Initial Concepts, Ideas and Development

Today we began our Board game project by deciding what important qualities the game needed to have in order to be successful. Instead of jumping right into a plot, we wanted to decide who the game was for, how old they were, how the rules would be presented, and the kind of style we wanted to create a game within. By the end of the afternoon we decided that the game would be;

• Aimed at families, with an age suggestion of 7 years +
• Have a Manual which has a brief history background
• Also have a Cheat Sheet which has a simple to follow list of rules and key information.
• Each 'chance' (the name will later be changed to something more suitable) card will have the plot change (eg; a member of your tribe has been captured) but will also have a snippet of history or trivia which will allow the game to be as complex and informative as the player want.
• We would like the game to have an educational element, but not make it too complex hence the information being an optional element to the game that the parents could discuss with their children for example. After all a good board game gives families an easy and enjoyable way to interact with each other giving a loose structure to their social time spent together.
• Another use of board games that we discussed was that they are used by parents or carers to 'occupy' children, so the game needs to be simple enough that after playing once or twice with an adult, they can play it by themselves.

Other topics we covered were;

• Looked at the game 'Cranium' in Langley's Games Shop in Norwich
  http://www.langleystoys.com/
• The printing options we have available to us at the College with regards to making game cards, the box cover and construction, making the manual into a working A6 booklet, and the board itself.
• We discussed favourite board games played when we were younger; trivial pursuit, 13 dead end drive, flux - their good and bad points were also discussed.
• Would the board be created as you played the game - so it was different every time, or would it be pre-determined. Something I plan to look up tonight is games which use both, and the game 'Labyrinth' which is a mix of both.
• We have initially decided on a theme of native indian tribes. Four tribes which will battle to complete the construction of their 'camp' before the other teams, this idea originated from wanting to have a game which used cards and also construction.
• Before we decided on the native indian theme we discussed a 'pokemon-like' board game which used cards to level up characters with different skills before a final battle between two players to decide the winner. This idea began to get far too complicated and we decided it would not be suitable for our age range, and not possible to successfully complete within the given time of 3 weeks! For this idea we considered building robots, or fantasy animals, or tribal factions.
• On our visit to Langley's I also looked at games such as Chalenj; http://www.chalenj.com/
• Top Trumps (for stats ideas and card-battle style games) http://www.toptrumps.com/
• Kaboodl Card Game for their simple designs of characters and game play; http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16860/kaboodl
• I looked at the card game 'Killer Bunnies' too which was exactly NOT what we wanted to do with our game which was to over complicate things unecessarily! http://killerbunnies.com/

We have decided to research tonight;

• Native Inidan Tribe terminology and history
• Indian Tribal Camps for ideas of what to include in your camp (eg what you will need to build)
• The style/topics of our chance cards
• The 'Plains' where the game might be set
• Flags for the 4 Tribes
• Make 2 initial chance cards, one positive, one negative.
• Look at tribal games such as 'Settlers', 'Populous', 'Black and White'
  thesettlers.uk.ubi.com, popre.net, lionhead.com/bw2

The initial names for the four tribes are as follows; OLD CROW, CRAZY HORSE, SITTING BULL, WILD TURKEY. I will do some thumbnail sketches for each style the tribes could have including a colour assigned to each (red blue green yellow).


Chance Cards - Initial Ideas

After looking at these two websites;

http://pbskids.org/stantonanthony/nativeam_boy_1a.html

http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/plains/teepees.html

I have decided my negative chance card could read:

"YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH HIDES TO TRADE FOR TEEPEE POLES; YOU CANNOT BUILD FOR ONE TURN"

~
and my positive chance card could read:

"YOUR TRIBES CHIEF LIKES THE PAINTINGS YOU DECORATED YOUR TEEPEE WITH, PROGRESS ANOTHER SPACE"

Initial Prototype BoardGame

My initial board - with howler squares and enemy squares!