Happy January! As we start a new year at Xplody Games, we’re going to be more intentional about documenting the fun, messy, and challenging process of game development. We hope you enjoy this more in-depth view of what we’re working on!
Magic and Mayhem scenarios
Magic and Mayhem is an expansion of Alynthia that we are designing to be a repayable campaign of distinct scenarios that remix the familiar mechanics of Alynthia, but also add exciting new elements. We want to create more of a narrative experience while having new content that players could also use in a stand-alone game of Alynthia. After experimenting with tons of ideas, we’re now trying to nail down the overall structure of the scenarios and work on filling in the gaps. It’s been challenging to brainstorm and trim down ideas and to find the right level of complexity, but it’s been a fun process.
“Island” playtest
This month we’ve been playtesting a scenario where players start on separate “islands”. In the picture below, you can see 3 “islands” of 2 tiles each, with a central single-tile “island” in the middle. Players start stranded on individual islands and need to unlock the ability to travel to the central “island” and defeat the dragons.
It was a really interesting playtest, the unique tile layout was really fun and it was an interesting challenge to start the game separated from other players. Player interaction was low early on though, so we are planning to work on adjusting the pacing to bring players together earlier.
We’re looking forward to updating you again next month!
Keep having fun
Travis & Andrew