I would love to get feedback on the back story for my game. You can find them on BGG here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/41744
I realize that it is not typical for a non-RPG to do this, but I really put a lot of time into the theme and I want to allow players to immerse themselves if they so choose. I have also spent an extensive amount of time working with the artist to ensure that the back story and theme is reflected in the art.
As always, feedback is welcome!
 | What artists would you recommend? (20) by questccg |
| Logging playtest as a Blog, is it a good thing? (3) by questccg |
 | Hi guys ~ Gameland and Yaofish are officially accepting board game design submissions! (2) by questccg |
| Hidden Movement: What Makes it Cool? (37) by Jacob |
| I need a 5th category of encounters (7) by larienna |
| Dymino Monsters Update 4-18-2024 (2) by Stormyknight1976 |
| Wizardry Legacy: the Forgotten Academy (12) by larienna |
| TradeWorlds — Tactical Core (3) by questccg |
| Introducing, Jacob! (that's me by the way...) (0) by Jacob |
| Chat GPT: Testing as a design assistant (8) by larienna |
| Winner Announced for the Meta Progression Community Challenge! (0) by The Game Crafter |
| A programmer's dilemma (16) by larienna |
| Qubits: a solo trick taking game (9) by Wobt2 |
| Worker placement, Role selection and Action cards: Is it the same thing? (11) by larienna |
| Site Ads and Google Experiments (0) by questccg |
| TradeWorlds — Smuggler's Run (7) by questccg |
| Single Item Shipping at The Game Crafter (0) by The Game Crafter |
| Protospiel Indy 2024 (May 24-26) (0) by The Game Crafter |
| How to avoid being blocked at content creation (10) by questccg |
| Protospiel Indy 2024 (0) by sirvalence |
| In need of some IDEAS concerning a "Battle" System (15) by questccg |
| How to avoid quarterbacking in an adventure game (7) by larienna |
| How complicated could math get? (23) by X3M |
| Can we have gaming ads on this website (7) by questccg |
| Dice Mitigation Challenge - Winner Announced! (0) by The Game Crafter |
Comments
I read your time line. It
I read your time line. It looks like an interesting theme. What I don't understand though is why some of the information on the timeline is outdated. A huge sheet of ice has already broken off the north pole the size of rode island. I have seen documented maps of the progression of the ice melt over the last 25 or more years and it showes that there is not much left at all. It may infact be completely melted by now. This is current fact. It seems to be downplayed or not get hardly any press. But it's true. Is there a need to pretend that it's not happening any time soon? Or make it seem like some sci-fi work? This happens to be current afairs. And, the ice stoping the current flow in the ocian's from circulating, is likely to take place much sooner than you depict. It seemed like most of the years in your timeline were quite uneventful in fact. My perception is that it doesn't have to be a long drawn out time line. Is it an issue of not wanting to scare your audience?
That said, how about doing the story told as some kind of dialogue among real characters. I'm sure there are many creative ways to get character telling the story.
Outdated timeline
I think that you maybe confusing sea ice with the arctic shelf. Sea ice waxes and wanes from year to year and there have certainly been those that feared we might lose all the ice around North Pole at some point. Interestingly enough, the amount of sea ice this past January reached the same levels as 1979. Additionally, there have been periods of warming and cooling for quite some time. From 1945 until the early 1970s we had a significant period of global cooling taking place. That trend has reversed over the last few decades, and accelerated due to our increased carbon emissions and global deforestation.
At any rate, there is still a significant arctic shelf which is different from the amount of 'sea ice'. Also, there was an island-size chunk that broke off a few years ago (2005 I think), but it eventually lodged itself back into Canada's shelf later that year.
As fort he timeline itself, the motivations are as follows:
- provide a sense that the human race knew that something *might* be coming
- provide time for high tech equipment to be developed
- give the game a small degree of a sci-fi feel
- build a small degree of tension
- put sufficient time between the present and future to allow the game to be viable even if new facts and data or dramatic changes in world events should arise. if the game were set 5 years in the future then the game seems sort of silly 4 years from now
Yes, but as far as I've read,
Yes, but as far as I've read, all that sea ice is open water in the summer. The change is pretty dramatic. I will try and find the source of these documentation. It's quite interesting and startling. I didn't beleave it when I heard it until I saw the article and maps.
Maybe you could have characters in a dialogue tell a story and imply the mistakes or generalise many details.
Oh, something that came to
Oh, something that came to mind was, it may not be necessary to have all the politics involved in the story. Unless it's an economics game.....that may be what you want. There are many ways the story can be told that is simple and leaves some mystery and tension.
The reason for the politics
Yeah, the reason for the political info is two-fold:
- it provides motivation for investing funding into personal thermal technologies (which is used extensively in the artwork and is key to the fact that 10% of the population survives the ice age)
- it sets up the new world environment that will lead into the sequel to this game (TBD)