After my first card game, I was so excited to apply all of the development knowledge I gained onto my second game. But I’ll say, the process of building a board game is LONG, especially while holding a full time job.
The past year has been rolling ideas around in my head and spitting out ideas to my friends for different games I could possibly make. I now have a list of SO MANY games I want to make but I can’t focus my energy on all of them right now.
Board Game Mechanics
My current project has evolved so much already, even before hitting the prototype stage of the design process. The game has a placeholder name of “MisPlaced”. My goal is to build an asymmetrical worker placement game set in outer space. Of course “space” is such a general theme, but I want the players to act as factions from different planets, all with different play styles and goals. Though being very early in the process, all of this is up in the air. Worker placement? No question I want that in this game. Asymmetrical? I need it in this game (love the mechanic). But the question is to what degree will the game be asymmetrical. “Space” is a really solid background for building a melting pot of different cultures all interacting together but I am open to more ideas.
World Building Development
The theme is the part with the most initial development in the ideation phase. The project started out based around the idea that the planets of each faction were dying, and you needed oxygen each turn to keep your workers alive. Still a super interesting idea I think, but I realized that I didn’t want to bog the players down with the worry of a negative game mechanic. When oxygen is built in the game to where something bad happens when you have too little, that makes the game more player versus board, when I really want the players to focus on being rewarded for their strategic minds.
As the idea has evolved more in my head, the most exciting part of ideation has been creating different faction ideas. I have so many faction ideas that I already want to use in the base game. The only journey now is to decide what is balanced in the base game, and how they play differently. Will there be a faction with many multiplying goop creatures? How about a sentient fungal humanoid society? Or perhaps a faction of an ancient golem race thought to be extinct?
There are so many directions this project can go and I am excited to see where the story takes me. If any of this interests you, please join the journey by joining the mailing list or following me on Instagram.
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