Tabletop: Analog Game Design by Greg Costikyan & Drew Davidson et al

Author:Greg Costikyan & Drew Davidson et al. [Greg Costikyan and Drew Davidson et al.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feedbooks
Published: 2011-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

In the end, I had 61 ideas spread across 3 pages of bullet points. That felt about right for Hopscotch. Larger games could fill far more pages of ideas.

And yes, some of the ideas are unrealistic. It’s important to put everything interesting that comes to mind down on paper, regardless of how insane it may be. Otherwise, you’re cutting your imagination off. Ludicrous ideas can lead to some excellent, perfectly reasonable ones.

Recursive Brainstorming and Lists!

Designing a game is a recursive and iterative process. Once I had a list of ideas, I picked the four most promising ones, and developed them by generating lists of rules and mechanics.

From those, I picked the single idea I liked best, called Burdensome Hopscotch, which came from the brainstorm idea, Make it difficult for your opponent to hop by dressing them up in crazy gear. It appealed to me most because it had the opportunity for players to creatively prepare for the game based on their own personalities, and the gameplay had huge opportunities to be downright hilarious. The varying equipment would also change the physical mechanics from game to game, resulting in a very replayable experience.

Now that I’d chosen Burdensome Hopscotch, I went through its potential rules and mechanics and drilled down again and brainstormed around each one of those.

This process may sound obvious, but a common design pitfall is running with the first feasible idea you think up. Don’t shortchange yourself at any step of the way.

Burdensome Hopscotch

The gist of Burdensome Hopscotch is that before the game, each player rounds up ten items that can be worn or held, and everyone tosses them into a heap. They should be things that would make playing difficult when used. (The items most fun in playtests were: cleats, a backpack of rocks, giant sunglasses, big mittens, snowboarding boots, winter jackets, a staff, and a tennis racket, among other things.)

Each board square has a smaller target inside it. If a player lands their marker on the target, they get to draw a slip of paper from a hat, and put the indicated item on another player. Players must wear the items until the game is over. The game ends when only one person is left. Everyone else is a winner.

The game often breaks down into hilarity as people try to jump around loaded with burdensome gear. Hence the name, Burdensome Hopscotch.

Like any new design, shortcomings came to light as we playtested, and I made adjustments on the spot or between rounds:

The targets were too difficult to hit, so I increased their size.

When you did hit a target, getting to take your turn and put a burdensome item on another player was too much of an advantage. A more balanced mechanic was to end your turn, but let you put a crazy item on an opponent, which was reward enough.

Originally, the winner was the first person to finish, but then you missed out on watching some of the most burdened players duke it out (the best part!).

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