The last design diary post explored all the early versions of Bloomhunter that didn’t work. I don’t regret the time we spent on those, even the one we never played a full game of — they taught us a great deal about what makes a game fun and what’s better left on the scratch paper. But as valuable as failure can be, I actually prefer success (hot take, I know). So let’s move on to the prototype rule set that ultimately went the distance.
After the debacle of version 2.0, Anneka and I went back to the blank notebook. We knew what kind of world we wanted the game to evoke, but we hadn’t been able to reach that feeling. We bandied about possibilities, leaving no stone unturned.
Finally, each of us had a flash of inspiration. Anneka suggested that the players should map an archipelago by laying down hexagonal tiles of different colors, with the conjunctions of those colors determining what you could do on the boundaries between them. The idea throws out a common assumption of board games — players generally, and not without reason, expect things to happen on the tiles instead of next to them — but it opened up intriguing possibilities for a player-built map.
My pet idea during those discussions was another one I haven’t seen before (though it’s possible there are games I haven’t played). I wanted the action to involve laying down large tiles, then placing small tiles on top of them. This was a theme-first idea: players would establish routes to new islands, then map the best locations on them for harvesting flowers.
Combining these ideas meant that every game now involved creating an archipelago in two stages — first the large scale, then the small. We immediately loved the tension between those two competing priorities. When do you expand the horizon? When do you zero in on what might be hidden in the world already mapped?
Then we had a third idea, one that I’ll ascribe to us both because I honestly can’t remember who mentioned it first. We’re both fans of Calico, the adorable tile-laying game of cats and quilts in which you spend 45 minutes watching your dreams die as placement possibilities narrow to nothing, and your Aunt Susan steals the one tile you need to complete an 11-point cat, and then you bring up her divorce, and the next thing you know the police are at your house on Thanksgiving. I swear this is all a compliment.
Where was I going with this? Oh, right. The most interesting thing about Calico is that each tile has two qualities: a color and a pattern. Your finished board will have continuities of both pattern and color, but not necessarily both. We wondered — what would it be like to use that mechanic in a game where action happened on the board, and the players had to traverse the patterns they built?
Since we already knew the color of our hexes would represent the kind of flower growing there, we decided the second pattern would represent weather conditions. Then we had another epiphany. Back in 1.0, we’d experimented with wind currents that could move airships around the board more quickly. What if the players could decide for themselves where those currents would flow? What if, by aligning weather patterns (regardless of color), players could determine the range of available actions?
Our sails were set. Our lifting gas tanks were full. We were off!
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