Fantasy Grid Game

Looking good, love the theme so far Ryan,

First problem of designing a game: Design the game! hehe - I am in the same position myself. starting with a chessboard is a good start, but remember that this does NOT restrict you to traditional chess style functions.

On very initial thoughts, I would probably try (first of all) with rotation on the chessboard? Perhaps each piece has a "facing" and can only interact with things directly in front of it. This would enable each portion of the overall quest "eg Speak to the druid to find out about youreself" to involve a puzzle mechanic, say if you were the Rogue, you could only move in a described set of patterns (perhaps a traditional knight like L but with a 90degree facing turn at the end) in which case players would need to puzzle about how to get to the best place with as few moves as possible - this would be made even more complex with other players charactes moving as well. sets of characters would do well to want to seek eachother out - making two players co-operate in meeting on the board - perhaps there's a good base to start from?

What I would also say in fitting with your theme is to name each character giving an even more fitting theme to each of them eg:

The Paladin "Sebastian the Saviour"
The Wizard "The Dread Merciless"
The Cleric "Lady Prudence Blessed"

-You would need to spend a while refining them but you get the idea :)

With the above, if the theme is not obviously tied in with religion you may well attract a larger part of the "hardcore" gaming community. I have a friend that sniffs his nose at any game with abrahamic religious references. But at the same time, tenants, charity, justice. forgiveness etc are all very good tried and tested thematic elements so do make the most of them.

Hope I've helped,

Cog

Spot on, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I think you should really make the most of the ideals you gave. Truth, justice etc - make it obvious that each avatar is a manifestation of each of these philosophies - I think that would make for a very interesting game as well.

Each character must be rewarded when it is played correctly as well. If you play as "Freedom" or "The Warrior: Arthur of the Keys" then you must make sure that freeing people from bonds or very awkward sticky positional situations within the game, that he must be duely rewarded.

Likewise for the desctructor and the healer - make it intrinsically part of the whole game experience that you MUST embody your avatar in order to "win" (as in, have the "winning" feeling, not necasarrliy win vs lose as you previously said)

Interesting idea just occured: how about having each player have to rotate in avatars throughout the game? Turn 1 I am Peace and you are War, turn 2 you are war and I am peace - this doesn't then harbour any kind of "I only like playing "Evil" because I can blow stuff up and I only like doing that" and will make players have to realise that their avatar is different every turn to allow them to understand the differences in the underpinning principles.

It would make for a very interesting game, and also it would be relatively easy to engineer a game ending situation where everyone does not either win or lose. Perhaps this game "Charity" wins, next game "Suffering" wins - would be interesting to balance the "win points" but sounds like it could be a cool idea :o)

Levi you're such a damned pro :P

looks ace mate :)

You mentioned on the image page about adding walls. I think this is a great idea and another feature that can be bypassed / altered by the players.

The issue with shifting goals you have to be careful with is that the game doesn't seem like it will go on forever with people changing characters. A great example of this is Smallword. This is a game that makes you change your civ as you go, but rewards you for intelligent / strategic play from one civ to the next. If you haven't seen it, check it out it will likely inspire you in this area.