A Board Game Created for UB Game Design
The Concept
To start, we didn't really have a full game to test. We just drew out a map and said "okay, how can we make this into a game board?". We wanted an experience where the player would feel as if they were truly building a business across the united states, which is why we decided to use this as our game board. We pretended to play a game and tried to make up rules as we went along. We decided to have a system where resources would be used to run a business, and color-coded each state for each resource it would have. In our first set of rules, we wanted to make it so that players would be told to create a successful business, and then reveal that the end goal would be to undo their mistakes. But, we eventually decided we wanted the game to be replayable and more straightforward.
The First Prototype
After watching Brenda Romero's talk about her game Train, some of our group members had the idea that we should also create a game that would challenge players to put themselves in a difficult real-world situation. We decided that we wanted it to be about a current topic, so we chose climate change. We settled on a goal to create a game that would put players in the shoes of the people causing climate change so they can see how easy it is to destroy something. We agreed to not worry about making sure the game was fair, because we want to reflect the unfairness of the world we live in.
The Second Prototype
Our next step was adding in the natural disaster system and figure out how climate level would work. We figured out that the climate level would change based on what resources players used and where their products were sourced from. Both energy resources and products would be required to run a store. Natural disasters would occur based on the climate level.
We figured out how to give the players objectives by assigning them each a boss with different values, and they would have to follow what their boss says as the game goes on. After a certain number of turns, the winner would be decided based on random criteria. There's no guaranteed way to win.
The Third Prototype
For our third re-working of the game, we decided to ditch the system of requiring products to run stores. We also created multiple types of facilities. Players can now build a gas station in addition to each basic store or the new "super store" option. We also went more into detail with our resources, making the finite resources expire after a certain amount of turns based on how efficient they are. We also finalized the objectives and conditions for winning.