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Precious Table Space

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 14:10
bbblackwell
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Hi! I had all my mechanics set up perfectly to really bring my adventure theme to life and give players the feeling that could make decisions for their characters just as they would in the real world - then I set out to determine the appropriate board size and it all fell apart... the game was too big!

Basically, I'm wondering how everyone deals with fitting a lot of great mechanics into a game without their representative physical components growing to undesirable proportions? Anyone have tips on getting the most out of table space?

That's the quickie version of my challenge at this point; here is more detail for those who are interested:

The game uses a board with 9 zones and decks that represent events and encounters in each zone. Each zone requires 3 deck spaces - the related deck, discard pile, and active card. I also wanted to have 2 mini deck spaces on each zone. In addition, there has to be room for players to move around the board on paths.

When I laid it all out, it seems that my initial board size of 20" x 35" (or thereabouts), which is required for other mechanics of the game, was still too small to accommodate all the cards! The board is already pretty huge and I just don't know how big a board can get before people just won't want to play - I hear the complaints about Arkham Horror all the time, and that board is 24" x 36".

I've tried to keep it simple - a board, 2 dice, cards, and mini figs for players. I've wanted to avoid using tokens that have to be placed on cards, or large amounts of dice or figures (the game doesn't involve tactical combat).

Sincere thanks for taking the time to check in with me on this, I'm passionate about the game and want to include all the great ideas I have for it without having people playing on the floor!

-Brian Blackwell

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 14:20
#1
questccg
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Check this guy out...

http://www.bgdf.com/node/13106

If you are worried about SPACE, this guy should be in a PANIC! :P

I don't think it ever occurred to him that maybe HIS board is TOO BIG... But it works at conventions!

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 14:21
#2
Dralius
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I have a card game that needs

I have a card game that needs about 9 square feet of table space to for 2 players so your game dosn't sound all that huge.

You mentioned mini decks, could all the decks be small?

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 14:35
#3
bbblackwell
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Mini Decks

Hahaha, that game is huge! I have to say, I love stuff like that, but I know most people would just find it impossible to play.

I have resigned myself to the fact that mini decks for everything would be part of a viable solution, though you can't present the eye-catching artwork along with the required text as easily in that format. In addition, I had hoped to use mini decks to differentiate some aspects of the game.

I can also remove 2 zones and provide them in a possible expansion to the game, but again, that will subtract from some of the artistic value of the board as well as some of the variety since those zones were vastly different from the other 7.

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 15:13
#4
Corsaire
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Personally, I'd have

Personally, I'd have color-coded decks matching the squares and set those and their discards off the board. Place only the active card on the square with other "live" elements. I think that is a familiar/common model. Also, have to consider the effect of reaching for cards, discarding, shuffling, board bumps, clutter for moving, and visibility.

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 15:16
#5
BENagy
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Hey, Brian. Have you

Hey, Brian. Have you considered doing something similar to the Dungeons and Dragons Starter Sets?

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/dndstarterset.jpg

They are supposed be a sample adventure for new players, and include a map with many rooms on it. Now I think the new one is all on one big plastic sheet, but the older version used to come with 9 double-sided cardboard squares, maybe 9 inches by 9 inches? You'd put out the room your characters were in and maybe the last one they had been in, but wouldn't lay out the next board until they entered a new room, at which point you'd pick up the last room's cardboard "room" to make space on the table for the new one.

I guess a question to ask, then, is do you need all 9 zones out at once? How many could different players be on at a time? That might help a little.

The other thing to consider is what the size of the board could be if you removed the decks from it, and had them sitting off-board. Can the decks be combined in some way or does each zone necessitate its own decks to function in your game? For example, maybe you have 3 Level 1 zones, 3 Level 2 zones and 3 Level 3 zones, each that use the same decks. Now you're down to only 3 decks of each type instead of 9. Hope this helps!

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 19:14
#6
bbblackwell
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Border cards and board space

Thank you guys very much for chiming in, it's helping to refine my thinking on the matter.

CORSAIRE, I sort of dismissed the idea of having decks off the board early in development because I wanted the zones to have an interactive feel, where you flip an encounter and it's right there by your mini-fig ready to brawl! I don't prefer the Arkham Horror style with the decks around the edge, it just reminds me of the bank in Monoploy - I really don't like Monopoly. haha,

But actually, you're suggestion at this point seems to be a really good option because it would allow me to use larger cards, and as suggested, I suppose the active encounter card could be tossed into a space on the zone until resolved (rarely do cards sit in the active zone, they're usually dealt with fairly immediately, but still, you can park them in the zone while you're rolling dice or what have you).

BEN, I couldn't use that modular style because the game has everyone moving wherever they want at all times, but you raise a very good point - how much smaller could the board be if I get the cards off of the board? I can't get down to 3 decks because each zone's deck is very thematic offering different challenges and rewards, but getting the main zone decks off the board would allow me to maybe get the board size down enough to accommodate them along one edge, and then I would have space for the other card-related things I wanted to do with mini-cards inside the actual zone.

Great food for thought, I truly appreciate the input from everyone, it's helping a lot!
-Brian

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 20:38
#7
Corsaire
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Ah, play feel

Hadn't thought of the play/feel idea. Why not then,set the deck on the space, flip the top card of the deck over onto the top of the deck. Then discard off board or put it face-up under the deck? That should nicely preserve that "BAM!" feel for the encounter.

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 21:13
#8
bbblackwell
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Discard to the deck bottom?

Wow, you're onto something there. Thanks for discussing this with me, Corsaire. The only issue would be that you'd never know the deck ran out until cards started coming up in a repeating pattern (since you wouldn't be shuffling the discard pile to replenish), but that's circumvented easily enough by counting the draws in play testing and just making sure to exceed the number of cards typically drawn by a decent amount. With 7-9 zones, the decks wouldn't have to be too big, people have a lot of other places they need to go.

Is there anyone reading this who thinks placing cards back under the deck to discard is an inconvenience once per turn?

I solo play Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Drizzt a lot and I always do that anyway, doesn't bother me but I'm wondering how others feel.

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Thu, 10/24/2013 - 22:07
#9
Corsaire
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Welcome

Or place the discards face-up on the bottom of the deck.

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Fri, 10/25/2013 - 00:02
#10
bbblackwell
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Ah, yes, yes

I missed that little detail! Yes, certainly, that would solve all the trouble! Seems I need to be led by the hand through your suggestions. hahaha, forgive me, this is my first crack at a board game and I'm counting on mistakes and dysfunction leading me to the greatest result in the end as each piece is fixed and fine-tuned.

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Fri, 10/25/2013 - 09:11
#11
Kroz1776
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Rofl Mao

Corsaire wrote:
Or place the discards face-up on the bottom of the deck.

This made me laugh so hard when I read it! Reminded me of a certain laughing communist named...

ROFL Mao!

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Fri, 10/25/2013 - 09:44
#12
Corsaire
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oops

Oddly, when I wrote that, I hadn't remembered mentioning it in the first post. If I had, I would've let it lie fallow.

Downside of the card under the deck is how often with a board game I remember that awkward moment of someone scrambling to get a fingernail hold on a card on a board. Someone had posted here recently about using printed card playmats for their game board, which would seem pretty useful for that sort of thing.

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Fri, 10/25/2013 - 11:14
#13
azarkon
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not really too big

If you get everything on the game board, than a 2 foot by 3 foot board is manageable. Arkham requires a lot of table space because in addition to the board, each player has a player mat and tableau of cards, there's the old one's player mat, there's all those decks of cards and piles of tokens, etc. Lots of games use the same size (6-fold) board of Arkham, Ticket to Ride is the first example that comes to mind. Since it sounds like most of your game components will live on the game board, it sounds to me like you could easily go to 24 by 36, or even 28 by 36 (although this will make manufacturing more challenging) without overcrowding the table.
-Nick

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Fri, 10/25/2013 - 21:03
#14
Ecarots
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How about

What if you raised the Board or playing surface so all discards and new cards are below the main platying board?

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Tue, 10/29/2013 - 00:45
#15
BENagy
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HM... This doesn't exactly

HM... This doesn't exactly relate to your game, but maybe it will give you an idea or two, and this game was probably the best use of table space! It's Key to the Kingdom. Board James (the AVGN guy) did a review of it on YouTube. Basically, special triggers made you fold the board over, and it became an entirely different board, and it was super thematic because if your character wasn't in certain cut-out areas of the board, he was wiped out and lost points. Again, may not be super relevant, but definitely a go-to game for inspiration on table space usage!

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Wed, 10/30/2013 - 23:28
#16
bbblackwell
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Much obliged

BENagy wrote:
HM... This doesn't exactly relate to your game, but maybe it will give you an idea or two... It's Key to the Kingdom.

Thank you for putting that out there, any and all ideas are welcome - even if the idea isn't an exact fit, sometimes your thought process will mutate it into something useful!

As a result of our discussion here, I've streamlined the setup to include a deck on each zone, with discards going underneath, face-up. When it actually comes time to make the board, I'll see if I can fit a separate discard pile, as I know this is preferable because of the aforementioned fingernail dilemma.

I'm glad to hear that a 2 x 3 is not considered unmanageable; there definitely won't be as much going on outside the board as Arkham, just a player area for each participant with about 6-10 cards. The nature of the game dictates that a fairly large play area be used, but I don't believe it will be considered a monstrosity by today's standards.

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