Development Drafts

 And Now It's Time for Something a Little Different

Today, rather than providing a preview of an upcoming game, I thought that I would dive into something a little bit more self-serving. I had initially created this blog as a way to track development of a game that I personally am working on, but it evolved into something a little bit more when I began to write it. My thought was that I would write about the process that I was taking in order to create my own game, adding in an update here and there to note what had changed, or what I was working on. It was an idea that was great up in my head, but in reality, came down to the lack of follow up that was happening with the game being developed.

I began to pivot my plan with this blog when I realized that me updating it every time progress was made on the game would result in posts that would probably be once every six months or so. With that in mind, I adjusted my release schedule, updated my plans for each post, and began what we now see today. I expect that the blog will probably be changing and growing as I write it, so the current format that it is in will be different even a year from now.

With that in mind, I would like to pull back the curtain a bit on the game development that I've been working on in my free time (and whenever I remember to do it between attempting to take care of my daughters/wife) off and on these last six months.

Inspiration Strikes

"Have you ever thought about designing your own game?"

The simple question from my good friend Anthony sparked something that I had no idea existed previously: a desire to create my own board game. During the pandemic, I, like many others, decided to attempt a various number of creative activities that had previously been a dream of mine, including writing my own book (got about 15 chapters in), practicing my drawing more (actually did that), and practicing guitar more (which I did too!). I had jumped into quite a few creative realms that I had a passing relationship with in the past but I had never really thought about board game development.

I had previously looked into video game development, but after seeing how many skills would be required in order to even get into the realm, I quickly abandoned that idea. Nevertheless, I still had a desire to create a game of my own, but I didn't know how that would translate into real life since I was quickly becoming increasingly busy with a little girl who was growing up and a second one on the way in 2023. I had expended the blast of creative energy that the pandemic brought and I was now settling into a routine of enjoying life and having creative outlets outside of the realm of game design.

Yet it was with that simple question that Anthony had posed to me mid-2023 that sparked a fire that would quickly grow into something more than the sum of it's parts. We proceeded to have several questions about the process of designing games since he too had previously designed and gotten a game published (check out 3 Seeds here on BGG to see what he made!) back in 2016. Anthony had since started thinking about making another game, especially since he had played quite a few more games since then and wanted to try his hand at making a game again.

Anthony had some previous experience and over the course of a few weeks, we had quite a few conversations about game design, what worked for him and what didn't, and he even offered some advice on how best to proceed with creating a game. His game hadn't done incredibly, although he had learned quite a bit about the design process and was able to offer that information to me.

I also secretly suspect that Anthony has some chaotic desire of his own to see me spiral into a wild tailspin of chaotic game design that ultimately results in me sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by documents rocking back and forth whispering "It doesn't make sense." But maybe that's just in my head and is my imagination running wild. It certainly does that quite a bit nowadays.

Foundationally Sound Design

My game definitely wears it's influences on its sleeves (Although that will change).

I had quite a few thoughts on making a game of my own, but I wasn't really certain how to start. During our conversations, I found that the biggest item that was the most important to me with games was a good theme. Theming was the most important to me and I wanted to create a game that had an excellent theme to build the foundation on.

I spent the next several weeks wracking my brain on what the theme of my game should be. I personally lean towards more fantastical and science fiction themes with the games that I like to play, so I wanted something that was within those boundaries. Unfortunately, that did not do anything to narrow down the field and I was stuck. I bounced ideas off of Anthony, my wife Sarah, my boss, my friends, and any one else who was willing to listen to me ramble on and pontificate on the best theme for a board game.

What ultimately was my biggest inspiration was The Legend of Zelda. I am a huge fan of the series and I love dungeon crawls, especially the top-down games, like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993) and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (while that's more of a diagonally down game). I love the fantasy realm that's introduced in the Legend of Zelda and there are certainly some iconic monsters that are contained within the series.

I had played quite a few board game dungeon crawlers (Deliverance, Betrayal at House on the Hill, a digital version of Gloomhaven) but nothing had really stood out to me that really matched anything in the Legend of Zelda series. There were quite a few games that had the dungeon crawler feel, but nothing that felt close enough to the series for my tastes.

One other game that I really enjoyed when I was a kid was Overlord and more later in my teen years, tower defense games. I loved the idea of having to build a game that encapsulated the idea of having to create a dungeon but also had to defend against other players attempting to storm your own dungeon. I knew that Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure and Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game had a similar idea with their mechanism, but from what I could tell (without having played them), is that they tended to focus on the aspect of building a dungeon/area, rather than creating a dungeon to have someone work through.

The final game that helped me with my determination of what kind of board game I wanted to create was the Link's Awakening Remake that came out in 2019. It included a really clever dungeon creator that allowed players to build and upload their own dungeons using tile sets included in the basic game (the more you played, the more you unlocked), and then challenge other player's dungeons. The idea of building your own dungeon and then having to fight through another player's dungeon struck a chord with me and I had my theming.

Harder Than It Looks

There are lots of ideas about what should be included at first, but that's likely to change

With the theme in place, I immediately began to launch into what usually happens when my ADHD takes over: I spent an inordinate of time over the course of two weeks planning, drawing, printing, cutting, and making the initial prototype of my game. I had some graph paper and spent the next three days just drawing out dungeon tiles. I had ideas for traps, enemies and even some additional secrets that would be included later in the game development cycle.

I was absolutely certain that I had an excellent game with my first draft and happily kept Anthony appraised of the current status of the game. I was flying along and had all of my parts copied, printed off and had even created a few player aides, potential player boards, and some additional rules with how the game should be played. I was proud of what I had created and I was ready for the initial play of my game. I knew that what I had built was good enough to stand the play of someone else and would shoot to the top of the BGG ratings. It was the best thing ever made and while it wasn't the deepest game ever, it was still a work of genius.

...And then I had my first play of the game with Anthony.

Stats, enemies, and traps will definitely change... I think I have too many.

To call it a disaster wouldn't be too far off the mark. It was definitely a rough play of the game and there were glaring things that came up during the play through that weren't something that I thought of when designing. It was a significant blow to my ego and I fell into a funk for a bit. The game that I had built wasn't playing exactly how I thought it would and it threw me off.

I began to rethink everything in my design and flip-flopped on the design choices that I had made. I wondered if the game itself was any fun at all and really questioned whether or not I should even continue to develop the game. It wasn't easy for me, as I was used to having success in everything that I did on the first try.

What pulled me out of my funk was Anthony offering to play again a few weeks later. We adjusted some of the rules and changed a few things and found that the game worked much better with the changes that we had made. It wasn't the next Clank!, but it was definitely coming along far more than I had anticipated, even with a few rule changes.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Since then, I haven't done too much work on the game, but I thought that I would do a post about it since it was the original intention of this blog before I pivoted into something a bit more different. There's definitely more that needs to be done with the game before I even think about sending it off to a publisher(s) for potential printing, but I'm feeling more fine with the changes that need to occur.

Just because it didn't work the first time, or needed some changes to make it better, doesn't mean that my idea is awful. It just means that there's some thinking that needs to go into the game to make it more fun! I want to make an excellent game that I know that not only those close to me will enjoy and part of that is being willing to cut out things from the game that don't fit or work well.

It may be difficult to see something that I care about love and lose some of the initial ideas, but that's really what game design is all about. I realized that much of what the game suffered from was a lack of interaction with other players and no real significant reason to not just power to the boss at the end of the dungeon. I need to offer additional rewards for players to chase after and some randomness to really push the game to 11.

Cheaters never win, unless they use a card!

I'll be throwing myself back into the design of the game again now that my creative juices are flowing again, but I think this time, I'm going to be a bit more willing to let go of what doesn't work and accept criticism about what the game feels like.

There was a significant lack of player interaction after the first phase of the game was completed and I personally would like some more push and pull between players. I'm hoping to introduce a "cheat card" (or other thematically relevant card) that allows players to mess with the other players or enhance their own hero proceeding through the dungeon. I also need to provide reasons for players to proceed through a tough section beyond "to get to the boss quicker." The carrot at the end of the stick has to be big and juicy for it to work.

It's such an interesting point of view, being on the development side of a game, especially since I'm playing so many games in my free time. I start to look at the game from that perspective and begin to wonder how the game initially was started and what iterations that it went through as it was being developed. I'm definitely finding that I pull ideas from other games that I've played into my development process, but ultimately at the end of it all, this game will be something that I hope to sit back and say "I made that," with pride.

I'm always open to discuss the game, but since it's still early in development, I think that I'll probably keep anything I post about it to a minimum since it is still fairly new and not fully realized. Still, it's fun being able to revisit the game with this blog since that was the original concept for what I had with this.

Give your thoughts: What aspects of game design intrigues you the most? If you were to create your own game, what would be the most important mechanic or aspect of the game that you would focus on? Have you made any games yourself and what were your experiences on that first trial run of the game?

Thanks for reading this blog everyone and keep on playing those board games! Remember, you matter and your contribution here is absolutely worth it, no matter how small. I look forward to your thoughts and hope you have a great rest of your week.

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 13/3/2024*