We’ve been occupied with the game mechanics for a while, but the development (so then I am a developer? wow) progressed in other directions as well. I mentioned how the terrain had been an important aspect from the earliest phase – and soon I ran into some interesting questions to decide.
So, I imagined the crows as they constantly swallow territories: my idea was here that they have special tokens, the crowling markers, which they put around their nests (their main buildings) and later around the other markers, in every round. Like this, their occupied territory constantly expands – and if/when they infest the whole map, they win. I didn’t want this expansion to be too fast, but fast enough to be a looming presence on the board for the other players.
Also, I’ve had the desire to make the playing area in a somewhat strict, orthogonal order – so everything is square-ish – in contrast with the player elements, which should be rounded, wobbly, soft forms. I even played with the thought of being in a pixel-art system, but that is a bit much and unnecessary for this game (even if it started like that). This whole chain led me into that I would like to have quadrilateral forms as terrain tiles (preferably squares?). So yes, I’ve made a flavour/aesthetic/self-serving art-decision here – against the widely known usefulness of bestagons.
Now for this to work, I had to make a straightforward and intuitive system for movement, as the diagonal maneuvers always seemed problematic. I’ve tried to make some well-set rules (like simple and extended neighborhoods, movement points, unique unit/faction move types), but it seemed to overcomplicate things. I’ve tried to look into some games that have a system like this : Santorini, Outfoxed! (our first game with the kiddos ‹3), or Last Bastion (and I skipped CHESS); but they didn’t care much about this (as per my observance ofc). So I’ve put this problem for the future yet.
But back to the crows, the reason why they are here is that I’ve been experimenting with the growth of their swarm in a square grid like this:
These experiments helped me visualize a lot of things in addition to its original purpose (like how big of a game I’d like in game component count- and timewise; what could be a useful physical size for the tiles and the components; how crowded I’d like the overall impression to be, etc.) and matured the thought in me to do what I like to do: convey the whole idea into a digital three-dimensional space. First I had to decide the shape of the grid of the map/terrain; which remained squares – for now. Also these helped me understand that I really can’t just model everything. It is needed – at least for me to roll the idea-cart forward – but after some milestones, it is just too complicated with the just-too-many “variables”. Also it could distort the focus into really insignificant details after a while…
So I just did the terrain with 3 different heights and some reference forms – the carnival figures, as they looked simple and most human-like. Also I’ve decided to have 3 types of terrain: river (water), green, and peak/summit/rock.
My main goal was to get a sense of the game in a physical form – and to produce it. Maybe from plywood?
