Create your own strategic board game

The project consists of our group collaboratively building our own board game.  The students will design the rules, board, pieces, box and game artwork, and publish a rulebook as well.  When the week is done, our goal is to have a complete game that can be ordered for each student and possibly even sold.  We will explore the options of selling through an independent vender or writing a proposal to submit the game to a major board game company as well. 

In the weeks leading up to project week we plan on introducing the project participants to new types of euro stragey games such as hidden traitor, deckbuilding, bidding, worker placement, and many others.  As the students have the opportunity to play each of the different types of games, we will come together as a group on Canvas and discuss what aspects of the games we liked and which aspects to blend into own game.

Once the general theme and game dynamics are selected, we will split into multiple subcommittees.

One group will focus on designing the initial game mechanics, the rules and the interactions between the other characters and the board. The second group would focus more on the artistic side. They will be responsible for the packaging, how the board(s) will look, any art to display on card decks, and any art to be included in the rulebook.  A publishing committee will be working in tandem with the game mechanics group until they can separate and put together the layout and actually write the rulebook. A final subcommittee can explore which business model would be strategically best for the project, selling through an independent vendor like “Game Crafter” or if we would be interested in pitching the game to a company like Fantasy Flight Games.  They will research and see what needs to be put together in our proposal to them if we choose that avenue.  Most of the subcommittees overlap to some extent so we will have to manage our time as a whole versus break out sessions to complete independent work when possible.

Ideally by midweek we will have a rough framework of rules where we can begin playing a rough draft version we create from basic craft materials.  After each playthrough, we will discuss as a group what worked and what did not.  Rules will be adjusted and new rounds of playtesting and adjusting can take place.

By the end of the week, we hope to have a complete board game.  All components will be uploaded through the Game Crafter website that helps publish official looking board game prototypes.  We plan to order a copy for each participant of the project and have an extra that will be submitted to Fantasy Flight games in our pitch to have them manufacture and sell our game (if that avenue is chosen).

We will not have an actual published version of the game on that Friday.  The goal is for submission of the prototype to Game Crafter who will then construct the product.  The delivery of the final product will depend on the timeliness of Game Crafter to manufacture the final versions to us.