Taking advice from both Rules of Play and Frank, I’ve been tinkering with board game design. Not anything too complex, just making something small and original. It’s been an on and off project, but recently I had a breakthrough, and excitedly showed my design in progress to Bonnie.
On a simple 7×7 grid, my game had two players starting out in the center, with the ending condition of the game being that one of them reaches the goal. Each player moves one space in any direction per turn. The twist was that the goal, represented by a larger pawn, was constantly moving. It would rotate around the perimeter of the grid, moving three spaces for each player’s turn. The strategy then becomes for the players to base their movement on where the goal is going to be. For a little extra layer of strategy and competition, I added “reverse” spaces, which would change the direction in which the goal would rotate.
I described all this to Bonnie, with my little prototype between us on the kitchen counter. Once I was finished, I paused to let her comment. It didn’t need to be positive. Anything constructive she could bring up would be immensely helpful. I decided this before talking with her so I wouldn’t get annoyed when she didn’t praise my brilliant design decisions.
She stared at the board for another minute, considering. “So, it’s Kill Doctor Lucky.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s like Kill Doctor Lucky, but with a simpler ruleset, right?”
“What? No…”
“Well, you have a ‘goal’ that’s constantly moving around on its own, and the players are trying to reach the ‘goal.’ You can influence the ‘goal’s’ movement to foil other player’s attempts. The only fundamental difference is you don’t have to kill the ‘goal’ in order to win.”
I looked down at my board again. I had appropriated pieces from other board games in order to build my prototype. But not until then did I realize that my goal piece was Doctor Lucky, or at least his special pawn from my copy of the board game. It seems you can’t teach an old piece new tricks, and the good doctor had reverted to his old habits of movement, perhaps even relieved that his human opponents were no longer out to get him.
My first breakthrough and I wind up designing my favorite board game by accident. This would be Problem #1: watch our for “brilliant ideas,” because they’re probably not yours.
I could call it “Reach Mr. Goalie.”
1 reply on “Game Design Problem #1”
“Reach Mr. Goalie” indeed. If I had been drinking milk, that one would have made me blow it out my nose. Note the “if.”
Also, did we have the same conversation? Something about those dramatic pauses seems a bit fishy. Anyways, my point wasn’t about a simpler rule set or not killing (because, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for that ;-), it’s that your game was Kill Dr. Lucky with different variables: i.e. it shifted certain obstacles and parameters. Though the basic concept is the same.
I look forward to crushing more hopes in dreams in the future!