Foreign Lands

Foreign Lands is a board game that I was a game designer on during a Board Game Jam in October 2019. The theme of the prompt we were given for the jam was "Foreign". Our team decided to key in on the idea of the player feeling like a foreigner to different areas on the board, attempting to befriend the cultures they run into. We wanted to make the game multiplayer to add another level to the foreign idea, making each player be a native to one of the four sections of the board. This could incentivize players to both cooperate and compete with each other. The goal of the game was to trade various gems with the tribes in order to have them accept you as one of their own. Players would take turns moving around the board to try to collect the gems needed to trade with all of the tribes.

Role: Game Designer

Team Size: 6

Project Duration: 6 hours

Abstract

What Went Well

- The map layout promoted replayability in a game where natives have an understanding of their land.

- The mechanics of the game reinforced the core idea of Foreigner.

- Players are able to interact with each other however they want.

What Did Not Go Well

- A core theme from the beginning can do wonders for the creative process. From creative direction to decision-making, theming can be an extremely powerful tool in keeping an entire game consistent and connected.

Lessons Learned

Postmortem

What Went Well

The map layout promoted replayability in a game where natives have an understanding of their land

While being a bit of a mouthful, this detail is a major component that I believe made the game much more attractive. Since each player is a native to one of the four sections of the world, we wanted to give them some type of knowledge about their area. We also wanted to make sure the areas would be different each time you play so players could not just memorize the locations on the board after the first time they played. What we ended up doing is what you see below:

The board set at the beginning of each game. Each piece of paper has a number written from 1-25 on it faced down.

As seen above, the board is covered by small strips of paper numbered from 1-25. The player assigned to the area is the one that gets to place the strips whatever fashion the want. Therefore, the player assigned to that area is the only person who knows where each number is in their area. The number is only flipped when a player lands on that tile. So the next question is, what do the numbers mean? We decided to create a system where each number corresponds to a certain event in the world. However, what event links to what number is decided during the game itself.

The board where all events are placed.

Examples of some events that can be attached to the board numbers.

How this would happen is that when a player would land on a number, they would pull from a bag full of 25 strips of paper with events on it. Whichever event they pulled out, it would now be attached to that number for the game. This means any spot with the same number as the one the player just landed on will now have that event. Players of other lands would now know where that event is on their native area, since they know where their corresponding number is on their map. This makes every map different and unique from the last game, while still giving the players an idea of their native lands!

The mechanics of the game reinforced the core idea of Foreigner

Every major gameplay element in the game worked in reinforcing the core idea of the player being a foreigner in the lands outside of their native one. Like stated above, players only know of the locations of numbers in the lands they are native to, making the other three a complete mystery to them. Their inventory in the game also was unique to each player.

The starting inventory of each player. They have a total of six gems, with three being from the land they are native to. They also begin with their region's artifact.

The players start out with six gems and one artifact in their inventory. Three of the gems and the one artifact all come from their native land (in the above case, the player is native to the jungle land). Their goal is to acquire all four artifacts in the world to become a part of every culture, so it only makes sense that they would start out with their native artifact. They also start out with a majority of gems from their region as the others are extremely rare or almost unheard of in their regions.

As the game progresses, all players slowly begin to get a grasp on the layouts of all four regions, similar to how foreigners slowly get a grasp on the lay of the land when they travel. The concept of slowly uncovering the world was part of our fundamental experience we wanted our players to undergo.

Players are able to interact with each other however they want

This mechanic was something we honestly did not anticipate much before playtesting. We barely discussed the idea of players communicating with each other, but its appeal is more than obvious in hindsight. During our playtests, we had players "sell" information to each other. For instance, one of the good tiles to land on was the Mine. It was a dice rolling minigame that could potentially net players a good amount of gems from that region. We had one player sell the location of the mine to another for a few gems, thus benefiting both parties. If you look at the Regional Artifact Cost list in the photo above, players needed a certain number of a specific gems in order to receive the artifact for a region. Therefore, players with an artifact from a region would hold the gems needed to acquire said region's artifacts of little value. So, buying information on a location to acquire gems they need would be more than worth it if they trade unneeded gems. It added a whole new layer to the game that made it all the more fun to both play and watch!

What Did Not Go Well

Scope

We scoped our project WAY too large for the duration of time we had to develop. The time we had to develop was only about 6 hours, and our game takes about 40 minutes to play. Actually, the 40 minutes is more of an estimation, because we never had the time to play the game to its conclusion! We absolutely made a game far too large for the jam we were at. Creating a game that takes over 10% of your development time just to playtest was a huge oversight on our part.

Hard Onboarding Process

Our game's directions and mechanics are not the easiest to pick up on. It usually took about five minutes for the players to fully understand how to play our game, which is not ever ideal for a game jam environment. Finding a way to convey our gameplay easier or making the game a bit simpler would have benefited our end project greatly when trying to present to the judges.

Lessons Learned

The major takeaway from this experience is the amount of creativity that can come from one simple constraint. Every design decision our team decided on was decided by the "Foreign" theme. Before the jam started, I was absolutely terrified at the idea of formulating and developing an entire board game in the span of 6 hours. Without knowing the theme, my mind had no direction to go. I felt like the task of creating a game in such a short time seemed impossible. The theme gave me a direction to look, and automatically took away hundreds of ideas possible since they did not fit the theme. Our team came up with some crazy and cool gameplay ideas that all helped to reinforce our idea of the player being a foreigner in a new land. I am extremely proud of the product my team and I were able to create during the jam. I will always remember the lessons learned and fun had from my first game jam!

My team winning the "Most Creative Use of Materials: Award.