What's the difference between actually exploring a cave, Dungeon Crawling on your video game, or exploring in a board game?
For some time, i had an urge to create an exploring feeling on a board game that came closer to actual. When I created a dungeon crawling game the feeling of things going after you was missing. Of course you would find monsters along, but as soon as you cleaned your current room, there would be only few occasions where a monster would come after you from behind, as most flipped tiles are already cleaned and the ones in front of one are not flipped yet.
So where is that feeling of things coming after you? it would be hard to make monsters walking in non-flipped tiles without a gm. So the feeling of constant tension gets kinda sloppy.
For board games with fixed boards, the problem comes up with 'i already know where everything is', even if there are some bluffs in the map, you have a good idea of the paths you can take, where the enemies are and where the treasure can be...so...there is no exploration.
To fix this, let's take a look first at how Video games deal with this.
Dungeon crawling nowadays don't really give that feeling as well. As soon as you clear an area, it won't be that much of a problem, unless you need to go back there, and in most cases you don't :P of course there are games that deal with this very well. but still, in the beginning you don't know the full length of the dungeon, and will explore it without know where is the exit, look every corner of the dungeon for it, and for your objectives, and leaving even a small corner uncovered may end up making you explore all the dungeon before going back there to discover that the place you wanted was there all this time. So this aspect is pretty interesting, but not exactly bringing the exploring feeling to your veins.
You know what comes closer to that? Old exploring games, DOOM is the first thing that comes to mind. Every corner may be something different, you don't know exactly where you have to go, or when you will have to fight. At any moment, you may find yourself lost or having to find your way back in all those corners again. this is what most closely gives me the exploring feeling. Having to use your own memory to know the way, instead of just following the board, or flipping a card and 'hey I'm here, now I'm way up there'.
To understand this better, let's take a look at actually exploring events. Let's say you are in a maze. You don't know where to go, but you know you have to find the exit. you pick the first path of 3 ahead of you, every corner you have another decision to take, you don't know where that is taking you or even if there is a path after this, but you keep going, and always trying to memorize the paths you take. Suddenly one of the sub-paths of path 1 may put you in the middle of path 2, path 2 may even lead you to path 3 as well. You don't know anything else than what you have already walked and maybe memorized. You have a rough idea of where each path may lead, but you will never be 100% sure.
Even if you don't know where the exit is, it is there, in a fixed point. Doesn't matter how much you explore path 3, if the exit is at path 2, you won't ever find it. You may find a way from path 3 to 2 and then exit, but that's it.
So what does this mean when we take this to board games?
First, fixed boards are OUT. For map exploration purposes at least, as a pre-planned thing rules out the discover feeling.
Second, Tile boards are also out, because with this there are 2 problems: 1- if the exit is not fixed in the board, but just shuffled with the other tiles, you just have to flip tiles until you find it, is just a matter of time, there isn't any real memory involved. 2- If the exit if fixed, you already know where to explore. you will always go for the straight path, and when that is blocked
you will always try to do the smaller path possible. Also, the memory issue is still there.
Another thing is the constant fear issue, as there are no monsters coming from dark corners unless specific events happen.
A game I constantly use as the reference, legends of andor, do the exploration pretty nicely, but not in the map exploration that we are talking about. You have your map, but you don't know what events/encounters are waiting for you in each area.
So let's ditch the board, let's go for a card based game.
There are 2 most common approaches to this:
A big badass deck that works as the dungeon. The thing is, there isn't any memory aspect or 'turn back' aspect, and there isn't a real path, you just have to keep drawing cards till you find what you want. Another player won't even have a chance of 'exploring other places', as is just a single bid deck.
This may be really weird, as in one round I may be at a lava pit almost dying, and right next on the enchanted forest.
What about 3 different decks? well, this comes around the memory problem. Once that card is flipped, there is no more used to her, and I won't ever be caring about it again.
So I just have to flip over multiple cards. Yeah, this solves the 'path' problem as I may find that the first deck is the right one and my friends may not. But just flipping over cards is not really exploration-ish.
What is missing?
1- Memory aspects
2- Danger
3- Path differentiation
4- The clues.
The clues are what make you think this may be here and not there. In the tile-boarded game, where the exit tile is fixed, you know where it is, so you always try to go straight for it, even if that is the wrong option. This is the most difficult part for me, of course it's easy to do...but not in a replayable way, as after doing it once, you would always know what to do.
For the path differentiation, i have to make clear choices where you know that going to somewhere temporarily blocks you from going to another direction. this may or may not include the fact that you may find different things in each path.
For the danger, is not something necessary in all games, as not all games have things wanting to kill you, but if there is, staying still has to give you some danger, u can't just be there resting and things just don't go at you, as well as things constantly getting in your way.
The memory aspect is very important after you have seen that path, you have to have a small notion of where it is and where does it leads to, but you can't be 100% sure so 'drawing a map' isn't good. a way to look at each corner back and forth and always trying to remenber where you are is something necessary.
I think i have a rough idea of how to do this, but i'll talk about it later.
For some time, i had an urge to create an exploring feeling on a board game that came closer to actual. When I created a dungeon crawling game the feeling of things going after you was missing. Of course you would find monsters along, but as soon as you cleaned your current room, there would be only few occasions where a monster would come after you from behind, as most flipped tiles are already cleaned and the ones in front of one are not flipped yet.
So where is that feeling of things coming after you? it would be hard to make monsters walking in non-flipped tiles without a gm. So the feeling of constant tension gets kinda sloppy.
For board games with fixed boards, the problem comes up with 'i already know where everything is', even if there are some bluffs in the map, you have a good idea of the paths you can take, where the enemies are and where the treasure can be...so...there is no exploration.
To fix this, let's take a look first at how Video games deal with this.
Dungeon crawling nowadays don't really give that feeling as well. As soon as you clear an area, it won't be that much of a problem, unless you need to go back there, and in most cases you don't :P of course there are games that deal with this very well. but still, in the beginning you don't know the full length of the dungeon, and will explore it without know where is the exit, look every corner of the dungeon for it, and for your objectives, and leaving even a small corner uncovered may end up making you explore all the dungeon before going back there to discover that the place you wanted was there all this time. So this aspect is pretty interesting, but not exactly bringing the exploring feeling to your veins.
You know what comes closer to that? Old exploring games, DOOM is the first thing that comes to mind. Every corner may be something different, you don't know exactly where you have to go, or when you will have to fight. At any moment, you may find yourself lost or having to find your way back in all those corners again. this is what most closely gives me the exploring feeling. Having to use your own memory to know the way, instead of just following the board, or flipping a card and 'hey I'm here, now I'm way up there'.
To understand this better, let's take a look at actually exploring events. Let's say you are in a maze. You don't know where to go, but you know you have to find the exit. you pick the first path of 3 ahead of you, every corner you have another decision to take, you don't know where that is taking you or even if there is a path after this, but you keep going, and always trying to memorize the paths you take. Suddenly one of the sub-paths of path 1 may put you in the middle of path 2, path 2 may even lead you to path 3 as well. You don't know anything else than what you have already walked and maybe memorized. You have a rough idea of where each path may lead, but you will never be 100% sure.
Even if you don't know where the exit is, it is there, in a fixed point. Doesn't matter how much you explore path 3, if the exit is at path 2, you won't ever find it. You may find a way from path 3 to 2 and then exit, but that's it.
So what does this mean when we take this to board games?
First, fixed boards are OUT. For map exploration purposes at least, as a pre-planned thing rules out the discover feeling.
Second, Tile boards are also out, because with this there are 2 problems: 1- if the exit is not fixed in the board, but just shuffled with the other tiles, you just have to flip tiles until you find it, is just a matter of time, there isn't any real memory involved. 2- If the exit if fixed, you already know where to explore. you will always go for the straight path, and when that is blocked
you will always try to do the smaller path possible. Also, the memory issue is still there.
Another thing is the constant fear issue, as there are no monsters coming from dark corners unless specific events happen.
A game I constantly use as the reference, legends of andor, do the exploration pretty nicely, but not in the map exploration that we are talking about. You have your map, but you don't know what events/encounters are waiting for you in each area.
So let's ditch the board, let's go for a card based game.
There are 2 most common approaches to this:
A big badass deck that works as the dungeon. The thing is, there isn't any memory aspect or 'turn back' aspect, and there isn't a real path, you just have to keep drawing cards till you find what you want. Another player won't even have a chance of 'exploring other places', as is just a single bid deck.
This may be really weird, as in one round I may be at a lava pit almost dying, and right next on the enchanted forest.
What about 3 different decks? well, this comes around the memory problem. Once that card is flipped, there is no more used to her, and I won't ever be caring about it again.
So I just have to flip over multiple cards. Yeah, this solves the 'path' problem as I may find that the first deck is the right one and my friends may not. But just flipping over cards is not really exploration-ish.
What is missing?
1- Memory aspects
2- Danger
3- Path differentiation
4- The clues.
The clues are what make you think this may be here and not there. In the tile-boarded game, where the exit tile is fixed, you know where it is, so you always try to go straight for it, even if that is the wrong option. This is the most difficult part for me, of course it's easy to do...but not in a replayable way, as after doing it once, you would always know what to do.
For the path differentiation, i have to make clear choices where you know that going to somewhere temporarily blocks you from going to another direction. this may or may not include the fact that you may find different things in each path.
For the danger, is not something necessary in all games, as not all games have things wanting to kill you, but if there is, staying still has to give you some danger, u can't just be there resting and things just don't go at you, as well as things constantly getting in your way.
The memory aspect is very important after you have seen that path, you have to have a small notion of where it is and where does it leads to, but you can't be 100% sure so 'drawing a map' isn't good. a way to look at each corner back and forth and always trying to remenber where you are is something necessary.
I think i have a rough idea of how to do this, but i'll talk about it later.