December 18, 2009

Game Over

So the mod project I mentioned before is over and all the work is done. It turned out alright, I was trying to take advantage of this situation to learn as much as I could about designing an interesting play experience, which I think I achieved for the most part.

My game is called 'Evicted' because you play as one of the 4 races that have been evicted from the land by the gods because they have become too much of a hassle to deal with. So they are ordered to pack up their things and leave the land. By pack up their things, I mean move all their land into their ships.

Each race is designed to be distinctly different from each other.




The four ships are meant to be pieced together by the players
so that when they are stood up they aren't completely flat.

These are the docks that connect to the main board.
It's the starting area for the players and where they have to bring their land in order to score.
The players slip their boats into that white sliver (area that is cut out in the actual piece) so that it stands upright.

I had turned the idea that Small World was a land into a literal land grab game, in which players need to pieces of land to their ships in order to win. There are 5 different types of land: lakes, swamps, hills, mountains, and forests. On the back of each tile is a number, this number has to deal with how much points the player receives. The cool thing, I think, that emerges is how the map begins to change it's shape and turn into a maze as the game progresses, due to the land being taken by each player.



The winning condition is an odd one, it was inspired by the game Tigris and Euphrates. The winner is decided not by who has the most land by the end, but by who has the most points in their lowest category of land. This means players can't go grab any piece of land, they have to think about which type of land they are in need for to win. The game ends when all the land is gone.


Some other pictures and progress of my designs


Character portraits


Some silhouettes for the final unit pieces.


An example of the process in designing the land tiles


This was what the land was originally going to look like.
9x9 squares with a special zone in which players pick up their victory points


These are some initial sketches for the Elves in an earlier version of the game
that had different types of units with abilities


An early Illustration of the elves.


Originally I was going to have Undead units, but to me it didn't make sense in terms of the back story. The Undead seem like the type that would be more worried about gathering other people as food than gathering land.