The Crowley Zone

Competitive sci-fi action tabletop game for 4-6 players

Role: Project lead, head "programmer"

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This project started with a group forming up before we had an idea of what to make. The group consisted of multiple angles of game development, and each of us thought of a concept for a project for us to work on, with the specific one being selected through a voting process. I had an idea for a tabletop game as there are aspects in the development of video games that also take place in the development of a tabletop game. In the end, my idea won, and thus I was promoted to project lead. The group itself consisted of 2 "programmers", 1 writer, and 4 artists, with each person also being able to pitch in ideas to try and improve on the game. Being the lead, I had to help keep progress on track, as well as present the game to others. With the other programmer, we were able to successfully create a base system, and then throughout the course of the project fine-tune it to be something even more enjoyable.

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The idea for this project mostly came from playing games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Betrayal at House on the Hill, which both involve a group of players who may have unique methods of winning the game, in ways that could put them with or against the others playing with them. I've always been a fan of asymmetric gameplay, so I had thought about those concepts and decided to build upon them so that each player would have their own goal that would remain hidden until they were close to accomplishing their goal. Players may work together to bring someone close to victory down, but in the end, there can only be one winner.

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At the start of the game, each player would be given both a randomized character and a randomized role. The character would be public knowledge, but the role would be kept hidden from the other players, as it describes what that player needs to do in order to win. Role cards would feature a flip condition and a win condition, with the flip condition being the event that causes the player to reveal what their role is, and the win condition describing how they win, but only if the role has been flipped over. Revealing the role gives the other players a chance to prevent that player from winning, but because this paints a target on that player, a flipped role will provide a bonus to stats unique to each role. Some roles have an easy flip condition and a difficult win condition, and others a difficult flip condition and an easier win condition. If a player with a revealed role dies, their role is flipped back face-down.

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Here are some role examples:

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• The Thief

  • Flip: Enter another player's ship cockpit and steal their warp core

    • Flipped bonus: +2 speed

  • Win: Return to your ship with another player's warp core

  • Notes: Stealing counts as your turn's action, and upon dying, any stolen cores are returned to their original locations

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• The Assassin

  • Flip: Kill another player with a flipped role

    • Flipped bonus: +1 speed, +2 combat, and +2 range

  • Win: Return to your ship

  • Dev note: This one I feel could use a rework, as in playtesting this seemed to be too difficult to win. Compared to the others, it is also the least interesting.

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• Patient Zero

  • Flip: Kill another player

    • Flipped bonus: For each infected player, +2 combat

  • Win: Each other player is infected

  • Notes: Any player you kill becomes infected. You are immune to damage from infected players. Upon death, all players lose infected. Infected players also gain +1 combat for each infected player.

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• The Bounty Hunter

  • Flip: With 2 items in hand, return to your ship. Assign each other player to a value on a die, then roll.

    • Flipped bonus: +2 speed, +2 combat

  • Win: Kill the player assigned to the rolled number

  • Notes: If a roll would fail to select a player, roll until it does. If another player kills your target, this role is flipped back face-down.

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• The Possessed

  • Flip: After having been killed by another player, flip when you start your turn in the Emergency Room.

    • Flipped bonus: +3 speed, +3 combat, if you are infected you can deal damage to Patient Zero

  • Win: Kill the player who killed you

  • Notes: Being killed by another player changes your target to that player instead.

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• The Mad

  • Flip: Start your turn on a Laboratory's lab equipment space.

    • Flipped bonus: +10 HP, +2 speed, +2 combat, +1 range

  • Win: Kill 3 players (without dying)

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Combat is done during a player's turn as one of their primary actions. In combat, there are two main values to consider: the combat value (CV) and the range value (RV). When a player declares combat on another player, both players may then play a combat item from their hand, which will typically increase their CV, RV, or both. Both players then roll a six-sided die and add any combat bonuses they have to that roll. The player with the higher total combat value wins that combat, and the difference between the two values is dealt to the loser, but ONLY if the loser is within the total range value of the winner. A player may also choose to do an unarmed attack instead of using a combat item, which has a CV of 0 and an RV of 1.

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The board itself is comprised of 6 pieces, with each piece having a space for a player's ship, as well as 3 rooms and hallways connecting each piece to potentially 3 other pieces. Each piece was designated to be a specific area, such as the navigation area, or the residential area. Rooms would feature item spawns and possibly their own unique feature, such as the teleportation room allowing a player to move to the other teleportation room, or the training room giving a player a combat bonus on their next attack. Ships would also be guarded by doors, which could be opened or closed by various methods.

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It was most challenging trying to make sure progress was coming along smoothly, especially in the art department. Because we had a large number of artists comparatively (and given the scope of the project), it was sometimes difficult to delegate tasks to each one, especially considering how I was unfamiliar with each artist's skill level. Additionally, as the game was more on the complex side, there were misunderstandings about the rules among a few team members that resulted in some complications regarding pieces of art. This was the first time I had led a project, as well as it was the first time I had created a board game. With that said, I immensely enjoyed working on this project, and even today I'm thinking about ways of improving or adding to it.