Fighting Monsters. David Cuatt Talks Swamp Devils Combat

Hello fellow gamers, gamettes, and loyal readers. Today we have a guest post from David Cuatt, the designer of Swamp Devils from Blood Bayou, the wacky-fun/tactical-strategic game of monster battles from Tiny Battle Publishing. Swamp Devils has a unique combat system, and David is rightly proud of it. Take it away, David.

Romping through the Swamp

Some things jump right out at you when you first look over this game like the retro 1950’s horror theme and the multiple paths to victory. However, when you really get down to playing it (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?) you’ll find the heart of the game is a very different kind of combat system.  Instead of using dice, all combat is resolved by different colored chits pulled from a cup. Some cause casualties and some end battles, but there is more to this system than is immediately apparent.

First of all, when you use chits, every pull yields a precise result. If you’ve ever been in an endless dice rolling contest where neither you nor you opponent can seem to ever get a 6 you’ll know how tedious that can get. Never happens with chits.

Secondly, each chit pull readjusts the combat odds. For example, if a battle starts with 3 blue and 3 green chits in the cup, the odds are obviously even as to which will be pulled. However, if the first two chits pulled are blue, the odds have now changed to 3 to 1 in favor of a green coming up next. With dice the odds don’t change and this can often result in very lopsided (and frustrating) results.

Finally, there is a lot of flexibility with this system. If you want to increase the number of factions, just add different colored chits to represent them. Special chits could also trigger new events, add victory points, etc.  Lots of possibilities, and without having to use charts to “translate” dice results.

So, keep an eye out for more implementations of this combat system, especially if there is a “Return of the Swamp Devils from Blood Bayou” (Big city, bigger Swamp Monsters versus Army!).

You can find out more about Swamp Devils from Blood Bayou right here.