New Edition of ALLIANCE Will Soon Be Available!

Publishing a game of this scope is a challenge. I am constantly updating, experimenting, and innovating with it. But at which point can a designer be confident to say this is a version worth announcing? Well after a few years I guess the answer is always and never. Let me explain...

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The game works. A previous version worked quite well for a school administrator in New York, a middle school teacher in Ohio, and a youth pastor in Singapore. I personally have run the sequel with MegaGame designers and control players as the players, and college students mixed in with adults and middle schoolers. I've run it for 3 hours, sometimes 4 hours, but almost always with first time megagamers.

These results gave me the confidence to secretly silently publish the game over the course of the past two years. I haven't sold many copies, but to be honest I never really marketed it and it's, I admit, not a casual purchase. 

Running the original version in 3 hours for college students, most of whom are studying engineering, with a staff of control players who themselves had never played a megagame, using the newest streamlined rules has helped me to really test the mechanics. Engineers, as you can imagine, are not the most talkitive socializing play-it-up with hammy acting roleplaying type of players. They are the min-maxing let's take advantage of every imbalance in the game type. So with a few modifications to the game I am now confident to openly publish the game and announce it to the world!

But before I can do that I need go in and update all of the control boards, rule books with a more streamlined and balanced system.

I also want to add in the new tech tree science system that seems to work pretty well. These cards already have mechanics on them so it will take the burden off inexperienced Control players who are not comfortable with inventing mechanics on the fly. 

I'll post new images and new rules as I get them implemented, and of course I will announce when the new edition get's posted in the next couple of weeks. 

Look forward to new posts and a new edition!

~ Shaun D. McMillan
​shaunDmcmillan@gmail.com