Johan Danielsson, Lead Design

Le Blog.
So. I'm the lead designer of OutoftheBlue. My name is Johan Danielsson and I'm a cheese-loving, perfectionist just as the next man.

In this blog I will keep you updated on our work with our board game and my own thoughts during the development.

Week 1
On our first meeting we tossed around som ideas, some better than others. Then we decieded on some things that we wanted to include in the final game. Such as: No dice-rolling, easy to lean and play, cards with multiple functions, resource-management, several choices per turn etc.

I put together a game-system from my head that included expanding the players draw-pile and use the cards as a means of currency to take more actions in a turn. I also made up a preliminary theme for the game (trolls digging dungeons, looking for treasure) just as a way to get started looking at the system by having a frame in which to build. This helped a lot and got us going.

On our second meeting we had a few ideas. I suggested that we could have action-cards that when played the player chooses one of a set number of actions. This will hopefully lead to the players feeling that they can make important choices with each action, but still keep it fairly simple.

Week 2
I suggested that we played the game Dominion, because it uses a similar core-system that we are after. We played it and broke down the systems of the game to see how they have put it together. This helped us to look at our own system in another way. We use the basic card-system of Dominion, but put it in a risk and reward system. We have also test-played our system using priliminary rules that we will balance and evolve later on. I think that the system works well and has a lot of potential.

We also started working on components for the beta-testing of the system. After some more testing we divided the workload between each other to construct the cards and game space for the game.

Week 3 We started this week by compiling our components and test the game with the cards that we had made during the weekend. Including the game space and the mats that are used to place the cards on. It turned out to work out well. We have also kept the beta-components very abstract and easy to tune and balance. So when we get feedback from other groups we are able to change the parameters and rules without having to make a whole lot of work with the components. We also handed our game system out for testing to other groups. The general response was positive, but it seems to be very hard to write all-inclusive rules that don't leave any uncertainty. Overall I understand and embrace the critism, but some things I have to disagree with. Such as the lack of graphical content and theme. We made the system as abstract as possible for a reason and will be adding the aestethics level on top once we are done balancing the core system. I feel that this is the best way do go about it, since we want the system to work flawlessly before concentrating on the theme.

On friday we nailed the theme for the game and started working on the visuals. We divided the work between us artists and I began working in the interface and layout of the cards.

Week 4
On monday we started off by having a meeting and get an overview of the graphical content that we had produced during the weekend. It feels as if we have come a long way and I think the narrative and graphical theme reflects our gameplay in a nice way.

I have been working on the layout and design of the cards and game board. I've been trying to get as much valuable information to the player in as small space as possible, using icons and colour. Most of the work is done and I will be compiling everything, making sure that it's the right size and printable.

We also decided to have the cards in plastic covers. This will save us some work, since we don't need to print the back side of the cards, and they will also be more durable when shuffling.

On a game design level, we also changed the way the player buy upgrades in the game. I suggested this change because the system when buying upgrades had a weird impact on our core system, especially when getting change back after buying an upgrade. Now we see it more as a upgrade-station where the player uses her material to build the upgrade she wants. This way, we can abstract this phase down to icons and don't let the player worry about numbers and refunds. It also fits our narrative theme much better and I think it was the right way to go.