[Design Journal: Terra Machina] Adventure Awaits!

Artwork from the Mega Man Zero video game franchise.

In the year 25XX, humans no longer dominate the Earth. Some believe that they went extinct when the world became so damaged it could no longer support them. Others believe they simple abandoned the planet for more fertile lands elsewhere. Either way, they left in their place a hardier species of mechanical men, dubbed the Progeny. Centuries have passed. The Progeny have multiplied and formed their own cultures. Unity City seeks to forge bonds between disparate nations, but the terrorist acts of those with radical views threaten to tear apart this fragile peace…

Currently in development, is a new board game with the working title of Terra Machina. You can read about the basics of the game in this earlier Design Journal entry. Playtesting is proceeding well so far. Everyone who has helped me playtest the game’s Skirmish Mode seems to have enjoyed it. Testing has brought out a lot of flaws or glitches in the mechanics of specific characters, and I’ve been able to work most of these out. All of the characters could benefit from further testing, but so far none of them have needed any major revisions.

On to Adventure

Having found considerable success in testing the game’s Skirmish Mode, I’ve moved on to developing the Adventure Mode. The Adventure Mode will allow 1-6 players to work cooperatively to overcome challenges presented by the game itself. Each mission in the Adventure Mode will present a different scenario, and different sorts of challenges.

So far, I’ve developed one very rudimentary mission and been able to test it a few times – going solo and playing with one other person. This mission has players taking their Progeny heroes into an energy crystal mine, where the automated mining robots have been reprogrammed to attack their former owners. The mission is a fairly straightforward, “dungeon-crawl” style adventure. Players move from room to room, dispatching renegade robots as they go. There is a twist, wherein halfway through the mission a swarm of robots bent on sabotage will march towards the mine’s entrance, intent on collapsing the tunnels allowing access to the valuable resources within. At this point, the players have to rush back to their starting point and defend it from the destructive enemies. The mission wraps up with a boss battle.

Initial playtesting has already yielded some significant adjustments. I’ve reduced the length of the mission by about two thirds, because it just took far too long to play through, and much of the exploration became redundant. I’ve also cut the hit points for the enemies in half, further speeding up game play. Right now, my only real complaint is that the mission doesn’t seem challenging enough. I’d like to playtest the Adventure Mode with more players in order to see how well it scales for a larger group.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped with the playtesting for this game so far. I really appreciate your help!