A couple years ago, I was in a class for the BSA game design merit badge. As part of this merit badge, I was asked to invent my own game. I knew just what I wanted my game to be: a board game based off Super Smash Bros. The game is called Battle Bash, and I’ve been working on it off and on ever since I came up with the idea. Over the years, I’ve sold rough prototypes of the game at an entrepreneurship fair, and entered it into an entrepreneurship contest where I won second place and received funding for further development.
Though I based Battle Bash on the same premise of Super Smash Bros, I did not make it as complex. Instead, I decided to make the game simple and family friendly. The game still has the theme of battling competitors with a single avatar, but there aren’t a bunch of combos and different moves that would bog down the game.
In Battle Bash, each piece in my game has a single power that will affect the outcome of battles. This removes the need to keep track of multiple combinations in your head, simplifying the game and making it better for little kids and families. Movement around the board is done by rolling a die which determines how far you can go.
If you land next to another piece, you can fight them. Each player rolls the die and applies their power. Whoever rolls the higher number wins the fight and takes a heart from the other player. Each player has three hearts and is out of the game when they have lost all three.
Currently, I’m working on making player choice have a greater impact in the game’s outcome. While a simple structure has many benefits, heavy reliance on luck can take all the choice out of a game. For example, my game currently has a cycle of going to an opponent, rolling dice, taking or losing a heart, and repeating. The only real choice is who you decide to fight, which honestly, doesn’t matter too much.
The only break from this pattern is a single piece (the assassin) who’s power relies on being the one to initiate the fight. This gives the assassin, and those fighting him/her more meaningful choices than the other pieces, but the game as a whole still needs more. While Battle Bash is still really fun, more choice could make it much better.
To solve this problem I’ll try adding secondary objectives and making the other character’s powers more similar to the assassin’s. I’ll keep you updated on what I try and how it goes with weekly posts. Hopefully, you can learn a few things about game design from watching me develop and evolve Battle Bash.
