Themes!

I've already come up with a theme for my tabletop game, and I'm fairly confident it will be a successful idea that will work with gameplay. However, I'm fully aware that I might have to change my idea and I'm absolutely willing to take advice that I think will better my game, even if that means totally changing the idea. With that being said, I'm really digging the idea of making the game based on sushi making shiba inu's, thus naming the game "Sushi Inu"- or something like a play on words regarding sushi and shibas! I like the idea of it being cute and fun, so if I do wind up changing my idea at all, I'd like to fit the cute theme into it, somehow.

I also am toying with the idea of the game teaching you basic japanese alongside the gameplay, but that's something I will definitely have to research more. Basic katakana (or is it hiragana?) shouldn't be too hard to implement if my game is based on visuals, and it would also add an element of skill/knowledge.

If I had to think of a catch phrase of sorts, it would have to be:

Will you be the master sushi chef?

I also want to sort of add in the idea of the shiba theme into that, but in case I don't stick with that idea, keeping it as just "sushi chef" will be good for now.

Theme of my game:

As I mentioned, the theme would be based around sushi, and making sushi. There would be lots of elements regarding sushi, like ingredients and things you use to prepare/eat them. The shiba inu's tie into the sushi element because they are dogs that are native to Japan. They are commonly represented in illustrations on food items and toys for children, so I thought they would be cute as a sort of "mascot". I didnt want to go with the typical "cat and fish" theme because that was too cliche and cats aren't necessarily "japanese native" animals. Also, if I decide to implement the basic learning of Japanese, that would also tie in the theme quite a bit.

Setting of game:

Obviously the game would be Japanese based, so the setting would be Japan. Since it's not a story driven game, there isn't a specific setting that it would need to take place, but it would make sense to think that the sushi restaurant was run somewhere in a city in Japan. It would have to be modern, or even alternate universe/modern society because honestly, dogs can't make sushi.. they don't even have thumbs!

Art Style and colors:

So I really like the softer variations of the warm color palette- reds and browns being the main colors (thinking brown for the game board color), with pops of the other three colors in there. Nothing too vibrant! (Also white, but I didn't feel the need to add that into the palette above).

I also really love the lintless vector art style of some of these sushi. I specifically searched "Sushi vector art" and these came up- however, I wouldn't want to create something that would look like a bunch of icons pasted onto a card. My inspiration for searching this style was actually after the game Katamari Damacy- a game that has a super distinct style, and is something I'm reminded of a lot when I think about cute Japanese things.

Print and Play Deconstruction

CUBE: The Print and Play Game

The Cube print and play game was loosely based off of the movies- a story based on a cube-like structure which acts as a prison to a certain number of people (players).

The objective is fairly straightforward- find the escape. The escape is labeled as "Goal" in this game,  but the tricky part about finding the "goal" is that the board is constantly changing, so someone might not ever be able to find it.

The GOAL card appears above, next to the START card. When the game is set up, pieces are arranged face down in a 6x6 square (with an exception of the start card, which is face up). From this point, players choose who they want to play as (some characters have advantages over others), but everyone starts on the START position, obviously. The position of the goal card (when being played) is unknown to the players because it was shuffled around with the other cards and placed face down.

The core mechanic involves players only moving up, down, left or right, and after moving, they flip the cube card that they moved onto. Some of the following images are examples of cards the player might land on:

 If a player happens to land on one of these squares (instead of a blank tile like the ones shown in the previous set of images)- they roll the dice to determine how much damage they take based on what type of trap they landed themselves in. I think this is a pretty neat way of handling a game mechanic. An example of how this would work would be;

If I land on the "needles" card and roll anywhere from 1-5, I will take one damage (and I only have 3 hearts, so that removes 1/3 of my life). If I roll a 6, I will take no damage.

The space of the game is pretty interesting- as I mentioned previously, the board is constantly changing. This mechanic was implemented to reflect the suspense element of the movie. I quite enjoyed this mechanic, actually!

There are items (objects) in the game called "shoes" which allow the player essentially peek at a cube next to them, which they are thinking of moving to. Regardless if the cube is a trap or not, the player has to get rid of one of their "shoes" but they don't have to move to it if they don't want to. They look exactly like this, and aren't actual drawings of shoes. These would be considered operative and resultant actions, in addition to the general movement mechanics.

Skills that the players learn: Players can sort of memorize where certain squares are if they play long enough and can keep track of how the tiles rotate, but if I have to be honest, it's quite a task to undertake. It also somewhat breaks the immersion if the player is attempting to do this, but it could quickly lead to victory. If you decide to not do this, which I suggest you don't, the game becomes mainly up to luck, where you move and what you roll (if you wind up having to roll to take damage). When we played, Dio didn't take ANY damage, didn't land in any traps, but he didn't wind up winning the game, Steve did.

So, all of this being said, the game is fairly straightforward and does a really great job at explaining the mechanics (the rotation part was a little confusing at first but I think we got it down). There aren't any interesting graphics which is fine, because that's not a super necessary element to the game, but it would definitely make things a little more appealing, visually. 

Print and Play Review

So for an assignment in my class, we had to find a print and play game, and write an entry about it.

The game I chose is a game called "Tiny Epic Galaxies" which is actually a game that got funded by kickstart and was made into an actual board game! Honestly what drew me in about this game was the time frame that it takes to play a round. It's estimated that each game takes from 20-30 minutes, which was right up my alley.

Another thing that drew me in about it was that I didn't have to print off 20 pages and cut out a ton of tiny things. I had to cut out quite a bit of things, but thankfully it wasn't as bad as some of the other games out there that I was looking at. In the actual board game version of Tiny Epic Galaxies, they were able to make their space ship and special dice out of little wooden pieces which I thought was pretty neat.

So the first time I read the rules, I was a little confused and I actually had to go watch a video to better explain them.

This was really the only thing I didn't like about the game. Wait, I also didn't like that you needed SEVEN dice. Seven. Not one, SEVEN.  On top of the seven dice, you needed FOUR of each empire/culture/energy dice. I wound up using an online RNG to bypass this (it sort of worked but I was too late to turn back at this point). My point is.... there's way too many freaking dice in this game and that's a horrible aspect for a print and play game. In the board game version, that's fine since they include it for you.

What I did like about the game is that it was SUPER easy to set up- this is something I would like to emulate in my game. Hopefully this doesn't take away from other aspects of the game like making the rules super complicated.

Here's the video that I wound up having to watch to understand the game...

In my own game that I'm having to come up with, I need to brainstorm a bit.

What if my game was about sushi?
What if my game involved eating sushi?
What if my game explored other cultures?
What if my game could be learned in less than 60 seconds?
What if my game didn't require 23 dice?
What if my game was also about space?
What if my game was about flying?
What if my game could be played by one person?
What if my game could be played over the internet?
What if my game involved teamwork?
What if my game was small-scale?
What if my game fit on one sheet of paper?
What if my game was about dogs?
What if my game was about dogs and sushi?
What if my game was named "Sushi-Inu"?
What if the villain was a cat?
What if there were only four "heroes"?
What if I included memes?
What if sushi was a reward for beating the game?
What if sake was the random element?
What if there were other japanese foods?


I really like the idea of involving japanese foods and shiba inu's into my game, because they are two things I really like and would enjoy creating a fun game out of.

I'm thinking I might make an ingredient game, and whichever Shiba chef can make their full meal first, wins.

PEOPLE SHOULD ALSO HAVE TO SHOUT "ITADAKIMASUUUU".

First

For the first post of this month, I present... my Maya creation. It's the first recognizable object I've made.