Game Type: Board Game
Developed Using: Adobe Illustrator
Status: Project Completed
Role in Project: Solo Development, based on existing game
This project was an assignment done to teach the effects of game mechanics on an existing game. The assignment was to take the existing game of Shoot Out, and add at least one mechanic to change the game.
The original work of Shoot Out, per the textbook "Table Top Game Design for Video Game Designers", required players to use a twenty sided die, 24 colt tokens, 12 rifle tokens, and two character tokens on a game board. The board could be drawn on a sheet of paper as 40 boxes labeled 1-20 moving away from a center space.
This version only uses a single deck of cards, two pennies (or character tokens of choice), and a printable sheet of paper to serve as the board.
To prevent players from being able to mathematically deduce the card left in the deck, a double blind mechanic was added. Each player would have information that the other player would lack, eliminating absolute certainty for the final draw of the deck.
The reduced play components reinforced the wild west theme using playing cards, and reduced the per-unit cost of materials. This choice would also reduce the box-size and shelf space requirements of each unit upon being printed.
The change from dice to cards also shifted the game's randomization to favor skill over luck. Since values in a drawn deck could not be repeated, the pool of possible draws could be tracked and managed as the rounds persist - though never fully known.
To further reduce luck as a decider in the game and defensive action "Cover Fire" would allow a player to reflexively throw away a rifle round. The number of rifle rounds were reduced do to mathematical necessity, making the resource more usable, and more scarce.