Despite taking a short break to publish a small Pathfinder RPG sourcebook, I’ve been slowly hacking away Spider Siege, the Venom & Silk board game. Most recently, I’ve been nibbling around the edges of what the game board actually looks like. I mean, yes, it’s a map, but more importantly, it has to be good game board.
I don’t have anything to show just yet. Okay, there are pencil marks on a sheet of paper that, if you look at it with your eyes squinted almost shut, what you see through your tears might resemble a map. Or a circuit board. Or a child’s drawing of the sinking of the Titanic. But it’s definitely not ready to show.
What I can show you are my notes.
They’re mostly just lots of question marks and reminders to myself, but if you like to watch the sausage being made, there’s some serious meat-grinding going on here.
Board Basics
The board should lead to interesting decisions (equidistant resources), fun game play (choke points and the like), and games that are balanced without being dull. We definitely need rivers that block spiders but only slow down humans. Probably some mutually-impassable terrain too (mountains?). Actually, you could make an argument for spiders nimbly clamoring over mountains that would block humans, but such obvious symmetry makes me frown.
Resource Quantities
How many resource icons on the board? Should be a good amount of Population, since that drives the players’ ability to recruit troops, and even more Food, since you need it to move troops, which is a big part of actually playing the game. Milk should be rare, and Metal somewhere in between. Let’s try this:
* Food 15
* Population 12
* Metal 9
* Milk 6
Definitely not perfect, but a good place to start. Oh, don’t forget that some spaces have multiple resource. For example, I’d expect a number of Population spaces to also have Food or Metal. Milk’s always by itself, though.
Set Up
For maximum fairness and variation, the players–especially the spider player–should set up their starting forces as they see fit, according to some rules (“No you can’t put your HQ next to the enemy”) to keep it from getting too crazy. But that puts major game decisions right up front, before new players have had a chance to even see the game in action. Probably better to have a specific set up for at least the first few games. Maybe have multiple set-ups, and have them be scenarios? Cool idea, but maybe make sure the core game works first.
So, that’s what I’m working with. Hopefully it will have turned into something a little more visual for next time, but I’m not making any promises. This summer’s turned out to be pretty hectic, and we’re only in the first week.
