Post by Admin on Jan 28, 2017 14:47:11 GMT
an identical post was made in the WIP section of Board Game Geek.
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About ten days ago inspiration hit to make a dungeon crawling game where the map and NPC opponents are generated by drawing map cards. Think of building pipes in Parker Bros.' Water Works. I ran the idea past my brother on his inquiry about the game, and he enthusiastically volunteered to design the NPC characters, which we're calling "denizens".
Component designing is running smoothly. Map cards are already completed. After realizing with testing that the map needed more pathways, some tweaking was done and they're quite playable.
The game includes 144 1/2 inch 2-sided counters, representing gold, trophy points (like experience points in RPGs), wounds, and so forth. These are complete. Counters for gold and trophy points are of different denominations have specially-colored backgrounds. I used official casino chip colors; for instance: White for 1, red for 5, blue for 10, green for 25, etc.
My brother designed many of the denizens the player(s) will encounter. I ordered blank playing cards on eBay and yesterday he began drawing the characters directly on the cards, to be used as prototypes.
The rules are being reviewed by BGG peers for coherency. So far the feedback was excellent. Enough of the game has been printed that we did some playtesting on Thursday. There were no denizen cards yet, so we assigned numbers to the ones in his sketchbook and whenever we were to fight one, made a 2d6 roll and matched it to the denizen's assigned numbers. Everyone had fun and learned that the monsters were way too powerful. It was my fault. I forgot to tell my brother that the lowest attribute stat was a 0, not 1, and so we reduced all the enemies' skills by 1.
Another important aspect was to make the game simple, harkening to the days of Metagaming Conepts and the MicroGame(tm). And so being compact and portable was also important. The goal was to have the complete basic game be able to fit in a hubless VHS tape case (like Steve Jackson Games' Ogre/GEV fifth edition). It appears that goal will be reached.
Another idea regarding keeping the game straightforward is making combat odds calculation simple. Inspiration came from Fantasy Flight Games' X-Wing Miniatures for that. No, I didn't steal any mechanics, but used color-coding and iconography on cards to make it easy for a player to calculate "to hit" rolls quickly and without a lot of math beyond simple addition and subtraction.
These were the aspects we thought were important:
1) Portability.
2) Simplicity. No 64-page rule book and a hundred charts
3) Solitaire option and ability to play without moderators/ Game Masters
4) Expandibility and the ability to play an ongoing campaign with the same character
5) And of course, a fun gaming experience!
There are two planned P&P editions: a full version for purchase, and a sampler version for people who want to try the game. When we're far along enough that we're ready to expand playtesting, fellow geeks are welcome to volunteer.
If all is successful, we hope to expand the game as characters increase levels. I'm excited about this because the expanded game will include spellcasting and magic use. (The base game doesn't, but includes a few magical treasures).
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About ten days ago inspiration hit to make a dungeon crawling game where the map and NPC opponents are generated by drawing map cards. Think of building pipes in Parker Bros.' Water Works. I ran the idea past my brother on his inquiry about the game, and he enthusiastically volunteered to design the NPC characters, which we're calling "denizens".
Component designing is running smoothly. Map cards are already completed. After realizing with testing that the map needed more pathways, some tweaking was done and they're quite playable.
The game includes 144 1/2 inch 2-sided counters, representing gold, trophy points (like experience points in RPGs), wounds, and so forth. These are complete. Counters for gold and trophy points are of different denominations have specially-colored backgrounds. I used official casino chip colors; for instance: White for 1, red for 5, blue for 10, green for 25, etc.
My brother designed many of the denizens the player(s) will encounter. I ordered blank playing cards on eBay and yesterday he began drawing the characters directly on the cards, to be used as prototypes.
The rules are being reviewed by BGG peers for coherency. So far the feedback was excellent. Enough of the game has been printed that we did some playtesting on Thursday. There were no denizen cards yet, so we assigned numbers to the ones in his sketchbook and whenever we were to fight one, made a 2d6 roll and matched it to the denizen's assigned numbers. Everyone had fun and learned that the monsters were way too powerful. It was my fault. I forgot to tell my brother that the lowest attribute stat was a 0, not 1, and so we reduced all the enemies' skills by 1.
Another important aspect was to make the game simple, harkening to the days of Metagaming Conepts and the MicroGame(tm). And so being compact and portable was also important. The goal was to have the complete basic game be able to fit in a hubless VHS tape case (like Steve Jackson Games' Ogre/GEV fifth edition). It appears that goal will be reached.
Another idea regarding keeping the game straightforward is making combat odds calculation simple. Inspiration came from Fantasy Flight Games' X-Wing Miniatures for that. No, I didn't steal any mechanics, but used color-coding and iconography on cards to make it easy for a player to calculate "to hit" rolls quickly and without a lot of math beyond simple addition and subtraction.
These were the aspects we thought were important:
1) Portability.
2) Simplicity. No 64-page rule book and a hundred charts
3) Solitaire option and ability to play without moderators/ Game Masters
4) Expandibility and the ability to play an ongoing campaign with the same character
5) And of course, a fun gaming experience!
There are two planned P&P editions: a full version for purchase, and a sampler version for people who want to try the game. When we're far along enough that we're ready to expand playtesting, fellow geeks are welcome to volunteer.
If all is successful, we hope to expand the game as characters increase levels. I'm excited about this because the expanded game will include spellcasting and magic use. (The base game doesn't, but includes a few magical treasures).
