Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Bullet Time
Concept and Design
Design Goal: Create a mech combat board game without randomizers in which players can target specific areas of their enemy.
Bullet Time Version 0: Bullet Time began life as a mech combat game. I wanted to use a simple but effective damage system based on the battle system of Faster than Light, a space simulator which let the players target different rooms of enemy space ships. I attempted to bring this over to table top format by giving players the ability to target the different components of their enemy’s mech. (Player card pictured below.) The game was ultimately broken due to the ‘no randomizers’ restriction, whoever went first would win. The group I was playtesting with, Glen Aro and Aubrey Rushe, helped me try to fix what we had dubbed “Bad Battletech”. After several failed attempts, including one in which we threw Go stones onto the mech cards, Aubrey placed a stone on the board and declared “This is a bullet!” At this point Glen and I started bouncing ideas off each other and between the three of us we created a game where players move faster than their bullets.
We technically fixed the game; we used the same board and the same pieces to make a game in which two opponents squared off, just not in the same way. I’d like to revisit the old game sometime in the future, but Bullet Time is vastly superior right now and much more funny in concept. During its creation we only had large mech tokens; the thought of the Leviathans engaging in slow motion combat was amusing to all of us. Humor remained a theme albeit subtle; one of the main goals of the game was to capture the ridiculousness of slow motion combat.
Leviathan
2 players
Components
● 22 damage counters● 2 Leviathan tokens● 1 8x6 hex-grid
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Leviathan
Play
1. Oldest player goes first, play is clockwise. 2. On each player’s turn they move their Leviathan up to their movement stat and attack if they
are in range.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
If a player attacks they put a damage counter on their enemy’s Leviathan card in a zone of their choice.
A zone is crippled if it has 2 damage counters on it
3. Play continues until a Leviathan is destroyed. Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Design Goal: Capture slow motion Matrix style combat in a board game format.
Bullet Time Version 1: The official rules for Bullet Time were written up for the lab following the one it was designed in. At the time of its creation Glen and Aubrey were convinced it was perfect, I had far less faith in our ability to create a flawless game in the span of one play test session. This rule set is the basic manifestation of our idea, as a result it is riddled with minor flaws that reveled themselves during testing.
BULLET TIME
2 players
Components
● Bullet markers● 2 Agent tokens● 1 8x6 hex-grid
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Arrange board as shown in picture below
[Picture below coming soon!]
Play
1. Oldest player goes first, play is clockwise. 2. On each player’s turn they move their token up to 2 spaces, then fire a bullet in any direction.
The turn after a bullet is fired they advance forward in the direction they were fired one space
If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex-line from the opposite side of the board.
If two bullets would collide they ricochet, the bullet that moved this turn moves one space in the opposite direction it was traveling, the other bullet moves the opposite direction of that.
3. Play continues until an agent is hit by a bullet.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
4. If an agent is it with a bullet they are killed.
Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
Design Goal: Refine rules of Bullet Time and increase engagement with improved components.
Bullet Time Version 2: Version 2 featured a rules overhaul in the form of layout and clarification. The fact that there are four more versions of rules after this suggest that pure clarity was obviously not achieved in this iteration, but it was a good start. It also had the beginning of a component overhaul, I bought a ton of planes from the DigiPen store on the basis of “I bet I can make these look like bullets”, though the planes were not actually modified until version 3.
Bullet Time (Version 2)
2 players
Components
• Bullet markers• Agent tokens• 8x6 hex-grid
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Arrange play area as shown in picture below
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Play
1. Choose a player to go first.2. Each turn is broken up into three steps:
Move bulletsMove agentFire bullet
3. On each player’s turn they must carry out all actions listed in the above turn order.The player moves all bullets 1 space in the direction the bullet is pointing. The player moves their agent 2 spaces.The player places a bullet on any tile adjacent to their agent that is not occupied.
4. If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex line from the opposite side of the board.
5. If bullets would occupy the same space during the ‘move bullets’ step, instead they rotate to face the opposite direction they were initially.
6. If an agent is it with a bullet they are killed.Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Design Goal: Give players more options for strategy with the addition of new bullets.
Bullet Time Version 3: This version was created to test the idea and practicality of ‘special bullets’ suggested by one of my testers, Preston Lowery. He thought the game may benefit from crazy bullets that interacted with other projectiles or moved in different ways. I opted for the former option as it was less work and seemed more interesting. This version was essentially created to test the new bullets. It was also testing the arbitrary number of bullets I had properly painted for players to use instead of several multicolored planes.
Bullet Time (Changes made as Lab started, V3)
2 players
Components
• 15 silver bullets• 15 gold bullets• 5 orange bullets• 5 red bullets• Agent tokens• 8x6 hex-grid
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Arrange play area as shown in picture below
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project BPlay
1. Choose a player to go first.2. Each turn is broken up into three steps:
Move bulletsMove agentFire bullet
3. On each player’s turn they must carry out all actions listed in the above turn order.The player moves all bullets 1 space in the direction the bullet is pointing. The player moves their agent 2 spaces.The player places a bullet on any tile adjacent to their agent that is not occupied.
4. If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex line from the opposite side of the board.
5. If bullets would occupy the same space during the ‘move bullets’ step, instead they rotate to face the opposite direction they were initially.
6. Instead of firing a normal bullet, players may fire a special bullet from their stash of 5 alternate bullets.
7. Special bullets are destroyed and may not be reused when they reach the edge of the board.8. If a special bullet would occupy the same space as another bullet during the move bullets step,
instead the bullet in the way is destroyed and returned to its controlling player.9. If an agent is it with a bullet they are killed.
Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
Design Goal: Perfect the rules of the now stable Bullet Time, further improve components, and improve set up instructions.
Bullet Time Version 4: Rule revisions from this point on were done not to drastically effect gameplay but instead to make absolutely sure players understood the rules. This version in particular was subject to many new pictures and bold type. It was also around this point I discovered the current board would not fit in the box and would need to be disassembled in order to be turned in. The added pictures pushed me over the single page I had been clinging to for such a long time, but it was worth it for the sake of clarity. I also added more agents (robot, cyber gorilla, human) and began keeping track of which were chosen as a side experiment. Another minor component swap was changing the board from the “swamp” to “grass” just because it’s much nicer to look at.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project BBullet Time (Version 4)
2 players
Components
• 15 silver bullet tokens• 15 gold bullets tokens• 2 24-hex triangles• 3 agent tokens
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Assemble board, choose agents, and place agents on starting spaces.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Play
1. Choose a player to go first.2. Each turn is broken up into three main steps:
Move bulletsMove agentFire bullet
3. On each player’s turn they must carry out all actions listed in the above turn order.The player moves all bullets 1 space in the direction the bullet is pointing. The player moves their agent 2 spaces.The player places a bullet on any tile adjacent to their agent that is not occupied.Legal placement of bullets:
Illegal placement of bullets:
4. If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex line from the opposite side of the board.
5. If bullets would occupy the same space during the ‘move bullets’ step, instead they rotate to face the opposite direction they were initially. Collisions are handled at the end of the move bullets step.
6. If an agent is it with a bullet they are killed.Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Design Goal: Continue to refine rules.
Bullet Time Version 5: More rule changes in this iteration. The game seemed very stable by this point, absolute clarity remained difficult to achieve however. Revisions after this point are sparse in comparison to earlier phases of development. At this point in the testing I knew the game worked, it technically worked as of the second test in lab until I made it less interesting with the new bullets.
Bullet Time (Version 5)
2 players
Components
• 15 silver bullet tokens• 15 gold bullets tokens• 2 24-hex triangles• 3 agent tokens
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Assemble board, choose agents, and place agents on starting spaces.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Play
1. Choose a player to go first.2. Each turn is broken up into three main steps:
Move bulletsMove agentFire bullet
3. On each player’s turn they must carry out all actions listed in the above turn order.The player moves all bullets they control 1 space in the direction the bullet is pointing. The player moves their agent 2 spaces.The player places a bullet on any tile adjacent to their agent that is not occupied.Legal placement of bullets:
Illegal placement of bullets:
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
4. If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex line from the opposite side of the board. Agents cannot wrap around the board like bullets can.
5. If bullets would occupy the same space during the ‘move bullets’ step, instead they rotate to face the opposite direction they were initially. Collisions are handled at the end of the move bullets step.
6. If an agent is hit by any bullet they are killed.Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Design Goal: Achieve total clarity and conveyance by subjecting someone who knows nothing about the game to its rules.
Bullet Time Version 6: The final version was created after having someone who has never played or heard of Bullet Time read the rules and see if they can make sense of it. Minor formatting and clarity issues were pointed out as well as confusion regarding the turn structure. All small problems and all easily fixed. The final version is easy to understand and captures the ridiculousness of slow motion combat while remaining tactical.
Bullet Time
2 players
Components
• 15 silver bullet tokens (For player 1)• 15 gold bullets tokens (For player 2)• 2 24-hex triangles• 3 agent tokens
Goal
Destroy your opponent’s Agent
Setup
Assemble board, choose agents, and place agents on the red starting spaces.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
Play
1. Choose a player to go first.2. Each turn is broken up into three main steps:
Move bullets Move agent Fire bullet
3. On each player’s turn they must carry out all actions listed in the above turn order. The player moves all bullets they control 1 space in the direction the bullet is
pointing. If there are no bullets on the board, skip this step. The player moves their agent 2 spaces. The player places a bullet on any tile adjacent to their agent that is not
occupied. Bullets are placed pointing away from the agent as shown below.Legal placement of bullets Illegal placement of bullets
4. If a bullet would go off the board it instead continues along the same hex line from the opposite side of the board. Agents cannot wrap around the board like bullets can.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
Josh Gutenberg3/4/14GAT210Project B
5. If bullets would occupy the same space during the ‘move bullets’ step, instead they rotate to face the opposite direction they were initially. Collisions are handled at the end of the move bullets step.
6. If an agent is hit by any bullet they are killed.Victory
The player who successfully eliminates their opponent is the winner.
©2014 DigiPen Institute of Technology
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