HISTORY

Box Office Battle
process of many versions

After starting this project, I came up with some guiding principles for the design of Box Office Battle. While testing and making changes, I kept checking back to confirm I didn't stray too far from these core guidelines.  It has taken a lot longer than I thought it would take to develop, but I really want it to feel right.

Wanted:

• Theme first. Movie industry
  
• Theme drives the mechanisms of play
• Winning is skill based (not trivia), but luck can tip the balance a bit
• Customization of projects, players make each one unique   -wide range: Familiar, distinct, humorous,
• Competitive, but forgiving in early game - Don't lose if your first choice was not perfect
• Build to a big dramatic finish
• Expandable system -Content additions easy to add
  

And there were some things I was trying to avoid:

• No player elimination
• No player trading or voting. Too easy to "king-make" or give away game
• No end game stalling.
• No runaway leader. Winner not absolutely certain until end game
• No trivia required to play, but movie knowledge adds to enjoyment

Some major elements came and went, but still liked:

• Unique studio abilities -asymmetric player powers
• Scandal Deck - Events revealed that change the conditions of each game round
• Compete to get projects- auction system, instead of just greenlight/buy
• Multiple levels of play, still using the same components.  Novice, normal, expert modes. Adding complexity at each level. (ex: no production game variant at novice level)
• Biased Critics - some dice that skew bad, some skew easy

A lot has changed, but the journey has been fun exercise.  Take a look at some of the earliest ideas:

I used templates printed on paper, then filled in the blank spaces for each card.
At first the movies were on jumbo sized cards, and the four branches of talent stacked on the corners.

Eventually movies became two sided cards.  Production on one side and release stats on the other.

I started with way too many genres / movie styles...

Talent had three uses and special abilities when played.

The board was in sections to try different ways of playing, mix and match different rule-sets.