New Projects, New Horizons, and Elemancer v6.3

It’s high time to speak to what I’ve been up to and why I haven’t written anything lately. There are two major components, and I’ll ultimately tie it all back to Elemancer and where that project is at currently.

A New Challenger Emerges

It all starts with an idea I had about two months ago, an idea that enthralled and enraptured me: a Pokémon-based board game. Pokémon is a franchise I’ve enjoyed for over 20 years, with varying degrees of engagement. The Pokémon Master Trainer Game is one I’ve spoken about previously, and in retrospect was one of my first forays into game design when I attempted to restructure it to more closely follow the Generation I video games.

What could a modern Pokémon game look like? What mechanics would translate from the video games to a board game? I settled on a game with a simplified map (each zone is one tile rather than an array of individual spaces), PvE combat, and a large focus on gathering/crafting. Capturing Pokémon would be tied to the crafting system, and your Pokémon would do the gathering. I discussed the initial idea with a friend of mine and we took a fair amount of inspiration from some of our favorite games including Stone Age and Ticket to Ride. While there is still a combat system, the meat of the game became worker-placement.

Translating the type chart, abilities, and hold items into this new paradigm was a fun endeavor. Part of the reason I wanted to explore this idea was to flex my design muscles again, to take a step back from Elemancer which is in an advanced state and work on a fledgling project. I took about a month exploring this idea and building out the foundation of a game. It’s in an early playtesting phase, far from balanced, but it’s functional. However, unlike Elemancer there is no physical copy of this game.

Here’s the progression from my initial test through to the current map with all the cards/decks included:

Entering the Digital Age

I used this Pokémon-based design as my first test of a digital playtesting/design platform: screentop.gg. I quickly traversed the rookie mistakes and learned how the components interact. I hit some of the platforms limits, including 64mb worth of assets and 100 component types. I also learned that my computer could use an upgrade, but on other machines the game runs well.

As far as first forays go, it was pretty advanced. I couldn’t fit the entirety of the map I had planned for the game, but the 1/3 of it that I implemented worked as well as I expected. This gave me great hope, and I knew that I could use this to test Elemancer on a much wider scale.

So I started transcribing Elemancer into this new platform. I had hit the pause button on development in the middle of implementing changes from v6.2 playtests. I took some time to make balance updates, then used the latest version (v6.3) to create the templates for all the cards, zones, and monsters. I’m not ready to release it to the public quite yet, but if you’re interested in playtesting I’d be happy to discuss it and set up a testing session.

Elemancer v6.3

I finally removed all the cards that scaled bonus damage directly with Chain from Electromancy. Other minor changes to bring Chronomancy and Aeromancy into line and buff Geomancy and Cryomancy a hair. Moving forward, I hope to leverage digital testing to amass more data and get meaningful feedback from playtesters. This will be the main focus, barring any statistical anomalies in terms of damage output. I believe the game is in a well-balanced state now, mainly because I finally excised all the egregious Electromancy cards. I’m uncertain what future updates will look like when the main focus is not balance. Elemancer is on the precipice of a new stage, which is very exciting!