Far from Home is a two player war game in space. It pits two capital ships fighting for their lives. It plays in less than 1 hour. It is easy enough for a seven year old to understand (my 7 year old plays with me).
This game is being designed to fill a niche in the scifi war games genre. It was originally designed to fit on a post card, pieces and map.The rules were design to fit on the back of that post card. Play testing changed that. I found that the game started expanding as I found that options could be included without complicating the game. So I started adding options such as: tech tree, double sided ships pieces to indicate hull strength, a Laser Cannon rule, and a new ship called the Defense Coordinator which plays a very special strategic roll.
These options, and more, required a larger rule book, the rules no longer fitting on the back of the post card. The game was also not fun to play at that size, the pieces being too small thus reducing the immersion factor. The map is now an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. The pieces and tech tree also fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. The rules take of 5 pages, the first of which is the back story and intro to the game.
I am current fleshing out the tech tree. The difficulty is in justifying its existence. The few upgrades there really compliment the game and provide important opportunities when deciding where to spend precious resources. The upgrades can do great good to your overall attack strength. The problem is that there are only 6 upgrades spread across the four ship types.
My next step in game development is to stress test the tech tree and see if some technologies can be modified or add upon to justify the spending of action points.
