Recently, I was inspired by the iOS game Game Dev Story, and thought it would be interesting to see if I could recreate the feel of that game in a board game.
In Game Dev Story you run a video game company. You can hire employees, advertise for your games, promote yourself at trade shows, etc. Over the course of the game your company releases several games with a variety of genres and on multiple gaming platforms.
I thought a lot about it and decided that the worker placement category might be a good place to start. However, I really want to avoid making "just another worker placement game," so hopefully my final design will bring some new ideas.
So here are my ideas so far. All of this is subject to change, and I am not particularly attached to any of it yet. I basically just tried to describe the game I was imagining, without getting into the details (which of course don't exist yet). I would appreciate any input. Is there a better way to accomplish this theme? Does this sound like it has the potential for fun or would it feel like work? Is this a theme worth pursuing? Would the theme be improved by running a different kind of company, like a movie studio?
Setup
Players start with 1 employee in each department:
- development
- art/design
- music/audio
- management/administration/hr (?)
- advertising
- ideas/innovation (?)
The board consists of "action areas" that represent the different departments of the companies.
Turns
Employees (workers) can only take actions within their departments.
Ideas
- Employees collaborate for bigger actions. Advertising+Design to create billboard ad.
Narrative
Game plays over 3 rounds. In each round the players are working to produce 1 video game. At the end of each round the games are "released" and scoring takes place. Scoring involves making money to pay salaries, and other benefits involving marketing (buzz, publicity, etc.).
Rounds 2 and 3 should allow players to benefit from the success of previously released games. This should include not only monetary profits, but also bonuses generated from the popularity and overall success of the previously released game(s). This could possibly involve the ability to create a sequel, which could change some of the strategies that the player uses.
Later rounds could also bring improvements in game design technology, such as 3d graphics, motion controls, etc.
Winning should basically be about making the most profits.
Departments
Development
- Writing code
- Debugging
Art/Design
- Creating artwork
Music/Audio
- Composing music
- Sound fx
Management/Advertising/HR
- Hiring new employees
- Promoting employees (possibly creating hybrid employees?)
- Company policies (effect employee productivity somehow? maybe create unique "powers" for the players?)
Advertising
- Generating money/buzz
Ideas/Innovation
- Writing storylines
- Developing gaming innovations
- Strategies (genres, platforms, etc.)
- Research
Concerns
- Blocking actions might not hold up thematically. One company composing music should not necessarily get in the way of another company doing the same. A possible solution could be inspired by Alien Frontiers, where a limited number of other players could take the same action. Or perhaps the first player to take a particular action each turn could receive some bonus.
Other departments have two choices. While this is better than one, if you're going to go with your idea of having department specific workers, then you need at least 3 if not more choices in each department. The art department for example could be combined with the sound department. This gives you now three options.
I probably should have been more clear about the format of some of my notes. The listed "actions" are not actually actions, but thematic ideas that would be used as a basis for designing the actual actions. So for example, "debugging" could involve an action that "removes X bug tokens" or something like that. I agree that there will need to be a variety of actions for every department.