So!
Its your girl Elektra, back with another update that nobody asked for, but damn it she registered this blog and intends to use it on the off chance that it carries anthropological significance, when the good people at Riegel VII have to dig through the ruins of human civilization.
I made a game.
Its called "Camp Kill"
Its about horny camp counselors getting murdered in the woods.
And that's pretty much all there is to it. Sort of. But you came here for game dev stuff and I feel obliged to like tell you about "the process" and how I approach game design.
Its a threefold process essentially.
1. get a stupid idea
2. figure out a central mechanic
3. write a bunch of shitty jokes
For my money. What makes games great is intuitive design. "The Dragon Game" is good-ish, because it features some very simple and intuitive mechanics (for the most part) and can easily be picked up and play for hours without much introduction to the grindier side of things. Essentially it comes down to super light math with dice and whether or not you have advantage. That's it - that's the worlds "greatest" roleplaying game.
So when I design I try to disregard all that fancy talk about "positioning in combat" or how far a character can move in a round. Its an artifact from the days of wargaming and a surefire way to take your great RPG idea and fuck it sideways with pointless rules that gatekeep fun.
Game design is easy. Honestly. You don't need to consider every route possible to take, you just need to concern yourself with building a framework that directs the game along a certain path and then decide how much of a narcissist you are, when it comes to everything else.
You don't need to specify movement allotment if you just make it so that everyone can move what seems reasonable. There's no point in having action points when everyone just performs actions intuitively. What makes sense in the current scenario is allowed. Initiative? Never heard of her. In my games you do stuff when you want to, cooperatively with the CM and the your co-players.
The necessity to put rules in place for literally everything, is to sow distrust. So don't do that. We're here to have fun, not to be little Narcs harping on each others fun.
So it's all about creating a central mechanic that influences everything else and make it so that everything you do and say, refers back to said mechanic. Super fucking simple.
In this game you flip cards and try to find matches in order to overcome skill challenges. Fail to match? Disaster nears. Tied to this is a karma system that influences whether or not the murderer can strike. See? It took me five minutes and we've already got a mechanic that guides the narrative along. It's literally so easy.
Try not to get bogged down in specifics and overthinking. Create some form of pivoting point and build from there. "Yes Elektra, I knew that" you say, but in my MANY discussions with the nerdfolks, I have discovered that many regard game development as some kind of "big and mysterious" entity that must be sacrificed unto. Fuck all that.
So that's essentially how I approach it. A sort of holistic approach where everything is neatly bundled together and anchored to the central mechanic. Its elegant, sort of. Not perfect, but elegant enough that it can be a vehicle for four hours of fun.
Which is the goal here. To keep you entertained while maiming your friends.
Anywho. "Camp Kill" is currently being transformed from a technical document to a rulebook and if I am not going to be a lazy bitch - then its likely the game might be released within February. Playtesting pending. So keep an eye out over on Itch.
Until then.
Stay out of the woods. Jason lives.
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