Game Name: Raiders of the King Cobra's Crown
Number of Players: Minimum 2, ideally 4 with no limit to players.
Length of Play: 15-30 minutes for 4 players.
In our first Game Design class we were assigned to make a prototype board game over the weekend that had the core dynamic of racing to the end. There was no other restrictions other than the game's core dynamic had to be a race to the end and it had to be done individually. So off I went to go and make my first board game for game design. I remember I made a board game back in grade school so this is my second board game ever.
Anyways, when I got home from class I had to work so Friday was a write off. So was Saturday and Sunday due to work but on Monday I got right to work on designing my board game. First, I went over my notes I made from class and saw my board I copied down from the white board and some notes i wrote from other student's participation in class and thought to myself, what do all of these have in common and I should create a theme with it. Well, with snakes, boulders, ladders, collectibles, effects, and player interaction, all I could think about was the theme Indiana Jones. From there the ball really started rolling, haha.
I got right to the large design on four 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper and sketched out the tiles. When it came to the snakes and ladders I had to keep a consistent theme so I quickly went online to do some research on Indiana Jones to find cobras were his type of snakes he feared most. Secret passageways came into mind for ladders simply because temples and caverns always have secret passageways. And after I developed the board I noticed the player could win in about two rolls. So I felt the player needed to reach certain checkpoints before they finish to make the game play out longer and created more fun. This worked out really well because people felt really satisfied to have reached these checkpoints. As I was researching I also came across different iconic objects that went with the theme of Indiana Jones, his hat, his whip and his treasures. So from there I said these could be the checkpoints the players need to reach! I drew up some small pictures on three tiles to make it clear which tiles were checkpoints. Then once the complete sketch of everything on the board was done I needed to pick a color scheme for the board. I chose browns, oranges, and yellows because it goes well with the Indiana Jones theme and the theme of treasure hunting and caverns or temples. Lastly, I needed a name for the game, after some discussing with a peer on the topic of my games name, the end result was almost Corsair's of the King Cobra's Crown but since the game isn't about pirates I left it as Raiders. Again, it went better with the theme and how 'King Cobra's Crown' made an appearance in the name was the theme and the goal of trying to escape with a treasure, that treasure being the crown. Kings have crowns and cobras are Jones' biggest fear. It worked perfectly.
This is my game in action with the rules and color scheme on the side, I used pins for characters and I used a big eraser for the boulder.
About the mechanics of the game, following the theme, the players need to escape the cavern to win. The players roll one six sided die to move and they have to move the amount of tiles shown on the die. If the player lands on an entrance to a secret passageway, they advance to the end of the secret passageway. If the land on a snake tail the snake brings you to it's head. If you pass or land on a tile with an object, you get the object. If you land on a tile where another player currently is you advance one tile and they go back one tile. If you reach the end and you don't have all three items you are stopped on the last tile, which has a cobra on it that brings you back to before the first object. This gives you a chance to try and collect the items again.
With that previous game mechanic, where players push others behind, it can cause crazy amounts of movement across the board because of the placement of the cobras and secret passageways. This final mechanic really applies a great deal of excitement and fear into the game for the players and that is the boulder! This NPC has only one objective, to squish everyone. One player will roll for the boulder to determine how far it rolls each turn. If the boulder rolls over you or lands onto your tile, you are squished and miss a turn! The boulder has the same rules applied to it as the players in terms of the cobras and secret passageways. This can either save a player or put a player in harms way. If the boulder reaches the end it continues it's roll at the beginning of the board.
With all these twists and crazy game mechanics it causes an intensely fun game that players want to play again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment