Open World Game Board Concept

Isn't an open world an infinite expanding world?
Like minecraft?

You need to have a lot of board. But I think it can be done in some extend. Like keeping track of your world on a minimap?

For the general public, this is a NoGo. But for hobiësts like myself. We do have some ways in doing this.

That was a well written post MarkJindra

Minecraft
Well, minecraft can go infinite if the computer has an infinite storage of hard disk. Every "card" of terrain is called a chuck and is stored as a separate file in the "map"map. Not only is the terrain stored, but also what the player has changed.
However, it seems that this is rather limited at the moment. And some players just go walking off in the distance getting their hard disk as full as possible. My personal record is 478 MB.

Boardgame limits
When copying a game like minecraft into a board game. The first issue would be, remembering where we put a certain terrain. Of course it is impossible to take note of all the terrain. You would have to write a book eventually.
The suggestion of the bag with cards intrigues me. That terrain is also disappearing over time is also an interesting concept. With this you could imply that the land changes over time when going on a journey.
But when going on a journey, well, you only have to remember the terrain if you come back. So, we need to think of theme possibilities where we won't come back.

Theme possibilities
Now, the best way to indicate a forever changing land while forgetting where we were. Is setting on a journey.
But what is the reason for this journey? Is there a goal on the end? Of course there is, or else we would not go there.

Now, reasons to get somewhere and not stay where you are is something like running away from something. Perhaps a volcano erupted. And you want to go as far as possible. In this way, the board could be overflowing with lava. I see a game possibility here.

But then you would be needing each other for help. I don't think that is a good goal to get a game with a contest. So I leave that one for others.

How about trying to reach a treasure? One located at the far end of a cave. Now that is a goal where others might try to stop you.

***
The following is just an idea. You may use it or add something to it. But it is how I could use the open world concept for my game.
***

Board set up
The board has little square pieces as terrain (magic maze style). The pieces can only move from left to right. When one is added, all pieces move to the right, just to make room if the new piece needs it. The players themselves will be going from right to left relatively.
The size? Lets say that the width is about 6 cards and the length is ehm... 15? That leaves room for playability. But I think a play test is needed for that one.

Every time a card is removed on one end. A new one is place on the other end. Players that fall behind might be able to remove/place more cards than players that are ahead. This way they could force a player into a canyon. And then that player needs to move back, just to move into the correct path.

Terrain cards
- Clear terrain (with ehm, a clear terrain on the back, you will understand later on... :) )
- Rock terrain, where you cannot move (with a clear terrain on the back)
- Item cards (with a clear terrain on the back)
- Monster cards (with a clear or rock terrain on the back)
- Pool cards (with a clear terrain on the back) for water

Item cards
Now they will contain an item for a player to use. However placing this close to another player is not wise. Several types are present, all random to be picked from another bag once a player gets on the item card.
- iron chest, you need a key for this one, once opened, you may grab another item.
- wooden chest, same story, but... you can use the chest itself as wood for your torch. You can carry it with you including the item. If you find a key, you can open it. If you need wood, you can burn it including the item. This item has 2 sides, closed and opened for that purpose.
- rusty key, well, there you have one :). Once used, it is gone. You can save them up. Making sure no one else finds them.
- key, this one can be used twice. When used once, flip it over to the rusty side.
- mushroom, to be used as... medicine? food? weapon?
- water bottle. This is a permanent. You can save up water and go for a longer period of time. Since water is your main source of staying alive that is.
- Some more wood for your torch. Once it goes out, you will be dealing with a monster EVERY round. No matter what terrain it is.
- A weapon;
---Iron Shield (With a good and damaged side)
---Wooden Shield. Like the wooden chest it is burnable, less burnable when it is damage of course and if it is in a good state, after burning it once, simply flip it over to the damaged side
---Axe (with a good and used side), you also may burn it
---Sword (with a good and used side), not burnable, but durable
---Gun (can carry bullets),
---Another gun, more range, less damage (same bullets)
---Ammunition for the guns
---TNT: pesky monsters, rocks, players... BE GONE!!! To be placed on a field and you need to be able to run away enough fields

Some tricks with TNT:
Ok, here it comes with the TNT. Some players might be laying a double trap. Like a monster with rocks on the back side. If the player destroys the monster with TNT. They might get stuck in the rumbling rocks. Or, when rocks are destroyed. They are suddenly facing a monster.
The only player that knows if it is a double trap, is the one that has laid down this card. :)
There might also be a rock hidden under the clear terrain. So by placing TNT in the middle of no where. You are allowed to turn around 9 fields. And who knows what pops up. More rocks? Perhaps monsters? Items? That much needed water?

Monster cards, with a clear of rock terrain on the back.
Well, you could use these as traps as well.
- 0 range monsters, simply not run into these unless you have to. They are the strongest kind. So using TNT on them is the best way. Attacking them with melee weapons means that when they die, the player might end up under rubble. The chance here is 1/2 for rock.
- 1 range monsters, they can grab a player from some distance, still to be beaten with TNT, or the longer ranged weaponry. Chance for rock is still high; 1/3.
- 2 range monsters, same but a better distance for the monster. TNT doesn't work well on these. You need to roll 6 to get away safely. Chance for rock is low; 1/6.
- 3 range monsters, well, there is no going around this one, is there? Luckily it is weak. Attack these with your melee weapons since they are common and do not posses a rock when dying. Each time when a weapon is used. It gets damaged or destroyed.
For the 0 ranged monsters, you need 4 weapon points. For the 3 ranged monsters, you need only 1 weapon point.
A gun has 1 range and 2 damage each bullet, the Another gun has 2 range but does only 1 damage each bullet.
---A dead monster will drop an item. So you might be able to do some harvesting.

You can use weapons to attack monsters, but also players. Players are more durable of course. And carry a weapon. It is a risk, but eventually worth it.
For staying in the game:
- you may not fall to far behind.
- You need to drink and eat from time to time. You have a thirst bar and a hunger bar. Which declines every round.
- You need to keep your torch burning. A wood in stock bar.
- Your health needs to remain in check. So a health bar.

Well, I guess I made a TLDR post. But it is an interesting concept to be explored :)

I'd had a similar idea to X3M's a while ago (although in less detail). You would have a high-level map showing various towns/villages/dungeons, with roads between them that had different journey times. You'd then have various card decks to represent encounters as you travelled.

If a journey took 6 days, you'd turn over 6 cards one at a time and resolve the encounters.

The original idea got a bit out of hand - with cards having a day and night encounter on them, separate decks for forests and settlements etc. Dungeons were going to have three small decks of increasing difficulty, and you needed to find a door card to move between them.

If you think of computer games like the Fallout series, the large open expanses are filled with random encounters.

I'm currently looking at re-working it into a post-apocalyptic scenario - where you go on scavenging raids in cities and a single deck contains locations, enemies, and items. The locations would stay and expand similar to the old Aliens Vs Predator game.

While the thought of an open world board game sounds incredibly awesome, there are things to consider.

Expansions: Even with MMO's, players are always clamoring for new content. Should a concept like this take off, it's imperative you need to create new content. Even Minecraft in all its glory has iterated over and over, adding in new things each time.

Immense amount of testing: With games like Fallout, WoW, and Skyrim, each feature added in exponentially increases the time needed to insure a smooth game. Making the game may be awesome, but its downfall may be in the amount of testing it needs to make it good.

Retention: Board games that demand retention like Risk Legacy, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and card games like Lord of the Rings LCG have a very small niche audience. It's hard enough to get a regular group of people to play a game consistently, much less an open world board game.

Single player: Larienna mentioned it. Again, this falls into a very niche group of people. I know there are many solo board games out there, but how popular is it? Is the genre strong enough to warrant a person to spend $50+ (assuming there's somewhat of a decent quality to this game) just to play a game alone? Yes, we play video games solo, but the mechanics are all automated; in board games, we do all the automation (flipping cards, battle mechanics, etc.).

But is this impossible? I don't think so. Games like Xia: Legends of a Drift System prove it can be done.

Here's what might work in making an open world game:

There has to be limitation: The world has to have limits, skills must have a cap, you can only give so many options to players. It's hard enough to balance a game where a player has to decide between two choices in their turn, it will be impossible to balance the game if they have unlimited options.

The core mechanic must be be simple: Open worlds can be intimidating...especially if it's a board game. Multiple boards, cards, options need a lot of explaining and can just turn a novice player off. I've stopped playing certain board/card games just because the learning barrier was too high (and I'm an experienced player). To get people to play, it must be simple to understand...and that's a lot harder than it sounds.

Must be released in sections: Your audience must be aware that you have this goal in mind and if you're going to have a lot of options, you're going to have to present it in easily chewable chunks. Unless you're planning to release it all at once, then you're looking at a high price tag and a lot of parts. You'll have something like a Betrayal at House on the Hill where there will be tons of tokens and bits that are only used for very specific situations.

I have experience with making everything from MMO games (WoW) to simple cards games (worked at a board game studio). Open worlds sound like a veritable holy grail for the game consumer, but it's a herculean task for the designer.

I don't think there's enough of a demand for a single player open world board game to merit the work needed to make one. Maybe in the future, but not now. It's far easier to play an open world video game.

Even single player games need testing. Irregardless of the number of players, there's still the human element, which means the game still needs polishing and there will be players that will try and take advantage of the mechanics (min/maxing). I've been through the process, both in video and board game production. Lowering the number of players does lessen the amount of testing time, but for an open world it's not going to lower the test time enough to make that much of a difference. Open world = massive amount of testing. Period.

If you're adding new units that are not unique in any way (other than cosmetic) to the ones before it, then I can see this happening. But the appeal of an open world is also a massive variety of stats on units, weapons, and items. All of these need testing, regardless of the format it's being presented. If it's RPS, then players are going to min/max, putting only the best units in their group, leaving the weaker ones collecting dust, which is ultimately a waste of time and money on those units.

I would likely start a simple version of this using a deck of cards for the map, similar to how I used to run things as a DM back in the day with D&D.

Cards would represent steps along the journey between destinations (technically, a distance of like five miles of travel, for example). You would flip a card for each step/increment of distance, and there's a chance of an encounter. Resolve the encounter, and continue on the journey to the destination.

Encounter cards could have more cards "nested" in them. For example, if on card 3 of a 6-card journey the players uncover a cave complex nestled in the hills, they could explore the caves, which may have 4 to 8 cards that must be flipped to thoroughly explore them.

Once players make it to a given destination without any hazardous encounters (or all hazardous encounters have been resolved), the path between them is considered "safe" and they no longer have to deal with the cards between the two destinations.

It also allows for players to explore in wilderness territory. Players can simply continue to explore in a given "direction" until they happen upon a wilderness encounter, then explore that (like the cave complex above), and that becomes the most recent destination.

This can change periodically, for example when future cards indicate a group of bandits has moved into the area, players seek out encounters (which would indicate the bandit groups) along the path between the two destinations. When X number of bandit encounters have been resolved, the threat is considered neutralized and again the path is streamlined.

The process of continually streamlining the travel path limits the amount of space that a given game will occupy on the table, ut still allows for the fluidity of occasional changes and new developments within an area already considered "fully explored."

The game could be sorted by simply using note-taking, random tables, or additional decks as time and complexity is desired. Using it for a "story-telling game" framework could also work well enough.

Friedmann Friese's new game 504 coming in October...it's basically an "open world" of 9 unique modules, allowing players to mash ANY 3 they enjoy (say, pickup-and-deliver, exploration and racing) into a unique experience. Perhaps there is something to be gleaned from his approach...