[Design Journal: Terra Machina] Crawling Through the Mines

I’ve been working on Terra Machina for a while now, and I’ve been privileged to have a great group of playtesters helping with this project. The last time we playtested this game, we did a trial run of the game’s Adventure Mode. The mission I’m testing right now has a group of heroes delving into crystal mines where the mechanical drones have been reprogrammed by terrorists to attack the former owners. Overall, the game went well, but we ran into one major problem: the mission takes too long.

[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…

[Design Journal: Terra Machina] Androids Do Battle in the Distant Future

It is the year 25XX, and the Earth has been abandoned by humans. Nuclear and biological warfare, coupled with rampant industrial exploitation and waste, made the planet uninhabitable for humans. As homo sapiens went into decline, the last leaders of science began developing a race of artificial humanoids to replace them – a more hardy species that could survive the rigors of the barren Earth. These mechanical men and women, dubbed the Progeny, now walk Terra Machina, a land of machines, in place of their ancient forebears. Will they be doomed to repeat the same joys and tragedies of their creators?

For a short while, I’ve been developing this new board game with the working title of Terra Machina, Latin for “Machine Earth” or “Land of Machines”. Thematically, the game takes inspiration from the Mega Man Zero video game series. Mechanically, the game mixes concepts of tabletop miniatures games and card games.