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Games
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Designed a robust economy system that intertwined with the resource management and the zombies system, which affected each player's choices.
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Created and improved systems that supported different playstyles, leading to dynamic play sessions and emergent player-to-player interactions.
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Grounded the many systems with narrative to invoke feelings of the survival genre in players.
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Used spreadsheets to track and conduct playtest reports, feedback, and metadata to prototype and iterate the game.
What I did
This game was made for a game design class final project and we were given a game made by another group during the semester (a simple card game about drawing resource cards to build the equipment needed to survive a zombie apocalypse) and our job was to iterate it to make it better. In the end, we emerged with a totally different complex Eurogame that immersed players in surviving a zombie apocalypse.
System design and fitting into the world of Safe Havens were crucial in developing and tuning the game since they were all connected and can affect the choices players decide to make. The gameplay follows the "worker placement" model in which the player will move their survivors around their player map to perform actions to lead them to victory.
We first created a system of 4 materials (brick, food, metal, and wood) which plays an essential role in trading among the players to encourage them to socialize and communicate with each other. Next, we created multiple ways of getting more materials from rolling a dice to determine how much material they can receive, researching building blueprints, and constructing buildings survivors can work at to produce material.
To keep player's actions in check, we implemented a zombie meter system that will increase whenever a player performed actions that benefited them and when the zombie meter reached its threshold, all players will have to solve their randomly drawn zombie attack tiles at the end of their next turn with materials or risk losing their buildings.
Development Process
This was a spreadsheet we used to track and balance the Buildings and the Blueprints used to create them. The building system required players to use their "Survivors" to research for a turn in order to acquire a Blueprint. Players can then use the materials they have to build these buildings which in turn can help them churn out more resources they need to maintain their havens, trade with other players, and survive.
Gallery
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