Blizzard U: DesignCraft
DesignCraft was a class occasionally offered to Blizzard employees, taught by World of Warcraft designer Craig Morrison. Each week, groups of 3-6 would tackle various challenges of theme, materials, and/or mechanics to brainstorm and build a board game prototype in about three hours. These are some of the games I helped create.
DesignCraft: Last Stand on Char
The direction for this game was to create a 2-player game that resolved in only a single “round” of action. The players took the roles of a Terran Marine and Zergling, each with their own win condition. Gameplay was swift and simple: each player chooses their move in secret, then both reveal and move simultaneously. The marine wins if he gets a firing angle on the zergling, and the zergling wins if it gets within one square of the marine.
The game came together quickly due to its small ruleset, which gave us time to playtest and refine – for instance, we increased the grid from 4×4 to 5×5, and tinkered with movement restrictions for both players and attack range for the marine.
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