About
Colony Cure is a social deduction boardgame with resource management aspects, in which there are two teams: the infected and normal settlers. The goal of the settlers to win is to complete the main missions while surviving the harsh new world. The infected have to spread their virus to the majority of the players while sabotaging the missions of the settlers.
Context
Type:
Role:
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Time:
Semester Project
Game Design, Rules, Playtesting
5 Team Members
~3 Months
WIP
Some parts of this page are finished, while others are still being worked on.
Introduction
I worked on this project with 3 other students. A bit later a fourth student joined our team. The first idea was to make a social deduction game but with roleplaying elements, like in popular Pen & Paper games. This idea did not stick around however, as it proved difficult to implement and combine with classic social deduction game mechanics.
Resource Management
I proposed the idea of combining popular social deduction game mechnanics together with resource management to the team. This was so we would not just be a run-of-the-mill social deduction game with the only difference being the setting, but so that our game would have a good USP.
It was my task to design the resources that the players would use. The following resources are in the latest version of the game: Food, Ore, Metal Scrap, Wiring and Fuel. More resources were originally developed, but I cut some to shorten game time.
Resources and their use
If you are reading this, well, i didnt write anything meaningful here yet. Its just basic structure so far. Its far easier to just talk about this than to write some smart-looking text and make this website, let me tell you!
Missions / Tasks
I was also responsible for designing the tasks that the settlers need to do to complete the game. For this i used excel, so that the values could all be seen at one glance. The first step was to create some missions that would fit the setting of the game, and set some values that seem to work. These values were then adjusted and tested during and after playtesting.
I seperated the missions into two categories: Main Missions and Regular Missions. Originally i planned Bonus Missions as a third category, but cut them entirely to shorten game time.
I designed Regular Missions to be repeated more often during gameplay and they are the main way to gather resources. All missions require a energy input, and some require resources to make other resources out of them. To add some risk and excitement, i made some variants of the missions which are riskier if failed because of higher resource investment (resources are lost when a mission fails), but give higher rewards when completed sucessfully.
Main Missions are the missions that need to be completed for the settlers to win. To complete the main missions, the group needs enough resources for the specific main mission they want to complete. This means that the players will need to complete some Regular Missions first before being able to attempt the Main Missions.
I dont even know if i’ll need this much headers
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Conclusion
I personally am not that happy with how the game turned out, mechanically. Our designers made great work, but a game with great visuals but unpolished game mechanics will still not be that good of an experience for players. I believe this was in part due to too many ideas from all our team members and no good central vision or dedicated vision keeper that we worked around. Maybe it was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, or maybe we bit off more than we could chew.
My take away from this project is that it is necessary to agree on one central vision or a vision keeper to not stray from the original concept too much, or to add too many features and ideas which then can not be finished in time. Also i learned that genre-mixing has to be well thought out and refined, or it will feel off.