Hello! This is a process-book (or pagelet rather) of a game made for the final project of DIG2121 at UF, taught by Chelsea Rae. I led the development of the project for my group consisting of just me and two others: Jutin Verma and Kathryn Abad. In particular, I was the rule-maker for the game, while the others designed the cards for the game.
CONCEPT
The idea of the game was designed around a stack of played cards in the middle of a circle of players which effect all players equally. Instead of a laid-back vibe, I wanted to make a game where every player is at each others' throats constantly, hopefully making it so that there will be less friends leaving the room than there will be entering.
Pre-Production:
So, while drawing up the plans for the game, two other games had come to mind: Here to Slay, by Ramie Bady, and 100% Orange Juice, by... Orange_Juice, an independent game developer situated in Japan. Having unfortunately experienced these two games, I realized the one thing I needed to do in order to make this dream happen.
I needed to require player-player interaction.
To do this, I needed to make the win-conditions of the game reliant on interacting with the other players. Following this, I put in the order for four cards to my group members which the players needed to collect in order to win. These are the elemental cards below. The original methods for obtaining these cards were as follows:
* The Fire elemental card is obtained by dealing 15+ points of damage (cumulatively) to other players.
* The Water elemental card is obtained by possessing exactly three of all card types, elemental cards excluded.
* The Air element card is obtained by evading 10+ points of damage (Primarily obtained by other players failing the roll condition on attack cards).
* The Earth element card is obtained by weathering 15+ of damage.
Additionally, I had them create three types of cards: Attack Cards, Modifier Cards, and Event cards. All of these require a player to make a move on another player. Having attack cards inherently means that players need health, so I originally gave players 70 points of health. If they are slain, their attacker gets their elemental cards, which presented a new way to win - kill all of the other players. However, if a player managed to collect a good deal of attack cards, that would confer a lot of power onto just one player. Therefore, to balance it out, I implemented an unpatented game mechanic taken straight from 100% Orange Juice - the counter attack mechanic. If a player fails to meet a certain quota when rolling the dice, the person was attacked gets the chance to counter attack.
Modifier cards are the crux of the game. They effect all players on their turn with the effect the card states. This is how the aforementioned tower mechanic was implemented. The effects can be stacked, and they can completely and easily ruin one's plans. Knowing this led to the name of the game, Haywire Spire, where the stack (or splay rather) would be the so called "spire." Other considered names included "Tower of Woes", "Chaotic Spire", and "Tumultuous Tower." Really, it came down to the alliteration.
Finally, to make things personal, I implemented the event cards, which are sort of like modifier cards but they target one person in particular.
I also introduced the "alliance" mechanic, as humans being humans, we were naturally inclined to gang up on a player we don't like. Essentially, in an alliance all people congregate their hands, cumulatively get 1 whole turn, and can choose to pick up more cards than what they could before. For clarification, when it is your turn, you could A. play a card, B. pick up 3 cards, or (without consuming the turn) attempt to start or join an alliance. Additionally, all effects done on one player affects all players.
With that, we made proof-of-concept designs as shown below
Production:
As we moved on, we've felt that there could have been more cards involved, so we added or updated the cards seen above. Also, as we wanted to try and keep a consistence "black shape or outline" style, we redid the style / design of some of the cards to either be either black or to have a more compatible design instead.
The game was beta-tested and although participants were directed to "ruthlessly nitpick" with the final projects, we received some frighteningly positive feedback. I say frighteningly because A. we weren't expecting the reviews and B. if we don't have much to improve upon, we don't have much to show when it came time for our professor to progress check our assignment.
Regardless, with the feedback granted, I changed up the rules to make the winning more of an autonomous process as it turns out that forcing players to rely on other players to act upon them essentially placed all of the power on the actor. Also, there was way too many numbers to keep track of which led to a staggered experience for the players.
As such, these are part of the changes implemented to reflect what was criticized:
* The elemental cards had their requirements changed:
* The Air element card is obtained having at least 25 cards in your hand.
* The Earth element card for four consecutive turns, just pick up cards.
* The Fire elemental card is obtained by attacking players for four consecutive turns, counterattacks excluded.
* The Water elemental card is obtained by possessing exactly three of all card types, elemental cards excluded.
* Alternatively, do the same move as the previous player. If they play a card, they use the same type of card.
There's more changes of course, but those wouldn't be implemented until post-production.
In the previous form of this progress "book", this is where the current state of the game laid; pretty much done. I've added a new card which is essentially a miniature guide for the players (inspired by Here to Slay guide card).
I also planned on a radical overhaul to the card designs for a more "official" look, but this was be scrapped due to time concerns with my other group members. Additionally, we did receive positive feedback on the cards, so they called to keep the design and all things considered, I obliged. Below is one such overhaul of the attack card featuring a sword in a stone (values swapped with the attack card featuring an archer):
Post Production:
After a few more days working on the project, taking into account more considerations, we made some slight changes. For example, we finalized the rule book, adding three new additional sections on the spire in the middle, the alliance mechanic, and some card technicalities with situations that may prove confusing to the players.
Earlier I had mentioned that some of the changes due to the feedback during beta testing were only implemented during postproduction. While I imagine our professor would've liked these to occur during the production phase, we weren't exactly in a position where we were able to sit down and get the job done. So, with that said, here's all three of the other changes:
We altered the "Roll 2x" card as it had proved to be very unbalanced and boring once multiple "Roll 2x" cards were played. We altered it so that instead of each player rolling twice and tallying up their score (which as a reminder, can stack as a modifier card), we decided to have it so that the players roll once and then double that value. Additionally, we capped the card to only being able to appear once in the spire.
We added some text to the cards to help explain their function.
So all things considered, here's the updated card designs:
And that wraps up this project! It was actually a lot of fun working on it and it pleased me greatly to see my idea be a hit! In the future I may return to this project and see if I can get it off the ground, but for right now, it's done.
