Starting an Idea
With most projects I either start with an idea for a theme or a mechanic I want to try. For Sky Ships of Albrexis (working title) I started with a mechanic.
Before the project started I had an idea for representing a board game version of Pokemon Go. I thought if you were to make a board game out of a video game where you actually move that there had to be movement in the game. So I started working on a mechanic that would simulate this process.
The mechanic that I came up with is having eight cards in a circle in the center of the table. They would look like a cog with the tops of the cards on the inside of the circle. As I worked on this idea I also, like most designers, worked on other designs. At the start of this project I came up with the idea for Witch Slapped. The parts for that game fell into place faster and the playtesting for it went smoothly. We brought it to other designer friends and tried it at some major cons. It was a success and so became our next Kickstarter (it was successful feel free to check it out).
So my movement mechanic fell by the wayside like projects do. As I started my next design, which we will call Hero, I got stuck. As I looked back through my notes and google docs I found a sketch of eight cards laid out in the shape of a cog.
In looking at the sketch my mind tried to figure out the movement of the players around the cards. How would movement be decided, when would people move, and what would the benefit of moving be? What I cam up with is this. There is a deck of movement cards with arrows pointing the direction the markers will move. Also on the movement cards is how many people move when the card is played. The number of players moved could be 1, 2, or all. If it is one only you move. If two people move it is the current player and one player of the current players choice. Obviously if it is all move everyone moves. Finally the benefit of moving is resources. The resources would be used for something to be determined later. How people choose their movement is that there will be four cards turned face up from the movement deck. The player chooses one of the four cards and replaces one of the cards in the circle of eight. The only rule is that you cannot land on a card you are adding to the circle. Once chosen everyone who can move will do so and then collect the resources shown on the card they land on.
This was my initial mechanic Idea and the start of a long process.
Bill Sininger
Prolific Games
