Designing for well worn themes

The way to really standout from the crowd is to take the theme and find a new way to experience it. That's what Magic did. It took Dungeons and Dragons (which was tired in the 90's) and created a new way of "feeling" like you were casting spells, fighting battles and slaying monsters.

The question should be: How do you bring the player closer to the Zombie?

Hey Cape!

I'm constantly thinking about this (and marketability in general) and have a zombie game on the back burner. Really I guess the passion for my zombie game is fueled by looking at the competition (Zombies, Mall of Horror, Last Night on Earth, all the PnP games) and saying what you like about them, and what you think is missing. Then do you damnedest making the best game that fills in that gap *you* percieve. Chances are others see it too.

When LNoE first came out and the glowing reviews started flowing, my first reactionw as to become disheartened. "Geez, this game's coming out and the more I hear about it, the more I think my game won't stand a chance" Then I read the rules and start seeing some ho hum reports. Turns out this game ISNT the be all, end all zombie game. Not even close! But they DID use one of my ideas of scenarios in a zombie game. Sure, not the most inspired idea, but it was an area I felt was underutilized as a selling feature for a great zombie game. And besides, *my* scenario idea is WAY better than what they did ;) Well, it is different!

Really though, if you think Descent is the most amazing dungeon crawl ever or Twilight Imperium couldnt be topped as a Sci Fi 4x then why WOULD you start creating a game in either genre? Only when you get fired up will you really set yourself apart in these often used genres. There are tons of angles to take as you cross genres and mechanics, settings and designs and I think you should never back down from making THE GREATEST ZOMBIE GAME YET, cuz honestly, it hasnt been made yet and *I* am dying to play it.

-Jon

There will never be "too many" zombie games. Imagination and human creativity allow for an unlimited number of same-themed games. Furthermore, not everyone who is a zombie game fan will have necessarily played a given zombie game, though they might end up trying your zombie game.

Make the player the zombie.

Zombie Wars: http://www.invisible-city.com/play/446/zombie-wars

I didn't mean to be too hard on Prophecy. I think it accomplishes what it's supposed to do and scratches that adventure/rpg itch. Not to go into a full-on review of it, but I look at it like a spiritual successor to Talisman. Bringing some of the mechanics into modern gaming (movement, character development, and which encounters to tackle being totally under the player's control, for example) but still with potentially game-swinging random factors. If it didn't take so long I would have liked it a lot better -- the fun lasted about 90 min, the game (5 players), unfortunately, went about 2.5 hours, and I thought we were playing quickly.

My adventure game design is still very early on, sorry. But thanks for your interest! There are several things I'm trying to accomplish with it and addressing those challenges is where I'm having the most fun right now. But the downside is that those challenges all complicate things, and will make this a very long design process. Maybe I should start a bgdf blog or journal -- never done that before.

I am also working on an rpg themed board game. I am trying to keep the number of pieces down to a minimum since I see most rpg boardgames in the $50+ range. I'd like to hit the $35 mark if possible. This would require keeping costs low by limiting the need for original molds, special die cuts, and uncommon pieces.

Currently I am keeping it to tiles, cards, dice, & player tokens / figures. So far every time I have come up with a mechanic I have been able to let the cards or dice handle it.

I'm pretty excited since one of my goals for this year was to get my rpg into an alpha state (it was mostly done by this time last year but seriously disorganized). Instead I got inspired to do a board game and after a few weeks of working on it realized what was missing: the elements that I had already created for my rpg so I am combining the two ideas.

The rules are about 90% towards alpha. I will still need to build the pieces and test, but unfortunately that will have to wait till December since I am taking part in NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.com) this November.

But back on topic: I have played quite a few RPGs but only a few RPG board games. I have played Runebound and it wasn't exactly to my liking. I've read more then a few reviews or games like Descent, Heroscape, Talisman, Prophesy, etc and they still seemed to be lacking something to peak my interest. I mean sure they sound great for what they are, but I wanted something different and that's what got me thinking about my own board game. Most of the time the basic rules are too complex for all but those who are willing to give over a few hours just to read (and reread) the rules or those who are die-hard fans of the genre.

There is definitely room for more games with the same theme. As long as the mechanics are different enough and add to the game instead of getting in the way, I think that people will continue to build and play games that are similar to those that have gone before.