Student Project
TERMINUS (BOARDGAME)
Game Designer
October - December 2016 | Coop & Competitive Game
WORK FEATURE
-
Movement based on deck building
-
Asymetrical coop with 4 different heroes
-
Designing social features to make player interact with each other
-
2 - phase game system
-
World and character building
Terminus is my first project as a game designer. It is a board game designed for 2-4 players with two different phases : a coop one, then a competitive one.
For this game, I designed:
-
4 characters with unique abilities for the co-op aspect
-
some mechanics that would create interaction between the players
-
random events during the game.
I also wrote the general backstory of the game including :
-
the universe
-
the context
-
the characters
The bomb pawn
When we got the boardgame project during our first year of studies, we had four random constraints :
-
our game had to have knights as main characters
-
the action is set in a train
-
there should be aliens in the game
-
there should be a Steampunk aspect of the game.
The game contains a lot of elements, as you can see on the picture above. It is worth to mention that the three boards of the game represent the three wagons of the train (the railways engine is a separated board) and they have to be reversed for the phase II of the game, creating a total of 6 level designs.
The third wagon, Phase 1
The third wagon, Phase 2
The phase 1 is played in cooperation. The next one is competitive !
Because of our constraints, I created a short tale in order to make all the game elements fit together available in a mini-book in the game box.
I filled the narration with humour and used the "Steampunk" constraints to justify the world : here, we have a kingdom specialized in cooking with steam with Knights looking like famous Cooks from our world. These backstories helped us justifying some of our mechanics.
Terminus' World in an alternative world in which the steam has replaced Oil as the main energy source.
The Vapotti Kingdom prospers thanks to its culinary innovation.
Its King, the engineer-cook Sir Papin, known as the 'Roi-tatouille', keeps with envy the secrets about the making-of his beautifulest creation : "the Pressure-Cooker".
This "Pressure-Cooker" created many fantasies for both the inhabitants of Vapotti and the strangers : it could transform any ingrediant into a delicious meal !
Then, a neighbor kingdom, jealous from this technology, tries to recreate this magical tool in a sub-marine laboratory.
Sadly, during an experience on a pan, the laboratory explodes and creates a space/time portal leading to a planet full of small aliens.
Curious, these ones decide to visit in secret Tatouille's Fortress and, after tasting some meals prepared with the "Pressure-Cooker", they then need to know the secret around this fabulous object. Indeed, the food on their planet has a cardboard and polystyrene taste...So, they steal the precious "Pressure-Cooker" !
The 'Roi-Tatouille' wanting to protect his creating at all cost, charges his advisor Beau-culze to select the crème de la crème of the kingdom's knights in order to close the portal before the aliens leave.
Were selected :
Maï-thé
Gordon Zola
Ciri-Lee Knack
Jean-Pierre Ruskoffe.
After a short briefing, the knights learn that their journey might be a one-way one : they will travel in a submarine train named "Picklengine" with a pumpkin bomb able to close the portal. In order to come back to the Kingdom, the bill looks like to be expensive...
As we had unique characters with unique abilities, I also wrote them a backstory with their own goals and reasons for wanting to go back home. Here are what their Character Page looked like (in French)
Maille-Thé Character's page
Ciri-Lee Character's page.
The characters were inspired by :
-
Gordon Ramsay
-
Jean-Pierre Coffe
-
Maïté
-
Cyril Lignac
In Terminus, the players have to carry a bomb through a train, from its last wagon to its railway engine.They have to choose between 4 characters with common skills such as attracting or repulsing the bomb and a unique skill that will make a difference during the first phase of the game such as :
-
teleporting a player
-
carrying the bomb while moving
-
modifying the level design of the board
-
make the bomb float above obstacles
These powers can work in synergies and help the players progress quickly if they think and communicate enough !
Jean Pierre Ruskoffe and Gordon Zola are two of the 4 playable characters. They are inspired from the famous cooks Jean-Pierre Coffe and Gordon Ramsay.
The first step to create a coop gameplay is to give the same goal to the players.
Each turn, the players are able to do these actions :
-
draw cards until they have 4 in their hands
-
play a movement card
-
play an action card
-
attract or repulse the bomb
-
use 1 heroic charge to use their special ability.
In order to increase the co-op aspect of the game and the interactions between the players, the players can play their action card even during another's player turn. It allows them to help them during certain situations !
When the players play their cards, they have to discard them in front of them. They will serve as their own Drawing Pile for the next Phase.
The players have 15 turns to carry the bomb at the end of the train, else it explodes and they lose.
​
​
The players can only talk with the others that are in the same wagon in order to create some kind of roleplay !
​
With a +3 card, you can move on 3 cells. Combine it with this Action Card and you can move on 4 cells !
You can get one heroic charge per wagon, when you walk on the cells with the same logo. They are limited so use it with caution !
Finally, when the players deliver the bomb at the railway engine and all arrive in it, the phase 2 can begin.
But wait, where are the aliens ???
Alien cards can be drawn in the draw pile. When it happens, they immediately have to be discarded. Because of them, the player loses one card this turn. But they will have a whole new impact on the next phase...
A alien card
Once the players activate the bomb, they have to reach the back of the train to escape from the space-time portal in which the train is starting to go in. However, there's not enough emergency capsules to save them all. They will have to race and fight to escape !
Entering the space-time portal made a lot of damages on the train. The level design had to be changed therefore ! The players has to return the faces of the boards in order to play on the correct LD adapted to this crazy escape.
During this phase, the space-time portal will slowly devour the train. After each table-turn, the players will have to make the portal go further:
-
1 line of cells / table turn
-
2 lines of
cells / table turn in wagon 2 -
3 lines of
cell / table turn in wagon 3
They also have to put on the "space-time portal' on the very first wagon, at its beggining. It will start to chase them once the last player reaches the third line of cells of this same wagon.
The first wagon with the Space-time Portal
The players can do the same actions during this phase, except using their powers.
The turns plays as usual. The players draw cards from their own pile and go as fast as possible to avoid the portal.
However, there are many new particularities.
The Action Cards now have new effects. As you can
see on the picture here, this card gives a bonus to its owner during the first
phase of the game while it gives a malus to another player during the
second one.
We tried to create many mechanics like this to make the players fight
each other to have their emergency capsule.
Also, the Aliens now have a totally different role.
While they were a small malus during the first phase, now they can create random events for all the players !
Each time a player draws an Alien Card he/she has to draw an Event card from the EVENT DRAW PILE.
These events can impact all the players or only the one that draw the card. Some players can also take advantage of them ! Some of these event cards were designed to create more social interaction between the players.
Exemple of event card :
-
you can't use an Action Card during this turn
-
put back your hand in your Draw Pile and draw 4 cards again
-
all the action cards are targeted to you until your next turn
-
the space-time portal goes further of one turn
-
During one turn, the players control the knight of the person at their right
-
switch your position with the closest player behind you
-
you don't have the right to talk until the next turn. Draw an event card each time you speak!
​
​
But what if you get eaten by the portal ?
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
The game ends when all the players die or when there isn't any emergency
​
It sucks to be excluded when you lose a game, right ?
With that in mind, we included a small mechanic to help the losers get a little revenge and play a bit more !
At each turn, the losers has the right the place an alien pawn on the board. If an alive player walks in it, he/she has to draw an event card, increasing his/her chances to lose. That small interaction helped the players feel connected to the game until the very end of it !
The Alien pawn
TERMINUS! was a real challenge as a first game. Creating mechanics working on cooperation AND competition was hard but we learnt a lot from this experience !
MEET THE TEAM
DORIAN MONTAVID
GAME DESIGNER
Dorian created many mechanics and did the producing of the game.
AXEL ARNAUD
GAME DESIGNER
Axel was a pillar in our team : he managed to create many mechanics, did some art and produced a lot for the physical game !
MATHIEU SIBOULOTTE
GAME DESIGNER / NARRATIVE DESIGNER
Well, it's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
P.-A. GERBET
GAME DESIGNER
P-A did a great job at balancing the game thanks to the lot of playtests we did !