Abstract
The Great Steam War is a modification of Avalon Hill’s classic board game, Axis and Allies. The assignment was to modify a traditional board game, in the manner of our choosing. While I was playing the base game, I noticed the game was, to a broad audience, tremendously unappealing. This stemmed from a few areas: 1) the game had very high barriers to entry for new players, 2) the game took far too long to set up, let alone play, and finally 3) the optimal strategy for each player was to follow the same path as World War II.
My modification worked to address these issues, first and foremost the complexity of the game. I cut the total number of unit types from 11 to 5. Then I solved the last two issues simultaneously by allowing the player to choose the positioning of their starting units. To quicken the pace I modified the map to incorporate valuable neutral territory. Over the course of this project I learned the value of playtesting, and rapid iteration. By working with traditional games, we were able to rapidly iterate and improve upon game design and balance, while learning the fundamentals thereof. For further information, check out the…
The Postmortem
From November 1st, 2008 to December 8th, 2008th I developed a modification for the Avalon Hills board game, Axis and Allies. This was my first major experience in designing a game, and I learned so very, very much. The lessons learned, and the story of the game’s production follow…
Things I Learned:
• I learned what feature creep sounds like and how to avoid it.
• I learned about the various phases of game production, and what needs to happen in each
• I learned about the value of vigorous playtesting and RAPID iteration.
• I learned how to recognize “legacy” elements of previous games, and how to evaluate each before including it in the final design.
• I learned to not be married to anything, and to be willing to change something without a second’s hesitation.
• In a moment of aggravation I learned that leaving something to the professionals is not always the wisest of decisions. Sometimes, if you really want something done right, you do it yourself.
• I also learned about my capacity for production.
• And finally I learned that I really and truly love designing games. The satisfaction I get from seeing people having fun with my game was like none I have ever felt before in my life. It vindicates my passion for game development, above all else. My real goal in life is to make people happy, and I now know how to do that through games.
In the beginning I set about exploring the original Axis and Allies game. I had to discover its strokes of genius, and its glaring flaws. As playtesting A&A continued the glaring flaws became more and more apparent:
• The board was too small. That was my absolute first reaction upon opening the box. The box itself is 10.5” x 16.6” x 3.5”. The map, when its six sections were folded onto each other, was about 8” x 10”. I thought this was a wretched misappropriation of the box’s volume, especially considering the quantity of units the game required to be condensed into a single, 1” x 1” territory.
• A lot of Axis and Allies’ rules are purpose built to be a World War II simulator, like victory cities, and pre-determined unit placement. This drove me crazy, all I could do was to follow the path of World War II, and I wanted to actually alter the course of history.
• The dice combat was a sound system, if not clunky and inelegant. It worked, but it was tedious and lengthy.
To start out I had a few select ideas floating around about how to handle this modification:
From the simple expansion, like adding V2 rockets to Axis and Allies
To dramatic changes of the original game, like adding resources, or as I called it “Catan and Allies”
I also contemplated adding in an order writing system similar to Diplomacy, with combat resolution en masse at the end of a writing cycle. And support, support would be key to this working.
A slightly-altered timeline Colonial-Era Axis and Allies Simply altering the dice combat mechanics Ultimately I settled upon a major alteration with the ultimate goal of:
“Make The Game Fun To Play”
To accomplish this I had to do a few things:
1) Change dice combat.
2) Increase the size of the board. (yes, it was THAT important)
3) Simplify the rules to make them more accessible.
4) Give the player more control over their country’s destiny.
I already had a few ideas on how to change the dice combat, primarily from my background in Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted a system that was less based on the luck of the roll, and more to do with the strength of a player’s forces, because, as I said, I wanted to give players more control.
I drew inspiration for many of the design choices from other games, the useful neutral territory was something I wanted to add, and was inspired by my extensive experience with Diplomacy, and its effect gameplay. The dice mechanics, came about from Dungeons and Dragons in some shape and form.
So I looked at Dungeons and Dragons, and how players modify one die roll based on their character’s skills and innate abilities. So the first system used the unit strengths from Axis and Allies, trying to just modify the system, not completely change it. So I started off simple, each player rolls 1d6, and adds the total strength of their forces. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite getting the gist of the d20 system. In d20 games the modifiers are USUALLY static, so players can memorize them. With the way I had the system set up, the modifier to the d6 roll was constantly changing, and this was, unfortunately, clunky and ineffective.
I had contemplated a system of using different values of dice to denote unit strengths, but initially ruled out the option because of the quantities of units typically involved in Axis and Allies-style combat. However, after the failures of the first combat system I began to realize the merits of differentiated dice. Firstly, in Playtesting a few of my players had intimated that they enjoyed throwing quantities of dice. Secondly, though it involved a modicum of math, the math involved was more apparent, and more accessible to players. So I set out the system where each unit rolled a different die on attack and defense, that mechanic was something I liked about the Axis and Allies system, and I wanted to preserve it.
From here on out the combat mechanic stayed much the same, although the rules for dealing damage changed from winner deals full, loser deals nothing, to winner deals full and loser deals half. In its first iteration the winner of a roll would usually have a supreme numerical advantage and steamrolling continued. In Axis and Allies a typical combat would see units on both sides destroyed, it was very rare someone would escape combat unscathed. So at the suggestion of one of my playtesters I changed the rule to winner deals full damage, and loser deals half damage. Through the course of the Playtesting I realized that attack and defense strength equating to health wasn’t quite properly balanced. So, despite my desire to keep things entirely simple, I opted to add a Health attribute to each unit, which was not quite as difficult to balance, as I had originally believed.
All the design work needed a context. From the outset of the project back in August I had the idea floating around in my mind of making a “Steampunk” modification to Axis and Allies, at the very core the idea was to add Zeppelins. This provided the artistic change I needed to push the artistic elements of this project, although my primary focus was in making a well-designed game that was fun to play.
In crafting the world I wanted to create a sense of vague familiarity, and at the same time make the players feel this world is not their own. The continents LOOK similar, but they’re not in the same place as typical Westernized maps, nor are they in PRECISELY the same shape as people expect. I left the world open to players to create their own story of the war that is about to take place. I always thought it was interesting that despite my naming continents layers would consistently refer to these similar-looking continents by the names in our world. Perhaps it is because the players were seeking that familiarity, and that familiarity made it the game more accessible, in its own way.
The mechanics were developed alongside the “story” of the world. Initially EIGHT countries inhabited the world. Quickly I realized this would be impractical because 1) I didn’t have enough time or resources to make another 3 countries worth of units, and 2) it would overcomplicate the game more than necessary. So it was here that I started asking those “What If” questions so vital to the creative process. Such as: “What if Egypt survived the BC/AD switch?” and “What if the Native Americans were immune to small pox?”, “What if Lenin hadn’t died?”, “What if the Germans weren’t quite as decimated after the First World War?”, and “What if the Japanese started a land war in Asia and it worked?”. These questions and many more created the Theocratic Republic of Ra, the American Tribal Federation, the United Soviet Socialist Republics (under the command of Comrade Vladimir Lenin), the Aryan Coalition (under the command of Adolf Hitler), and the Pan-Asian Imperial Protectorate.
The map proved to be its own challenge. Originally I planned on keeping the map provided by Axis and Allies, as a sanity-preserving measure, however at the insistence of my professor, Dan Nanni, I changed the map. His suggestion was “Start with Pangaea and work from there”. Again, I asked those “What If” questions. I was always curious in my earlier science courses about that one little fault line under Africa. So I asked what if that fault line had split? So that’s how the Nile Sea was formed. Then I really needed an excuse to connect the PAIP and the ATF. Oh? What’s that? Australia crashed into South America? And lo formed South Ameraustralia. Because of concerns raised in my initial study of Axis and Allies, I opted to keep continents whole, and not split them in half because of the rectangular map.
When constructing the playtest board, I decided on a size that I could easily print off sheets of paper and tape them to the board, so I could rapidly iterate. I also needed the board to be big. I figured 9 11”x17” sheets of paper would suffice. In the end I realized that 9 10”x16” segments worked better because 10”x16” fit into the box for the Axis and Allies I had purchased for research. So, very quickly I proved that Avalon Hill could have made a bigger board. Every time I made a new map I would think about it in terms of an engine change, or because I used black and white copies of the map during Playtesting I had to reassure my players that they were playing a “lo-res build of the final game” and that the graphics engine would be updated before the game shipped. The basic elements of video game production surfaced all through this project in these odd manifestations.
Building the board proved its own delightful challenge. I always enjoy spatial reasoning problems, and this one was particularly interesting. My Playtesting board worked well enough for my purposes, because the edges of the map didn’t NEED to connect, playtesters could make allowances for the “low-res build”. But the final, color, glossy map needed the edges to line up. I didn’t have access to paper that could bend easily, so I had to reason a way to get the board to fold up onto itself with each section of board only connecting to one other section. The first basic flaw in my initial idea was that the board had to fold up around the middle. This was one cause of the gaps between segments. But if I had pieces fold under and on top of, and each section only connecting to on other than the one before it, I was able to get the board to work the way I wanted.
Distributing supply values to each territory proved to be an interesting lesson in level design. I had to use the supply values to force conflict in specific areas. The areas in which I wanted combat to take place have higher supply values, and adding neutral territory proved to be the perfect way to force these conflicts. It creates a strategic land-grab at the beginning of the game. In a lot of early playtests the Egyptians had trouble getting into the fight, they were in an awkward position, and if the ATF did not utilize its territory in Africa the Egyptians did so very little. I figured the best option would be to give them SAU, to get them just a little bit closer to the action. This ultimately proved successful in playtests.
During early testing the variety of units and legacy elements became readily apparent. The anti-aircraft system was purpose-built for Axis and Allies, and could easily be cut. To balance out the lack of anti-aircraft I decided there would be no distinction between air and ground combat. The Light Attack Zeppelin was a very notable legacy element. It was spawned of the Destroyer, a unit added to the version of Axis and Allies I picked to study, with the sole purpose of counteracting submarine movement. Since Zeppelins are aerial vehicles, submarines were moot and were cut from the get-go, but Light Attack Zeppelins carried over, and were ultimately cut.
In the art production for the game I VERY quickly realized the massive undertaking I had gotten myself into. I started out looking to do 8 full color illustrations, the map, the box, and 25 concept drawings. The concept drawings came naturally to me, but I began to experience the feeling of complete and utter hatred toward repeated subject matter. For a period of a week and a half when I was working on the concept drawings I absolutely hated Zeppelins, and never wanted to see them again. I think it was good to know what this feels like, and to be able to push through it to get the project done. No matter how much I hated drawing the Zeppelins (in the end) I still had an underlying passion for the techniques involved, and the end product. Much of the color production was pushed back until halfway through the project, and I wouldn’t say quality suffered relative to my previous pieces, but I didn’t have the time to invest in developing a better style. Another lesson learned being that artistic exploration needs to not happen during production of a project, but instead between major projects so the proper time and attention can be devoted to the task.
One of the satisfying moments of this project came during one particular mid-project playtest. I had previously been stressing over the constant changes to the combat balance, which had begun to wear on me and make me concerned that I would never achieve my goal. And then, all of a sudden, we had gotten to the fourth round of gameplay. In previous playtests we had never gotten farther than midway through Round 3 before we called it quits due to time and boredom. This playtest was different, the assembled players decided to call it quits at midnight. We ended at some point past the twelfth turn, we lost track pretty quickly, and playing out to this point provided addition valuable feedback on how the game progresses farther along in Playtesting. During my final playtest my playtesters were asking when they’d be able to play the game again, and I intimated it may be brought out again at a later date, and that I would always have the original in my room. This instance, this moment of players having fun with my game, and actually WANTING to continue playing it made every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears shed for this project completely worth it. An intoxicating feeling, and I now have something to grasp for, to feel that sensation again with another project.
When all was said and done with this mod, I realized that board games are such a wonderful design tool. I went through at least 7 different iterations of the base mechanics in the course of a month, allowing me to fine tune the mechanics rapidly and effectively. I had always read online how rapid, paper prototypes were such an effective design aide. Not only that, instead of having to rewrite elements of the code, recompiles the entire game, or change gigabytes of models and textures, I simply have to say “Alright, now the loser deals half damage.” And the game is changed. Sometimes the game would completely alter itself in the middle of a playtest. In fact, this happened just about every session. I never concerned myself with having a “finalized” design or ensuring my map was gorgeous before I started printing it. My map went through at least 5 different iterations in the aforementioned month of building the game, and if I didn’t change it 5 times it wouldn’t be nearly as polished. So, above all else making this game taught me the benefits of rapid prototyping.
I decided that I had best leave ALL of my printing up to Kinko’s. Bad call. Sadly, their computers cannot handle print resolution PDFs, so getting all of my work printed proved a painful process in which rushed employees missed a few notes. When they went back to do the reprints the way I had asked for them to be done they failed in other areas, like keeping their cyan cartridges full. The manuals printed off properly, as did the map they printed on the wrong paper size, but when they printed my final map on the correct paper size somehow the colors were not appearing correctly. I realize that when printing, or going from monitor to monitor, colors will shift slightly. HOWEVER I found it difficult to believe that a nice blue could turn to near-black, and a maroon could become pure brown. So much for the professionals. I suppose the best way to look at this, though, would be as a glitch with the graphics engine, to continue applying the lessons of board games to video and computer games. I’m not sure if this could really be called a modification at this point, it seems more like an “Inspired by” or “Loosely Based Upon” than a modification. So many elements of the game were changed, on some level even the essence of the game was changed to make something more entertaining, accessible, and simple.
In the end this was by far the most stressful and limits-pushing month of my entire life, and I loved every minute of it.