What a 2022 for Behemoth
What a year, this 2022!
This has been my second year designing Behemoth. The game has changed a lot and I learned a lot myself, through design iterations and playtests.
I'm probably spending more time than 'standard' on it, but I'm enjoying the process so much and want to make the game really shine, so I'm having a great time.
Behemoth update
Design update
All in all, the design is in a good shape and I'm very happy with the progress. As of the time of writing this post, I'm in version v6.0 - Nyx (the AI) adaptive mechanics work well, the combination of exploration, worker placement, action selection and dice seems to be a great blend.
I have done a total of 33 playtesting games, across 8 players (most games have been solo). If you want to register as a playtester, you can do so here.
There is however still lots of work needed, as the game still feels too complex for what I want it to be.
World building update
I'm imagining what the world would look like in year 2265, 200 years after Nyx awoke.
My current feeling is to to paint an happy, fascinating world with some hints of difficult situations (a more happy spin than the original doom and gloom world I had in mind)
Key part of the work here is researching how to have a nice representation of different environments: natural landmarks, famous monuments, representative animals - chasing that feeling of living an adventure across different parts of the globe.
Publishing update
I started conversations with different manufacturers in China, had few instructive catchups with some more established publishers, began conversations with some artists and gathered some early interest from some localization partners. I still have to start the work on the logistics.
Launch
My current best estimate is to launch on Kickstarter in the first half 2024. This is of course subject to updates 🙂
Design iterations
As I progressed with the design, I went through a significant number of iterations. Often times, a single change brought a waterfall of changes with it. I thought I'd give a flavour to what those looked like!
At high level, I am following this approach:
1. Have clear goals around play experience
2. Playtest and assess experience against ideal goals
3. Tweak what works, change what doesn't, find compromises
4. Iterate
One improvement for me here is being more strict on testing changes to the game. I explored way too many variations of game mechanics, at times chasing new fascinating, theme-related mechanics ideas - this is great for finding the right blend of mechanics, but comes with a great time cost.
In terms of target players experience on the other hand, I have been pretty consistent throughout my design journey.
Experience goals for Behemoth
These are the main goals I'm setting my self:
- Easy to pick up, i.e. simple rules: ideally, explanation time around 15min or less
- Nice co-op experience: some shared planning and limiting alpha playing / quarterbacking
- Replayability: ability to play the game multiple times and have a meaningful experience multiple times
- Feelings: increasing sense of excitement but with some room to breath, sense of empowerment, some surprises
- Try and accommodate different playstyles. Part of my inspiration here comes from Magic The Gathering and Mark Rosewater archetypes
- Strategies beyond tactics: ideally, each game should have different viable strategies
- Immersion in the theme: What's the world like? Who are the players? How can they interact with the rest of the world?
Map design iterations
The game map represents the world out there, including the path followed by the Behemoth, wild beasts and ruins that need rescuing, and shadow spread by Nyx. This the game component that went through the most iterations:
In the latest iteration, I'm abstracting away rangers movement, to create a more immediate gameplay: less need for 'cheap' mental calculations, and creating physical space to have cards on the map. Talisman has been an inspiration for me in this sense - I love how you can immediately see what will happen in each location.
Map evolution (click to expand)
In its first design, the map had a grid for rangers to move. This made the game feel a bit too tactical, so I migrated it to map regions with clear Behemoth and rangers paths. This version in turn didn't provide enough choices (after picking a path, you felt stuck within it), so the next iteration consisted in regions with a grid inside. This version worked ok, but I felt that there was still too much mental bandwidth needed to work out map movements compared to the rest of the game. So I'm now abstracting movement away further, aiming for regions with a couple of sub-regions inside.
In early iterations, there was a separate Explore board to reference cards and beasts in the map.
Design considerations around the map have been around:
- interesting movement decisions
- simple but engaging and clever Nyx spreading shadow mechanics
- replayability and modularity
- ability to anticipate what will happen next to a degree
- local environments to make quarterbacking more difficult
- thematic immersion, e.g. with a continuous map as opposed to terrain patches, with events tied to terrain type, or with location cards laid directly on the map
Behemoth board
The Behemoth board represents life inside the Behemoth city. This has been another component that has changed, a lot! Perhaps it had less iterations than the map, but each iteration came with more details needing work - from quick balancing of locations to placement mechanics.
In v6.0, I'm looking to merge the rangers movement with worker placement: as a ranger you can decide whether to spend time on a wild region (say to rescue some beasts or explore some ruins), or within Behemoth city.
Behemoth board evolution (click to expand)
When iterating on the Behemoth board, I have been looking for answers on 2 main points:
- What mechanics to follow to activate locations
- What type of effect belong to Behemoth locations compared to normal actions and action cards
Shadow spreading on the Behemoth locations and effectively turning off some locations has instead been a staple since day 1.
I tried a few interesting mechanics around activations. From automatic activation linked with the Behemoth movement across the map, to upgradable locations and tech trees.
What's in the plans for 2023
I'm so excited about what's next for Behemoth - the game is shaping up very nicely!
1. Design: streamline further the map and Behemoth board, better blend of action selection, levelling up and dice
2. Development and playtesting: lots of both in the plans. Starting with 'friendly' playtests, followed by general public playtests and blind playtests. Hat tip to Jamey from Stonemaier game for sharing so many insights.
3. Theme and word-building: still lots of ideas here around how this futuristic world would look like. I need to pin them down and make them real.
4. Publishing work: design and develop physical components, establish network of partners, work out logistics, work on pricing and bundling
How to get involved
As we are closing the year, I would like to thank you all for your support across different platforms, it means a lot.
All in all, my motivation for working on Behemoth is to create a game that can bring a fun and engaging experience to the players 😊
I would love to hear more from you! Here are some ways for you to follow the latest or help out:
✋🏽 Register for playtesting: help iron out and balance the mechanics
👪 Join our FB Group: would love inputs on the world building
📢 Spread the word! Success of the campaign will depend on having enough backers, which as a first time creator is a big challenge.
As I progress with the work, I am planning on creating some thank you contests for your support. Stay tuned for more.
Wish you a fantastic 2023, you deserve it! 🎉🎉
With 💜
Andrea
