Time: 10 weeks
Role: Game Designer
Software: Procreate
Date Completed: May 2024
This is a combination of a eurogame and a deckbuilding game.
Deckbuilding
When making this project we wanted to create a deck building game that made players strategize on what they need to actually put into their decks. We did this by making each card in the deck the resource you need to buy other cards.
We took inspiration from deckbuilding games like the DC Deck building Game by Cryptozoic Entertainment.
Each card has a power and influence cost and their own power and influence. In order to purchase a card and add it to your deck you must play cards with enough to cover that cards power or influence.
There are also drained cards which offer no bonuses. Certain cards can be used to remove these cards from your deck or place more in your opponents.
Each card also has victory points. At the end of the game players with the most victory points win. Drained cards subtract from your total victory points.
Purchasing and moving
Each turn players can move up to five spaces and when they land on a space with a tile you may purchase the card on that tile assuming you have the right amount of power and or influence. This incentivizes players to make a balanced deck of monsters that specialize in power and humans that specialize in influence.
During the game boss cards will be revealed and can be purchased in the same way as other cards. These cards are extremely powerful since they have a special ability that occurs whenever the player uses them. They also give the player more victory points at the end of the game then other cards.
When a boss is revealed they have a global effect when the player enters a certain zone on the map. These effects make it more difficult to purchase the boss and make players need to change their plan on the fly to adjust to the new variable on the board.
Phases
At the end of each players turn a card is drawn from the suspicion deck which is separated into three phases. These cards are exhausted from one phase before moving to the next one. These cards cause an effect to occur on the board once drawn. These effects can vary from refreshing different cards so they can be purchased again to spawning in a boss monster which will change how the game is played.
We took inspiration from Black Orchestra by Philip DuBarry when making this mechanic. We liked how it was able to add stakes to the game organically as it went on and wished to replicate that by having bosses ambush the players when they play the game.
