIEW
I was a co-developer on this project along with John Brieger (Brieger Creative). We worked together in a variety of areas to reduce the complexity of the dice system, increase overall engagement, revise and create additional horse abilities, and adjust for player scaling.
The original prototype used 5 custom dice. This system was overly complex for what it needed to do and when combined with the original player board limited players in ways that weren’t ideal. Through some major changes and after much exploration, the final game ended up using 2 custom dice, while delivering more clarity, excitment, and fun. While not the original goal, a nice bonus of this streamlining was that the cost savings of cutting 3 custom dice more than paid for the development cost of this project. There were additional minor cost savings we were also able to provide the client by optimizing components.
The player board was heavily reworked to capture the feel of the original prototype in more engaging ways. The Concession Stand action was created to provide an interesting spatial element, giving players a variety of bonuses they can use to adapt and strategize. An entirely new horse movement system spearheaded by my co-developer addressed a combination of issues and allowed players to influence horse movement.
The game features 40 horse cards, each with their own unique ability. My work had me revising and creating many of these. Horse cards are designated in recommended sets and can also be mixed and matched. The variety of abilities creates a different feel every game, adding a lot of personality and encouraging replayability.
Project Highlight: Scaling For Player Count
A game with a large player count range can be tricky. What works well at one player count can be terrible at another. All player counts need to be engaging, and ideally there are no major rule or setup changes at different counts that can confuse players. Player scaling issues during the development of this game fell into two broad categories: active player advantage and luck.
The original game gave the player whose turn it was a couple advantages. Originally the active player was the only player that could buy a horse. Owning horses is one of the major ways to score and each horse grants the owner a unique ability. In a larger player count game, a player could wait 5 or more turns before they even had a chance of a buying a horse. The active player also had the chance to move their other owned horses. This sometimes created a compounding problem where a player with multiple horses due to turn order could gain an unfair sizeable lead.
Another player scaling issue addressed was that of luck. Luck is important in a game for variety, big emotional moments, and forcing players to adapt. But too much or the wrong type of luck can be a big problem as players lose sense of agency and strategy, and cause a huge gap in scores and player engagement as some players skyrocket ahead and others trail behind. There were a variety of ways luck was reduced to be the appropriate type and level. The number of horses was reduced from 10 to 8, providing more consistency in probability. Track checkpoint bonuses that were largely out of player control were removed. Flexible player bonuses were added in the form of the new Concession Stand action. Every player was given some starting wilds they could use anytime to change the dice roll to any number they want. The distribution of the movement die was made to be a little less swingy. The new movement system and related horse powers gave players influence over horse movement while still having an element of chance.
Praise For Long Shot: The Dice Game
Seal of Excellence, 9.0 / 10 - Zee Garcia, The Dice Tower
“Long Shot: The Dice Game will be one of the games mentioned when you hear someone say roll and write.” - Brody Sheard, Meeple Mountain
“From solo gaming, to a double date night, to a party, Long Shot: The Dice Game does a fantastic job keeping everyone at the table active and engaged in the game!” - Wes Tomlin - Never Bored Gaming
2022 Golden Geek Light Game of the Year Nomination and Party Game Nomination.