Print and Play Game

https://drive.google.com/a/c.ringling.edu/file/d/0Byimexnmq5SGSlcydDI3dDVpRXc/edit?usp=sharing

The Second Play Test

I wasn’t able to have my game played at the Game Design Club, but when I got home I finished up my remaining work on it and sat down to play immediately. A few issues with the game became quite obvious very quickly.

My game is Incredibly unbalanced…

I had taken the advice of my peers and put all the monster cards into one pile. The levels ranged from 0-10 with a 13 and 15 thrown in for kicks. Right out of the gate all we got were the hard ones. After much frustration I decided to sort the piles back into the easy medium and hard like I had done originally. This made the game much more fun. I’ve decided it was something I was going to keep.

We started over and my roommate was on a roll. She enjoyed the game much more then I since she would draw a lot of easy monsters, and fate cards that benefitted her. I drew the opposite.

I found it very difficult to gain levels in my game, but very easy to lose them. I ended the game at level zero while her magic and strength were over five. Still at her level it would have been impossible for her to win.

I realized and told her about halfway through the game that my game was impossible to win due to the imbalance. I was pleased to find that regardless of this she wanted to keep playing. We played my game from 11:00 P.M. till 2:00 A.M. I can say fairly that my game is fun at least.

There were a lot of moments of high intensity where you really felt that your life was on the line.

Other than the flaws with leveling up I realized that I needed to make the rules of combat and leveling up more clearly, and the gaining of abilities needs to be more consistent.

Additionally I changed the way combat works, but it became confusing very fast. There was your levels on the card, your levels on the board, the addition boosts from abilities, and the roll of the dice to add. The adding wasn’t hard, but looking at all three spaces at once was a bit difficult. I wish to simplify the combat system further since some things worked with the game, while other didn’t

Lastly I have fate cards that are used for five turns. I am going to make something that can go on these cards too represent how many times something has been used to help players keep better track of their things. All and all there was too much to keep track of…

I have also finally decided on how I wish to design my board. I am going to make a board that is like a Candy Land- Life hybrid...

Board Game Version 1

Rules of the Game

Game components

One game board

Seven colored playing pieces with matching Character Statistic cards.

Additional decorative figures

Tokens: The multi colored beads

Health Points-Red

Magic- Purple

Defense- Blue

Strength- Gold

Base Stats-Black

28 holders to display stats (One per player labeled Health Points, Defense, Magic, and Strength)

Hour Glass

Card decks:

Player Profiles: You will randomly select these before you start the game. This card contains the bio stats and abilities of the character. It also tells the sin and determines the player start and color of the playing piece.

Events:

            - This symbol represents an event. There are three-color variations of this symbol

Green= Easy

Yellow= Medium

Red=Hard

You will select one card from the top of the deck with the corresponding symbol.

From these you have a chance of drawing Monsters (page 5) or Unfortunate Circumstances.

Unfortunate circumstance cards are mixed into event decks. They are always negative events. The card my have short term effects or long term effects. Players must follow the directions on the card.

Rewards: You selected these only when instructed to by other cards (From fate cards or winning against monsters)

Their designs on the back are:

Green= From Easy foes

Yellow= From Medium foes

Red=From Hard foes

You select the reward indicated from the card.

 There are two types of rewards mixed in the deck.

Blessings: These are points you add to your stats. When you receive this you take the corresponding colored beads and add it to the holder. The black beads are what you multiply when fighting (see page 4 for fighting) and one point per colored bead is added after multiplication. All together this is the damage you deal out.

Abilities: These are abilities you can use when attacking. They are for one time use and must be put at the bottom of the deck after used.

Special Abilities: You receive these from sacred places. They are the most powerful abilities. The details can be found on each individual card.

Fate: These cards are drawn when you land on the corresponding space. You must do everything the card states.

This is represented on the game board by:

Riddles- These cards contain Riddles. The player to your left will read it to you. For details on riddles see pages 7-8.

Grim’s Targets- Before using them take out any of the characters not in use by a player. When you reach the Grim the player to your left will fan these out. You will randomly select one. If you select yourself you must place the card to the side and select another card. The player indicated by the card is now your target. On your next turn you begin your hunt.

Grim’s Location- When you reach the Grim the player to your left will fan these out. You will randomly select one and be teleported there. Your next turn marks the hunt for your killer.

Basic Overview

The objective of the game is to be the first player to satisfy your revenge by killing the player who killed you.

For 3-7 players

            Each player will begin in Hell on their labeled start points (You may ignore the consequences of hell for this first time only). Each player must navigate the board to the Grim Reaper on the other side.

            The Grim Reaper controls fate and will tell you who caused your death. You will randomly select a Player card and Location card from him (Player to your left will fan them out for you). The player you selected is your target (the person who killed you), you may choose to keep this secret. 

            The only way to win is to get your target from the Grim and kill them. If you have killed them before receiving the card it doesn’t count. You must kill them again (the target cannot come back from the dead afterwards).

Game Play In Detail

Set Up

Open and lay out the game board

Sort cards by type (put cards with the same image and color into piles)

Players will determine playing order.

Each player will randomly select a player profile card. They will use the colored playing piece associated with the profile they drew (Player profiles have a dominate color, this is the color of the playing piece).

Each player will receive a holder for their Magic, Strength, Defense, and Health Points. The black marbles indicate a base value. Each holder will receive the number of base points indicated by your Character Profile card.

Moving

The board is gridded. Each 1-inch by 1-inch square represents a space a player can move to.

To move around the board players will roll one ten sided dice. The player doesn’t have to use the entire move rolled. They may choose anywhere from half or above to move.

            For example: If I roll a ten I can move anywhere from five to ten spaces.

This allows you to dodge other players or enemies. BUT if there is a Fate space in the path ahead you must stop on it if it is within your range of movement.

You may move anywhere around the board. You do not have to go to the Grim until you are ready.

Once you move you can play out the rest of your turn by drawing cards, or starting battles depending on what you land on.

Fighting

While playing a player may engage in combat with monsters from Event cards or other players.

Mechanics of Fighting

There are three six sided dice numbered 0-5. Each dice is colored specifically:

Gold= Strength

Blue= Defense

Purple= Magic

You will roll the appropriate dice and multiply the number rolled to your base stat for that Skill.

You may choose per attack to use Magic or Strength (unless you have a card that allows the use of both in this case their values are added to each other).

Your character always uses defense in combination with one of the attacks (unless you have a card causes otherwise).

The fighting will be in turn taking. You will roll, and then the enemy will roll (unless you have a card that allows otherwise).

Strength: This attack (if not effect by a card) will always hit unless the foe can only be affected by Magic.

Magic: There are three elements: Water, Fire, and Air.

The element your character is immune to is the element your character can fight with by default.

You get other elements to fight with through rewards.

If you attack with magic your enemy is immune to then no damage is done and the turn is wasted.

To win a fight you must completely deplete the enemies Health Points.

Monsters

You begin by drawing an Event card. The person to your left will play for the monster unless you are in Alliance with them (Page 5). If so then it passes down the line.

You will always initiate the fight (unless the Even card states “Aggressive”).

If you lose in a Monster Vs. Player battle

Fate cards: These stay with you.

Unfortunate Circumstance cards: These stay with you.

Bonus Health Points: The beads go back into the bag.

Bonus Defense Points: These stay with you.

Ability cards: These stay with you.

Bonus Magic and Strength Points: These stay.

Special Ability cards: These stay with you.

Playing as a Monster

When playing as a monster during a battle, you fight regularly.

Some monsters have special abilities that can be used in battle (Each ability will have a number indicating how many times it can be used).  This is indicated on each monster card.

*When you play as a monster you must put all friendship behind you. Monsters will always do whatever to their opponent to deal the greatest amount of damage. It is against the rules to go easy on them and other players can call you out on it. If you are going easy purposefully on a player you are fighting the other players can vote to have you lose your next turn. 

Killing other players.

To initiate a battle against another player you must occupy the same square as them. As long as the first condition is met you may kill players at any time for no reason.

The person who initiates the fight will go first.

Fighting is normal.

Who ever wins, be it the target or the player who initiated, the victor will receive some of the rewards and the other will be sent back to hell (individual player start).

*Sites like Hell, the Graveyard, The Alter of the Grim, and four Sacred Areas are safe zones meaning the no player can challenge another inside these areas.

If you lose in a PVP battle

Fate cards: These get reshuffled into the deck.

Unfortunate Circumstance cards: These stay with you.

Bonus Health Points: The beads go back in the bag.

Bonus Defense Points: Keep these.

Bonus Magic and Strength ability cards: These go to the victor.

Bonus Magic and Strength Points: The beads go back in the bag.

Special Ability cards: These go to the victor.

HELL

See the instructions on pages 4-5 for Losing Monster and PVP battles and page 6 for failing to answer a riddles.

Your Health Points go to half the base value for being sent to hell.

Each player is being punished for his or her own sins (The punishment is behind the player starts). Being sent to hell ends your turn. On your next turn you will roll the 10 sided dice. If you receive a 6-10 you can set your player on the player start and wait for your next turn to move. If you receive a 1-5 you will subtract 1 point from you baseline (minus one black bead) in the specific order on that listed on the punishment.

For example it might say:

Turn One: -1 HP

Turn Two: -1 Strength

Turn Three: -1 Magic

 On the beginning of the fourth turn in punishment you just move your piece onto the start and wait for your next turn.

* You must go to hell every time you die unless you were a player’s target that they successfully killed. In this case the game is over.

Alliances

Once out of hell a player can join in an Alliance with any player (Alliances break in hell).

To enter into an Alliance the player first rolls the dice. The player you wish to form an alliance with has to be within your range of movement. Once you get onto the same square you may ask to enter into an alliance.

There can only be two people per alliance.

The benefits of an Alliance

Each individual in the alliance still takes a separate turn. The turns are executed as normal except when one player moves the other (who shares the same place) moves with them.

In combat against monsters the player whose turn it is fights, but the damage is split evenly between teammates (if the damage is an odd number than the player who fought takes the extra point).

The two players must also split rewards.

Blessings are split the same way as damage.

If an ability is drawn then the player who fought gets the ability (but they may give it to their teammate to aid during battle).

When answering riddles the alliance may collaborate with each other to answer the question, but each player must answer an individual question. If one member fails to answer correctly then both are sent to hell (see pages 8-9 for riddles)

To end an alliance you must kill the other player. This is done at the beginning of a turn and will be your whole turn.

If you or your teammate dies then you both die and suffer the same consequences.

You cannot initiate an attack on other players while in an alliance, but they may choose to attack a single player in your alliance.

If your teammate is attacked by another player you cannot aid them. Additionally there will be no negative impact on you if they die (this scenario breaks your alliance).

Sphinx’s, Riddles, and the benefits of Sacred Place’s

There are four Sacred Places on the game board, the fate cards get divided out to each site. The entrance to each is guarded by a Sphinx. In order to enter this place you must answer a riddle from the Sphinx correctly.

The player to your left will draw a riddle card for you. You have two guesses (unless a card allows for more). You will be timed by and hourglass (3 minutes), the player must give one of their answers before time runs out. The glass is then reset and the player can answer again.  

If you fail to answer the riddle correctly you will be killed by the Sphinx and sent to hell.

If killed by a Sphinx:

Fate cards: These get reshuffled into the deck.

Unfortunate Circumstance cards: These stay with you.

Bonus Health Points: The beads get added back to the bag.

Bonus Defense points: The beads get added back to the bag.

Bonus Magic and Strength ability cards: These get reshuffled into the deck.

Bonus Magic and Strength Points: These stay.

Special Ability cards: These get reshuffled into the deck. 

Answering a Riddle correctly

You will be placed on the first space inside the gate and wait for your next turn.

Inside here you will move into the water where you will receive a special ability card, regain baseline Health Points if below it, and lose the effects of unfortunate circumstance and fate cards (you may choose to keep these).

There are many exits in these places; you may choose any one of them including the gate you entered from.

*You may only gain one special ability card per correct riddle. If you wish to acquire another you must exit from a gate other than the one you entered and go back to the Sphinx and answer another riddle.

 Notes from first test

• Shorten the length of the rules (2 Pages at most)
• Make big ideas/rule in large text to allow for easy skimming
• Clarify that a player cannot move diagonally
• Simplify maze, or make the board a defined path
• Make board smaller
• Reform monsters and fighting to not include math (simplify)
• Chance aspect for types of monsters you face to eliminate some of the card piles
• Simplify character stats
• The game needs to work for 2 players

Aspects that I want to Keep

• Alliances (I want to keep this PVP aspect)
• PVP
• The journey to the Grim
• I would like to keep Fate cards and make it a bigger part of the game. 

• I need to make the game for two players but want to keep it so you must fight a player. For three players I can keep fighting between players. For two players I can have them fight the Grim, or I could set up the other characters with stats and have them at random points on the board...
• Riddles: I have decided to put special abilities in the normal rewards pile and allow them to be drawn randomly. Thus the sphinx and riddles become unnecessary... :(
• Locations will only be needed for three player games to separate characters. 

Lens 9: The Lens of Unification

-What is my theme? 
My Theme is about what happens to sinners when they pass.

Am I using every means possible to reinforce that theme?  
The monsters, the profiles, hell, the steps of hell, and overall journey reinforce the idea that sinners are punished and haunted by what they did in their past lives. The board’s environment is suppose to be purgatory.

Lens 10: The Lens of Resonance

-What is it about my game that feels powerful and special?
The Fate and Unfortunate Circumstance cards feel the most powerful to me right now. I feel like they will have the most impact on player movement through the board.

-When I describe my game to people, what ideas get them really excited?
The tarot card based ‘Fate’ cards got my roommate excited. A friend of mine was excited about the Riddles.  I would like to say my Professor was excited about killing people and trolling.                                

-If I had no constraints of any kind, what would this game be like?
If I had no restraints at all this game would be 3D. You could put on a little helmet and walk around my board (Which would be an ever changing labyrinth). But since I cannot change that, I think I would want to make as many 3D elements to my game with perfectly sculpted figures. I would want my board to be a maze that changes every time you play or that could change throughout the game. I would want to make it so the payer could not look ahead but could only see the small hallway which his or her character was placed. But limiting a characters view like that is impossible unless my board was in sections that you had to add (possibly determined by dice).

-I have certain instincts about how this game should be. What is driving those instincts? 
I think my love of the paranormal and exploration of environments is the biggest driving instinct for me. I want my game to be adventurous, and a game you would sit down to play for a night instead of a few minutes. Also when I play Monopoly with my family we easily turn into rivals and the game gets heated. I would like to create that sort of tension between my players.

Theme:

·      The theme of the game is the destruction that can be caused when a person is blinded by his or her own sins. All of my characters are too headstrong to realize the bigger picture. Instead of repenting they seek out their revenge and ask the God of Fate, “WHY ME?” Their journey is littered with things to remind them of what they lost when giving into their own sins, yet their stubbornness undoes them.

Motifs:

·      Fate is something no one can escape, but with it, you have the power to make choices.

·      Purgatory- there is a life after death where you will be judged for the sins of your lifetime.

·      Alliances- it’s never to late to offer or accept help.

Symbols:

·      The things that roam purgatory were once like you. They let their sins get the best of them and now linger the boarder between the worlds until they return back to hell for final judgment.

·      Riddles- wisdom, thought, and reflection can bring hope and success though it is not always the easiest path.

·      Death- It is not always a literal death, but can sometime mean a new chapter.

*I at one time was trying to figure out a way to have the players go against their fate and sin by overcoming their negative feelings and challenging the Grim for a second chance at life. I assumed one path would be more difficult (Fighting the Grim) and players would simply choose the easier route since the latter has no game value unless you care about the soul of your fictional character (My grandma would be the only one playing this way).

Similar themes in other Works: My theme about characters being punished for their sins is one that comes up frequently in literature. For example in the play “Ghosts,” by Henrik Ibsen the mother and son are punished for the sins of the father. Resulting in the son’s death.

This theme is also seen in, The Great Gatsby, but as a motif. The green light symbolizes the characters envy, and arguably lust since it marks Daisy’s dock. The Valley of Ashes and use of yellow are symbolic of the results of people’s greed, and decaying of society.

Again as a motif, being punished for your sins can be seen in the game, “Alice Madness Returns,” When she kills the Doctor for his lust and greed.

Possible Concept Statements:                                                                                                 (Excuse the cheesiness)

·      The sins of your past create your present.

·      Judgment

·      Overcoming the labyrinth of fate.

·      In fate there is always a choice to be made.

Possible Color Pallets:

I have specific colors I want to use for my characters:

Lust- Blue or Hot Pink

Envy- Green

Greed- Yellow

Gluttony- Orange

Sloth- Light Blue

Wrath-  Red

Pride- Purple

But these colors can easily be accents on cards.

For my color scheme I was thinking of having something low saturation and most likely cool analogues colors. 

I like these color schemes but I'm not really sure if anyone of them really portrays the mystical and foggy feel I am looking for. 

I was thinking of having my colors be:

Dominants: Blues and Navy

Subordinate: Green/Teal

Accent: Orange

But I like the blues and greens I have in this better than the one above. I will combine the two, and maybe go with a more yellow orange.