Zombies.

Designing a game takes a lot longer than I expect.  Always.

I'll spin you a tale of how my latest idea came to be.  It's not a long story, but it does take place over the course of several years.  This is my attempt at a literary montage...

The first assignment I was ever given in university was to create a zombie-based game.  Board game, video game, card game.  Whatever.  Zombies.
We worked on our own projects as we saw fit; created what we wanted, how we wanted.

It was our first foray into doing our own thing.  To have a very basic outline and brief, and take it in a direction that we wanted.

I can't remember what I designed.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was that zombies are overdone in almost every game type.  If the game is not explicitly about them, it may very well include them.  Either as part of a bigger game or as an expansion of a game - it's a fail safe when it comes to adding... "variety" to a game.

At the end of the lecture, when all of the students had presented their work to the class and taken questions, the lecturer in charge of that particular class said (something like) "Ok.  Great job on that - all of you.  Some great ideas. some good takes on the brief.  But from now on, through this bachelor's degree, we don't want to see any more zombies in anyone's game design.  That's it.  None.  You've got it out of your system and now we can all move on."

And it worked.  I can't remember a single design thereafter that included zombies - for all three years, across 50 or so students.  That's a lot of projects to not have something easy to work with as a backup.

So fast forward several years.

I've done my bachelor's, I've completed my master's.  We're wanting to celebrate in some way.

I have a thought that I could make some little figures to go atop cupcakes; have some friends over and have the little figures be kind of party favours.  But I've got that games designer head on.  I need to make some sort of rule structure with which these little figures could be so much more.

I get a little distracted and the figures don't get made.  But after a couple of weeks, I play test my board game.  I'll call it "Zombie Game."

The first draft is rough and we're making up half of the rules as we play, since it's understandably difficult to think of every situational possibility when planning on how to make a new game.  We write rules down and cross rules out.  We add items to the game, we replace part of the board.  It's a lot of fun, but on the first test, it's a lot more writing.

Eventually, we get a more well-rounded game that we go on to play test a few more times before the family and I move Stateside.

The game takes a move to the back burner while we settle down and build our lives over here.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to bring it out again and play test with a friend - and one of his friends who is a little further on in the process of publishing a game.  It was great!  We got a lot of playing done and I made some great notes.  With our trip home to England coming up, I've done some more work, more drawing out, more rule amending, and sent the outline and rules of the game to a good friend back home to read through with fresh eyes.

I have some more to write, but it's in a place where I think that we can have a relatively question-free game when we go over.  I'm pretty excited.

Some pictures as I worked my way through scaling the board through various sizes.  I went from 1/8th" graph paper for my initial rough and for my first test game - as game in which we used sewing pins as pawns.  Then there was the bigger 1/4" grid that held a map that was based on a (pretty much) 1" pattern.  So then the next step was to bump the grid up to 1" to accommodate that, which is were I am now.

And then, up until the 1/4" grid, it was a house layout that was used originally was about as English as you could get; that evolved to a more American house layout once we'd moved.  One level.  Wider.  It was a challenge to translate some of the rules into a more American phrasing - some I lost altogether.

So I find myself here, at the very edge of this design.  Everyone I've tested this with has known about it before playing it save one.  And that game went well for the game's progression.  So I've sent a copy of the rules to someone else who hasn't seen them before - in preparation to test again in a month or so, but still - new eyes will find things that I can't see any more.  Putting so much time into something is one of the best ways to go blind to it.

So once we're back from our time in England, I'm going to be sending some copies of the rules and the board to some more friends to play and break.

I broke my collar bone last year.  First bone I've ever broken.  The join between the two pieces is stronger once it's healed up.  I'm hoping it's the same with the game.  Break it.  Make it stronger.

It's scary but it's fun.

Peace.