As enthusiastic as I was getting back to university for my postgraduate degree, I was anxious for my first class on the game design course. But when we all got our first game design group assignment on October 13th i.e. to prototype a board game, it seemed exciting.
Coming up with a decent idea
Anyone can come up with ideas. But it was a challenge as a group of three to come up with a fun idea and agree with it. Basically, it was finding common ground to make sure it was fun for the players. The due date to present it was after 2 weeks. It was really challenging but not impossible. The coming week of October was Halloween and I was binge-watching my favourite series i.e. The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. Immediately my mind was struck with making something spooky or as we say supernatural-based game. I pitched the idea of it to my other two group mates and they found it interesting as well.
Turning the Idea into a concept...
“If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
- Albert Einstein
Coming up with the initial idea was not as easy as it seemed. The most crucial thing in a group assignment is communication. There wasn't much communication between us so it was a bit difficult to get the other members on the same page.
We were clear about developing the supernatural idea into a board game. I came up with the NPC characters such as Vampires, Werewolf and Witch (as we wanted to keep it minimalist and fun). The player would play as a human who would try to make it through the exit/ end game by staying as a human and by not turning into any other supernatural creature. My other group mates came up with game rules. We took inspiration from already existing Our team came up with ideas of what type of board games we could do, some of the ideas we decided on were:
A board game like monopoly.
A board game like snakes and a ladder.
A board game like Ludo
Supernatural Characters
Some actions will have consequences.
Adding Game Mechanics & Design: A group of Humans stumble upon a portal and now have to find a way to get out of the Portal by going through some obstacles
There are NPCs waiting there to trap the Humans, they are:
1. Vampire - Bites the humans and turns them into fellow Vampires
2. Werewolves - bites the Humans and turn them into fellow Werewolves.
3. Witches - Can turn the Humans into either Vampires or Werewolves (By the majority of the players if they want to team up)
The only way to get out of the portal / win the game is to be the first HUMAN to enter the portal in the middle.
Players when turned into monsters can kill other players, for example:
1. Vampires can kill Humans by sucking their blood
2. Werewolves can kill Vampires by biting their heads off
3. Humans can kill both of them if it's the Humans (Player's Turn to play)
4. If either of the monster who can't kill Humans land in the same position as the Humans, they can play with a die and decide who gets an even number and who gets an odd number
if the Humans win they can kill the monster, but if the monster wins the Humans are turned to that monster and are killed and sent to the nearest NPC of their kind and losing a turn.
As the goal of the game is to be a Human to enter the portal, players who have turned into monsters can cure themselves and turn into Humans like:
1. Vampires can take Cure Disease Potions.
2. Werewolves can kill the Witches (As the witches have cursed them)
There are chance cards also known as Ascendant Cards(Like in monopoly) where players can have a good card or a bad card like:
1. Players can make other players skip a turn
2. Players can move a couple of steps forward
3. Players can be turned into monsters
When any of the players get killed they get to start at the nearest NPC's of their kind except Humans who start at the nearest Witches and when done so they lose a turn to play
A group of 4-6 players can play this game with a single die ranging from 1-6.
To conclude...
We presented our concept to our faculty members on October 26th and also in front of our other coursemates.
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