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Underkeeper
Genre
Press-Your-Luck Dungeon Building
Team
Me and 2 others
Total Timeframe
Jan 2020 - Present
Design Goals
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Dungeon Building
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Deception
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Press-Your-Luck
Still In Progress!
Game Design
Secrets and Calling Bluffs
To make a dungeon-builder with hidden traps and treasure, all we had was brains and paper scraps. We tried several approaches that failed.
A face-down grid that each player shared and moved through stood out. Players bluffed what cards they played and took risky paths. That was a start to our game.
Reducing Memory Overload
This game had a VERY strong memory burden for a long time. Every facedown card was identical!
Players boringly stumbled into their own traps, and they had no mental bandwidth for more clever strategies, like tracking which cards their opponent avoided.
Now, card backs point towards whoever played them, and players can check their own cards. Players make more interesting choices, and less blind guessing.
Negative Board Control Loops
The main game rules have a big positive feedback loop:
More Board control = More Movement = More Board Control. It needs to be balanced against.
Energy Cobra is often ignored when it is discovered, but becomes more valuable as more dead cards are revealed. This gives both players a chance to trade health to seize board control.
Sizzling Bomb and Coin on a string will be avoided by players with board control because of their negative effects. But they will give extra board control to the other player.
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Comebacks
Some cards are balanced to give behind players an advantage.
Noble Pegasus and Sprinting Cookie can allow for dramatic healing, letting damaged players get back ahead. However, they have costs. Sprinting Cookie surrenders board control, and Noble Pegasus can heal your opponent or give them loot afterwards. They have advantages and weaknesses, and let players gain advantages in their weak spots.
Low-level players can find strength and levels, letting them fight stronger monsters.
Underwolf gives the losing player a chance to catch up. It also makes players compare their scores partway through the game, inspiring more competition.
Clearing The Clutter
Unwanted cards will be left face-up when playing. However, this leaves dead cards on the board.
A few cards that discard face-up cards break the situation and grant board control to keep the game moving.
Synergized Master Traps
Certain traps restrict the options of whoever falls in them. Bait them, play dumb to the enemy, and chain them with other nasty effects - then jovially recount how it was your dastardly plan all along.
Instructions
Playing the game with multiple groups, I recorded observations about how they interpreted the rules and made changes based on their mistakes. I used free, open-source symbols to rapidly iterate. Since then, I have stylized and polished the symbols and continued to improve the instructions.
View Iterations
Character Design
Character Design
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Geometric Cartooniness
My first inspiration was nostalgic cartoons of the 80s, like He-Man. However, experimenting with the more geometric cartoons of today, I found my own style better.
REVEAL
Extreme Expressions
The appeal of the character style owes much to exaggerating the faces as much as possible. Supersizing their eyeballs, twisting their faces, and adding corner after corner to their mouths brought these characters to another level of appealing. These expressions also lend to the comic mischief of the game.
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Clear Poses
Silhouetting characters to make sure their poses were clear helps them show a lot in their overall design.
The Dragosaurus Rex was a little more difficult to pose lying on a pile of loot.
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Freaky Destructive Chaos
The "Energy Cobra" embodies its ability: "Discard all face-up cards". Unrestrained energy jumps from its skin, implying that its death would unleash all of it's destructive energy on face-up cards.
It occupies a hunter/mad scientist archetype. Its hood resembles the hair of a stereotypical "mad scientist", with spikes coming up at the sides of the head. It's wicked, fanged grin and eye-scope show it's predatory hunting power, and also it's origin as a mad scientist's project.
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Pride and Parody
Jokes written by me or Zach are found on the bottom of each card.
This joke makes fun of the Noble Pegasus's pride for having his title, and I made his character art a caricature of self-importance and beauty.
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Uh Oh...
While the "Bansheep" is not so threatening, she can get help from adjacent monsters. Her helpless fear and scream signal lines to the side showcases this perfectly.
REVEAL
Hide-And-See
This mimic is plainly hidden in the details of a regular treasure chest.
Have you ever pretended not to see your giggling little cousin because they are so proud of their hiding spot?
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