Hello all,
I've been working on developing a double blind strategy game for quite a while now, originally inspired by sirlin's article about RPS interactions and game design.
At one point I stumbled upon a game called "Waving Hands", designed by Richard Bartle in 1977.
(original rules can be found here http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/WavingHands.html)
It was, in a way, exactly what I was trying to achieve, but it wasn't beginner friendly, and I didn't want any book keeping (waving hands is entirely book keeping, btw).
I went in circles for a while developing different systems for double blind strategical games, then finally was struck by an idea that would take the exact game play of waving hands, and remove almost all need of book keeping by using a card and board system I came up with for a different game I'd been designing.
So I have the idea to take the waving hands game, re-theme it, design cards and a board that keeps track of everything so players don't have to, and make this into a creation of my own.
I'm certain that if I had different 'spell' effects and different gesture combinations, it would be entirely unique, but were I to use the same effects and combinations of gestures (even if all were re-themed), what the effects actually do would obviously be recognizable as copies from waving hands.
Given all of this, how much do you think I'd have to change to make this my own game, rather than a remake of Richard Bartle's?
Would the card/board addition be sufficient?
Should I remake all of the effects?
Should I use the card/board idea only, and design everything else from scratch?
It seems like a shame to not make use of any of Bartle's great design.
thanks for your input!
Thank you for your thoughts so far.
Normally, if I have an idea very similar to one that's already out there, I'll drop it and come up with something else, but the concept I have here seems so effective it'd be a shame to drop it.
The difference between my idea and how Waving Hands currently handles it...
Waving Hands- you write down gestures and after gestures are revealed each turn, you look at the sequence of gestures you've chosen over the last few turns and see if they create the sequence to cast a spell.
My Idea- you make use of a board and move pawns along branching pathways based on what cards you play each turn, when a pawn reaches a space with a spell, it activates that spell.
The method of execution, and arguably the 'core mechanism', is different in this regard, however what actually occurs based on a player's choices remains the same. For example, where SWD is a sequence that casts Fear in Waving Hands, In my concept you play an S card to move the pawn to the S space, next turn you play a W card and the pawn moves to the W space branching off the S space, and next turn the D card to move the pawn to the D space branching from the W. When the pawn moves to the D, you activate the Fear spell.
I definitely want to contact Bartle about potentially using parts of his game design, but I may just create my own effects so as not to infringe on his creation. As well, I'd like to publish my version some day.