Game Dev: Steemit Exclusive Blog 001: The Influence of board game mechanics
Introduction:
I am a game developer. I have been an amateur game developer most of my life. I have done some professional work that I was paid for on some Bioware projects. I have even been asked to apply for positions at studios.
At some point I decided I wanted to make my own games. They can fail, or they can succeed, but I will be giving life to ideas of my own.
I am pretty far along on this journey. I think if I am going to blog about game development I should talk about how my current project Wormhole Ventures came to be. I have two artists working on this project with me. One of them being my son who is the steemit user 
For this first post I will be discussing some board games that inspired the initial design of the board game parent of Wormhole Ventures. I will be linking to some images and games from boardgamegeek.com.
Semi-Random Maps:
The idea of a semi-random map is appealing to me. It gives the game play a new feel every time you play the game. I call it semi-random and the players decide where they want to place map pieces based upon which pieces they have. In a board game this can lead to someone being nice to you, or really messing with you. It can lead to a lot of laughs if the people get along well, or some anger if they are too harsh on someone they don't know very well. With that said, I am very fond of this mechanic.
Some board games that have done this:
Carcassonne - a simple game that is fun to play and the map is built as part of game play by players.
Twilight Imperium - Nice 4X style space board game. The map is all placed at the beginning so it does have the semi-random map play. It does not have too many surprises other than the other players placing at the beginning can put some nasty and not so beneficial sectors near you intentionally.
The Settlers of Catan - this one is fairly well known and again the map is created completely at the beginning by players placing tiles.
Terra Mystica - another one that has player generated maps.
Pathing and laying a route with potential for other players to beat you there:
In a number of games making a path somewhere is an important mechanic. Usually the mechanic involves some first come, first serve mechanism as well. Players can try to build lengthy paths and hope that their "friends" don't block them and cancel out their effort. This mechanic can be really fun.
This mechanic is very much present in The Settlers of Catan which is listed above so I will not link it again.
It is also one of the primary mechanics in popular board games like:
Ticket to Ride - this is a very effective game that is easy to teach new players and they can start enjoying it right away. It would be equally playable by children at some point though it does require more than Chutes and Ladders, or Candy Land.
Market Manipulation - AKA other ways to mess with your buddies:
Some games have markets that change based upon supply and demand. Beating your "friends" to the purchase and snagging goods they need to improve your profit can be an amusing part of the game play.
Puerto Rico - has a lot of this aspect as a core to it's game play. It is a fun game and was #1 on boardgamegeek.com for a number of years. That hasn't been for awhile now though.
Agricola - which actually was the first game to dethrone Puerto Rico from #1 on boardgamegeek.com. It added more randomness, workers, and a lot more depth to it. This greatly enhanced the replayability and the sheer options of things that could happen in the game. The only way you directly interact with other players in this game is to be the first to get somewhere. This makes that location no longer available to people that round. This has caused some people to refer to it as "multiplayer solitaire".
One card can change everything:
Cards and not knowing what the other players have in their hands has been a game mechanic for a long time. That hidden card if played at the right time can change the way the entire game unfolds. This mechanic is extremely engaging and has withstood the test of time. Poker and most card games still use this mechanic. It can be more than that though depending upon what powers you decide to give the card. :)
Magic The Gathering - changed the world. It created the collectible card game genre. It is still going strong today.
Race For The Galaxy - this is more or less a multiplayer solitaire but it unique and interesting in terms of how the game play came together.
Illuminati: Deluxe Edition - This game could be the ultimate game of screwing your friends over. You could be really mean in this game. Some variants of the rules encouraged CHEATING if you could get away with it. Make sure your friends are okay with you messing with them and they you and that you all can keep GAME and REALITY separate.
In Closing for this edition of the Game Dev Blog:
Many games influenced me, but the above games inspired me to make a board game. The mechanics I touched upon above were very much in my mind as I made the board game.
On the next edition of the blog I will show you the board game that was born from this and work towards the video game that was inspired by my board game and some other video games.
I hope you enjoy this blog and if people show support I definitely will keep them coming. I have a number of projects I can share in the Game Development arena if people are interested.
Next Time.... the Starways Board Game...
#gamedev #gaming #games #boardgame #blog #development #design #videogames #writing #illuminati
EDIT: For those of you that post... don't make the mistake I did and forget to check what tags are already in the field at the bottom. It had cached something from an unrelated post and put it into an odd topic.