Unpub Preview: Meddling Mine

Unpub Previews give designers a chance to talk in a little more depth about the development of their games in the Unpub Network.

Meddling Mine, designed by Ian Reed and Daniel Yee, with Illustrations by George Tan is sort of a Hand management/Asset management type of card game, with a little bit of role playing/dungeon crawling spiced in. The themes in the game work together in a cycle: You need to mine resources to craft weapons, you need to craft weapons to defeat the snoglin monsters, and you need to defeat the snoglins to be able to mine the resources you want.

The weapon cards and the snoglin cards are worth points, so claiming and spending the right resources at the right time is key. Players have to be careful though, as fighting too many battles with the same weapon will cause it to break!

Let's hear what designer Ian Reed has to say about the development of Meddling Mine...

What was your inspiration for Meddling Mine?  Well, in an episode of Felicia Day’s “The Flog” she had mentioned that one of her favorite things to do in games was to blacksmith.  While the idea of a resource management game where you craft weapons was intriguing to us, we found that it was much more fun to smack snoglins with the weapons we crafted, so we leaned the game more that direction.

What is your favorite part of Meddling Mine?  Personally, I like being the player that sneaks around the snoglins collecting resources, all the while leaving a mess of snoglins for my opponent. A couple of friends like being the type of player that has the biggest, baddest weapon, and go on a clobbering spree!

To your knowledge, What do other people find most interesting about Meddling Mine?  Many of our gamer people who have played Meddling Mine have really enjoyed the hired helpers that add depth to the game, and many of our not-so-gamerish people have really enjoyed the “I have *this*…what can I craft?” shopping aspect. The other thing they have liked is that the mine itself is not only where players get the needed resources, but it’s also the game clock, so the heightened sense of urgency at the end adds a good source of tension.

What has been the most challenging part of designing Meddling Mine?   The most challenging part of designing Meddling Mine was generating a way in which we could bring order to the chaos of random encounters. We wanted to be able to surprise people with the revealing of tough snoglin cards, but not leave the players in a position where they wouldn’t be able to handle it.

What advice would you give to players attempting Meddling Mine for the first time?  The two biggest pieces of advice I would give players is:
1) Get to know the hired helper cards before you start, as they can help you get past the snoglins in order to get the right resources at the right time.
2) Try to spread out where you are getting points from, and understand that if you buy a specific weapon, or fight a specific monster, it helps deny your opponent the ability to claim those points.

What has surprised you most in play-tests of Meddling Mine? I’ve really enjoyed witnessing that players can have a particular “style” of play based on the resources they collect, and that they can all work really well. Players can have the ability to do what a rougish type of character would do, likewise, you can totally be the brutish barbarian or a cunning wizard.

When we first designed the game, I was figuring that players would all be doing the same thing, and that whoever did that thing the best would win….I was pleasantly proven wrong with the multiple angles players take to achieve victory!

People who like___________ will like Meddling Mine. Why? I would have to say, while there are many parts of Meddling Mine that are similar to other games, the overall experience might be something similar to the card game Guillotine. It has a light humor, but not an absurd humor like munchkin, and the cards are played for the purpose of collecting other cards to score points.

What do you hope to accomplish in the Unpub Network? In Meddling Mine, we have a couple of things that we want to try out, one thing being our witch character. She adds a “take that!” point of view that the other hired helper cards were missing (the mercenary, the wizard, and the snoglin tracker.) We also wish to measure the interest of others to see if this is a game that we should pursue creating. Ultimately, we wish to put Yodeo Games on the radar, and start to become known designers. We believe attending events like Unpub, and sharing experiences with other designers and the people who come to play our games, will help with that endeavor.

For more information and to find out where you can play Meddling Mine, please visit the game's page here on Unpub.net!