The Rules (Final)

Preparation

First shuffle the wizard deck and the loot deck.

The players decide who will play the wizard and who shall be the heroes, if the players can't agree on who should be the wizard, vote on who the most evil player is and that player is the wizard (You can't vote for yourself).

The wizard takes the tiles and make a grid, depending on the number of players the grid size of the grid differs:
3 players (1 wizard + 2 heroes) - 5x5 grid.
4 players (1 wizard + 3 heroes) - 6x6 grid.
5 players (1 wizards + 4 heroes) - 7x7 grid.

The wizard then replaces the center tile with the wizard tower/Mana Wheel if there is not exact center (6x6 grid) the wizard chooses one of the center tiles. The wizard also chooses which direction the tower entrance will face at the start. The wizard the spins the mana wheel so that it is a 2 mana. 

After the grid has been created the heroes close their eyes and the wizard take the 3 key tiles and replace 3 of the tiles on the board with these tiles.

The wizard then draws 5 cards from the wizard deck and choose 3 of them to keep in his hand, the rest are shuffled into the deck again.

First Turn
The wizard then takes the first turn of the game.

Dice
All dice use in the game are twenty sided dice.

Heroes
Each hero starts with 10 hit points. Write this down on a piece of paper or represent the hit points with dice or tokens. 

The Turn

Wizard

The wizard starts his turn by drawing a card from his deck. He then plays any cards he can from his hand with the mana he has to use and ends his turn.
If the Mana Wheel is on max it can not be increased more and instead the wizard draws an extra card each turn. 

Heroes
The heroes has 3 phases on their turns, the first phase is the Movement phase during this phase the heroes can move 1 tile (or further if they've used an ability that allows them to that).
The second phase is the Combat phase, in this phase the hero flips and fights any monsters in the tile.
The last phase is Loot phase, in this phase the heroes flip room tiles and draw loot from the loot deck.

Movement phase

All the movement happens simultaneous and the heroes can not go on to the next phase before all the heroes that want to move have moved. Each hero can move one step to an adjacent room. After all heroes have moved they move onto the next phase. 

If a hero starts the turn on a tile with tokens on it (because of some spell or effect) that hero can not move this turn. Instead you just flip all the tokens (and the tile if necessary) and resolve any combats and traps as usual. If the hero would lose the combat the wizard chooses which tile the hero retreats to, the wizard can make the player retreat into a tile with tokens. 

Combat phase

When all heroes have moved, they switch to the combat phase. Start this phase by flipping any face down tokens in the tiles the heroes have entered. Remove any blanks (tokens with a X), if there are any monsters (tokens with the number 1 to 5) the hero must fight, if there are any traps (tokens with a T) the hero must try to avoid the trap.

Combat
The wizard rolls a dice for the monster(s) and add the level of all monster(s) in the room. The hero/heroes rolls a dice and add stats from their equipment and/or other bonuses ( see Loot cards).
If there are more than 1 hero in a single combat all heroes roll a dice and choose the highest roll and add all of the heroes equipment and bonuses. If the monster(s) score is higher than the hero/heroes, the monsters win and vice versa, in case of a tie the hero/heroes win.
If the monster(s) win the hero/heroes have to move back to their previous tile and take 1 damage for each monster in the room they were fighting. If the hero/heroes win remove the monster(s) in the tile and get to draw 2 cards from the loot deck and choose one of them to keep, the other is discarded.

Avoiding traps
If a hero flips over one or more traps when entering a tile he/she must perform a save roll to avoid the trap. 
The difficulty of the roll depends on the amount of traps in the tile:
1 trap - 7+ save roll.
2 traps - 10+ save roll.
3 traps - 13+ save roll.

If the hero fails the roll he/she takes 2 damage. 
If more than one hero enters a tile with traps EACH hero has to roll a save throw. 

Dying
If a hero is reduced to 0 hp he/she dies and is out of the game. Any loot and/or keys that hero has collected are placed on the tile where he/she died, any other hero can pick up these items by moving into the tile and defeating any monster in it if necessary.

Loot phase

The last phase of the turn is the loot phase. First step of the loot phase is turning any face down tiles that have one or more heroes on them face up and apply the effects on the tile. Second part of the loot phase is to draw loot cards. 

Tiles
Each tile has a Card Draw symbol and a Mana Wheel symbol and a positive or negative value in each of the symbols. When the tile is turned face up the wizard draws or discards cards equal to the value next to the Card Draw symbol and spins the Mana Wheel up or down equal to the value next to the Mana Wheel

Loot the room
If a hero flips a tile AND fought no monsters in the combat phase this turn he/she gets to draw one loot card.

Example tiles.

Keys or "How to win the game"

In order to win the game the heroes have to collect the 2 of the 3 hidden keys by exploring tiles. When a hero flips a tiles with a key symbol he/she receives a key and places that in front of him/her. When the heroes have all 2 of the keys they can enter the central wizard tower. 2 keys must be used to enter the wizard tower. A hero can give his/her keys to another hero if they are in the same tiles. 

When the heroes enter the tower they must defeat any monster that have been placed there, if the succeed they cut down the wizard, chops his head of, pierce it with a spear and place it at top of the tower to show their dominance to any other would-be wizards or evildoers (i.e. they Win the game). 

The key tile.

Rage of the wizard!

When 2 of the 3 keys have been picked up by the heroes, the wizard rage makes the whole world shake and crumble. At the start of every wizard turn the wizard chooses a number of tiles equal to the number of players in the game (wizard + heroes) and remove them from the game. The wizard can not remove the last layer of tiles around the wizard tower and can not remove tiles in such a way that a hero could not get to the wizard tower or a tile with keys (if a hero has died and dropped it/them).

Monsters in the wizard tower

The wizard can place monsters and blank tokens in the wizard tower tile, but the wizard may only start doing so after the heroes have collected 2 keys. 

Wizard victory

To win as a the wizard you have to kill all the heroes, when all heroes are dead, the wizard wins the game.

Wizard Cards

The wizard has 3 types of cards:

Monsters: These cards allows the wizard to place monsters of different levels on the board, whenever the wizard places tokens on the board he also places X amount of blank tokens so that the heroes don't know where the real monsters are. X is always defined on the card.

Traps: These cards allows the wizard to place trap tokens on the board and since they are tokens the wizard also places X amount of blank tokens on the board. 

Spells: These cards are effects that target heros or rooms directly such as the frost bolt "All heroes in 1 tile skips their turn." Resolve the effect on the card and then discard it.

Example spell cards.

Example monster cards.

Placement of traps and Monsters
Monsters, traps and blanks can be placed on any tile that does not have a player on it. There can be a maximum number of tokens on a single tile equal to the total number of players in the game (wizard + heroes).

Discard
Whenever a card is played or discarded it is placed in a separate discard pile. If the deck run out of cards reshuffle the discard pile and use it as the new deck. 

Removed
Some very powerful cards in the wizard deck are removed from the game when they are played (this is written on the card). Removed cards are not shuffled into the deck again when it runs out of cards. 

Loot Cards

There are 2 types of loot cards:

Consumables: These are one use only cards, they include health potions and one use combat bonuses. Consumables can be played at any time, or when indicated on the card. 

Equipment: Equipment adds modifiers to the players rolls, such as "+3 to all your combat rolls" or "+2 when Avoiding Traps".

Example loot cards.

Equipment cards are placed in front of the player to indicate that it is equipped. Consumables are kept in the players hand and discarded when used.
A player can only have 2 swords equipped and 1 pair of boots. Any extra swords or boots looted can be kept in hand and traded to other players.

Trading
Heroes in the same tile can give loot cards to each other. 

Discard

Whenever a card is played or discarded it is placed in a separate discard pile. If the deck run out of cards reshuffle the discard pile and use it as the new deck.  

Weekly update

Goal

This weeks goal was to balance the game to, the time of adding systems and mechanics is over for us and our main goal for the rest of the course is to make the game feel fair for the wizard and the heroes no matter what play-style they choose.

Process

The main problem we had with the game was that the heroes were too powerful when they stuck together, so to fix this we started to add spells for the wizard that separated the group. We added spells like "Switcheroo" that switches a player with another token on the board, and the spell "Whirlwind" that moves all players in a room one room away from each other and then places 2 level 5 creatures in the room that they were previously in.
We also tweaked the mana wheel since it made the wizard gain to much mana to fast. We changed the rule that gave the wizard one more mana each turn but keept that the tiles modifies the wheel. We then tweaked the numbers on the tiles to be balanced.
The last thing we tried to do was to make the wizard stronger at the start of the game by adding alot of creatures that costs 1 mana.

Result

While playtesting both with our teacher Marcus during wednesday and with our class during the thursday we got some valid feedback. Marcus thought we should try to not let the heroes flip the tiles and the monsters on them simultaneously(see Beta Rules post), but rather that they first flip the monsters and when they are killed they heroes get to flip the tiles. This means that a player will fight more on a tile than he usually would since he/she still don't know if there is a key on that tile.

The feedback we got from our classmates was that the traps were too powerful, as it stands now the traps do 2 damage for each trap in a room that a player failes a 10+ dice roll on. We will try and change this to the more traps there are in a room the harder the dice roll becomes but the traps only do 2 damage no matter how many they are. We also found out that we need to try and make the wizard even stronger at the start of the game.

Next week

For the next week we are going to apply the feedback we've gotten during this week to the game and continue the balancing process.

Group Members Personal Entries

Jonas: http://jonazyzermans.blogspot.se/

David: http://asingleatom.blogspot.se/

Mariam: http://mariamforsmark.blogg.se/

Alexandra: http://alexandrahytonen.wordpress.com/

Sebastian: http://sebastianlindblad.blogspot.se/

Rules - Beta

Preparation

First shuffle the wizard deck and the loot deck.

The players decide who will play the wizard and who shall be the heroes, if the players can't agree on who should be the wizard, vote on who the most evil player is and that player is the wizard (You can't vote for yourself).

The wizard takes the tiles and make a grid, depending on the number of players the grid size of the grid differs:
3 players (1 wizard + 2 heroes) 5x5 grid.
4 players (1 wizard + 3 heroes) 6x6 grid.
5 players (1 wizards + 4 heroes) 7x7 grid.

The wizard then replaces the center tile with the wizard tower/Mana Wheel   if there is not exact center (6x6 grid) the wizard chooses one of the center tiles. The wizard also chooses which direction the tower entrance will face at the start.

After the grid has been created the heroes close their eyes and the wizard take the 3 artifact/key tiles and replace 3 of the tiles on the board with these tiles.

The wizard then draws 5 cards from the wizard deck and choose 3 of them to keep in his hand, the rest are shuffled into the deck again.

First Turn
The wizard then takes the first turn of the game.

Dice
All dice use in the game are twenty sided dice.

Heroes
Each hero starts with 10 hit points.

Wizard tower / Mana Wheel

The Turn

Heroes
The heroes has 2 phases on their turns, the first phase is the Movement phase during this phase the players can move 1 tile (or further if they've used an ability that allows them to that).

The second phase is the Combat phase, if there are any monsters in the room they entered they are now forced to fight these monsters.

Wizard

The wizard starts his turn by drawing a card from his deck. He then plays any cards he can from his hand with the mana he has to use and ends his turn.
If the Mana Wheel is on max it can not be increased more and instead the wizard draws an extra card each turn. 

Movement phase

All the heroes movement happens simultaneous and the heroes can not go on to the next phase before all the heroes that want to move have moved. When a player enters a new tile, that player flips that tile and all tokens(see Wizard Cards) on that tile, if there are no monsters on that tile the player get to loot that room, by drawing 1 Loot Card. If a player can move more than 1 tile due to abilities, that player then gets to loot every tile without monsters on it that the player enters. If more than 1 player enters the same room they have to chose who gets the loot. A player can not move past a room with monsters in it without defeating them.

If a hero starts the turn on a tile with tokens on it (because of some spell or effect) that player can not move this turn. Instead you just flip all the tokens (and the tile if necessary) and resolve any combats and traps as usual.

Tiles
Each tile has a Card Draw symbol and a Mana Wheel symbol and a positive or negative value next to the symbols. When the tile is turned face up the wizard draws or discard cards equal to the value next to the Card Draw symbol and spins the Mana Wheel up or down equal to the value next to the Mana Wheel symbol.

Combat phase

When all heroes have moved, they switch to the combat phase. If a player stands on a tile with 1 or more monster on it that player and the wizard both needs to roll dice. The wizard rolls 1 dice for the monster(s) and add the level of all monster(s) in the room. The player rolls a dice and add stats from their equipment ( see Loot cards).
If their is more than 1 player on a single tile all players roll a dice and choose the highest roll and add all of the players equipment. If the monster(s) score is higher than the player(s), the monsters win and vice versa, in case of a tie the player(s) win.
If the monster(s) win the player(s) have to move back to their previous tile and take 1 damage for each monster in the room they were fighting. If the player(s) win remove the monster(s) in the tile and the player(s) draw 1 Loot Card, if this is the first time a monster or monsters are defeated in this room instead draw 2 Loot Cards, if there were several players in the combat they have to chose who gets the loot.

Dying
If a hero is reduced to 0 hp he/she dies and is out of the game. Any loot and/or keys/artifacts that player has collected are placed on the tile where he/she died, any other player can pick up these items by moving into the tile and defeating any monster in it if necessary.

Artifacts/keys or "How to win the game"

In order to win the game the players have to collect the 3 hidden keys/artifacts by exploring tiles. When a player defeats the enemies in a tiles with a key symbol he/she receives a key/artifact and places that in front of him/her. When the players have all 3 keys/artifacts they can enter the central wizard tower. All keys must be used to enter the wizard tower. A player can give his/her keys to another player if they are in the same tiles. 

When the heroes enter the tower they must defeat any monster that have been placed there, if the succeed they cut down the wizard, chops his head of, pierces it with a spear and places it at top of the tower to show their dominance to any other would-be wizards or evildoers (i.e. they Win the game). 

Rage of the wizard!

When all three keys/artifacts have been picked up by the heroes the wizard rage makes the whole world shake and crumble. At the start of every wizard turn the wizard chooses a number of tiles equal to the number of players in the game (wizard + heroes) and remove them from the game. The wizard can not remove the last layer of tiles around the wizard tower and can not remove tiles in such a way that a player could not get to the wizard tower or a tile with keys/artifacts (if a hero has died and dropped it/them).

Wizard Cards

The wizard has 3 types of cards:

Monsters: These cards allows the wizard to place monsters of different levels on the board, whenever the wizard places tokens on the board he also places X amount of blank tokens so that the heroes don't know where the real monsters are. X is always defined on the card.

Traps: These cards allows the wizard to place trap tokens on the board and since they are tokens the wizard also places X amount of blank tokens on the board. All players that walks on a tile with a trap on it needs to do a 10+ saving throw. If a player fails a saving throw that player takes 2 damage.

Spells: These cards are effects that target players or rooms directly such as the frost bolt "All players in 1 tile skips their turn." Resolve the effect on the card and then discard it.

Placement of traps and Monsters
Monsters, traps and blanks can be placed on any tile that does not have a player on it. There can be a maximum number of tokens on a single tile equal to the total number of players in the game (wizard + heroes).

The Wizard Tower
The wizard can place monsters and blank tokens in the wizard tower tile, but the wizard may only start doing so after the heroes have collected all the 3 keys/artifacts. The wizard is after all a sophisticated fellow, he does not want to share his tower with orcs, dragons and their like if it is not absolutely necessary!

Discard
Whenever a card is played or discarded it is placed in a separate discard pile. If the deck run out of cards reshuffle the discard pile and use it as the new deck. 

Loot Cards

There are 2 types of loot cards:

Consumables: These are one use only cards, they include potions, abilities such as sprint and artifacts. Consumables can be played at any time, or when indicated on the card. 

Equipment: Equipment adds modifiers to the players rolls, such as "+3 damage" or "-1 Save Throw".

Equipment cards are placed in front of the player to indicate that it is equipped. Consumables are kept in the players hand and discarded when used.
A player can only have 2 swords equipped and 1 pair of boots. Any extra swords or boots looted can be kept in hand and traded to other players.

Sharing is caring
Heroes in the same tile can give loot cards to each other. 

Discard

Whenever a card is played or discarded it is placed in a separate discard pile. If the deck run out of cards reshuffle the discard pile and use it as the new deck.  

Weekly update

This week the team had a self made goal: to have a testable Alpha version of the board game.
To achieve this goal the team had plenty of discussions going on regarding how to get a functional core mechanic for the Wizard/Dungeon master.
Some internal struggle this week was to convince everyone in the group how the tile components were. In lack of better words, just flipping tiles wasn't fun enough, which spread a cloud of disbelief for the game. Another thing which led to disbelief was the lack of numbers and other components needed in order to test the aesthetic goals, so the following days would be dedicated for crafting just those.

Letting the worries to the side, the team started to design a mana wheel for the Wizard, spell-, trap- and monster cards which were implemented in to the board game and so the internal play testing began.

Even though the team had fun play testing, the numbers on the various cards and mana wheel were in need of balance and issue of tiles being unnecessary still remained.

Since the tiles were a big part of the game and there still were no point in having them, the team quickly went back to discuss a solution of some sort.

By the middle of the week cards were being designed. By the end of the week it was balanced enough to let outsiders play test and see how they would experience it.

The feedback received was overall good. People enjoyed the game in general and had a fun time playing it, making the working team quite satisfied.

The following week the team shall polish and balance the game further and start working on the visual design of the cards.

Rules - "Alpha build"

Preparation

First shuffle the wizard deck and the loot deck.

The players decide who will play the wizard and who shall be the heroes, if the players can't agree on who should be the wizard, vote on who the most evil player is and that player is the wizard (You can't vote for yourself).

The wizard takes the 3 artifact tiles and all other tiles are flipped upside down and gets shuffled, place them in a grid with a hole for the wizards-tower( a.k.a. the mana-wheel) in the middle. All the heroes then close their eyes and the wizard replaces 3 on the board with the 3 artifact tiles.The heroes open their eyes and places their avatars at the start tile.

First turn

The wizard goes first, he draws 5 cards and chooses 3 of them to save and shuffle the other 2 back into the deck. He then plays any card he can play with the 1 mana he has(see Wizard Cards), when that mana is used that mana is depleted. The mana-wheel specifice the amount of mana he has to use each turn.

Wizard tower / Mana Wheel

The Turn

Heroes
The heroes has 2 phases on their turns, the first phase is the Movement phase during this phase the players can move 1 tile (or further if they've used an ability that allows them to that).

The second phase is the Combat phase, if there are any monsters in the room they entered they are now forced to fight these monsters.

Wizard

The wizard starts his turn by drawing a card from his deck and spins his mana-wheel up 1 step. He then plays any cards he can from his hand with the mana he has to use and ends his turn.
If the Mana Wheel is on max it can not be increased more and instead the wizard draws an extra card each turn. 

Movement phase

All the heroe movement happens simultaneous and the heroes can not go on to the next phase before all the heroes that want to move have moved. When a player enters a new tile, that player flips that tile and all tokens(see Wizard Cards) on that tile, if there are no monsters on that tile the player get to loot that room, by drawing 1 Loot Card. If a player can move more than 1 tile due to abilities, that player then gets to loot every tile without monsters on it that the player enters. If more than 1 player enters the same room they have to chose who gets the loot. A player can not move past a room with monsters in it without defeating them.

Tiles
Each tile has a Card Draw symbol and a Mana Wheel symbol and a positive or negative value next to the symbols. When the tile is turned face up the wizard draws or discard cards equal to the value next to the Card Draw symbol and spins the Mana Wheel up or down equal to the value next to the Mana Wheel symbol.

Combat phase

When all heroes have moved, they switch to the combat phase. If a player stands on a tile with 1 or more monster on it that player and the wizard both needs to roll dice. The wizard rolls 1 dice for the monster(s) and add the level of all monster(s) in the room. The player rolls a dice and add stats from their equipment ( see Loot cards). If their is more than 1 player on a single tile both players roll a dice and combind the rolls and add their equipment. If the monster(s) combined score is higher than the player(s), the monsters win and vice versa, in case of a tie the player(s) win. If the monster(s) win the player(s) have to move back to their previous tile and take 1 damage. If the player(s) win remove the monster(s) in the tile and the player(s) draw 2 Loot card, if there were several players in the combat they have to chose who gets the loot. 

Wizard Cards

The wizard has 3 types of cards:

Monsters: These cards allows the wizard to place monsters of diferent levels on the board, whenever the wizard places tokens on the board he also places X amount of blank tokens so that the heroes don't know where the real monsters are. X is always defined on the card.

Traps: These cards allows the wizard to place trap tokens on the board and since they are tokens the wizard also places X amount of blank tokens on the board. All players that walks on a tile with a trap on it needs to do a 5+ saving throw (equipment can decreases this throw value to e.i. making it 4+). If a player fails a saving throw that player takes 2 damage.

Spells: These cards are effects that target players or rooms directly such as the frost bolt "All players in 1 tile skips their turn." Resolve the effect on the card and then discard it.

Placement of traps and Monsters
Monsters, traps and blanks can be placed on any tile that does not have a player on it. There can be a maximum of 3 total monsters, traps and blanks on a tile. 

Loot Cards

There are 2 types of loot cards

Consumables: These are one use only cards, they include potions, abilities such as sprint and artifacts. Consumables can be played at any time. 

Equipment: Equipment adds modifiers to the players rolls, such as "+3 damage" or "-1 Save Throw".

Equipment cards are placed in front of the player to indicate that it is equipped. Consumables are kept in the players hand and discarded when used. 

The Game

Setting

This is a game of an evil wizard and righteous heroes. The heroes are on a quest to remove the wizard and his wicked ways, to do this they must travel through his treacherous labyrinth, finding the artifacts to unlock his tower. But the wizard grows stronger by the minuit and will keep sending waves of minions, traps and spells to try and crush the heroes.

Goals

The game consists of two types of players:
The Wizard is the ruler of the Labyrinth and his goal is to crush the Heroes before they gather all the items they needed to stop him. He has a deck of cards that consists of spells, traps and creatures, all which costs different "mana" depending their power. The Wizard's mana in deffined by a "mana-wheel" which is increased by turns in the game and the movement of the players, making him more and more powerful for every second.

The Heroes are the players who dare enter the Wizard labyrinth, thier goal is to climb the wizards-tower and defeat him. But the tower is protected by a magical spell and the Heroes needs to find the three magical artifacts hidden away by the wizard, to disenchant the gate of the tower.

Aesthetics

Our aesthetics goal is to make the player feel the stress and "oh fuck, we're screwed" feeling of having to defeat an enemy before he/she/it becomes too powerful.

I see you.

An example would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy where they have to destroy the Ring before Sauron becomes too powerful. Another example is Pacifim Rim where they have to seal the portal before the kaiju invasion becomes too powerful.

To create this feeling we created an "overmind" sort of like sauron, this overmind has a deck full of traps, spells and minions that he can send on the "heroes" that tries to stop him. These cards all have a cost to play and the overmind has a limited amount of "mana" to use to cast these spells and cards. The mana the overmind has is controlled by a "mana- wheel" which is modified by ingame-time but also by the movement of the other players, thus making him stronger and stronger as the game goes on.