It’s not often that you feel rejection letters are truly honest and constructive.

If you are interested in the board game market, there certainly seem to be some similarities with the game market.  A few big hits in recent years have probably given the board game industry additional strength (see Caracassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Settlers of Catan) but I’ve found that the strategic (non party-game) segment of the market is still very personal and cottage-industry-like.  In general, the German market has been a breeding ground for lots of off-beat, strategic games.  Knowing this, I sent my first board game pitch to Kosmos, a German publisher of games like Settlers of Catan (the M.U.L.E. of board games), Lost Cities, and Ubongo.

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In previous posts (part 1, part 2), I’ve been talking about the Venture Africa board game I’ve got in development. My design philosophy behind it was pretty much the same as what I use while designing a video game.

The talk that Dan Paladin and I gave at E-for-all detailed this design process.

1. Pick a market/platform
2. Create a protagonist
3. Create an antagonist
4. Design the genre/ruleset around the protagonist and antagonist

As you can see, the genre and ruleset comes last in the design process, and it’s built around the character and theme of the game.

In my games, of course, the protagonist (not necessarily the player) is represented by the animals in the ecosystem.  In Dan’s games, the protagonist is represented by the main character and his abilities.  With my animals, the basic idea is that they are autonomous, but the player can affect their behavior directly or by altering their environment.

The antagonist in Dan’s games is usually a bad guy.  In my games, the antagonist is the environment itself.  The challenge in my games revolves around the difficulties presented by the level: how far the food sources are from water, how much shelter there is, etc.

The ruleset tends to just flow from there.  A compelling character and antagonist or environment provides enough constraint to imagine the more difficult to conceptualize theoretical ruleset.  It also makes the ruleset flow from real-world elements that are tied to your character, keeping the ruleset grounded in the theme of the game.

That said, I don’t personally believe in designing a complete story first, just the bare bones of the protagnist/antagonist relationship.  The most common mistake* I see aspiring game designers make is that they write a complex story replete with minor characters and events before they design the utility of the game: the abilities of the main characters and their relationship to one another is all you need… back story can and should come later.

*However, I’m also of the opinion that great breakthroughs in game design can only come from ingoring the so-called experts, and in fact, one of my (and everyone’s) design heroes Tim Schaefer designs more complete stories up front.

So, how did I apply all this to making a board game?  Despite the game being a two-player competitive game, the protagonist is not simply YOU and the antagonist is not simply YOUR OPPONENT.  The protagonist is actually the herbivores and the antagonist is the carnivores.

Even though you are trying to eat all of your opponent’s herbivores with your carnivores, the game is player-agnostic, meaning that your lions can eat your zebras, and you have to be careful about how you position your crocodiles because you could weaken the defenses of your own herbivores by being too close.

I started with 6 species: Lion, crocodile, zebra, elephant, giraffe, and wildebeest.  I designed each with one special ability.  Then I just playtested and playtested and playtested until I came up with the right balance.  In the process of balancing, wildebeest got switched out for monkey, and giraffe was switched for rhino.

In the end, I hope to publish the game with plastic molded animals (like plastic army men) on the modifyable board.  Again, if anyone knows anyone in the board game industry that might be interested in publishing this game, please let me know!

In my previous post I mentioned that I had built a prototype of a Venture Africa board game.  I’m currently searching for a publisher, so I’m not going to post the full ruleset, but I will give a sense for what the game is like and how I came to design the game I did.

The board game consists of two players controlling six species of animal (lion, crocodile, elephant, rhino, zebra, monkey).  Players are trying to keep their animals alive while using their lions and crocodiles to eat the other player’s prey.

Players start their turn with 3 movement points, which they can distribute amongst their animals.  Terrain squares have an impact on movement, and each animal has a special ability.  It’s like chess, except that instead of making the pieces unique by how they move, the pieces are unique in how they attack and defend themselves.

Animals also chase a raincloud around the board, which is how they breed.  Breeding can keep a species alive for a little while, but eventually, the other player will take out the last of a species, and then it can’t return.  Eventually, one player wins by taking out all of the animals of the other player.  Games last about 60 minutes.

You might also notice that the game board can be modified, making every game quite different.  This is one of my favorite features of the game as it’s a blast to create the topography and then analyze how that affects gameplay.  The manual includes a number of preset boards, so people can compare individual games without having the include a diagram of the board placement.

The main thing you’ll notice about the board game is that it is multiplayer and competitive.  I mention this because the video game is single player, and to some extent, non-competitive.  There is no antagonist in the video game (though you could say that the environment is the antagonist, always threatening the lives of the protagonists, the animals).

This philosophy reamins intact (to some extent) in the board game, in that the pieces are actually player-agnostic.  Lions can eat zebras of either player; special abilities of animals do not depend on the color of the animal.  In this sense, you get the feeling that both players are controlling parts of a single ecosystem, rather than two opposing armies.

I haven’t played it yet, but my boardgamegeek friend Eryn mentioned that the game reminded him of Manoeuvre.  I’ll have to give that one a try.

In any case, like I said, I’m searching for a publisher, and I’ll keep you updated on the progress!

As for the process I went through to design this game, that’s for another post!

A friend of mine is really into board games (he’s an active BoardGameGeek).  I occassionally head over to his place for board games, beer, and usually a spot of Guitar Hero.

Inspired by a board game he is developing, I decided to try my hand at building one as well.  One Saturday later, and Venture Africa the Board Game was born!

I’ve been tweaking the ruleset and playtesting the thing, and doggonit, this thing is really fun!  It’s simple, strategic, it’s different every time, and it’s got a great theme.

Of course my early and seemingly instant success at designing the game gave me an ego, and I instantly dove into designing a game based around Venture Arctic.  While the meta game surrounding that one was great, the actual turn-by-turn gameplay was not so great.  Sound familiar?

At any rate, I’m currently in the process of finding a publisher for the Venture Africa game.  If anyone knows anyone in the board game industry that might be interested, send them my direction!

I’ll get into the ruleset (as well as my Venture Arctic experiment) in a later post…

San Diego, July 25, 2008 – Animal-themed video game developer Pocketwatch Games is proud to announce their continued sponsorship of The WILD Foundation, a Boulder, CO organization that works internationally to protect and sustain wilderness and endangered wildlife while meeting the needs of human communities.

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Pocketwatch Games, LLC announced today that it has donated 4% of the income generated in 2006 by the video game Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa to The WILD Foundation, a Boulder, CO based non-profit dedicated to protecting animal habitats in Africa.

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The illustrious Hyena has created a fan site for Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa. She’s got pictures, animal facts, strategies and more. Head on over and sign her guestbook!

Gamasutra, the leading game development web publication, just interviewed Andy Schatz, founder and CEO of Pocketwatch Games, about Venture Arctic, Venture Africa, and more! Click on the link to read the interview.