A board game designer's web site
Copyright Eric Pietrocupo
E-Mail: ericp[AT]lariennalibrary.com
Orion (not the official title)
How much do you like this idea?
| ||
| Very Good | (10/10) | The game is very interesting, make it as soon as possible. |
| Good | (8/10) | Great idea but some modifications are required. |
| Fair | (6/10) | Interesting but a lot of things are missing. |
| Bad | (4/10) | Would need to completely redesign the idea in order to work. |
| Very Bad | (2/10) | It will never be interesting, abandon the idea. |
| Already Exist | (0/10) | Do not waste time of this game idea. |
Status: CLOSED
- Will support single player and multiplayer.
- Should use same mechanic system as Spellwards. Well I might design this game first and base spell wards on it.
- I intend to "borrow" various mechanics from many games in the same category
Progress: Lightly Designed
Priority: High
Number of players: 1 - 6 players
Expected Play time: 90 - 180 minutes
Description
An epic space conquest game where each player plays a race that wants to control the galaxy.
Objective
After playing my first multiplayer "Master of orion 2" game that took 15 hours, my objective is to make a board game that recreates exactly the same experience than the "master of orion 2" video game since "twilight imperium" really does not do the job.
I originally never thought I would actually do such game, but I played many games in the same category and could not ever found a game that match my tasted. So I think the only way would be to make my own game even if there is too much space opera games.
Still I managed to bring something that could make the game stand on it's own. First, there will be no- civilization development like in "Empires of the void". This removes a lot of issues I had when designing such games especially with the scalability of the empire. So you will only try to expand your empire, negotiate with worlds to join your cause and fight opposing empire.
Second since I want the game to be playable solo, there will be a series of scenario events that populate the world with encounters to solve. The goal is to give a reason for players to interact with each other instead of simply attacking because they feel like it.
Third, the game must be printable at game crafters. So I'll be designing the game according to what is available in their store.
Inspiration
"Master of orion" video game is my primary source of inspiration. Else I want to borrow mechanics from every other games and create a sort of melting pot. I'll use ideas from Twilight Imperium, Eclipse, Empires of the void, Star Wars Rebellion, Space Empires 4X, etc. I am not very good at designing new mechanics, so I'll simply reused what has been already done.
Priority Evaluation
Theme vs Mechanics: I will simply borrow the best mechanics for every game.
Video vs Board Game: There is no restriction of medium. I would probably also make a digital version, but the game has various kind of pieces to handle.
Single vs Multi player: The game would be playable solo and multiplayer, still the solo version might have a different feeling.
Rating = 9/12
Digitizability
- Cartography: The game will require maps to explore and conquer
- Scripting: The technologies should require scripting.
Design Plan
Theme
Constraints
Experience
Components
Mechanics
Development progress
Problems that prevent development
I am using an entirely new approach, so the only issue so far is to design a prototype and pickup the rules I want.
News, changes and updates
November 17th, 2011: Now that "Eclipse" is almost released and it seems to do a good job as a space strategy game, I don't think there is a need to develop this game. Instead, I rather spent some times to make a "Master of Orion" variant for Eclipse rather than making another space strategy game that will compete with eclipse. So this project is somewhat aborted and should be transformed as an Eclipse variant.
January 14th, 2011: Instead of converting eclipse, I might be easier to make a new game. The project will now have a new focus, I intend to make a free master of orion game that will have a common mechanic system with the master of magic board game idea (Spellcraft: Rise of the sorcerers). The idea is to use master of orion as a prototype to get the basic system working. Since the game will be free, I will get more play test and comments to make the system work. Then I could proceed to the master of magic board game. If the game ever get published with a license (I am dreaming), I might try to publish both games into the same box.
June 18th, 2017: I am trying a new approach to completely break the other spellwards game idea, and simply borrow mechanics from every other space 4X game to create my own. The removal of population management should make the game much easier to design while the events and encounter system should make the game in this genre unique. The main work to do is improvise a prototype.
Prototype Pictures
This is the map with some colonies and fleet
Related Threads
Development Log
| Date | Type | Description |
| 12-jan-2018 | Summary | I had nice ideas by stealing the best of Twilight Imperium, Eclipse, Empires of the void etc. Instead of making a colonisation game, every thing would be colonised and only conflict and influence between players would remain. The only problem is that this kind of game requires a lot of players which I do not have. |
| 12-jan-2018 | Idea | Another alternative would be to have an abstract game of military and political influence that is played by simply putting tokens in stack on the board. |
Playtest Log
| Date | Results | Play Time | Players | Description |
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