Thaumechanical is a competitive board game featuring a board with two opposing sides - red and blue - that players will fight for control over. Players will move over the board using hexes they can either manipulate or navigate through, to reach the enemy player's hex and win the game. Intended for audiences 5+ and 2 opposing players, because more than 2 won't work and young children should be able to play the game.
Instructions
For set up: Set yellow highlighted squares in each corner of the board Set yellow circles in the center of the board Red and Blue faces should be in their respective corner.
RULES: Any player is able to start the game with their turn. Each turn, players can either move 5 hexes, or damage the enemy player within 10 hexes of them. Players can take 3 turns of damage before being eliminated If a player picks up a yellow circle in the center of the board, they are able to move the nearest square to act as a shield, or obstruct the enemy player. The first player to reach the opposite color on the board, or eliminate the enemy player wins!
Process of creation
Creating the idea of the board game was simple as the game is. I was looking forward to making a simple, quick, and fun first person shooter for my Unity game, so in order to translate that for my board game, I created a simple "shooter" board game between two competing players. Creating the physical board and packaging wasn't much of a different story. Simplistic visuals and pieces were what I was going for in designing the "feel" of the game; a way to essentially mirror the straightforward design of the game. All pieces were created by printing them out of legal paper, the box design was taped and folded onto a box I initially used for my guitar pieces, of which the board folded nicely into. Player characters and other pieces were cut out of a single paper with all the templates and placed into the box.
Assets:
Cost Breakdown
The game did not cost much to make overall; most of the components were already available while those that weren't had to be printed in school. However, I feel like I could've put some monetary investments into this projects, like buying figures to keep in place instead of paper, and perhaps getting a better fitting box. Another cost I should've invested more into was time, instead of making it in a single weekend, I should've spent a few hours or even minutes every day adding to it and testing ideas out on the design.
Reflection on Video Game
Learning from the board game, I know on what I should work on when it comes to translating it to the video game we'll be creating at the end of the year. My main issue is clarification on instruction and how to play, and overcomplication. When I start designing the video game I will simplify the mechanics greatly to make it more understandable to players that don't get a whole page of instructions on how to play the game.