Hello everyone!
Today I am going to change gears and start talking about one of my passions, board game design. For a few years now I have been working on several different games and one of them is finally shaping into something presentable and workable. It has been boiling in my brain for a good chunk of time and now I think I am ready to really show it to the world. This is a bit out of my element, a dev blog, i don't know where to really begin or how to show you my process. I guess I am just going to jump right into it.
So it all started with a simple idea, the Doomsday Clock. It is something I have always been fascinated with. It is an ever ticking timeline of human error and achievement. A true to life march toward our possible doom. Besides this morbid fixation, a few years ago our world was turned upside-down. As the clock ticked down to 2 and a half minutes to midnight between 2016-2017, the slow shuffle toward inevitable disaster became a harsh reality. In light of that I felt the need to make this game. It is a tongue-in-cheek take on the current political climate and situation we find ourselves in. I have named the game, lovingly, 10 Minutes to Midnight. Obviously I was a little more generous with time than we presently have.
10 Minutes to Midnight, 10MtM from here on, grew out of a game design contest I participated in a long time ago. The contest, I don't remember which publisher held it, was to design a game using no more than 60 cards. I labored over a game called Buried Greed. Buried Greed was a small set collection game about finding ancient treasures for fame and fortune. It fell flat, but I will return to it at some point. From there 10MtM was born from the feedback I received, not from the dev competition, but from publishers I showed at Gen Con. 10MtM became the game I wanted Buried Greed to be, but the Doomsday Clock theme is something I was way more passionate about.
10MtM is a power struggle between the players to be the most secure and the last ones standing when the clock strikes midnight and doom comes knocking. To bring this theme to life I wanted to use elements that felt shady, underhanded, and tactical. So it began with semi-hidden roles and asymmetrical player powers. Players will use those powers combined with global Events to amass a hoard of WMDs before the Doomsday Clock ticks down to midnight.
The idea is this. Every round players are dealt a character card. The cards each have a name, number (10 through 0), and a power. Starting at 10, there is a countdown to 0. When a player's number is called they reveal their character and take their turn. I find this exciting because every round will have a different combination of powers and a mystery element. Some characters will manipulate the Events being played, some will manipulate score (amount of WMDs a player has), some will protect or deflect the other characters from being effective. This was the main elements I wanted to include in 10MtM. It makes every game, every round feel fresh and it makes it harder to build a perfect strategy for subsequent turns and future games.
The player characters and powers are what, I feel, really sets it apart from Buried Greed and other designs I was working on. Besides that, the characters seem to make the game feel more than just a filler. I set out originally to make a quick 15-30 minute filler game, one that can be played between games or while waiting for the whole squad to show up. I also wanted it to be one that you could play maybe two or three times in a row on game night before playing the main event, something that will stick with people. I believe the variety of powers and characters allow for that, but that is something only time and diligent playtesting can accurately say.
The other thing is I found making the characters and events extremely hard. I wanted them to reflect current events without being in your face political. I had to abstract them a bit from what I originally had. However, I still decided to keep the event Fake News, but had to relabel one of the characters as Despot. I mean that could be anyone.
So Why now? I am working more on the game now for two big reasons. The first being how screwed up our global political outlook currently is. I mean look at all that is happening in the world and with global warming, the time is right to start talking about the Doomsday Clock. The second reason is a personal fault. I lost all of my notes on 10MtM, everything is gone. I have spent weeks working from memory to make 10MtM what it is now and, personally speaking, I think it is better than ever.
On that note, I am going to end this first dev entry. Want to know more about 10MtM, let me know and keep an eye on future dev blog entries. Next dev entry I will discuss the Doomsday Clock and Event cards.
Cheers,
Phil
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