Devlog 13 - The Northern Regalia

My group decided to create a game based on the name and image of The Northern Regalia. We want to simulate the power struggle that happens between different powerful people all looking to rule over an area. Players collect territories, troops, and gold to increase their influence and power. 

I took on the role of making the board. Watching Jason Schklar talk about the design of UX in card and board games was really interesting. One thing I noticed while making some of the art for our past games was that I struggled with balancing the art with the rules or instructions. Part of this comes from the fact that my focus is in fine arts, not graphic design, so I always want the art to be the main focus but for a game that's not what needs to happen.  He talked about a suggestion for Castle Panic in which the art and the UX balanced to make the board still look elegant, but also help the players know where the pieces went. I'll be sure to keep this trade-off in mind while designing the board.

He also talked about making changes in King of Tokyo so that the iconography of everything matched across the game pieces to limit confusion about how they were connected. Right now, our game has a lot of different specifications, such as rank, class, and weapon and all of those will need to be easily distinguishable from each other and recognizable so that you know in what situation that information is important. 

I watched the video by Watch It Played that went over the game USPS: The Great American Mail Race. This game is all about picking up and delivering packages using cards to move via roads, water, sky, or trails. It was really interesting to see the movement mechanics and the bonuses that players were able to mark on their score sheets. My group is still working out how the movement will work in our game, so it was nice to see an example of a game that made use of it over a large map, which is what we aim to do.