It's been a while since I've posted, not because I haven't been working on this game design, but because I've been iterating so much that I wanted to let the dust settle before I logged an actual milestone.
I've struggled to decide whether this game is more of a "board game" with a purely mechanistic ruleset and physical assets, or simply an RPG ruleset for "theater-of-the-mind" gameplay. As a solitaire game, both directions have their pros and cons. A purely mechanistic approach (board game) would produce a "roll to move, roll to fight" sort of experience with limited, predictable outcomes. A dice-light RPG approach would be a little too hand wavy and abstract for my tastes.
This game needs to facilitate story-crafting, but with visual-spacial mapping of people, places and conflicts over time, ranging from minutes to centuries. My ruleset (in-progress) includes:
1) Terrain Mapping
2) Civilization Mapping
3) Relationship Mapping
4) Special Feature and Creature Mapping (Conflict Mapping?)
5) Time Mapping (the "game loop"): World Mode and Adventure Mode
Below are the results of some play tests (roughly 15 minute duration each) including Terrain, Civ, and Feature/Creature mapping. I've moved from tile-based assets to player-drawn hex maps. The game doesn't require manufactured assets at this point, and I may keep it that way.
It's not really a game yet. So far it's just a procedural (not random) world creator. It won't really become a game until I've got Conflict Mapping and Time Mapping. But even in its early stages, just rolling maps, placing kingdoms, and adding features is quite fun and engaging. For me. Which is my only metric. Since I'm probably the only one who will play it.
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