Tabletop Game Development

[osmosisch]

It's a huge benefit having been an avid Magic player because I have tons of sleeves and cards to proxy things up with.

[clyde]

In regards to Merus's game:

It's really hard to come up with any suggestions on a semi-developed game without being able to play it.

[feelthedarkness]

A friend of mine made copy of the Dune game to not ruin his copy from the 70s, and used this place to print out new cards:

 

http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/playing-cards/playing-cards-54-designs-313

 

I'm sure there are plenty of place that do this, but it's only $12 for a custom deck. 

[Codicier]

So I put together a board game for the game design course I'm doing this semester (for an easy 6 credit points) but I really like it and want to take it further.

 

Players are abominations of science, in a lab, and have to consume as much as possible before the hazmat team arrives to clean them up. Players move around the board and can gather parts, represented by cards. They get one card each turn, and one card if they reach a container (which is marked so no-one else can use it). Each part allows a player to do one thing - move, attack, defend - and has a food cost involved. Players can use each part once per turn but can use as many parts as they can pay the cost for. Each card also has a 'consume' bonus - if players willingly discard the part, they get that much food. When a certain amount of turns elapse - the board has a turn track - the hazmat team arrives, and instead of drawing a part at the end of their turn, they draw a hazmat card, which everyone follows. These force players to discard parts, and if they don't have that kind of part, to discard food. The last player standing wins.

 

We went hard on the idea that parts should be weird, so there's like 10 different kinds of movement cards that all have different movements and directions permitted. We discovered that the game is already a bit complex so we cut a lot of mechanics and cards that had subtle interactions with others. Attacks and defence have a rock-paper-scissors relationship so that players don't have to read the other player's card to understand what just happened in the combat, which seemed to help. The game has this lovely three act structure where players start off in a small room all moving towards the centre, then start getting enough movement/attack cards to really spread out and explore the lab, and then they come under attack in the climax. 

 

We had a strict time limit in the assignment - a 40 minute playtime - but I'd like to develop it further and publish it. I'm not entirely sure where to take it, though - there are cards we cut because the board design didn't support them, but the board design was our weakest link so I'm basically redoing that from scratch. Some playtesters kind of hated the first act, and I'm concerned that it might get repetitive. A win condition we considered involved players growing powerful enough to escape the lab, which we cut because of the time limit - but I think bringing it back might be a mistake because there's a bit of a positive feedback loop. We could add tiers of parts, but I'm not sure what form that'd take. What opportunities do people see for things that the game maybe doesn't do?

Do you have any pictures of the board?

Reading your description it really sounds like this is the sort of game that will live or die on how well it's board is made. I have this impression the main way someone wins is getting to a power up then getting the jump on someone, almost a classic FPS death match in some ways.

Also is their any way for the map to change? are starting points fixed?

Also 40min time limit is good because no matter how simple it's rules are you can prob ad at least 10mins onto that first time someone plays it.

But as Clyde says to give more meaningful feedback weed need to see a bit more

[Cleinhun]

Does anyone know about any board game jams? It seems like the sort of thing that ought to exist, but I can't think of any that have actually happened.

[osmosisch]

We've tried some in the past with just our group but the short timespan doesn't lend itself very well to how systems-driven good (at least to me) boardgames are. Or maybe it's just not something our personalities are very well suited for.

[tberton]

Instead of working on any of my original designs, I decided to write an essay about how I'd redesign Monopoly. If nothing else, it was a good thought experiment to work through how to change an existing design while keeping its core intact.

[Sion]

I had to design a board game for my university course, it turned out pretty well but it was so difficult trying to create something in a short timespan with five people who hadn't played many tabletop games prior the coursework. Since then I've become an avid tabletop gamer, I go to board game meet-ups 2+ times a week and might even take up tabletop game design rather than video game design as a career after university.

 

The concept we had was based around riots and riot behaviour (it had to be something involving current issues), it was a 1 vs 3 game where one player controls a police force and the rest of the players control rioters. At first the game was going to be a bit like capture the flag but it turned out to be both boring and too easy for the rioters to win. We then changed it so either side would have different objectives but only implemented that gameplay element a few weeks before the deadline. I might continue the concept further (although might change the concept to something more light-hearted, or at least not so real), but either way I learned a lot from it.