“Conquest of the Conquerors”

Game Design Document

Ryan Harvey

COM-252

Dr. Gerald Voorhees

March 5, 2009

Game Proposal

I want to create a game called “Conquest of the Conquerors”. Imagine an experience that draws you so deep into the game that you lose sense of who you really are. With this game you may become an Archer or a Templar and take role playing to a new level. This game will change the way Legendary Roll Playing Game’s are viewed by the world, creating an even larger cultural fan base. It is a game that mixes ideas from “War Hammer”, “Magic” and of course “Candy Land” ; then takes elements that only this game possesses to mash these ideas together into something bigger than itself. Your goal is to a race to the top of a monstrous mountain where a fortress stands amongst the Gods that must be taken back from evil forces and used to bring order to the chaotic land. There will be two paths up the mountain and various obstacles that will stand in your way as you venture alone or with a squad to meet your fate. There can be 2-6 players but a max of only two teams with 3 on each, so chose your partners in battle wisely. Players will take gambles using various types of cards to assist them in conquering their destiny. This game is not just luck as it also takes great strategy to successfully overcome evil; players will be stretched on competitive and intellectual levels. This game is not for the weak, this game is not for the submissive, but for the true Hero’s in this world. Do you have what it takes to face  this challenge and set off on a conquest to conquer the last glimpse of hope?

Player experience goals

My player experience goals are what I want the game to feel like for the players. This game should be like playing “War Hammer” with the aspect of upgradable characters that have special attributes. These attributes and upgrades will help the player overcome obstacles within the game. For instance, many obstacles will be character specific, like if a tree monster attacks you, the best character to use would be one that has some sort of fire ability. The game is a card based game so it pulls aspects of “Magic the Gathering” such as, temporary upgrades and use of cards. Temporary upgrades allow you to use them a limited number of times, thus making sure you plan your moves accordingly. Each character will have a figurine representation on the board letting the player live the game through their character. My game is also going to feel sort of like a tower defense game only instead of controlling the towers, you are controlling the attackers. As you move through the board the game will try to defeat you at every turn by throwing new obstacles at you and your team.  This is where my game really takes on its own unique feeling of play, you can play on teams. With a maximum of two teams and three players to a team will need to combine skills and cards drawn in this unique concept to conquer the castle. There are two ways up the mountain, therefore choosing the path that will lead your journey will affect how quickly you move up the mountain. You will use your special skills and luck of the draw to conquer the obstacles that change every game. The obstacles are drawn at random for each path so you never quite know what you are going to get. Choose your characters wisely.

Apparatus

The apparatus of “Conquest of the Conquerors” includes all the objects that will be necessary to carry out my game. The characters that each team/player can choose from include a Swordsman, an Archer, a Templar, and a Wizard.  There will be six characters in use during a full game (though substitutions with new characters may arise) and each will have different stats. Their stats will determine how much damage each character can withstand as well as how much damage the character can deal out. These stat cards will also provide the user with information regarding the abilities the character will have in avoiding certain harmful attacks, including how much magic these individuals will be able to control. The amount of armor a character has will also be recorded on these cards. Certain characters might also be able to upgrade certain aspects of their stats based on drawn cards and battles won.

This brings me to my next point, game play cards. These game play cards consist of Action cards, Stat cards, Team cards and Mystery cards. Action cards are drawn when a team or player runs into trouble involving the board itself, movement on the board and if teams or players cross paths. These Action cards will be drawn when a player/players land on a space that contains a conflict. The cards can consist of anything from stay and deal with the game generated problem or to run away and move back spaces. These cards may allow players to, in certain cases, choose who will deal with the problem at hand, to switch certain characters on a team, trade stats with other players in the game or maybe even jump around the board and avoid the problem all together.

Stat cards will consist majorly of upgrading and degrading certain stats. These cards will be drawn when certain numbers are rolled on the die. The cards may instruct the drawer of the card to keep the upgrade or take stats away from a character. The cards may tell you to steal stats from the other team or to divide out the gained stats amongst your team however you see fit. These cards will play a primary role in making teams stronger or strengthening individual players so they can lead the team in attacks and clear out obstacles. In case a hero on the team falls, due to some mighty force, a team player might draw a card that can revive a player only once. Once this card is drawn the card stays with the team until used.

Team cards will deal with actions aside from drawing Action cards. These will also be drawn based on certain rolling of the die. They will act mostly on an individual team/player bases, rarely involving the opposing team/player. The Team cards will strengthen bonds between members allowing them to overcome more intense obstacles; the strength of these cards will make them very hard to attain and even harder to use. They will only be able to stay with a player a limited amount of turns, after that they will be returned to the bottom of that deck. Therefore they must be used within that turn limit or not at all. In addition to this turn limit, each card will allow a special move but only certain moves can overcome certain obstacles. The power of these cards make them one of the most powerful decks, but also the hardest to use affectively. However, if used correctly, they can drastically change the game.

Mystery cards can prove very valuable if put into the right hands. These cards will also only be drawn on a certain die role and for example the drawn card is a spell card it may only be used by a Wizard if it is drawn by a Wizard. The Wizard must also have a certain level of power (gained through stat cards and winning battles) in order to use certain cards. The Mystery cards may help heal a player to a certain level of health or give them certain abilities. Mystery cards can also allow players to switch cards; let’s say a magic card that is drawn by another player can be switched to the magician

A D-8 and a D-4 is required to play this game. The D-4 is rolled every turn to determine how many spaces that character will move. The D-8 is rolled every turn as well to determine if a card should be drawn or not. If this die lands on a 1, 4 or 8 the player will draw a Stat card. If the die lands on a 2, 5 or 7 the player can draw a Mystery card. Last if the die lands on a 6 the player can draw a Team card. Along with the dice, the game will include a game board. This game board will consist of two paths from which the players can choose to explore. This will work with a role of the die to determine which team/player gets to choose the path they want to explore. Instructions are also included. One of the most important things in this game is points because that’s how you win. When you defeat an opponent you will get a certain number of points specified on the opponent’s card and every turn you use to fight this opponent the points available from defeating it will be reduced by some percentage specified on the card.

Procedures

Buy back player with points that will be stated on individual cards. that player loses there gained stats

The game “Conquest of the Conquerors” is a pretty complex game so I must go over procedures in setting up and carrying out the game. First players must remove game board and pieces from box and then remove pieces from bags. Lay the board down and each player should choose the character they want to play as. Then the players should take out each deck of cards and draw randomly a card from the deck that corresponds to the place for it on the board until all spots for cards along the two paths are full and all cards are used up. If there is more than one spot for one type of card on the board rotate spots to place the randomly drawn cards until all the cards in each corresponding deck are gone, do not look at the face of the cards. Each player should also get out a sheet of paper to record their life stats. Each team should roll the dice and whichever side gets the higher number gets to choose one of the two paths to follow. Once the decision is made the teams go to their respective starting places and the team/player that did not get to choose the path gets to roll first in the game. If it is team play any player on the team may go first. The player that goes first must roll the D-4 to determine how far he/she will move once that is done the player will roll the D-8 to determine what kind of card he/she will draw. If the payer lands on an action space the player will also draw an action card. If this player had landed on an action space they can decide what to do with their cards. Say for instance the player rolled a 1 on the D-8; this signifies that the player must draw a Stat card. The player would then make the necessary adjustments on the piece of paper that records there life stats and then return the card into the bottom of the deck. The player would then view their action card drawn and do what it says on it; say for instance the player drew a card that said stay and fight, the player would then have to stay and fight whatever beast was in their way. This means that the opponent deals out whatever damage it deals first to the players armor but if the armor does not take up all the damage then the players health will soak up the rest of the hit points, thus taking away all of his armor and some of his health. Next the player will deliver his damage to the opponent and the opponent’s armor and health will be depleted in the same fashion as before. This will signify one turn, now if the opponent is not dead then another will be needed to defeat them or as many turns as needed. Some opponents will have lesser hit values the second time around and some will not same with the players character, sometime their hit points the second time around on the same opponent will not be as strong or maybe they will be stronger. Now another factor that plays in to fighting will be the card drawn, we already discussed the Stat card issue. Now if the player rolled a 2 they would pick up a mystery card and would use it before the fight, this card may move the player around the board or some other interesting things. If the player gets a Team card by rolling a 6, they might be able to recruit another player to help them thus sharing the damage but strengthening hit points in just one turn. In addition to at least one of these cards being drawn every turn some of them might last more than one turn; for instance if I draw a temporary damage boost card I might be able to save it for another turn or maybe for another player.

Moving on, once you overcome an obstacle (action square), that drawn card is put into the bottom of the deck and so another may be drawn if someone else lands on it. Now that action spot will have its own time of return, so within a certain number of turns that space is just a space and no obstacles will be encountered there.  Back to our player say he wins his fight on the first turn and now he is down some health or whatever, whose turn is it? It is that same teams turn again unless they drew a card regarding them to lose a turn, they choose to skip their turn or the players are playing one on one. So you get two turns a team and one turn if it is PvP. Now those two turns can be use by the same player but this is one of the many places where team work rears its head.

Say a game has played out now almost to the end and the teams are reaching the final boss, this is where things will change a little from normal game play. Let’s say that one team is slightly ahead of the other team so they reach the final boss first, this mean that they will start attacking it first and also start receiving damage from it first. Once a team is in the final battle area marked on the board there is no use for moves, so that D-4 die turns into a hit miss die. If it is rolled odd it is a miss and if it is rolled even than it is a hit, but before you roll the player whose turn it is must draw an Action card from the final boss’s pile. This determines the action that may or may not require a roll and if it does than you role to see if it is hit or miss. At this point in the game only one team is fighting the dragon, if one of the characters die than a teammate can use a card drawn earlier that may bring back a dead teammate (this card is not limited to this stage, it can be used at any time) or they might draw one of these elusive cards in their draw and then may use it. The player that is brought back starts over at stock stats and loses all cards that he/she was holding onto before the death; also they may not get a turn until they are brought back to life. Scoring against this final boss comes with how many hit points you administer to it. Points, in this stage, are directly related to how many individual hit points are administered to the final boss one for one. Once the other team/player reaches the final battle ground they too will start to attack the boss and gain points based on the same principle. Whoever or whichever player/team has the most points once the boss is defeated will be the winner. Now that the final boss is defeated there are some other factors coming into play, how many characters died during the game, which team/player reached the final boss first and how many characters on your team made it through the boss alive even if they died and got brought back; these are the two main components that will deduct points.

Game play Narrative

In this section I will describe how a typical game will unfold from my point of view. This game will have two players on both team’s labeled team 1 and team 2; I will be on team 1. My teammate will be player A and I will be player B, the other team will have player C and player D. I have chosen the Archer; my teammate has chosen the Swordsman. Player C has chosen the Templar and player D has chosen the Wizard. After game set up, my team rolled highest so we get to choose what path we want, have chosen the left path. So now the team 2 rolls first and starts the game. Player C has chosen to roll first; they roll a 3 on the D-4, now she will roll the D-8 to determine what card they will draw. They land on a 6 which means they will draw a Team card which says the team can help attack all obstacles within 4 spaces of the drawer for 3 turns of that team but all players that help will share damage and stats gained from winning the battle. The space player C landed on does not have an obstacle but the card says it will last 3 turns of that player. It is not the teams turn again and player D has chosen to roll. They roll a 2 on the D-4 and a 4 on the D-8 this means that player D will move 2 spaces and draw a Stat card. The Stat card reads +2 attack, so the player gets to add 2 to their attack stats before they draw the Action card for the space they have landed on. The Action card reads you come into contact with a Guardian of the Forest and then lists the Guardian’s stats. The player on team 2 are within 4 space so they help attack the Guardian and kill the Guardian, but the Guardian deals 6 damage so the teammates share the damage each absorbing 3 damage to their armor. For defeating the Guardian both player’s special abilities goes up +1. Now it is my teams turn to roll the dice. I go first and roll a 3 and a 2 this means I move 3 spaces up and then draw a Mystery card. The card reads that I must run from a Fire Storm so I get to jump ahead to the next space that contains to action, but in doing to so I get burned a little from some burning trees so -2 armor. Now it is my partners turn. Player B rolls a 2 and a 1, so player B has to draw a Stat card which raises his Armor by +2. Player B’s space they landed on is not an action spot so it is now Team 2’s turn. This is how one round might play out in “Conquest of the Conquerors”.