The first iterations for player character sheets started almost a year ago. Any time I was thinking about a problem players might encounter I thought about how they might resolve it. I asked myself a lot of questions during this process:
- What kind of interesting choices should they be able to make?
- When is a stat needed?
- When is a skill needed?
To answer those questions, I kept trying things, running through little experiments, disliking them, and trying more things. I was also reading an interesting book, The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses Third Edition by Jesse Schell. In it, Jesse makes an interesting case for when a stat or skill is needed, and that's:
- If the simulation requires it
- If it thematically makes sense
- If there is a difference that could and should be defined
When I read that is when things started to really click. I went from testing with tens of stats and other mechanics to five or less in a weekend.
What follows are the main prototypes that I'll be testing Bug & Claw's core game mechanics with! That's a big milestone!
These have a lot of little design oddities to clean up, and I'm sure otherwise they'll have some iterations to go through, but I'm happy that I've finally landed on some key concepts. I was going back and forth on core stats for a long time. I could not have done this without feedback from a few great people like friends Neil, Jason, and Karyl. Thanks, pals!
