ITERATE, ITERATE, ITERATE

Travis LarsonGame Design 111/2010

Supplies1- 12 inch ruler1- set of role-playing dice (our set included 3 D20s, 1 D10, 1 D4, 1 D12, and a few D6s2- tokens to represent characters1- Game Board1- Friend to play with

Setup Originally this game was intended to

be a video game, but for the sake of prototyping I turned it more of a turn based board game. This seemed like the best way to test it, since I am very limited in my programming skills.

We drew up two maps to test, the first was the beginning sequences of the game. It

starts in a small tavern bedroom, and progresses through the main area of the tavern and bar. Next, the game takes you into the alley

behind the tavern, and eventually across the street

to a small store and its back room.

The second map is the location for the first boss fight. It takes place within a small Catholic church.

We drew several different areas within the map, that the player could interact with. Those areas are denoted by different colors on the game board.

Red Areas are inaccessible by players.Blue Areas are objects that a player can pick-up and throw.Green Areas are energy sources that a player candraw from to increase their energy.Black lines denote walls an d other objects that are too heavy for a player to move.Yellow Areas are places that can be unlocked through the story.

Characters-Beginning

Player - Ghost Priest- Hostile NPC

My brother I found these pewter models at our local gaming store. They seem like a great to way to represent the characters on the map. We gave both characters very simple abilities to play around with at first.

The ghost starts with 100 energy. This is the resource that he uses to attack and it doubles as his health pool. If his energy ever becomes 0 the player loses.The ghost can:•Scare his enemies by manifesting himself, •causing his enemy to flee in terror.•Throw objects.•Pursue his victim (increase his movement speed)•Physically melee (requires a lot of energy)

The priest starts with 100 energy and also with 100 hp.The first priest has very few abilities.The priest can:•Throw Holy Water at the ghost.•Say a Prayer that hurts the ghost if he is within a certain •radius.•Flee (increases movement speed away from ghost)•Recover (regains lost energy)

Story

The player starts in the bedroom of a small tavern. The first thing you notice is your body on the floor.=, and you realize that YOU ARE DEAD. As you look around the room you notice an open journal on the desk. You look to see what is written. “I think they are on to me. I need to hide. Hopefully I am safe here for the night……..” As you continue to investigate the room you notice that there is a priest in the room, and you think nothing of it. As you continue the look around, you find a random artifact. It is a Bloody Stole (scarf that Catholic Priests wear) and you recognize the blood on it as your own. The Priest disappears, and the door to the room unlocks. As you look around the tavern you notice a Vial of Holy Water. This triggers a Flashback to moments before your death, you see a Vial of Holy Water

rolling on the floor. The door to the alley unlocks. As you look around in the alley you find a Rosary on the ground. This triggers another flashback. As you are dying the only image in focus is an arm with a

Storyblack sleeve holding a Rosary. The back door to the store across the street unlocks. As you enter the store you see the priest again. On the floor you notice a Bible, and it has an inscription on it. It reads, “ Property of Bishop Nicostrato.” It is covered in blood. The priest disappears again. As you continue to search the store you find a Crucifix, and another flashback to your life is triggered. You see yourself shaking hands with a priest and he is wearing the Crucifix. The door to the store’s backroom unlocks. You see the priest…… and you find a bloody knife on the floor. You see a flash of the priest holding a knife as he stands over your dying body.

Fight # 1 BeginsFight # 1 EndsWhen the priest’s HP = 0 a cut scene is triggered where you show yourself to the priest and he mutters the words, “ I was ordered too……”

Combat-Beginning During a turn a player is allowed a

move (up to 6 inches), and one action. Attacking uses up a players action.

At first our combat resolution was very simple, a player had to roll a 12 or higher to hit with any ability.

The energy cost of the Ghost’s abilities:

Throw object – ½ of the objects weight

Pursue- no energy cost, player gets an extra 4 inch move (uses action for turn)

Draw energy- no energy cost (uses action for turn), player rolls a D10 and gets 10X that value as energy.

Fear- 25 energy, player shows themselves to their enemy causing him to run in terror (reduces energy cost of all attacks done to that target by 50% for 2 turns)

Melee- 20 energy, player rolls a D20 if they hit, melee attack does that much damage to priest (can NOT be used if priest is holding a Crucifix)

The energy cost of the priest’s abilities: Throw Holy Water – costs 10 energy, deals

15 damage Prayer- costs 25 energy, deals 30 damage Flee- costs no energy(uses action for turn)

priest gets an extra 4 inch move away from ghost.

Meditate- costs no energy ( uses move and action for turn) priest regains 10 energy

Extra combat rulesThe priest may only throw Holy Water if the

ghost threw an object at him first.If the priest is holding his Crucifix, the ghost

may not melee attack him.If the priest is dealt 50 or more damage in 1

turn, he drops his Crucifix.Both character’s throw attack has a 10 inch

range and the must have Line of Sight (LoS is determined by connecting the models with a ruler without going through a wall)

Combat Data

After our first round of combat, we discovered that our hit system was extremely boring. I changed it utilize the D20 a little better. This is the combat table we used for the future combat.

This change made combat far more exciting since it really pushed the ghost player the throw heavier objects. Another change we had to make was increasing the priest HP to 200.

Combat DataThis is the table from the second round of combat. The combat was shorter, but much more intense.

After we completed the second round of combat, we decided to test the first boss battle, Bishop Nicostrata.

For this fight we set up things a little differently. We increased the Ghost’s maximum energy to 200 to show that the longer the player is a ghost , the more powerful they become. The Bishop also had to be adjusted in HP and energy, because of being a boss. His HP was set at 1000 and his energy at 250.

We also added a few new abilities to the ghost, including a disperse move that lets him disappear and move up to 12 inches. Also, we added a new melee ability called Harrow Soul which costs 50 energy and does 200 damage. The Bishop is immune to being feared, his prayer does double damage, and he gains a melee hit called Sword of Faith (he gathers holy energy and focuses it on the ghost) which costs 50 energy and deals 100 damage, but it can NOT critical hit.

Combat DataThe battle with the bishop was extremely intense and lasted about an hour. The other change we made for this fight was rolling the extra dice we had and placed them around the map. These counted as throw able objects that had weight equal to 20X the face value shown on the dice.

Whenever one of these objects were thrown they would move to where they were thrown at and stay on the board.

Combat Data

Rest of Data on next page

Combat Data

This fight was epic, In the end the Bishop prevailed.

Final IterationOverall I was pleased with how the play testing went, and with some more work this game could be very good.A few more ideas that I have been thinking about :Leaving the game as a RPG/Board game. I could even have it as a multiplayer, with a game master and one player controlling the ghost and every other player controlling a priest.

Rebalancing the Bishop to make the fight a little shorter, possibly reducing his HP and giving him a heal.

I want to say thanks to my brother Jonathan and my sister’s boyfriend Josh for spending many hours play testing this game.