Wesnoth as a board game

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elricz
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Wesnoth as a board game

Post by elricz »

I have been working lately on putting together some ideas about a board game version of the game, and now it is that point where help is required. So far I have:
- A booklet with the rules, on my user profile
- A card and pawn generator, made in Excel
What I need help with is:
- Art, in two aspects. I would appreciate suggestions about the design of both cards and pawns, and also the cards could use better icons, they are currently patches from game images.
- Revision of the writing of the rules, both on grammar and clarity. English is not my native language, so I am not sure if the text is proper, or is easy to understand. Also, I have struggled to find the balance between too much explanations or simple sentences, and I am not too happy about the result at this time.
- Different ideas. I had to take some decisions to make the translation from the computer game to the board game, but none of them are final. If anyone can think on better ways of implementing game features, they are welcome.
- Game testing. If anyone plays it, please post a session review; it will help to know which things worked and didn't worked in a real game. I still haven't try the game myself, still struggling with printing maps with small printers.

This is the first time I write a game, and my main concern is being able to express properly all the ideas that are clear in my mind. With more people thinking, I am sure that the final result will be much better. Thanks, and enjoy!
Last edited by elricz on September 13th, 2008, 4:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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zookeeper
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Post by zookeeper »

I'm a little bit interested in a board game version of Wesnoth, so I can't but ask: why did you copy everything from Wesnoth the computer game? I don't see why anyone would want to play Wesnoth the computer game on a board, with pen and paper, since it'd be incredibly cumbersome.
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turin
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Post by turin »

It seems to me you should really simplify many of the gameplay features of Wesnoth. There have been threads in the past about what sorts of simplifications might work.
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elricz
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Post by elricz »

In fact making things different was one of the options, and I have read the threads with those ideas. The most difficult part that I found on changing the unit stats is rebalancing the factions, for example when you reduce the hit points to make counters more manageable, or reduce the terrain movements and defenses to a few movetypes. In fact, even there are less movetypes and terrains, you will still need to look at tables to check the stats for the units.
With that, even if I also think that it may be cumbersome to have that many features inside, it may be not, and after a few test sessions it will be easier to determine what works and what not (moves, resistances, general mechanics, etc.). As I said, I am not attached to any of the decisions that I had to make to create this version, if something just plainly doesn't work, I will remove it, but I decided to start as close to the game as possible and then deviate, than the contrary.

And really, this is not a Friday's night work; I have been playing around this idea for months, and lately created the materials and put together what I tough was playable. It is far from a final version, but is something concrete, that can be worked on, as Viliam suggested some time ago:
Viliam on post Wesnoth as a strategic board game wrote:Make a playable version 0.1 as soon as possible. So that people can actually play it, enjoy it, and propose improvements. Because there are many preople who propose a cool idea, but only a few of them ever make a prototype (the board game idea was also proposed here 1 1/2 year ago, just noone made it).
bery
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Post by bery »

Viliam was right. it is quite hard work for loong time. If you want to discuss your ideas or your current progress i am here ready to help.
elricz
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Post by elricz »

bery wrote:Viliam was right. it is quite hard work for loong time. If you want to discuss your ideas or your current progress i am here ready to help.
Thanks, in fact I have given up on the previous concept, the points raised by Turin and Zookeeper are more accurate that I though at the moment. I have not given up entirely, so if I can manage to write down some of my current ideas I will share them with you.
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eyerouge
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Post by eyerouge »

Well, don't give up - just solve it ;) After all, both Warcraft & Starcraft exist as games, not to mention a zillion others... and some of them work surprisingly well.

It shouldn't be that hard to simplify wesnoth and get rid of plenty of numbers, really.
elricz
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Post by elricz »

Thanks for your interest, I have been working on a simplified version of the rules, that can be found on my profile. The materials are not ready yet, so I haven't play tested it. Some of the ideas are:

* 5 types of units per faction, all with the same cost
* 6 types of terrains
* Use of 6 sided dices, with the terrain defense being a letter instead of a percentage
* Removal of the experience, the units advance with gold
* 3 types of attacks, magical being the third of them

I am working on the units file from time to time, a bit too obsessed with having them balanced from the beginning, so it is slow. The plan is having it ready some time soon, hopefully this month. When we run a session, I will post the results.
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eyerouge
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Post by eyerouge »

Looking forward to the final release. Here are my 2 cents:
  • Conquest: Love it, it's a keeper. However, I would make it harder to conquest. As it is it only takes one turn. Make it "have a unit at the enemy castle 'master hex' for 2-3 consecutive turns" in order to conquest. If it's just one then they'd probably play too defensive - it simply would seldom be the case that players sucked that much that they'd lose on conquest. Also, there might be some room for a more strategical variation of it: Imagine a 1 vs 1 player map with at least 4 castles. Now, to win by conquest you'd have to have a unit in 2 castles at the same time for two turns. That would probably give way more interesting game play.
  • Lady Fortune: Paying one gold only and getting a guaranteed re-roll during battle is something most players would do all the time since the potential profit is usually larger than the loss of 1 gold. I'd definitely raise the cost to at least 2 gold and/or make Lady Luck what the name suggest by making her unbribable: See the gold offer just like an offering. Now, sometimes the gods listen, others they dont. After they offer the gold they get to roll a dice. If they for example get >3 then lady luck listens. Another way is to make the luck relate to the size of the offer: 1 gold = 5 / 6 she listens, 2 gold = 4 / 5 / 6 she listens, 3 gold = 3, 4, 5, 6 she listens.
    Devils Prayer: Same as Lady fortune but summoned by the enemy to make you miss instead. It's also double the costs.
elricz
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Post by elricz »

eyerouge wrote: [*]Lady Fortune: Paying one gold only and getting a guaranteed re-roll during battle is something most players would do all the time since the potential profit is usually larger than the loss of 1 gold. I'd definitely raise the cost to at least 2 gold and/or make Lady Luck what the name suggest by making her unbribable: See the gold offer just like an offering. Now, sometimes the gods listen, others they dont. After they offer the gold they get to roll a dice. If they for example get >3 then lady luck listens. Another way is to make the luck relate to the size of the offer: 1 gold = 5 / 6 she listens, 2 gold = 4 / 5 / 6 she listens, 3 gold = 3, 4, 5, 6 she listens.
Devils Prayer: Same as Lady fortune but summoned by the enemy to make you miss instead. It's also double the costs.
I like the idea of Devil's prayer at double cost, and the cost of the re-roll is one of the things to tune up during play testing. I am making the attacks with more swings than damage, and a re-roll will mean to re-roll the entire attack, not only the missed dice, so it won't be too powerful.

Up to date, I have generated preliminary stats for three factions, I may switch to the other elements of the game to make it playable, and then keep building upon that if it works.

Thanks for resurrecting the thread!
Ichneumon
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Post by Ichneumon »

I like the idea of a war board game like this.
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Post by konsnos »

Me too. Keep walking.....
elricz
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Post by elricz »

I have uploaded the unit pawns and unit tree for three factions here. They should be ready to print and cut, although I have only tried on Letter size, so they may not work on A4 (if somebody tries, please tell me).

Now I will try to print a map and actually play the game, to check if the concept can work or not. I will post again after that.
Dryknre
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Post by Dryknre »

I like this idea allot but the problem is it's allot like Heroscape (which i have played in my own tournaments). I'd have to see the combat interface, but it's a very good topic and would make Wesnoth allot more popular and well known.
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Czestmyr
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Post by Czestmyr »

Hi, I decided to dedicate some of my time into helping elricz with making a Wesnoth board game. I already started drawing some tiles (see attachment).
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Forest tiles
Forest tiles
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