Heroes & Behemonts

First preliminary tests performed in order to verify consistency of the basic mechanisms (attack rolls, movements, defenses, etc.). Of course the tests were performed recycling contents of other games (for sake of clarity, Zombicide and D&D).

The feeling was good. An overall nonsense was not perceived, except on specific rules that will be corrected. Just a feeling the game could be slow, but too early to said that and there are many parameters that can change during development, in order to speed up the fluency.

What it was evident is its dynamism depends on the interactions with enemies, how they spawn and their behavior in combat. The next test phase will focus on these two aspects.

We are in the middle of development phase of the game core. The goal is to involve players into combats that are dynamic and compelling. We are going to meet this aspect creating strategic battles where the players are not just called to roll dice, but their decisions can prejudice the success of the mission.

The rules of roll has packed into an unique mechanism that will make the game instinctive. Tests of different nature have been performed in order to reach the consistency, which is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy, or fairness.

Initiative has been developed to be fast and create uncertainty of the fighting.  Also in this case, more mechanisms was tested to get consistency.

Management of reactions, conditions and effects needs few further tests to be settled. Anyway, conditions and effects, along with the roll rules, allow to create a theoretically infinite number of equipment, spells and powers. The actions and reactions, along with the initiative order, generate a wealth of choice for the player. But also for the enemies!

The development goes on and decisions have been taken about the combat system.  Not everything has been fixed. Some open points have been held to refine the game. They allow to balance characters, abilities, equipment and so on. The phase 1.2 will be closed when a good equilibrium will be reached and that sense of frustration due to useless situations will be deleted or reduce to a minimum.

Now it's time to move on to the next phase and start developing of scenario creation mechanisms.

Scenario, maybe the simplest part of the work if they are detailed and reported in a book like many board games do. But here the scope is different... We are going to define a mechanism that makes possible randomly any kind of creature could be faced up to in any kind of place. From a cave infested by underground creatures, to a mine defended by soldiers. From a tower conquered by bandits, to a vault haunted by spirits. All of this, making it consistent. Ambitious? I would say insane! However the objective is to create something unique, not just a copy of other games.

Analysis - Several kinds of solution are under examination.  Elements like grid, size and position of tiles, as well as mechanisms for exploration, spawning and so on, are being evaluated identifying pros and cons. The analysis is leaded paying attention on the core concept that are moving this phase: identify a mechanism for the creation of random quests.

The analysis performed has led to the choice of rejecting the use of zones for movement and combat system. Tiles, cataloged as rooms and as corridors, will be divided into hexes increasing tactics of combat. The choice was made after a huge flowchart has been realized. It reports all data and information that might appear in a quest and in a scenario and that might be connected each other. The next step is to create several quests and scenarios in order to perform tests and validate the flowchart. Let's cross fingers!

The mechanism chosen for the creation of scenario revealed itself to be too much complex, making set up long and increasing the number of tiles and components of the board game. It's time to back and review some choices! Set up, exploration and spawn must be revised and simplified, making the game smoothly running.