Making Radica

Warhammer-Figurines, Pen&Paper Dice do fine for prototyping In this post I will go a little deeper into the mechanics of Radica and try to outline what the actual gameplay might look like. Goal: Reach the Forgotten City Mechanics in order of priority: - Micromanage your pressure - Scavenge for loot - Fight off the Lost during the Night - Manipulate the board to reach the Forgotten City first In the beginning I also had a Network-building-mechanics, kind of like in Settler of Catan, where you could build streets and outposts - but I decided to cut this mechanic for now. I chose these mechanics because 1: I enjoyed these mechanics in other games and 2: They fit the narrative. I wanted to simulate by way of mechanics what the daily life of a Radical might look like - always worrying about pressure, always worrying about the night and the possibility of an attack, always searching for some tech that will give you the upper hand, if just for a short amount of time. T

So here it is. The second cardboard-prototype is finally finished. It took way longer than anticipated, since finding a big piece of cardboard is apparently super hard. Anyway... ....once I finally had it all it took me about two evenings to cut and draw. My template was the Inkscape-File and this time I decided not to use water paint, but only graphite pencils, so I could make some changes after play-testing. This prototype should last me a while and help me refine the gameplay to the point where I can have full matches.  Keep you posted. 2nd cardboard-prototype with layout. Added scavenge-sites.

It is done! Thank god. For the past two weeks I have been juggling around with the card-metrics, balancing this, balancing and asking myself a million questions. And to be fair I have no idea if it will work. So let me break this down for you. I had a couple of objectives when designing this: Each ring has a number of these scavenging-sites: mechanical, special and danger The idea is to hide more valuable cards at higher rings. Risk-Reward. But also to mix a certain number of high-level cards into the ring-specific pile to give players an incentive to loot much and quick.  Also the total number of cards should still be manageable. I'm now at 130 cards, which is ok for now.  I know more after play-testing. 

In September I had a crash-course in the digital-lab of my University and it gave me a ton of ideas for making this Boardgame. #1: I want to make at least a DIY-version, that can build using only the printer and laser. This way people can make the game themselves if they wish. #2: I want to go all out on the laser-cutting-part and create a beautiful playboard out of wood or some other high-quality material. Luckily I managed to pitch this project as my specialization this semester, so I can spend a decent amount of time working on it and using the University-Laser.  Still I think that it will take until the end of November until I have the first laser-prototype.  Anyway: Having said all this I know have to make a vector-grafik of my laser-job. I started using Inkscape, since I have some experience with it, but it's taking more time than I thought. One upside is that I can now turn the rings directly in Inkscape.  1st Inkscape-Grafik with new layout. 

Here it is. My first cardboard-prototype of Radica. I even managed to play it a few times, although not for long, because I ran out of cards. I now know what I want to change though: Redesign the paths, so each ring has a unique character (fast-ring, etc.) Make the rings turn and stack them like terraces, to make the game more 3 dimensional and also to include a new mechanic of laying and blocking a path Build the whole game with the Laser-Cutter 1st cardboard-prototype 

Hello there, actually this Project was intended as a book long before I decided to make a boardgame. But since I never managed to write more than 4 pages in a row and then abandon the project, I now decided to try the boardgame-way. First things first. What is this about? This blog is a documentation about the making of the boardgame Radica. My first boardgame, to be precise. I'm not here to teach you how it is done, because I obviously don't know. But hopefully you find some of it interesting for your own project. With that said, here's what Radica is about: Story: Welcome to Radica, a ring-world centered around the legendary Lost City. You are playing as one of four tribes, the last remains of humankind, who are living at the outermost ring. Each night the Lost City sends out its minions, horribly deformed humanoid slave creatures, to terrorize your tribe. While you managed to fight them off so far, it is clear that in the long run, you are going to die. Your o