#003 GAD BA1 P1: Board Game - The Quiet After The Storm.

Once home I could not help but continue to think about the project set, evidently I was not the only one. I had set up a Facebook group for our group which proved within a short amount of time how useful it was, within a few hours of making it people had already posted their visual ideas and designs.

The following day we all came in with more developed ideas, with these we moved on to create a more solid concept of design. I wanted to do something that no other groups would think of, something that draws the players more into the game and gives them a hands on experience; this is how the idea of using electronics came about. From our discussions as a group I knew that there would be some kind of weapons/damage system implemented in to the game, this game me the idea of using LED lights to display the players health. I brought this idea up to the group and it brought up even more possible ideas for the board game, which would both make the game more interesting as well as slightly more tactical.

The idea was that a player has 4 lives, signified by a red, a orange, a yellow and a green LED. Different weapons deal different amounts of damage to the opponent ranging from 1 life to 3 lives. Once a player has lost all their lives, they must move their piece back to a checkpoint/spawn-point which is indicated on the board as well as missing a turn. The LED's would be place in a "control box" on the side of the board that the player is playing from. When a players ship is damaged they turn off the corresponding amount of LED's to signify their damage. The LED's are positioned so all the players can see each others hit points that are remaining allowing them to plan and use tactics to destroy their enemy, the clear position of the LED's also prevents players from sneakily turning back on a light as the other players will immediately see the change of colour and light.

Christina came up with the idea of using a hexagon shaped board, allowing up to 6 players to play. Initially I had thought that 4 players would be enough, but thinking on it I realised that Christina's idea would make the game much more exciting. We then spent a bit of time thinking of the rules and began discussing ways to add a tactical side to the game. Kai wrote down some of the rules that we were sure about, however we kept open minds as we knew that it was possible we would need to change or amend them while testing the board game.

As the end of the day came nearer, we set about dividing the work between us, they are as follows:
Kai Shepherd & Christina Sheehy: Rules of the game, instruction/rule booklet.
Taz Selby: Weapons design, card design, attributes.
Nathan Russell: Board art & design, board illustration, board electronics.
Samantha Pillow: Box art & design, box illustrations.
Chloe Pleass, William Pateman & Tyrone Parker: Character design, ship design.

Although we will be working separately, we will be using the Facebook group I created to communicate with each other and post our progress. That way we can make sure all the designs follow the same style and work well together.