❖ Version History ❖
4th of October, 2020:
There are going to be four types of cards in The Great Chase. In my previous post to the Design Journal, I went over the brainstorming process that went into the Crisis Cards. During the course of this week, I spend much of my time cutting and creating the other necessary card parts of the prototype, most notably the Character and Flight cards. By the time I am done, the game is comprised of these parts:
– 12 Map Cards (each representing two time zones, each acting as one game space)
– 52 Flight Cards (13 cards in four suits: Jets, Transports, Helicopters, Diplomats)
– 15 Crisis Cards (the batch of twelve from last week + a few other good ideas so far)
– 6 Character Cards (very basic design so far: placeholder numbers and ‘talents’)
:: Mocking up the Character Design ::
I continue my prototyping process by delving into the character design. There are only a few details that I have been given for how each character should act this game. I use these details while creating the Character Cards to get a better insight into what role they will each play. Additionally, I learn the personality behind these characters by reading through the book: Drone (the first of the Miranda Chase series by M.L. Buchman). While working on all this, I request a list from Matt describing important traits about the characters, which looks like this:
:: Miranda Chase – Crash Solving Savant
:: Jeremy Trahn – Super-Geek Tech Wizard ~ Specializes in Crashes and Diplomacy
:: Mike Munroe – Transportation Expert & Diplomatic Master
:: Holly Harper – Ultimate Combatant in Skirmishes
:: Andi Wu – Master of Helicopters and good at Combat
:: Vicki ‘Taz’ Cortez – Underworld Schemer with Diplomatics
I give each character a series of numbers for the following statistics:
:: Move – Increase / Decrease how far an aircraft travels
:: Crew – Increase / Decrease how many team members can fly together
:: Solve – Increase / Decrease ability to solve crashes
:: Skirmish – Increase / Decrease ability to fight aircraft
I also give each character one unique ability based on their character traits listed above. These abilities each tend to bend or break the rules regarding the other limitations falling into place (i.e. Mike gets an ability that lets him increase the ‘crew’ statistic when he flies, meaning he could theoretically carry 2 friends in a 1-seat jet).
:: Mocking up the Flight Deck ::
In order to make the Flight Cards, I followed a fairly simple approach. I know that this deck is based on a deck of standard playing cards in the story at first, and I try to keep as many themes from that note as possible. The hardest detail here is trying to design this deck to have two roles: allowing players to move around using these cards, but also using these cards as puzzles to solve. I begin by brainstorming these details:
1. Divide the cards up into batches of 13 (52 total cards divided into four equal suits)
2. Give each suit a unique trait:
:: Jet Cards: (move really far, carry only 1 person, extremely hard to solve)
:: Transport Cards: (middle of the road for: movement, carrying, and solving)
:: Helicopters: (move the least distance, maximum ability to carry, easy to solve)
:: Diplomatic Emergency’s: (must be moved to solve, can move a player instantly?)
3. Divide the movement statistics of each aircraft on a scale of: 5-12
(The idea in my head here is that moving across one map card = 2 time zones of travel. As a result, a really bad flight card only allows for traveling across 1-2 map distance, and a really good one allows for a maximum of 5-6 map distance… but the key is that the low and high ratings are odd numbers, so if a character has a +1 to movement, they get a big bonus for using these vehicles)
4. Divide the solving statistics of each aircraft on a scale of 3-9
(The idea in my head for this one is that a player will be rolling a 6-sided dice to solve a flight card. If Miranda’s team has 6 characters all hosting different skills at solving, ideally each one will get +0 to +5 in their ability, so the easiest crash could be done by anyone, but only the team members with a +3 or higher might be able to conquer a crash with a solve rating of ‘9’)
:: What Happens Next ? ::
Once I have all of these pieces in front of me, it is time to start aggressively testing to see what effects & powers make sense, which of these things makes for the ‘most fun’, and what concepts need expanding or cutting from the design. It is my hope to get this into a functioning prototype as quickly as possible so that I might present the ideas to Matt. If it ends up being that he does not like the play of this prototype I need to know as early in the process as I can, so this prototype getting built is now the highest priority. Once it starts looking like it is working, I start cutting up nicer paper and making a better looking prototype for the various cards.
