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A board game designer's web site
Copyright Eric Pietrocupo
E-Mail: ericp[AT]lariennalibrary.com
This page groups the listing of all active projects for each year (starting with 2013). It also list the projects for the previous years in order to trace through the history of the development.
Active projects are the games I should focus in priority in order to make the design progress. Else I am working to little on too many games and none of them progress. Each year, I will revise the priority according the accomplishment ad the problems I have encountered during the progress. A selection of 3 to 5 projects will be selected each year.
The list is roughly selected according to various criteria.
I have very little time for BG design, but there is 1 game that I sparsely put time on. Right now, the only board games I play are 2 player games on lunch time.
Spell Wards: Rival Sorcerers : Since it's a 2 player game, it's almost the only type of games I can play right now. If I could finish the core mechanics which I decided to revise, it would be more than awesome. I could then next year start designing special abilities of cards. This might be my only tableau builder game I ever built so I'll put my best effort in it. Aiming for publishing using Game Crafters, so I always check for their components.
I did not have much time to work on anything due to school and some wounds. But I seem to have worked on a few things, it's hard to keep track of it, but here is what I remember or have record of:
Living Nightmare: Wrath of the Dark Prince : Designed from the look in order to make a deep and small 4s game, it is interesting, but it's not fluid. I had lot of problems with the combat mechanism. A system with a variety of units but that remains simple is not easy to do. I also had issue where loser were losing faster.
Shadow: Spirit of the ninja : Added new map design and in between square travel mechanism which seems to increase depths, but again, game is pretty bland and obvious.
Orion (not the official title) : Revived a dead project by attempting to make a melting pot game that includes the best mechanism of most space opera game. Is interesting can could be deep and small, but requires lot of players.
Spellcraft: The covenant : Got some ideas to convert age of mythology into a solo or 2 player game where you manage a covenant of wizards. Seems interesting but have very little content right now.
So this is it, I did not made much progress, and this is the reason why I might focus more on video game development since it seems to be easier for me to design video games since they are less abstract and have no restriction of time and space.
I worked a bit on the presentation of Eldritch express by making more beautiful print outs. I mostly did the cards, And there is still stuff missing to design, but the game is playable and on Board game geek
Now I an still in between board games and video games, not sure which boat to jump in, or if I should actually jump in both. I am trying to define some design restrictions to help me out like reducing the use of special text abilities to make transition as a video game easier. I will also buy and play more solitaire game as research and development for the kind of mechanics that could be used in solitaire game which is my main focus right now. There is still the option to use aps as side kick for the board game to make management easier.
Since I am going back to school in September, I will have less time so probably only 1 active project for now, while maybe doing some graphic design for Eldritch Express and coding of Pixel Board. That will be more than enough. So the project will be:
I might put my mind on a few games/variants once a while, but there is currently no official active project for 2015.
It seems I managed to work on Eldritch Express at the end of the year after all which was an adaptation of Eldrich Horror and other lovecraftian game.
Here is the selection for 2014. I selected a light, medium and heavy game that are the most likely to get completed.
For more information on the selection process, take a look at this news page:
News: Active Projects selection for 2014
Update: April 2014: Due to my recent moving, I might lack of time and space to work on board game design so I should focus on smaller design. Priorities will have to be changed. I'll keep "Speculative Bubbles" listed above and I'll add this new small war game idea:
Else I might work on wizardry legacy much more to make the game more playable. Also because it does not require a lot of space to work on it.
Update: July 29th 2014: With recent reconsideration of board game design, I decided to shutdown all active projects. I might work on variant by the end of the year or do nothing at all.
Considering I have many ideas and many projects, I decided to focus on the development of 3 to 5 games and try to make them progress the best I can because right now, all games seems to get stuck at the same place and never progress. The goal is to get a playable game playtestable by real people. I listed my top 5 ideas in order of importance. I should focus on the 3 first ideas, and maybe the 4th or 5th might be worked on. Here is the list:
1- Spellcraft: Rise of the Sorcerers This is simply THE game that I would like to see finished. There is a lot of work required for it so by keeping it in my priorities, I want to make sure it always continue to progress.
2- Rats Craft The theme of this game is just too cool to be ignored. I somewhat have a prototype which accelerate the design process. It's also based on the Starcraft Board game, so in case of doubt, I can always borrow mechanics from that game.
3- Dracula's Castle I thought that having an adventure game in the list would change the pacing by making something different. I don't have a prototype yet but my ideas seem pretty interesting. Still not sure if it will have a world map or only take place in a castle. There might also be different villains than dracula which might change the name of the game.
4-Pacific Storm (the title might change) I am a fan of pacific WW2 and the recent idea to use a small board somewhat made the game idea progress a lot. Now I can see more clearly how the game could possibly run. Still, more research is required to increase historical accuracy, but it's not a priority right now.
5- Spellcraft: Designable Card Game I have been approached by a guy named Tobias in Germany to develop another game similar to duel masters. We decided to work together to make a better duel master game. I am working on the rules and he is working on the graphic and card design. It is possible the game gets re-themed as a spellcraft series game.
6-The Secret project To be announced later (Not title yet). It's a simple puzzle strategy game I am working with Tobias(Fhizban).
This project happened to be a game called "Last Fief" that would have been renamed. It was a tile/card game that took place on a 3x3 grid where players placed creature to take control of areas of the board. It had some similarities with "Neuroshima Hex". Now that Tobias want to focus on his game "Gods and Minions", This idea have been left dead. I had an idea to revive the game as some sort of go game where there would be no board limit like carcassone.
(extract from the news) As some of you know, at the beginning of the year, I will change again my priorities for my active game design project. So let's do it the "Rats Academie" way: Lets put all my game in danger and determine who will survive:
The contestant:
Spellcraft: Rise of the sorcerer: Recent ideas made the game somewhat unlocked itself by using the idea to make a solo game like starcraft invasion. Will I try again to make this game flourish or pass for something more "Stable".
Rats Craft: It was in fury at the beginning of the year and falled flat for the whole year with little development. How come! lack of interest, Lot of design work. Who knows if it will stay there for next year, in theory all the mechanics are there, but something prevent me to be in the mood to work on it.
Pacific Storm: Again, additional developments were made for the order of play and intelligence system. The progress made this year was minimal but in the right direction. Most of the element seems to be there, so the game could be playable, but did not really have the time for it, will I put more time next year.
Dracula's Castle: Even if I wanted to have a different game to change my mind, little progress has been done with this game, even with it's amazing theme. Lot of problems regarding how the map should be designed, what part of the map should it cover, etc. Will this game get replaced by a new adventure game?
Spellcraft DCG: Very good progress were made so far and I will soon have a playable prototype, but who know if something terrible happen and bring down the whole game. Only the last month of the stretch will determine if theis game stays in or not.
So this is it. So place your bets (^_^), even I don't know the answer ... seriously.
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