The Games We Play

The Games We Play

A repository of reports on the Wednesday night sessions of the club and anything else related to the club or boardgaming in general, which may be of interest to anyone who may be passing by.

Friday 16 October 2015

Game design news: This Cursed Rock

This time I'm presenting an early preview of a game by another budding designer, Jim Falkus, who you may have met when he came to the club in August. You can find some details about the game on his blog. In brief, it is a 2-player game recreating the Great Siege of Malta by the Ottomans in 1565. Despite the theme, it is not a wargame, as witnessed by the lack of hexes or defined areas on the game board, which was designed by me! The game takes place over about 20 turns. At the start of every turn each player draws an event card, most of which can be retained for later use. Then each player selects four action cards from their deck of 12 to use during the subsequent Action Phase. There are four types of card: Move, Build, Morale and Combat. Finally there is an Assault Phase, during which the Turkish player may attempt to seize one of the fortified areas on the board. Wooden cubes are used to represent the various types of military pieces: gun batteries, Janissary units, Turkish infantry units, Knights of St John and Spanish infantry units. There are also wooden Personality Discs and various types of markers for gun platforms, additional fortifications, siege equipment and divine intervention!

The game is still under design with early playtesting likely to start later this year. I would hope that it can make an appearance in Halesowen early in 2016.


3 comments:

  1. You did a nice job of the board. If you want me to get a prototype game board printed up onto card or foamex I can call in a favour from my buddies at N3 Graphics who just happen to own some of the most sofisticated large format printing equipment in the land.

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    1. Thanks - I tried my best with my limited artistic skills. Actually, I'm running into IT problems with these graphics files - I don't know if it's my PC (perhaps lack of memory), the software (Inkscape, which is free) or the very large files I'm creating (almost 300MB for This Cursed Rock).

      It's up to Jim what he wants to do in terms of printing the board - I'll let him know that there may be the possibility of getting it done more professionally. A2 size should be sufficient, which I would imagine is fine for card or foamex.

      By the way, I'm just working on the graphics for another board, this time for my eurogame, provisionally entitled Kingdom of Kiralysag. I'll send you a couple of samples by email as I'd welcome your opinion.

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  2. The printer likes Acrobat files. Size of print isn't an issue, an average exhibition graphic is way bigger than a game board. I can sneak a freebie in with a job, assuming I'm spending a decent amount. I place orders 3 or 4 times a year of sufficient value to warrant a favour so you will need to wait for the opportunity to arise.

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