Components
Guidance Book (Link)
8 different kinds of Map Block Cards, Unit Tokens, Tech Cards, Random Event Cards, Dice
Game Description
Alien is a strategy board game with a random game map, turn transformation, and dice rolling. The game can be held by 2 or 3 people, and the map shape will be different depending on the player's number.
Preparations
Before the game start, each player takes 2 Blackhole (blocks), 2 Pulsar, 3 Galaxy, 1 Ore, 1 Wormhole, 6 Space, and 1 Stat Base. Flip them around and randomly place them within the players' site. After the map is set, place the Random Card Deck and the 9 Tech Cards (the Tech Pool) around the map. Players also need to select their initial forces and place them inside their Star Base blocks.
Game Flow
The game is played turn by turn, each player can only take action within their turns. Each turn consists of 2 phases, the Preparation Phase, and the Action Phase. Players will get resources and strengthen their force in the Preparation Phase, and fight others in the Action Phase. The Preparation Phase is for players to do preliminary actions, such as buying technologies, deploying new units, etc. And the Action Phase is to move, and fight others. The game will The game run through the cycle of turns. There may also be random events that affect players' strategic arrangements during the game's progress. Try to establish economic, technological, and military advantages to win the game.
Victory Conditions
Players lose the game only when all owned units have been annihilated. The last surviving
player wins. Although there are chances that players will lose their bases, however, this won't cause you to fail, players will lose all their technology and economy as a result. Do not give up if units are remaining.
player wins. Although there are chances that players will lose their bases, however, this won't cause you to fail, players will lose all their technology and economy as a result. Do not give up if units are remaining.
Demo & Tutorial Video
Art design mentality
For art inspiration, the sci-fi subgenre "Space Opera" is the main reference. Video game "Stellaris", and the movie "The Wandering Earth" both bring great, exciting, and romantic space stories. As a lover of space science friction, the theme of the game is decided as space war. The art style draws on many concepts related to graphic design. The shape design is simple and modern, using colors to distinguish game elements. For example, wormhole cards use white as the background color instead of black on other terrains because wormholes have a teleportation function and have strong strategic significance. This color design allows Wormhole blocks to be highlighted from the map, making it easy for players to locate and reducing misplays. The colors of Ores and Crystals also use the same design mentality.
Black Hole
Pulsar
Galaxy
Wormhole
Space
Crystal
Ore
Star Base (Team 1)
Star Base (Team 2)
Star Base (Team 3)
Unit Tokens
Technology Cards
Random Event Cards
Inspiration, Research, and Concepts
Randomness & Strategy
The gameplay of "Alien" is inspired by strategy-based games. The randomness and the strategy response to the randomness of these types of games are fascinating, and dice are the most capable thing of expressing randomness in board games. However, if everything is decided by dice, it will be too random and lose its strategic nature. The Warhammer 40K is a great reference for combining the dice-driven and strategy. I was fortunate to observe a Warhammer game by my colleagues and found that this game uses multiple dice to avoid the impact of randomness. Therefore, as long as the number of dice used is controllable, the feedback brought by decisions can be controlled indirectly without losing randomness.
Hotspot
By rewatching videos of WCG, plus recalling my own gaming experience, I found the hotspots of these games often revolve around resources and base-building although the locations of each game/map are different, which points out that resources and base are the most important elements of strategy formulations. In other words, there is no need for specialized design, as long as the resources and bases are indicated. This will naturally generate intangible gameplay guidance.
Testing and Iteration
The iteration of Alien focuses mostly on making the game go faster. The first test severely exceeded the expected time, although the "perceived duration" of one game was shorter than the actual duration (this indicates that players are enjoying this game). This provides a clear direction for future iterations, which is to accelerate the game process.
The investigation of the game flow shows that the main factors affecting speed are the lack of mobility and map quality. The initial idea was to incorporate map customization into the game. However, a highly tactical custom map will make it difficult to advance the game process, and the lack of mobility makes it worse. Moreover, there seems to be an optimal solution for custom maps, which is not what I want to see. Optimizing random events and technology will also have a positive impact on this.
Version 1.0
Testing Date: 05/13/23
During the first testing, the most notable problem in Alien was duration, the time consumed in the game exceeded expectations. So reducing time consumption has become the main issue that iteration needs to solve in the following versions.
The first test of Alien was online because I got Covid that week. My friend told me through the video what she wanted to do, and I helped her complete her turn. Since we only have two people, the map has removed one player's area, and the idea of a map for two players also emerged.
Version 1.1
Testing Date: 05/21/23
Reducing time consumption means accelerating the speed of the game. Through the research on the Civilization series and some other 4X board games, I have found that moving ability and resource amount have a significant impact on game speed. In fact, both of these projects allow players to quickly upgrade, get powerful units, and meet and battle as soon as possible. In this way, the player's units will be quickly depleted, and someone can quickly achieve their victory goal.
So I increased the basic Moving Point of each unit from 2 to 3 and added 1 Ore block to the blocks that players need to place before starting, for more resources. Correspondingly, reduced 1 Space block for each player.
However, the game speed did not increase much. In this test, I found that map customization can also have an impact on the game process. Players can greatly enhance their defense through map customization, and there is even an "optimal solution" for defense. This slowed down the game a lot.
Version 1.2
Testing Date: 05/28/23
To solve the above-mentioned problem. This version canceled map customization. Changed the map placement rule to flip over to enhance randomness, and added the "explore" rule. Added rules for using dice to determine whether random events occur in every round, which aims to reduce the occurrence rate of random events and improve randomness.
At the same time, considering that sometimes it is difficult to find three people to play (like in the first test), I designed a map version for 2 players.
The random map has increased the speed, but it also showed an issue with the technology system. During the testing process, almost every player would prioritize the technology of "Every Battle +1 Combat Power". If every player has this bonus, then this bonus can hardly have enough effect on improving their advantage.
Map for 2-Player Game
Map Size Before the 1.3 Iteration
Current Map Size
Version 1.3
Testing Date: 06/04/23
The Technology Pool was created as a result, players need to compete for technology, rather than everyone holding the same set of technology cards. This made the technologies unique and made powerful technologies more useful. I also reduced the map size and increased the number of regular blocks (Space). The new map shape also looked more beautiful.
Alien represents a period of happy drawing time during my childhood, and I also learned a lot of new things through this remastering. For example, the production of the Guidance Book, how to simplify and accurately design the gameplay. This is my first time breaking away from the engine and designing a pure board game. I have found that board games, without the support of computers, embody the essence of game logic, which also makes gameplay design much simpler and more demanding.
Just like my personal art statement, I pursue simple and clever design, and Ailen expresses my design concept well.
