I’ve been thinking about writing a board game after seeing [The Game Crafter](http://www.thegamecrafter.com) and realising the effort of getting a physical game produced might now be relatively low.
The idea is to create a war-themed board game, something to try to simulate small-scale battles — something like Memoir 44. I have an idea for a basic mechanic, where each unit in the game has a standing order: something like a miniature ‘program’ that dictates what the unit does. A little like roborally. So an order might look like this;
> Advance: if there is no enemy within line of sight, move two spaces towards an enemy objective. Otherwise, move towards the nearest unoccupied or allied cover.
So that is the basic mechanic. Each round the players change some of the orders. I’ve got to put together a deck of orders that works sensibly, and a map, and then I can put together a paperprototype and subject someone to a game.
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4 responses to “Game Crafter II – Battle Deathmongery”
Hah what a coincidence. My friends and I are discussing writing an iPhone game that has some of the elements of RoboRally. One guy already wrote a “emulator” to test our ideas in jQuery. We’re prototyping using index cards for a deck and a checkers board.
I am a fan of Battlelore (which is Memoir ’44 I’m sure you’re aware) and its mechanics. At Historicon this past weekend I picked up an older rules set, Might of Arms, and realized just how many successful games are using many of the mechanics seen in the Wargamers Research Group publications (I wonder if there’s anything that predates WRG that they borrowed from?).
I would definitely play an iPhone version of roborally! With it’s excellent networking, it would make a great little platform for shared games with your contacts, too.
I think the paper prototype is the way to go; in a discussion with my friend, Spencer, another longtime gamer, he suggested we’d got to a point where we just needed to get a prototype out and play the damed thing, and get a feel for whether the game has any legs. And I think he’s right; I tend to over-design in the early stages of anything, before the thing’s proved it’s value.
Anyway, good luck with it. Sounds fun.
I wish Wizards didn’t already sell the rights for RoboRally, the online version is incredibly poor.
The problem with games on the iPhone is you’re limited to wifi play only due to AT&T restrictions. We can get around that with a turn based game by using a REST API though, but I have a feeling it won’t get past the Apple app approval process. So we’re doing our own thing with wifi.
what Are those limits? Here in the uk I don’t think there is any limit based on the type of connection: all that varies is speed