by Petey B. | Jan 9, 2017 | Designer's Diary, Sub Terra | 15 Comments
Happy New Year! Not only does it mean 2016 is finally over (hooray!), it also means the Sub Terra Kickstarter is just around the corner! EXCITED If you’ve been paying attention to the ITB newsletter, you may have noticed that in addition to the Sub Terra base game,... read more
by Petey B. | Dec 26, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Sub Terra | 2 Comments
ILLUMINATION Season’s greetings to you all! It’s almost 2017, which means the Sub Terra Kickstarter is juuuuust around the dark and shadowy corner. As a late present, we’re releasing the latest draft of the rulebook for your perusal. Give it a quick read! I’ll... read more
by Tim Pinder | Dec 8, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 2 Comments
In Sub Terra, players assume roles chosen from a team of eight unique characters. Here are five of them: From left: Ishiko (climber), Jai (bodyguard), Amirah (leader), Daniel (geologist), Jack (Diver) I believe that diverse communities are stronger, and that... read more
by Tim Pinder | Dec 6, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Sub Terra | 14 Comments
Art is important. It’s the first thing players will notice about a game – it draws them in, keeps them engaged, and affects how favourably they’ll view the gameplay experience. I’m not an artist. For Sub Terra, we borrowed the extensive talents of the... read more
by Tim Pinder | Nov 24, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 1 Comment
In the first half of this post, I described three types of complexity: Comprehension Complexity (how does this component work?) Board Complexity (how do these components work together?) Strategic Complexity (how will these components work together in the future?) The... read more
by Tim Pinder | Nov 17, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 0 Comments
HIDDEN DEPTHS (part 1) In my last post, I discussed various solutions to the two main problems that cooperative games suffer from: quarterbacking and inconsistent challenge. One of my solutions to the quarterbacking problem was to maximise and distribute what I... read more
by Petey B. | Nov 14, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing | 1 Comment
Last weekend, I ended up on a surprise trip to Rome, thanks to my fantastic partner and her Gollum-level secretses skillz. We had a right good explore around the city, as well as the highlights of the Vatican (somewhere I’ve always wanted to have a good look... read more
by Tim Pinder | Nov 10, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 0 Comments
Cooperative games have problems. This isn’t to say that you can’t make good cooperative games – Hanabi is one of my all-time favourites – but they come with a distinct set of design challenges that aren’t present in ‘normal’ competitive titles. To get Sub... read more
by Tim Pinder | Nov 3, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 1 Comment
I wanted to make Sub Terra scare you. In the first half of this post, I discussed why people enjoy horror experiences, what makes them feel anxious and scared, and what sort of threats we can deploy in a board game setting to push them in this direction. Is there... read more
by Tim Pinder | Oct 27, 2016 | Designer's Diary, Publishing, Sub Terra | 0 Comments
I wanted to make a horror game. Before I start work on something completely new, I like to do some research to try to figure out the underlying theory. A lot of design advice urges you to get stuck in fast with scrappy prototypes and quick iteration. Instead, I... read more
