Shipwreck Game – Adding Terrain

This is a post about the design and development of a currently unnamed Shipwreck Game. You can see the other Blog posts at the Index for the Game.

Updated Maps

I updated the CU Maps (now known as Map 1, Map 2, etc) so that the combined spaces made a Hex shape to match the look of the Main Map (now known as the Island Overview). As they are now mainly trapezoids, I will start to refer to Spaces, when talking about the Maps and Hexes will be saved exclusively for talking about the Island Overview. I also thought I should update the Island Overview so you can see how they fit together, especially when they will just be black & white.

I changed the numbering of the Hexes in the Island Overview, so that 11 to 61 are at the center, and they numbers increase as you get further away. In this way the center Hex might be 00, and the Hex numbers can continue indefinitely out to sea, which might be important down the track, if escaping the island, or finding another island, is part of the fun.

It also occurs to me that it is unwieldy to have Maps 1 & 2 on the same page, as they join up to each other. So I will change this page to hold Maps 1&4 as they are opposite sides of the Island. And the other pages will have 2&5 and 3&6 for the same reasons.

As there will be drawing taking place on these sheets, the trackers are in the wrong place for a right hand person, and the cubes there will be in the way/get bumped. So this is the Island Overview for left hand players, and I will make a duplicate version available with the trackers on the other side.

Island Terrain

I think there will be 5 types of Terrain on the Island, Sand (Beach) and Mangrove will be exclusively found on the Coastline of the Island, and maybe a little inland. Grassland, Forest and Rock will be found all over the Island. Note these 5 words only refer to what can be found on the surface of the ground of each Space, and other descriptors of the surroundings (flat/hilly, dry/with a stream, etc) will be randomised as well, and we will talk about them in another post.

The First Game Space – Sand
You will wash ashore on a random Map Space. The randomisation will be achieved in the same way as all randomisation in this game; a discard from the Deck (which you will remember has only numbers 1 thru 6 and the 6 suits that label the trapezoids on the Map). One card will be discarded face up, and the number of the card will be paired with a 5 to choose the starting Hex. In this case, you would start in Hex 25.

 

There are two Coastal Spaces in each Hex, and so another card needs to be discarded from the Deck to choose which Space you wash up on. If you discard a Triangle, Star or Circle card, you wash up on the left side, or the Circle Space. If you discard a Percent, a Square or a Question, you wash up on the right side. In this example a Star card was discarded, so we start in the Circle Space, and your starting Space always has Sand Terrain.
Hex 25
Adding Terrain

The idea is for the Island Terrain to grow organically from the other Terrain you come across on the Island. So, each time you discard a card for Island Terrain, you look up a set of tables based on which of the 6 Hexes you are in, and the Terrain of the Space you occupy.

Hex _5 & _6 Left or Right

It also seems that you should be able to see the Terrain in an adjoining Space, rather than discover what is there when you move to it. So, in this example, you are in a Sand Space, and you can see into the Question space to your Right, and into the Star and Numbered Space in Front of you. You discard a 6 to make the Question Space a Mangrove.

Hex _5 & _6 Forward

And discarding a 5 and a 1 makes the Star Space a Forest and the Numbered Space a Sand.

First 4 Terrain

In this way, the Map gets filled out as you move around it for the first time, with 2 or 3 spaces being filled in on each move. You get to make a choice about where to go, based on what you can see. The exception would be if you are in a Forest. Forests are not a Terrain that allow you to see what’s next to it, so in that case Terrain is only revealed when you move out of the Forest Space.

As I said above, that will just be the general Terrain you can see on the surface. There will be more Characteristics about each Space, and that will be the subject of another post.

 

One Reply to “Shipwreck Game – Adding Terrain”

  1. Pingback: Index page for Unnamed Shipwreck game – Esoteric Fulcrum

Leave a Comment