Making Hunt for the Dagger

So in an earlier post (found here: Post) I mentioned that the first assignment given to us in Game Design was to make a Race to the End board game. Sounds super easy right? Wrong it was actually a lot harder than it seemed, and a quite a bit of work. I couldn't just rush into making my game (like my Nuclear Engineering friend seemed to think, what a silly guy), I needed to plan it out. Since the goal was to make a race to the end game I first started by looking at some of the race to end board games I've played over my 20 years of existence. I looked at what made them fun to play and what drove me crazy about them.

After i figured out a few things that I use to hate as a kid (like having to spin a spinner to be able to move your pieces and that blasted contraption that you need to press to determine what number the dice lands on in trouble, I mean come on it takes forever just to roll a bloody six that way!!)

For anyone who isn't familiar with the game trouble here is a quick picture of what the game board looks like (Trust me that stupid dice contraption will drive you absolutely crazy while playing, its a fun game don't get me wrong just that contraption...ugh):

picture source: Here

After figuring out some of the things that I definitely wanted to avoid when making my board game, I sat down and decided what type of theme I wanted for my game. This was a little difficult because I had originally wanted to make a game based on what my interests are (I mean its not going to be a very fun assignment if you choose to make a game on something you hate or have no interest in right?), but the problem was I had so many ideas and couldn't decide which one I liked best. While trying to decide what my game's theme is I was playing two games; Assassin's Creed in my Nuclear Engineering friend's dorm room (yes the one that kept distracting me while i was designing after I decided on the theme of the game, I'll explain a little more in detail later on) and Uncharted with my brother at home. Now in both games I was required to go on numerous quests and missions, some in which I needed to search for something or someone, which I had casually made a comment about wishing I could be a treasure hunter or something similar, and then it hit me, why not make my game about treasure hunting!

 After deciding my theme I quickly wrote out some info on my game like the theme, number of players,etc and drew a quick rough sketch of what I wanted my board to look like.

When drawing out my board, I tried to imagine a way to make the board itself more interesting than just a simple path the players must follow. I quickly looked back at all my books, comics, movies and games that had anything to do with treasure hunting or exploring temples/ caves in general to develop an idea. While going through my research material I thought of adding in obstacles like spike pits or traps to make the game a little more challenging, but just placing these throughout the board seemed to generic and making them only happen when you draw a certain card seemed to played out.

Thinking about it for a while, I finally decided to combine both ways but put a bit of a twist on it. I divided the board up into 3 sections, and made it so that players needed to pass a certain requirement to pass over the two physical obstacles in order to make it to the next section of the board. In addition, I added specific squares that would force the players to draw trap cards when they are landed on, but there's a catch to these traps. I designed it so that not all the trap cards interfere with the player's progress throughout the board, but can actually help you move forward or screw over your oppenent (while designing these traps my nuclear engineering friend kept yelling out suggestions based on the Indiana Jones movies which was so distracting).

The trick about the trap cards is that there are not equal numbers of each card so players have no idea whether their next trap card could help or ruin them:

While designing my board game i decided that there would be more than two types of squares, each square would have a specific purpose, from helping players travel throughout the board, to activating the traps and challennges designed to keep the game from being to easy.

One of the last things I finished when designing my game was the rules, when I first came up with the game rules I realized many of them would be too difficult or complicated to remmeber. I reworked my rules numerous times to try and make them easy to remember and appropriate for the gameplay.

For anyone interested in the rules and basic information on my game, Hunt for the Dagger, you can find it below:

Game Type: Race to the End

Theme: Treasure Hunters

Game Tittle: Hunt for the Dagger

#of players: 2-4 players

Goal: To reach the dagger first
    -> Players will play as Treasure Hunters racing to be the first one to get to the Diamond Dagger, the owner of the dagger is granted the tittle; King of Thieves.

GENERAL RULES:

·        To determine which player starts, players must roll the dice to determine who gets the highest score. The order of turns is dependent on the scores from highest to lowest.

·        To leave the dock (the start point) players must roll double 6’s. If a player does not roll double 6’s after 3 turns, they’re next roll must be a score of 5 or higher to leave the dock.

·        If players are forced to return to the start, they must roll a score of 6 or higher to return to the game.

·        Once players leave the dock they must wait for their next turn to progress along the board.

·        If double 1’s (snake eyes) are rolled, player misses a turn.

·        If two players land on the same square, they must draw a weapon card. The player with the higher ranked weapon card kills the other player. The other player must return to the last checkpoint or the start. In the case the players both draw the same ranked weapon; players must shuffle the cards back into the desk and redraw until a victor.

CHECKPOINT RULES:

·        There are three checkpoints on the board, each pertaining to a different section. Players must pass by each checkpoint in order to be able to return to a checkpoint if prompted during gameplay. Exception applies to players who by passed a checkpoint using a trap door, that player will not be able to return to the checkpoint they by passed and must return to the previous checkpoint regardless of where it is on the map. Should no checkpoint be passed, players must return to start if prompted to return to a checkpoint.

·        To leave checkpoints, players must roll a score of 10 or higher. If a player does not roll a score of 10 or higher after 2 turns, they may leave the checkpoint but miss a turn.

SQUARE RULES:

·        Blue Squares: These squares are safe points; however traps can be placed on these squares only if a player draws that trap card.

·        Red Squares: These squares are trap card points; Players must draw a trap card if they land on this square, and follow the instructions on the card. The card must be reshuffled into the desk after use.

·        Purple Squares: These squares are trap door points; Players can travel through trap doors only if they land on this square. Players can travel both forwards and backwards on the board through these points and must travel to the corresponding door regardless of the direction. The players can only travel through the corresponding door in each section of the board; there are 2 per section.

·        Green Squares: These squares are event/ effect squares; players must follow the instructions on the squares.

·        Grey Squares: These squares are condition squares; players must follow the instructions on the squares and meet a certain condition to proceed past these squares to the corresponding square.

MY THOUGHTS:

This assignment was quite an interesting and fun experience that taught me just some of the challenges designers face when developing a simple race to the end board game. As designers you need to truely understand what mechanics can make or break a game, and how they need to be integrated into the design to make them work with your game. You need to be able to see how the incorporation of mechanics, themes, and other aspects of the game and how the players will react to them. I feel this was an awesonme learning experience, and i've learned a lot about designing my games and how my creative process works.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT: