For Tyrannis, I’ve spent the last few weeks doing two things: graduating, and redrawing the game board. And if I’m being completely honest, graduating was the easy part.
Here’s the original board I’d started out with. Looks like our timeline, just with the US and Mexico chopped up into multiple Regions, while Canada was its old self, with everyone crowded next to the US border.
Just a straight line across the north.
Clean, simple, and easy to differentiate.
And really, really unplayable.
When play testing Canada, it quickly became apparent that the map was one long gauntlet of choke points. Good for the Guard players. Not good for the Rebel Players.
Here’s the new version of the game board. Instead of one line of States, Canada was chopped up into four different parts and reallocated to different regions. In doing so, the map allows for more options for movement between Regions.
By adding in Vancouver Island and Newfoundland, the Region count itself could be increased from 12 to 13. In doing so, this should prevent ties after turn 50.
Next Dev Diary will cover the hard part: Re-Coding Everything.
