Based on the feedback I’ve received over the past 48 hours, I think it may be time to move the BattleTech Deckbuilding ‘Mechfighting Game from graphic design project to actual game design project. Like every third member of BoardGameGeek, I fancy myself a game designer — I even have a designer page on the Geek based on my 24 Hour RPG stuff — and, as part of the DMG graphic design project, I somewhat designed the game. So why not take that to the next level? Especially with people threatening to pick me up and carry me to the Catalyst Game Labs booth at GenCon?
The BattleTech Deckbuilding ‘Mechfighting Game
The BattleTech deckbuilding/deckfighting project came from a Twitter conversation between Daniel Perez (Highmoon Media) and Philip J. Reed (Steve Jackson Games), which was taken over to Daniel’s blog. Daniel writes,”I’d like to see the idea of deckbuilding combined with deckfighting. I mentioned it to Phil in relation to what form a BattleTech deckbuilding game would take, and he said that it might get too long, like two games in one. He’s right, considering how long a game of Dominion took to play, but I can’t shake the idea that it would be a good combination.” That’s been a thought in the back of my mind for a while now, and, wanting to expand the portfolio a bit, I decided to take on the idea of developing this type of game into a design project.
Character sheets: how what comes before dictates what comes now.
The design of a role-playing game’s character sheet seems to come at the end of the design process, in my experience. For most games, this means that the design of the character sheet is influenced by the design of the 200 or so pages that were designed before it. Other game’s character sheets, such as the one I recently did for Space: 1889, are also influenced by other character sheets from the game line. In the case of Space: 1889, not only was the sheet supposed to be a sheet for that specific game, but the sheet had to function as a Savage Worlds character sheet, which meant there were certain things that had to be on the final product. The result works and I think it’s a good sheet while working in the constraints brought about by the overall game line (as the designer, I may be biased).
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