The concept for the board game is set, now it's time to establish the more nitty gritty aspects of the game. I'll be talking about dice, probabilities, cards, failing how to win, how to fail and degrees of success.
Board Game Design Contest
My university is hosting a game design contest where students (myself included) will design, playtest, and prototype a board game. As a big fan of board games and tabletop gaming, this is exactly what I needed to break out of the creative rut I’ve been in.
Here’s the concept I’ll be exploring for the contest.
What does it mean to board games?
Ooh, pretty pretentious right off the bat, no? But being serious for a second, I think it's important to establish what board games are, not just traditionally but what modern board games are. When most people hear 'board game,' they think of classics like Monopoly, Uno, or Jenga. However, the board game industry is currently experiencing a renaissance. More immersive, complex and ambitious games have hit the market and have been picked up by many play groups (mine included!).
The resurgence of these games is due to many reasons but the most relevant right now is the COVID-19 lockdown. Being quarantined at home with the rest of the family made game nights a bit more appealing for most people. My enjoyment of board games began a bit earlier, though. Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico without electricity for months, this meant board games were my outlet. I couldn't count how many nights I spent playing Monopoly at a friend's house, with nothing but a few candles and solar powered lantern keeping the board illuminated. Needless to say, I like boardgames.
Let's talk about concept
The best part of any creative endeavor is the concept stage. It’s where I can focus purely on unrestrained creativity without worrying about feasibility or the time and effort it will take to bring the idea to life. I have a habit of getting ahead of myself and making projects way too big in scope, so let's take things step by step.
The instructions for the challenge are:
- Choose a Video game or story you are familiar with (preferably one that doesn't have a tabletop adaptation.)
- Analyze what makes the game unique (Story), mechanics, etc.)
- Design the art (Logo, backgrounds, characters, etc.)
- Design the experience (mechanics, board, card Ul, etc.)
- Design the assets (tokens, chips, minis, etc.)
Most people will pick a game or story to adapt and go for there but I'll be weird and work backwards. Starting from the concept and looking for an IP that can fit that concept. Is that cheating? Dunno but I'm doing it anyways.
Cooperative, Procedural Generated, Class Based Dungeon Crawler With Deck Building Mechanics and Can Support Boss Fights!
Mouthful ain't it? Now, that might sound crazy and super ambitious (and it kinda is?) BUT it has been sorta done before!
Inspiration from existing games
I'll be stealing drawing inspiration from already existing games and see if can make a more digestible and accessible version for me and my illiterate friends. The main inspirations are Resident Evil Board Game, Massive Darkness 2, Old School D&D, Monster Hunter Board Game and Pathfinder 2e. I'll be taking what i like from all of them, tossing em in a big ole blender and (hopefully) make a decent and fun game. So what am I pilfering?
From Resident Evil I'm nabbing the reaction dice and the map deck. I like custom dice with my games so we'll be making some fun designs for that later.
From Monster Hunter I'm swiping the monster behavior deck for boss fights, they're easy and intuitive to run. I'll just baby proof the instructions a bit.
From Massive Darkness I'm appropriating the little player hub thingy. It's great for user experience and it keeps everything nice and tidy. This system also does exploration very well.
From Pathfinder I'll purloin the 3 action economy and feat design. Love how it makes combat feels and it easier to remember than the action, bonus action, reaction mess 5e has going on.
I won't go over old school d&d because I ran out of synonyms for stealing.
What game or story will fit best?
Darkest Dungeon, it's Darkest Dungeon. I love Lovecraft's setting (NOT THE AUTHOR), the dark fantasy aesthetic and the character design is very inspiring to me. Life is cheap in Darkest Dungeon and that fits the fast paced nature I want to achieve with the game an-
There's already a Darkest Dungeon boardgame adaptation... So that's out of the question. BUT I did fall in love with the idea of a rag-tag group of heroes delving into an eldritch dungeon and fighting off horrors from beyond the stars, so let's recalibrate and pick a very very niche story.
Subterror in The Hidden City
Y'all every heard of Yu-Gi-Oh? There's this one archetype called 'Subterror' The archetype revolves around a ragtag group of heroes who find themselves exploring an eldritch dungeon called The Hidden city and battle cosmic horrors known as Behemoths. They don't have the great dark fantasy aesthetic but we can't win em all!
This is what I'll be working with going forward. The Subterror archetype has 5 good hero designs, a few monster designs and The Hidden City is a great setting for a face paced dungeon crawler.
Now that I have a direction, the game mechanics can finally be fleshed out. But that will be something discussed on the next post.
In Search of Competence
In order to tackle this project, I need to establish a few things about myself as an artist. I have not practiced sculpting or art properly before, not really. However, I have consumed a lot of art in the time I could’ve been practicing. As a result my standards are higher than what my current skill level allows me to execute. So how can I improve when I know my best kinda sucks?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)