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Strategy Board Game Idea: Would Love Help :3

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Rangerlab
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Joined: 11/10/2015
Ranger's Game Board

Hey guys, so I had an idea for a strategy board game, and was just looking for advice. It's a two player game, taking place on a hex grid (shown above). Each player controls 3 "champions" with unique stats and abilities. The goal is to control all 7 control points (one for every hex). Controlling the points gives resources (gold and mana), which is used to buy equipment and crystals. These can be combined with others to purchase better equipment/crystals (almost like a crafting system).

The turn structure works in "rotations," which consist of 2 turns: A Movement turn and a Combat turn. During the combat turn, each player takes turns moving their champions (they can move all 3 at once). In the combat turn, players take turns deciding who to attack with their basic attack.

Champion cards have an attack stat, a movement stat, a passive ability and two active abilities. All champions have 20 health. Abilities can be cast at any time, and can be cast "in response." If multiple abilities are cast at once, they occur in order, last to first. For example, if one champion is targeting another with a damage spell, a player can decide to dodge it with a movement ability, and the movement casts first.

Champions can move as many tiles as they have movement. A champion with 5 movement can move 5 tiles. Some abilities allow the champions to jump over other champions, or dash forwards in a direction. If a champion is "out of combat," they may have double their movement. Being in combat is defined as not to have taken damage or given damage, as well as not being targeted by a legitimate ability or attack last rotation (a melee champion can't try and target another champion from across the map and having it put them "in combat").

If a Champion's health drops below zero, they die. Their piece is removed from the board, and the player adds one to their respawn dice (starts at zero). They then add X respawn counters to their fallen champion, where X is their respawn dice. Every rotation, you remove one of the respawn counters. Once a champion does not have any respawn counters on them, they are respawned and placed in your team's respawn zone.

During the game, there is a shop where players can buy equipment and crystals from. Ten cards are drawn from the deck, and are placed face up. During their Movement turn (I might just make a Shop turn, later), players may buy the cards from the shop with their gold/mana. At the end of rotation, the shop is filled up again. If the shop is full, the last two cards drawn are placed back into the deck, at the bottom.

Equipment may be attached to champions to give them stat boosts and a passive effect. Champions may only have one equipment at a time, and if new equipment is added, the old has to be discarded. Crystals give an active effect, and can be used at any time. Once a crystal has been used, it can't be used until it is recharged with it's mana cost.

In reference to the board, the black crossed out tiles are walls, which can't be jumped over, moved through or target through. The colored crossed out hexagons are respawn zones. The colored hexagons in the center of each hex is a control point, which each give a certain resource at the start of every rotation. Purple gives Mana, Yellow gives gold, Red/Blue/Pink give both. Champions can't enter the enemies hex until they control all other points. A control point is captured when there are two allied champions inside it at the end of rotation. If an enemy champion is also in the point, it cannot be captured. Once a point is captured, it cannot be recaptured for one rotation.

Thanks for reading through all of that, lol. I'd like to sell it as a single box, containing all equipment/crystals and champions, and have themed expansions come along later (like a steampunk one or a jungle themed). It's very heavily inspired by MOBAs (Multiplayer Online battle Arenas) like League, and has a heavy focus on movement. Many of the champions has a movement ability or something that modifies movement. Hopefully in the next month or two I can finish the cards and do some extensive playtesting (I've only played a few rotations with friends at school or with my brother).

Any advice would be great, of course, as well as opinions. Thanks guys!

jrc5639
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Joined: 11/19/2013
Good

Mechanically, the game can be made to work and there is no problem with that.

I suggest going one of two ways with it. Either focus on making each fighter very unique to play or make it a game of fine tuning abilities. Where players try to get the perfect combination of powers.

Unfortunately, I probably will not be much help as I never got very far with these type of designs. However I always felt that it would be cool if somehow the champions had secret weaknesses that players could uncover.

Just some thoughts

Rangerlab
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Joined: 11/10/2015
Rock Paper Scissor weakness system?

Interesting. I've been having some thoughts of a rock paper scissors system, almost. If you've ever played Runescape 3, (post-evolution of combat), it's pretty much that. Melee > Ranged > Magic. My only problem with that is that it forces a Melee/Ranged/Magic team, instead of having nontraditional teams be viable. Maybe if there were only 2 Champions or 4, it could work but that messes with other parts of the game. Could be interesting though.

ElKobold
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Joined: 04/10/2015
I'm in process of making my

I'm in the process of making my own MOBA style game which is nearing it's completion.

1) To demonstrate the first advise I have regarding your concept, I`d like to show you two images.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/nichik/Guards%20of%20Atlantis/fir...
- this is the very first game board I've tried to test my design with.

Probably the first problem I've faced during the initial play-testing - each game started with walking towards the opponent, which took a number of turns and made everybody bored. You probably want to avoid that :)

First thing which I did to solve it (conveniently, the map had areas on it already (they are used for minion/creep movement)) - I've added area movement for the heroes as well (heroes can use area movement if there are no enemy units in the same area).

Second thing which I did, was to make the map smaller. It was a hard decision (with MOBAs expected to have multiple lanes and stuff), but it had to be done.
Now the action starts couple of minutes into the game.

This is the final map (after few iterations) -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/nichik/Guards%20of%20Atlantis/map...

2)
I had re-spawn mechanics and cool-down as well. Dropped it after a number of tests. Admittedly, your design (being a 2 player game) doesn't suffer from this as much as mine, which is team-based - i.e. 1 player = 1 hero.

Still, what happens if all 3 of your champions are dead and on cool-down? Do you just sit there and wait, while your opponent is playing? This makes players unhappy very fast.

3) Is it always I go - You go? If so, it will be literally impossible for the 1st player's champions to catch the 2nd player's champions if you have movement and attacking separated. I.e.: you go first and approach me. I go second and run away, or worse - i move next to one of your champions with two of mine. Either way, your attack is wasted. Always going second in this situation is a huge advantage.
How exactly you plan the turn order to work?

4) Keeping track of 20 lives is annoying even in Magic the Gathering. Keeping track of 20 lives of 3 different champions... I don't know...
I suggest you lower the values, so that using tokens becomes viable.
In my own design I don't track health at all. You either die from the attack, or you don't.

5) Have you tried a raw prototype of this? How long one 'rotation' takes? How many 'rotations' does one game last?

Good luck with your design! Hope this was helpful.

Rangerlab
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Joined: 11/10/2015
Thanks for the suggestions

Thanks for the input. I love the style and art of that latest map by the way. I'll address each topic as numbered

1) even early on I had the same problem. That's why I have the double movement out of combat, though admittedly, the map could be smaller, or an increase in movement stats. I'd like to keep the 7 hex shape if at all possible, though.

2) Hadn't thought about that, actually. Maybe as a reward, the player who lost their champion would have to pay the other? Would set them back, but might frustrate some.

3) part of why abilities can be cast at any time is that players can use their movement ability to catch up, or stop them with a stun/snare. It forces the choice "do I want the kill or should I save it as a counter?" Though the second player does always have the advantage. Maybe a solution could be to have players taking turns moving single Champions during the movement turn, and it ends once all Champions have had a move turn (for example, I'd move one, you'd move one, I'd move, you move, I move, you move, end of movement turn) the second player would still have an advantage, but I believe it'd be a lot less profound.

4) what if d20s were included in the box? I currently use 4 d20s and 4 d10s to track health (I don't have 6 d20s) and it seems to work. I imagine there not very expensive to produce, though if I go through a publisher I assume I won't have much control over that.

5) I have yet to get through an entire game yet, mostly early stages and the economics are completely untested. I've tried having play test parties, and people get distracted or the bump the board (currently a piece of paper) and our game pieces (risk soldiers) get knocked over. Any advice for this?

ElKobold
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Rangerlab wrote: I love the

Rangerlab wrote:
I love the style and art of that latest map by the way.

Thanks :) You can check-out the bgg page if interested - http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172965/guards-atlantis

Rangerlab wrote:

1) even early on I had the same problem. That's why I have the double movement out of combat, though admittedly, the map could be smaller, or an increase in movement stats. I'd like to keep the 7 hex shape if at all possible, though.

There's no problem with using the modular board, as long as the number of hexes fits the average movement values in a way that you have as few 'nothing happens, except movement' turns as possible.

Rangerlab wrote:

2) Hadn't thought about that, actually. Maybe as a reward, the player who lost their champion would have to pay the other? Would set them back, but might frustrate some.

But do you need to? Technically you can simply grant the winner additional gold and force the loser to respawn immediately.
The winner will be happy, while the loser will be less frustrated.

Quote:

3) Maybe a solution could be to have players taking turns moving single Champions during the movement turn, and it ends once all Champions have had a move turn (for example, I'd move one, you'd move one, I'd move, you move, I move, you move, end of movement turn) the second player would still have an advantage, but I believe it'd be a lot less profound.

I think this is a good way to go since it also lowers the downtime for the other player. You only need to wait for the opponent to make a single move and then you get to act again. I suggest you test this.

Quote:

4) what if d20s were included in the box? I currently use 4 d20s and 4 d10s to track health (I don't have 6 d20s) and it seems to work. I imagine there not very expensive to produce, though if I go through a publisher I assume I won't have much control over that.

They aren't expensive. You do still need to keep track though. Which can be annoying for some people. Plus - do you really need to have those high HP values (especially if you won't have the respawn cooldown)?

Quote:

5) I have yet to get through an entire game yet, mostly early stages and the economics are completely untested.

The very first test you should do is to play against yourself. Then check how long did it take. Managing game length is one of the biggest challenges in boardgame design in my experience.

Quote:

I've tried having play test parties, and people get distracted

Well, you should try to find a couple of people who are interested specifically in testing your designs. Play test parties work better with near-completed games ;)
Because playtesting is rarely 'fun' the first couple of runs, with the need to constantly change things etc.

Quote:

or the bump the board (currently a piece of paper) and our game pieces (risk soldiers) get knocked over. Any advice for this?

The easiest/cheapest thing to do would be to glue the paper to thick cardboard. It helps.

Good luck!

Rangerlab
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Joined: 11/10/2015
Revelation About Health

I actually had an idea last night. What if they all had 3 health, and all dealt 1 damage? Any damage abilities deal 1 damage, and of course no one champion has 2 damage abilities. My only problem is that it makes equipment almost obsolete, and kind of forces a player to take a healer. Maybe could balance that out with more shield/aoe supports?

Maybe for equipment, the store is full of materials, which are combined to actual equipment which give a passive ability rather that a bonus. This would also apply to crystals. I wouldn't want a list of craftable cards though.
Also, a simple reward for a kill is probably best.

Also,

Rangerlab wrote:
I imagine there not very expensive to produce

Sorry, wrong form of they're >.<

ElKobold
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Rangerlab wrote:I actually

Rangerlab wrote:
I actually had an idea last night. What if they all had 3 health, and all dealt 1 damage? Any damage abilities deal 1 damage, and of course no one champion has 2 damage abilities. My only problem is that it makes equipment almost obsolete, and kind of forces a player to take a healer. Maybe could balance that out with more shield/aoe supports?

There are numerous ways how you can do it.
Health bars are ok, I only suggested to lower the numbers, for easier maintenance. It can be 4-5 HP per hero, marked with tokens, for example. You lose HP - you discard a token. Easier to manage.

You can try something less common. For example: each hero might have armor value. If he is hit with an attack with value < than his armor, he is wounded -> his card is flipped on the other side, or turned 90 degrees etc.
If he is hit with an attack with value > than his armor, he is instakilled.
That way you can have wide range of attack/armor values, while not bothering about keeping track, since you only have two states. Also healing would work - it would simply reset the hero card.
You can modify attack/armor with card plays or dicerolls or leave it static.

This is from the top of my head - there are tonns of options.

Quote:

Maybe for equipment, the store is full of materials, which are combined to actual equipment which give a passive ability rather that a bonus. This would also apply to crystals. I wouldn't want a list of craftable cards though.
Also, a simple reward for a kill is probably best.

Crafting could be fun. I would rather not sell materials in the store though. Instead, I would sell 'scematics'. So that you have to pick-up materials on the map and bring them to the store, to build an item.

Rangerlab wrote:
Sorry, wrong form of they're >.<

Aye, thx :) English is not my native language. I do miss those every now and then. Sorry.

Rangerlab
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Next Big Problem is Naming

Lol, no worries. It was my mistake, actually. Your English is great, by the way, I couldn't tell that it's not your first language.

So I settled on doing a 3 life system, I feel as though that fit best. I'll need to go back and rebalance the champions, but I think I'll be able to do a basic playtest in the next day or so.

So, my other big problem is picking a name. I've anyways been bad at picking names, and I don't really don't know what to do. I think I'd like to add the subtitle "The Eternal Tournament," to fit with the theme, but I don't really know where to go from there.

ElKobold
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Well, unless you're going to

Well, unless you're going to KS or something, don't bother with the name. Publisher will likely change it anyway.

For me it was somewhat easier - the name already existed before I've joined the project and had nothing to do with the game itself - rather with the setting.

I've used to call the prototype 'Tabletop Dota' while playtesting, cuz the 'real' name seemed too long.

Then it was decided that we want to highlight that moba connection in the name and ended up with "Guards of Atlantis: Tabletop MOBA".

Eternal Tournament reminds me of Mortal Kombat though :)

gilamonster
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Joined: 08/21/2015
I know you've already desided

I know you've already desided on 3 HP per hero, but I really think it would be worth considering increasing this to 6 - this will allow some variation in attack strengths, while still not being unwieldy (you can then use either ordinary D6s or tokens as Elkobold suggests or a sliding marker/token on a HP bar).

Regarding the title, the game revolves around the seven control points, so call it something with "seven" in the title. Maybe "The seven shrines of Gragilnaur" or something along those lines. This has the added advantage that 7 is a so-called "magic number" in storytelling (that is it sounds magic; personally I don't buy into numerology). Hence "the Seven Seekers", "Snow white and the seven dwarves", "seven stars and seven stones and one white tree" - you get the picture. I would try to give it a good provisional name; even if the publisher doesn't use it, it can help you keep focussed on what your game is about, and maybe even persuade a few potential playtesters to try it.

Rangerlab
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Testing Both, and Trouble With 7.

Thanks for your feedback! I might actually test both the 3 hp and a 6 hp systems side by side. The reason I have it set to 3 at the moment is because a champion can only deal 2 damage a rotation max. I believe it creates a sort of risk for the players to face. They can either focus a champion and risk losing their movement ability or play it safe and lose the kill. I'm hoping this will put more power into positioning. Of course, hope is the keyword. I still need to do some intensive playtests, lol.

On the topic of names, I like the idea of using 7, but I'm not sure how I can incorporate 7 in the title. I was thinking the back story was a sort of interuniversal arena, where the best warriors are brought to after they die, and fight in the arena. I'll keep working on it though.

Again, thanks for the help guys. I'm working on getting a lot more of the cards printed so playtesters can actually see what their card does (my handwriting is horrible ;-;).

Midnight_Carnival
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back to rock, paper, scisors

I'm considering and working on a game idea with similar system(?) my initial idea was for a game where heroes, items and attacks featured a degree of affiliation to one or more of the five Chinese elements. The weakness and strengths would come from an interplay between the elements, so that heroes would suffer penalties for using items or magic from an element less friendly to their own elemental affinity. they could also take more or less damage from attacks depending on affinities.

I personally think "ranged, melee and magical" are a little simplistic and possibly limiting but the basic "rock, paper, scissors" mechanics seems like a good idea for your game because it eliminates the "this one is the best" dynamic, it makes for variable and strategic game play and can tie in with the board itself.
If you used "ranged, melee and magical" then ranged attacks could effect a hero on further square? If you are only going to use 3 "elements" I'd suggest that each hero has the option of 2 attacks, perhaps 1 strong and 1 weak.

Rangerlab
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Problems With RPS in My Game.

I did like the Rock, Paper, Scissors idea for a bit, but I'm afraid that it will limit player's choice of champion. Quickly, players would find it's generally best to go with a Melee, a Ranged and a Magic champion, rather than anything else being viable.

Also, Ranged and Magic champions can attack from a multiple tiles away, but Ranged has a farther distance, and Mages tend to have more useful/powerful abilities. Each champion has their attack and a damage ability, so they can do up to two damage every turn, for up to six damage per team.

I like your idea, and I think with 5 elements you'd get the kind of play you're looking for. Do you control your heroes from the beginning or summon them like creatures in MTG?

Midnight_Carnival
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probably control at least 1

I've been developing another game further and I tried it out without having any heroes (equivelent), even if you make lots of consessions to make it easy for players to get a hero out asap, the game play is slow and there isn't much enjoyment in the early turns.

Obviously my game is different to yours, but they are both games in which you need to capture territory and have guys who fight for you with different properties, etc.
Consider:

- if there is any element of chance in summoning a hero (having to roll something on dice, having to draw the right card, having to collect enough resources via randomised means, etc...) you risk a situation where 1 player is sitting with no heroes and virtually out of the game until they start, whereupon they are at a major disadvantage.

- you have to capture territories, if you have some way to do so without heroes, well and good, if not then the game only effectively starts when you get your first hero.

- as abstracted as it is, such strategy games are a simulation of war, you don't go to war with somebody without at least 1 soldier! Starting with a hero invites players to personalise that hero and kind of role play as the hero - pesonally I don't see the advantage of this, but it is like letting people collect a whole pile of little shiny tokens, it appeals to something in human nature.

Summoning heroes after you have 1 like in MTG or otherwise is fun, adding a random element to the heor you summon could make the game more interesting 9or furstrating) but I reccomend you start the game with at least 1 hero. Remember that in MTG there is no board and the units gain no advantage from position.

stoneagewar3
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Joined: 11/22/2015
I am working on a MOBA type

I am working on a MOBA type game right now, and I'd say just give a big penalty for death, and have the Hero rez the next time it comes around to his turn. What this does is that getting Killed can actually be used as a tactical move sometimes (need to get back to tower immediately? just find a way to get killed, and you'll be able to defend the tower. yes, the penalty hurts bad, but it sometimes would be worse to walk your way back while your opponenet knock on the tower)

I find it important from earlier playtests that the beginning of the game is the worst, as both teams are trying to move in on the other or looking for better positions to strike at the other. This early phase phase of the game can be suspenseful if both teams are good players as a mistake in positioning can lead to getting killed from full health before your next turn swings by. But for the guys that haven't tried the game before, this phase was too slow, and they wished that it could be sped up.

Obviously my game isn't too heavily focused on getting control points, but looking at that map, I can tell you that its too large if Movement of 5 is considered average, you'd need an average of 7-8 for the game to go at a decent pace, what I would do is shrink the map size down by a ton, and make the average speed something like 3-4, this will also allow for good tactical decisions and making how you position your units something important

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