The Board Game is Done!

Finally after a long effort the board game is done. Using Joeys designs for the board, pieces and box, we printed them off onto adhesive vinyl and stuck them onto mounting board. I am very happy with the box and board. I also helped in the production of the pieces, where we used Fimo. Much cleaner and easier to sculpt with than clay. Although, due to overbaking, we do have a few mutant "alien 3" pieces. Luckily, they are barely noticable with the designs placed over them.

After the box, board and pieces had been put together, we playtested the new board. It works more than fine. My only worry is that using symbols instead of the original number to identify the different classes may not have been a great idea. It makes the system harder to work out and takes a little longer than usual to get into a game.

I have looked over the PDF with all our written work, compiled by Julliette. I am very happy with its design and content. Honestly, there isn't much I feel like needs improving in this area.

My last and most recent task was to put together the rule book. The rules and illustrations has already been made for the PDF and Joey created a good front cover and design for the pages. The only problem with the rule book is that, whilst trying to replicate Joeys title font for some of the rules section headers, I may have ended making the font look a little tacky.

Although, as with any project I have or likely will do, there are problems, I believe that it came out much better than I could have anticipated. I am proud to have been apart of the project and to know that I had a part in the creation of the board game with a group of very creative and productive people.

Getting it Done.

After some playtesting with non-team members and copious amounts of testing with team members the rules have been finished and written up, although they still require some editing and illustrations. My research into Abstract Strategy Games has also been completed, although they still need the references. When comparing the designs for themes, my design was picked for further development and has been handed to the concept artists for just this.

The playtesting went very well, although it only served to confirm that our rules were solid. The only changes that have been made since the last edition of rules is that the winning conditions are much clearer. I will post the final rules as soon as the illustrations and editions are made and agreed upon by the group.

My primary research into Abstract Games consisted of playing through Chess, Checkers and Backgammon and taking any notes I thought relevant about the gameplay and mechanics. These notes have slowly formed a short written document around one and a half thousand words long. I will be submitting this straight to the PDF as opposed to submitting it straight to the blog because of Blogger.com's in ability to comprehend bullet points copied from Word.The only thing remaining for me to do on this piece of work is to proofread it and convert the bookmarked references into Harvard approved references.

The only other remaining piece of written work required from me tonight is the conclusion, A summary of everything I have done during the project, which will go into the final PDF project document.

In terms of visual themes and board production, Joey (joeyeverettgad.blogspot.com) has taken my theme ideas and taking them further. I genuinly love his designs which have taken the them to a whole new level of awesome! The board has also been constructed out of mounting board, which is the perfect thickness for a game board. I am still awaiting the unit designs, which are coming from Jac (http://jacsgadblog.blogspot.com/). Once I have her unit designs I can put them together with the board designs to make the illustrations for the rules.

Creating a Theme and Visual Research

On Friday, our group agreed that, with the rules now completed, we should begin work on a visual them and design. Each of us will be bringing an idea to the group. The group will then decide upon which one is the best. I already had an idea of might be good and began work on that idea.

Because of the games abstract, strategy nature and it's incompatability to the under 12s, it seemed like a good idea to go for a more abstract, desaturated style. However, I wanted the design to be more interesting than the Chess and Checkers standard black and white. Then I thought of the old cave paintings and wizards symbols. Both have a very unique, chalky look on sandy coloured old materials. Having a similar style could make the players feel like there is some sort of ancient, mystical history to the game, without having any thing in the game that relates directly to any particular period in history or fantasy world.

The first thing I decided to try to create were the symbols that appear on the pieces, replacing the current numeric system we have been using. Having the circular combat design means that these can be literally anything, however, inorder for the player to remember them they need to have names. I found that the simplest thing to go for, in terms of names for the, as yet, uncreated symbols, were the Hellenic elements. Earth, Air, Fire and Water. These work with the circular design and can be represented fairly easily on the pieces.
The first piece of research I picked up was a book called The Magicians Tables by Alan Richardson. This book is filled with symbols from throughout history, representing star signs, stars, gods, heros and, most thankfully, elements. The elements have been symbolised in many different ways throughout history by many different cultures. The group of symbols I found most relevant to my theme idea, were the alchemical symbols. The alchemical symbols were used in the 18th century alchemy in much the same way physicists and mathematicians use characters from the greek and latin alphabets to represent certain fixed values. The alchemical symbols for earth, air, fire and water are all triangular. This works very well with the pyramid shaped pieces we are currently using. 

The 4 alchemical symbols for the Hellenic elements as shown in The Magician's Tables by Alan Richardson

Not wanting to rip the designs straight from the book and yet not wanting to alter them to being unrecognisable as the mystical symbols they have been for centuries; I decided to put my own simple designs in the middle of them to make them more unique to the game, without taking away the satisfaction a well informed player will get from recognising the symbols.

My design for the symbols based on the 4 alchemical symbols

As you can see from the design above, I have used very chalky brushes and a glow effect to make the symbols look mystical and old. When placed ontop of some sandy coloured stone textures this creates a nice effect that gives the player the feeling that they are playing something unique and special.
Wanting to make the board as simple and easy to read as possible, I decided to use the stone texture from above to create the board and simply painted on some engravings for the grid and added some chalky circles. This keeps the design easy to read for players.

My design for the board. Designed to look as if it is painted on old stone.

These are only quick and very rough sketches of my vision of the game. I am looking forward to comparing designs with the others tommorrow.

Rules v1.1.2

After many, many iterations of our ruleset and lots of playtesting, we finally have a semi-complete set of rules with which to work with. Playtesting mainly consisted of experimenting with different rules that had been suggested and finding the ones with the least problems. Then we experimented with a lot of different board sizes and numbers of pieces. If the board is too big, the game becomes boring due to the large spaces the player has to cross to reach any kind of conflict. If the board is too small, the game becomes frustrating because of the tiny amount of space aloud for the player to move around in, as well as the enormous amounts of conflicts being cause at the same time by pieces being piled into tiny spaces.
We found that 7 units each work best for 2 player and 5 for 4 players, both played on a 9 by 9 grid.
After playtesting the work in progress v1.3 rules, we decided to go back to v1.1 (see previous post for reasons). Whilst playtesting with this ruleset and adding and altering rules we have finally come up with v1.1.2. This new ruleset plays well, with both 2 and 4 players and seems to pretty airtight, although more playtesting needs to be done to confirm. The changes that have been made and their reasons for alteration are as follows:

• Moved back to moving only one square at a time. This makes the game a lot simpler, both to design and to play. The movement system, as it was in v1.2 and up, required the creation of extra rules to keep the game playable and to revolve certain problems caused by different unit classes moving at different speeds.
• Players are allowed 3 turns on their first go. In Chess, the pawns were originally only allowed to move one square on there first go. This was eventually changed to speed up the beginning of the game to a point of conflict, which is when the game gets interesting. 
• Players are allowed two turns on their go. This speeds up the game significantly and allows players to trap other players with much greater ease. This gives the game a heightened sense of strategy, as well as making the game more appealing to younger audiences, who may not wish to speed enormous lengths of time on a single game.

Here are the rules in their entirety, as they stand at the moment:

Rules v1.1.2


Players
The game can be played between 2 or 4 players.

Aim
 The aim of a standard game is to take all of the other player's pieces using forethought and strategy. (Other game types are currently under consideration and construction) 

Setup
In a 2 player game, each player is given 7 units and a corner opposite their opponent. In this corner, they must place their units in the first diagonal row of three coming from that corner and then the next row of 4 (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The correct setup for a 2 player game.

 A 4 player game has 5 units per player and each player has their own corner of the board. This time each player must place their units on the first diagonal rows of two and three from their corner of the board (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: The setup for a 4 player game.

 In both cases, all pieces on the board must start with a class of 1. This means that the number 1 appears on every edge at the base of the unit (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: The correct starting position for every unit.

Getting Started
A player may take 3 go's on their first turn and the rule say that one unit may only have one go per turn does not apply to a first turn. On a first turn, a player may choose to change the class of a single unit 3 times, move a single unit 3 times, move 3 different units once and anywhere inbetween. After a player's first turn is over, players must then follow the standard rules for turns (see Turns).

Turns
After a players first turn, a player may take 2 go's per turn. A go consists either of a movment, the changing of a unit's class or the taking of an opponants unit. A unit may only have one go per turn. Only one piece may be taken per turn. 
 
Movement
On a players turn, they have two go's in which they may choose to either move a unit or change it's class. The player can choose to move or change the class of any unit, but may not do so twice with the same unit within the same turn. If the player decides to move a unit, the unit can be moved one square in any direction, adjacent or diagonal. The unit may not move onto a square occupied by a unit belonging to the same player.

Changing Class
On a players go, they may choose to sacrifice a move to change their class. If they choose to change their class, the player may change the class of any unit on the board by adding "1" to it's class or, if it's a 4, change it to a 1. This is done by turning the unit so that the number of the class you are changing the class to is on every edge at the base of the counter. Here are the exact class changes that can be made.

• Class 1 becomes Class 2
• Class 2 becomes Class 3  
• Class 3 becomes Class 4
• Class 4 become Class 1

"Taking" Pieces
A unit can be taken if the opponent's unit is of the right class to take the unit in question and they are one square away from that unit. A player cannot take two units within the same turn. Weither a class can take another class is determined by the "circle" design (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The "Circle" design system

Explained, this simply means:

• Class 4 can take Class 3 and Class 2
• Class 3 can take Class 2 and Class 1
• Class 2 can take Class 1
• Class 1 can take Class 4 

Defeating your Opponent
There are two alternate victory conditions for a standard game which all players must agree:

• All other player's units must be taken from the board. This can take much longer than it's alternative and requires a fair amount of strategy and careful thinking, but it leaves the defeated players feeling as if they were beaten fairly.
• All but one player have one or less units remaining. This victory condition is much better in terms of speed and fluidity.

  


 

Latest Developments

After some brief playtesting and experimentation with "Rules v1.2", and taking into account the already obvious problems with the mechanics I decided to make a few notations to suggest changes to be made in "Rules v1.3". They are as follows:
Rules v1.3 Notations

• Must move the number of spaces assigned to each class with two exception; when a unit can take a unit within it's speed range, in which case it must stop on the square that the defeated unit occupied and when a unit reaches to edge of the board, where it must stop at the square closest to the edge within it's speed range.
• The units can move in any direction. Both diagonally and adjacently. The unit must, however move only in one direction on it's turn. 
• The unit's cannot move over or land on enemy units units they cannot take. If the unit can take an enemy unit and the player chooses to do so, the unit must stop on the tile the taken enemy unit once occupied. The unit can, however, move over units own by the same player. Although the unit cannot occupy the same square as the allied unit, only move over it.

I found these rules to be fluid when playtesting by myself with 4 units vs 4 units on an 8x8 board. They allow for much less frustrating gameplay. The frustration in the last ruleset came from trying to manuveur the units to a space where it was exactly the right number of spaces away from an enemy unit that can by taken. It also lacked the strategy of being able to block and trap enemies. Thus thus the addition of the third rule.

I decided not to write these rules out officially onto the blog until further consultation and playtesting with the group (thus the title "Rules v1.3 Notations"), which was done yesterday.
When playtesting the above ruleset with our board designer, Liam, he described the experience as being "...just like playing chess". Needless to say, I was happy with this response. It showed that the gameplay allowed for a similar amount of forethought and strategy as a very old and popular game.
However, a suggestion was put forward by one of our two team leaders, and creator of "Rules v1.1" (see http://juliettesgad.blogspot.com/), that we should go back to the original rules and play through them and continue playing, adding on rules from the newer rulesets each time. This way we could figure out which rules work, and which rules don't.

Although the "Rules v1.3 indev" seemed to work OK, the scenarios it allowed for, were not. Such as the ability to simply stay in the setup position and defend whilst occasionally picking off enemy units. The consensus that was eventually reached was that the original "v1.1" rules were the most stable and allowed for less strategies that gives one player an unfair advantage to the point were the other player(s) get frustrated, or causing long stalemate-esque situations that can potentially last hours.
Some more changes have been recently suggested by the group to the "v1.1" rules we are now taking up. I shall use these to playtest and create "Rules v1.1.2".
Other members of the team are also looking at both "Domination" and "Tower Siege" based modes of play to make the game more varied and interesting.
Although I am currently using military based names for the board mechanics, these are likely to change due to the, as yet, undetermined theme of the game.

Rules v1.2 Criticisms

I believe that Rules v1.2, being only an indev ruleset, has a few problems which need to be addressed. I have found that they boil down to two main points, both of which cause a fair few problems:

• No Setup Rules: This has been discussed since the creation of Rules v1.2. A temporary setup has been decided upon, although with out group playtesting, it is very difficult to decide on any particular setup as a permanent solution. Things that need to be played with and tested are the number of pieces each player has, the size of the board and the pieces starting area. Although this has already been looked at by several team members, primarily the board designer, I believe that this will change over time, with playtesting.
• Difficulty Manuvering: In personal play tests with a very small amount of units for each side I have discovered that the task of actually capturing another players pieces proves to be extraordinarily challenging. On a 4x4 board the task of just moving around becomes extremly tricky and difficult. On an 8x8 board it becomes very tricky to actually move a unit into a position where it can reach and take an enemy unit, especially when that unit is capable of moving a large number of spaces itself. To solve this we need to tweak with the movement rules. Such as the ability to move diagonally or change direction. 

I think that there has been very little playtesting done within our group. Hopefully, with promises of pieces and a board being made, playtesting will begin tommorrow. By Sunday, I intend on having a solid core mechanic for the game, allowing us to add a few more little elements into the game to make it more interesting. I have also noticed communication bewteen group members failing at times. Hopefully this will change soon and we can produce some solid rules so that development of the games theme and visual design can begin.

Rules v1.2

At the beginning of the day today, after briefly discussing our research and ideas Juliette showed us her concept idea for a game (See Juliette's blog for the original Rules v1.1 concept @ http://juliettesgad.blogspot.com). Slowly over the course of the day we have been developing these rules. We have decided that focusing on aesthetics or narrative themes too early on is a bad idea, so at this time the game takes on an abstract, strategy based gameplay style. This allows us to focus entirely on creating a core mechanic with which to work with. If we later decide to make the game more family friendly, we can add a colourful theme and/or a luck based element to the game on top of a solid core mechanic.
Because of the games current abstract gameplay style, it is very tricky to get the gameplay just right, so that it is both fun and challenging, without becoming frustrating or boring. In fact, it has shown to be quite tricky just to get the gameplay to balance out so that it all makes some kind of sense, and avoiding situations that become too complicated.
As it stands, here are the rules so far:
Rules v1.2

Setup & Pieces 

The game currently consists of several tetrahedronal pieces called "units" which all have numbers written on the edge of each face ranging from 1 to 4. The number at the base of the unit is the unit's "class". The pieces of are all placed onto the board, which is a large grid of squares. When the game has 2 players one quarter of the fold out board is used. When the game is played with 4 players the board is unfolded and the whole board is used. At the moment there is no specific starting setup other than to line up each players units at opposing sides of the board. With the current 4 units vs. 4 units setup, each unit is given a different class and assembled in the order of class (1, 2, 3, 4). The next player then lines up their units in the same way so that the opposing classes line up (4 face 1, 3 faces 2 and so on). 

Aim & Overview

The game can be played with 2 or 4 players. The aim of the game is to capture all of the players units. Units can be captured and removed from the board by placing on unit onto the square of a unit with an opposing class. 

Movement & Turns

On a players turn the player can choose to either move a unit or change a unit's class (see "Changing Classes"). If the player chooses to move a unit he can move any one unit the number of squares allowed by that unit's class, which is the number found at the base of the unit , or the class's "speed". The speed of each class is as follows:

• Class 1: Speed 4
• Class 2: Speed 3
• Class 3: Speed 2
• Class 4: Speed 1

The unit can move in any adjacent or diagonal direction the number of squares determined by it's speed. The unit can jump over any units inbetween it's starting square and the square of destination. The unit  must move the number of squares allocated to it's speed, no more, no less, with the exception of reaching the edge of the board where the unit must stop in the nearest available square within it's speed range. A unit cannot move into a square occupied by another unit owned by the same player. A player can only move one unit on their turn.

Changing Classes 

If a player decides to sacrifice moving a unit in order to change a unit's class, the player must select one unit and turn the unit to match it's new class. The class a unit becomes is determined by the class it currently is, as follows:

• Class 1 becomes Class 2
• Class 2 becomes Class 3
• Class 3 becomes Class 4 
• Class 4 becomes Class 1

  Combat & Capture

When a player's unit lands on the same square as another players unit, the players must use the above system to determine which unit gets captured and removed from the board. To make the system above clear the unit class capture system is as follows:

• Class 1 can capture Class 4
• Class 4 can capture Class 3 and Class 2
• Class 3 can capture Class 2 and Class 1
• Class 2 can capture Class 1

Once a unit has been captured, it is removed from the board. The remaining unit has the value of the class of the unit it just took subtracted from it's own class value with the exception of class 1 capturing class 4, where the remaining unit becomes class 3. This system is demonstrated as follows:

• Class 1 captures Class 4 and becomes Class 3
• Class 2 captures Class 1 and becomes Class 1
• Class 3 captures Class 1 and becomes Class 2
• Class 3 captures Class 2 and becomes Class 1
• Class 4 captures Class 3 and becomes Class 1
• Class 4 captures Class 2 and becomes Class 2

After a player has taken another players unit, the player finishes their turn and the next player takes theirs. The game ends once all but one player's units remain.

                                                                                   

Initial Research

Yesterday our Games Art & Design course assigned us to create a board game in a three week period, with a little bit of leway afterwards to fiddle with small finishing touches. In our group, we decided the best thing to do, was to perform some secondary research into board games so that we could come up with ideas with a little more ease and have something to back up those ideas. Our first form of research was a visit to Toys 'R' Us to take a look at the games section.
The clear best seller in the shop, and it's many, many different variations and themes, was Monopoly. Monopoly had, almost, an entire section devoted just to the one game. The shop also had a lot of other party and family games such as Trivial Pursuits, Scrabble and Twister. This shows that the games that last the longest and sell the best are the games with the widest audience. Games like Monopoly and Trivial Pursuits all have fairly neutral colours and simple rules which can be expanded upon by the players with complex strategies which add a great deal of replay value. I also found that a fair few of the family games have a fair balance between luck and skill. This is so that the less experienced or younger plays can catch up on luck, and the more experienced players can get by on their skill and strategy.
Another form of secondary research conducted was internet based. I chose to look at the different genres of Mainstream board games. Mainstream board games tend to be much simpler than Hobby games, which, considering the time scale given to produce the board game, are probably a safer bet.
The genres of Mainstream board games are as follows:

• Abstract: Abstract board games are always about strategy, skill and occasionally spatial reasoning. They will never have any luck involved. These sorts of games also tend to have very, very simple designs. Often black and white colour schemes with simple shapes used for the counters or pieces. Abstract games often attract an older audience, although the younger audience is often encouraged because of the games usage of logic. Examples of Abstract games include Chess, Checkers and Backgammon. 
• Dexterity: Dexterity games are often based on some form of control over physical objects, as opposed to logic puzzles and games of chance played out with representational counters. An example of this is Jenga, which requires the player to judge the current state of the tower and to decide which blocks are the least load bearing and therefore safest for removal. Twister on the other hand, requires the player to have enough control and dexterity over their own body to reach each spot on the mat. Dexterity games can be aimed at families, young adults and children. As a result, with the exception of Jenga, the colour schemes are often quite bright and eye catching, with a cartoony art style. Other examples of Dexterity games include Operation, Tumblin' Monkeys and Elephun. 
• Family: Family games, as the name suggests, are aimed at both children and adults. This means that the colours are often middle tones, avoiding the black and white look of games aimed heavily at adults and the overly bright, over-saturated colours of childrens games. This means that the art style can appeal to both. Family games are designed to be balanced between luck and skill. This ensures that all players have a chance to play and have fun. Skilled players will be able to think their way ahead, while new players can get by on chance and luck until they get better at the game. Examples of Family games include Monopoly, Trivial Pursuits and Scrabble.
• Party: Party games, although sometimes aimed at children, are mostly aimed towards families and young adults. Party games share similarities with family games in that they often have a lot of middle tones and are not entirely based around skill and experience. Party games will use social interation as a gameplay device. Examples of Party games include Pictionary, Imagine If... and Scruples.