I'm Spawn It!

School and tutoring are heating up lately (literally - my portable classroom was 31 degrees yesterday) and I'm also trying to hammer out some landscaping, so gaming has been taking a backseat. Even though I haven't had much hands on time playing games or designing my own, I have been doing a lot of thinking, stewing, pondering, and listening to podcasts. I've especially been enjoying the podcasts from Every Night is Game Night with a focus on game design. I'm halfway through an interview with Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games (Scythe, Viticulture) entitled "What I Wish I Would Have Known before I Got into Game Design." Wow, that's a mouthful, but very informative (thank you The Board Game Design Lab podcast for putting this on a couple years ago).

Made it out in time!

I finally got a few playthroughs of the first mission/adventure/scenario of my game the last couple of days. Here are the thoughts running through my mind right now.

(1) I want to make my "magic" system really make sense with the game mechanics. What kind of system would need you to start out weak and build up your deck each time? In what world does that make sense?

(2) Should the enemies activate after each hero's turn? Or after all the heroes have gone? What has the most balance? Which way allows for the fewest boring enemy card flips in a row? So far I've been doing it after all the heroes, but I wonder if it would work better after each (kind of like Gears of War).

(3) On that note, I'm working on the spawn cards right now. Similar to Zombicide, the level of monsters spawned ramp up as the game progressed (although it's based on a round timer, not on experience gained). Just trying to find the right amount of cards for the deck (a little one? A small one?). I was thinking dice, but that's TOO random. So do I just do 6 different cards so it's not as random and you know what's coming?

I think that's all my brain can hold for right now. I'm hoping to meet with my co-designer and artist next week and hopefully we'll get a little further. Summer should be a good time to get cracking on this game as well! My friend was asking me how long until this game would be ready and I figured 18-24 months. 9-12 to finish making it, 9-12 for playtesting and tweaking. I'm really not sure though, but, it's fun!