Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
I played a ton of board games as a kid and was always drawn to more complex games, although they were a lot harder to get my hands on back then! As a result, I also ended up creating a number of games myself, usually based on whatever TV series or computer game I was into at the time. I took a long break from gaming until my wife and I were living in England for a few years and looking for something different to do. We picked up a copy of Arkham Horror, and have been actively gaming pretty much weekly for the 8 years since then. We both love co-op games, but sometimes have a hard time finding ones that provide sufficiently interesting decisions to drive the joint problem-solving that we both enjoy.
What is your favorite PNP game?
We haven't played too many PNP games, but have played a ton of user-created content for existing games. We've both really enjoyed Jacob Schmidt-Madsen's scenarios for Mansions of Madness and Michael Hunter's scenarios for Eldritch Horror. We're looking forward to trying out more of the PNP games from this contest.
How did you first discover PNP design contests?
We'd created our own scenario for Eldritch Horror previously and thought we'd have a go at taking it a step further and creating our own game. In the process of doing so, we discovered the PNP community at Boardgamegeek, and as a result the design contest.
Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
Players take on the role of heroes defending humanity from an overwhelming horde of monsters spilling forth from tunnels under the earth, seemingly without end. We were inspired by games like Vermintide and Myth the Fallen Lords - where things never seem to get better, they just become less bad. The monsters are generally much more powerful than the heroes who must rely on skill and cunning to stand any chance of survival. We wanted to give players that experience of revealing new monsters and thinking 'Ah damn, how are we going to deal with this' - and then the satisfaction of finding a way to beat it.
Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Players roll dice and then assign them to various skills and abilities to do damage to the enemies that appear. Rather than higher numbers being better, the results on the dice just determine your options - all dice can be used, just in different ways so players will be constantly challenged to make the best use of the resources they have available - rarely if ever will the dice prevent you from being effective, but you might have come up with different strategies depending on the outcome. As the game progresses, players purchase new skills, items or additional dice, giving them new ways to deal with the increasingly challenging enemies. Managing which enemies are engaged with which players is key, as many of the enemies are capable of one-shotting a hero if not handled effectively!
We also included mechanics that enabled players to work together by 'saving' dice that can be used by other players, or having abilities that can be activated during other players' turns, ensuring that players stay engaged even when they're not the one taking their turn - we wanted a co-op game that kept everyone involved at all times.
What were your design goals with the game?
To create a co-op game that presented challenging decisions, that required players to think together and talk together to strategise and overcome the challenges of the game, and to provide a large degree of replayability through different hero abilities and builds. And most importantly, to do all of this in a game that could be setup, played and broken down in under two hours.
How long have you been working on your game?
We only started working on it in March this year, but we put a silly number of hours into it, designing, playtesting and tweaking. I honestly have no idea how much time we spent in total. Suffice it to say it was a lot!
Finish the sentence: “If you like
If you like the Lord of the Rings LCG and the decision making that comes with that, but want something that can be setup more quickly and without the deck building, then you'll probably enjoy this.
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