Short Summary
Sustainable City Builder is a strategy board game where players take on the role of city planners tasked with creating a thriving, eco-friendly urban environment. Players must manage resources like money, energy, and waste while balancing environmental challenges, including climate events and population growth. The game encourages sustainable practices such as building renewable energy sources, improving public transportation, and increasing green spaces. It’s designed for 2-4 players, ages 12 and up, who enjoy strategic planning, resource management, and tackling environmental issues in a fun, competitive way.
This should describe our game, what do players do and who is it for?
Design Process & Thought Process:
- Game Design Document (GDD):Include a concise GDD outlining the game’s core concepts, message/purpose, rules, and mechanics.
Game Design Document (GDD)
Core Concepts:
Objective: Players aim to build the most sustainable city by managing resources effectively and overcoming environmental challenges. The game ends after 10 rounds or when a player reaches a population threshold.
Message/Purpose: The game aims to raise awareness about sustainability and environmental issues while providing a fun, strategic gameplay experience.
Rules: Each player builds their city by constructing buildings (residential, industrial, commercial) and managing resources like money, energy, and waste. Players face climate events and challenges that force them to adapt their strategies.
Mechanics:
Resource Management: Players must track money, energy, population, and waste throughout the game.
City Construction: Players build and upgrade buildings, focusing on renewable energy, green spaces, and waste management.
Climate Events: Random events like droughts, pollution spikes, and heatwaves affect the players' cities.
Challenge Tokens: Players face challenges like population growth or economic crises that impact their resource management.
- Iterative Design: Showcase how you iterated on the game design, highlighting the challenges you faced and the decisions you made.
I iterated on Sustainable City Builder in several ways:
Initial Concept: I started with a broad city-building game concept. The first draft included basic resource management and construction mechanics but lacked a cohesive theme or focus.
Early Playtesting: During my first playtests, players found the resource management too overwhelming, leading to overly complex setups. I simplified the number of resources tracked (e.g., removing excessive types of tokens) and introduced a more intuitive system for balancing energy, waste, and money.
Introducing Climate Events: One of the major improvements I made was adding climate event cards, which introduced a level of unpredictability and forced players to adapt quickly. This helped maintain excitement and challenge throughout the game.
Victory Point System: Initially, players simply tracked their achievements. Later, I added victory points for sustainable practices (like reducing carbon footprints or increasing green spaces) to provide more meaningful goals and competition.
- Game Mechanics: Explain the key game mechanics in detail, using diagrams or screenshots, or photos to illustrate them.
Game Mechanics
Key game mechanics include:
Resource Management: Players must manage their money, energy, population, and waste levels. Mismanagement can lead to penalties during climate events.
Example: A player who builds too many factories without adequate waste management will face penalties when a pollution spike occurs.
Building and Upgrading: Players choose which types of buildings to construct, such as residential areas, renewable energy plants, or transportation hubs. Each building has a cost and a benefit.
Example: Solar panels provide energy but cost money to build. The player must decide whether the long-term benefits outweigh the immediate cost.
Climate Events: At the end of each round, players draw a climate event card that affects all players. These events can either help or hinder the cities.
Example: A heatwave increases energy consumption, so players with a renewable energy grid are better equipped to handle it.
Challenge Tokens: Random events or thresholds in a player's city trigger specific challenges, such as population growth, economic downturns, or environmental disasters.
- Player Goals: Clearly define the players’ objectives and how they achieve victory.
Player Goals
The goal of Sustainable City Builder is for players to build the most sustainable city by the end of 10 rounds or when a population threshold is reached. Players win by:
Accumulating Victory Points (VP) through sustainable actions such as building renewable energy, expanding green spaces, and managing waste.
Managing their city’s resources effectively, ensuring the balance between energy consumption, waste, and population growth.
Overcoming challenges and navigating climate events to avoid penalties and maintain the growth of their city.
End Game & Winning:
The game ends after 10 rounds or when a player reaches a certain population threshold (e.g., 100,000 citizens).
At the end of the game, players tally their Victory Points (VP) based on their sustainable actions:
Energy Sustainability: Using renewable energy vs. non-renewable sources.
Green Spaces: Number and quality of parks and green areas.
Waste Management: How efficiently waste was handled.
Public Transportation: Efficiency and coverage of transit systems.
Bonus Points: For achieving milestones like zero carbon emissions or 50% renewable energy.
The player with the most Victory Points wins the game!
- Gameplay Sequence: Include images or videos demonstrating different stages of gameplay, highlighting key moments and player interactions.
I really didn't take many pictures of this process either.
Game Setup:
Board Setup: Place the game board in the center of the table. Shuffle the City Cards and Climate Event Cards.
Player Setup: Each player receives a player board, starting resources (money, energy, population, waste), and a set of City Cards.
Draw Challenge Tokens: At the beginning of the game, draw a few challenge tokens that will affect players as they progress through the game.
Gameplay Sequence
Planning Phase: Players choose cards to build or upgrade structures in their city. Strategic decisions on what to prioritize (e.g., public transport, renewable energy) are made during this phase.
Building Phase: Players use their resources (money, energy, etc.) to construct buildings, such as residential areas, parks, or recycling centers, to improve their city’s sustainability.
Climate & Challenge Phase: Players draw a climate event card, which affects all players. They also draw challenge tokens, which may create additional problems or opportunities based on the state of their cities.
- Game Board & Components: Show good pictures of the game board and components, explaining how they guide or influence player actions.
Game Board:
The game board represents a city with several zones and areas for development. It’s laid out on a grid where players can build their sustainable infrastructure.
Zones:
- Residential Zone: Where players build homes and increase population density.
- Industrial Zone: Areas for factories and waste generation that need careful management.
- Commercial Zone: For businesses and green technologies.
- Renewable Energy Spaces: For solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal plants, etc.
- Green Spaces: Parks, gardens, and biodiversity areas that enhance public health and happiness.
- Waste Management Areas: For recycling centers, composting plants, and waste-to-energy facilities.
- Transportation Infrastructure: Locations for public transit systems, metro stations, bike lanes, and electric vehicle charging stations.
Victory Points Track: A continuous track on the edge of the board that records the players’ sustainability achievements, such as reducing carbon footprint, improving public transportation, and building green spaces.
2. City Cards:
Cards that represent various types of buildings and infrastructure, like solar panels, wind turbines, parks, recycling centers, and metro stations. Each card has a cost to build and offers benefits (e.g., energy production, green space, waste reduction).
Resource Tokens:
Represent the essential resources used for building and maintaining the city:
Waste Tokens: Track the amount of waste generated, which needs to be managed.
Money Tokens: Used to construct buildings and pay for upkeep.
Energy Tokens: Represent the energy produced and consumed by the city.
Population Tokens: Represent the number of residents in the city.
Population Tokens
Energy Tokens
Money Tokens
Money Tokens
4. Climate Event Cards:
Random events that add unpredictability and require players to adapt. These events can either benefit or hinder players’ progress, and they can affect all players.
Pollution Spikes: Increase waste and impact public health.
Types of Events:
Storms: Reduce energy production or waste management efficiency.
Droughts: Affect water resources and agricultural production.
Heatwaves: Increase energy consumption and waste.
5. Challenge Tokens:
Tokens that represent various challenges faced by players during the game. These can be drawn at the beginning of a round or triggered by specific conditions.
Environmental Damage: Pollution or loss of biodiversity affects happiness or requires immediate action.
Types of Challenges:
Population Growth: Requires more resources to support a growing population.
Economic Crisis: Players must reduce their spending or energy production temporarily.
6. Player Boards:
Each player has their own board to track progress and resources. The player board includes:
Turn Summary: A quick reference to track what has been achieved at the end of each round.
Resource Tracker: Displays money, energy, population, and waste levels.
Sustainability Milestones: Tracks goals such as reducing carbon footprints, improving public transportation, and adding green spaces.
Energy & Waste Consumption: Tracks energy production vs. consumption and waste generation vs. management.
Victory Points Tracker: Shows the player’s progress in terms of sustainability goals.
Victory Point Tokens:
Players earn Victory Points (VP) based on their sustainable actions, such as:
Reducing their carbon footprint.
Increasing green space.
Successfully managing waste.
Improving public transportation.
Reaching sustainability milestones.
Rulebook & Playtesting:
- Rulebook Sample: Include a sample of your rulebook, demonstrating your writing and communication skills.
- Playtesting Notes: Share any notes or feedback from playtesting sessions, showcasing your ability to identify and address issues.
Playtest Session 1:
Feedback:
Positive:
Players enjoyed the strategic aspects of building green spaces and investing in renewable energy. The sense of long-term planning and the satisfaction of seeing their city grow sustainably was very engaging. They also appreciated how public transportation reduced traffic congestion and emissions.
Challenge:
Players were unsure about how to handle Climate Events. They found it difficult to anticipate how these random events would impact their city, leading to some frustration when their well-laid plans were disrupted.
Challenge Tokens caused confusion, especially with dice rolls and thresholds. Players weren’t clear on when these would be triggered or how they interacted with the resources on their player boards.
Adjustments:
Quick Reference Guide:
Introduced a Climate Events guide explaining how the Climate Event Cards work and their potential effects. This also included examples of Challenge Tokens and how dice rolls can trigger challenges, with clear thresholds for each resource type.
Victory Points Tracker:
Added a more visible Victory Points tracker on the board to clarify how players earn points. Now, players can easily see how their investments in green spaces, renewable energy, and public transportation contribute to their score.
Clarified Challenge Token Rules:
Simplified the explanation of Challenge Tokens by introducing a step-by-step visual guide for triggering and resolving them based on dice rolls and resource thresholds.
Playtest Session 2:
Feedback:
Positive:
Players appreciated the variety in Challenge Tokens, as they made the game feel dynamic and kept them on their toes. The Victory Points system, once clarified, provided a satisfying sense of progression. Players particularly enjoyed the moment-to-moment decisions of balancing energy production, waste management, and population growth.
Challenge:
Some players felt overwhelmed by the need to track multiple resources at once, especially in the early game. They struggled with balancing money, energy, population, and waste while also trying to grow their city sustainably. This left some players feeling like they couldn’t get a solid grasp on where to focus their efforts.
Adjustments:
Early Game Bonus:
Introduced an early-game bonus in the form of additional starting resources (e.g., 1 extra energy or money) to help players get a smoother start and allow them to better balance their resources as they progress.
Resource Balancing Tutorial Phase:
Added a tutorial phase at the beginning of the game where players could take a couple of turns to practice managing resources without worrying about Challenge Tokens or Climate Events. This helped new players understand how to balance their resources and made the early game feel less overwhelming.
Additional Clarity for Resource Tracker:
Made the resource tracker clearer by adding resource icons next to the amounts on the board, so players could more easily keep track of their resources and see where they needed to adjust.
Overall Observations:
Strengths:
The game encourages long-term strategic planning with a focus on sustainability.
Players enjoyed the mix of competitive and cooperative elements, especially when discussing strategies to tackle challenges.
The Victory Points system was well-received once players understood it, and the satisfaction of balancing sustainability elements was high.
Areas for Improvement:
The early game felt too overwhelming due to resource balancing. The amount of management required, particularly in tracking resources and planning for challenges, could be simplified for new players.
Climate Events and Challenge Tokens were still a bit too disruptive and unpredictable for some players, especially when they caused unexpected setbacks.
Next Steps:
Continue refining resource management to ensure players can balance them more easily in the early stages. Explore introducing resource milestones that give players clearer objectives on what to prioritize.
Further clarify Climate Event rules and Challenge Token triggers. Consider streamlining these mechanics to reduce randomness and make the game feel more controllable, even during these phases.
Expand the tutorial phase to give players a better introduction to how they can build a sustainable city. This could include a goal-oriented setup where players focus on specific objectives (like a goal to reduce waste or expand green spaces).
Test additional balancing mechanics for players who may be falling behind, ensuring that all players feel like they have a chance to win up to the last round. Perhaps add an "environmental recovery" system that rewards players who fall behind in sustainability.
- Game Reflections: Discuss what you learned from the development process and what you would do differently next time.
Game Reflections:
What I Learned:
Balancing Complexity: Early feedback showed that players felt overwhelmed by too many mechanics. I learned that while it's important to have depth, the game needs to be simple enough for players to grasp quickly. Introducing mechanics gradually would help players ease into the game.
Resource Management: Managing resources (money, energy, waste) was tricky for some players, especially in the early rounds. I realized that a clearer starting phase or tutorial could help players focus on balancing these resources from the get-go.
Climate Events: While the unpredictability of climate events created tension, it sometimes disrupted players' plans too much. A better balance would give players more control and preparation options.
Victory Points: Players had difficulty understanding how different actions earned Victory Points. I learned that the connection between actions and rewards needs to be more obvious to guide strategic decisions.
What I’d Do Differently:
Simplify Resource Management: I'd reduce the number of resources players need to manage or make the tracking system more intuitive to prevent confusion early on.
Balance Climate Events: I’d refine the climate event system to ensure they’re challenging but not game-breaking. Giving players more ways to prepare for or deal with them would make the game feel fairer.
Clarify Victory Points: I’d make it clearer how each action contributes to earning Victory Points, possibly with a visual tracker that shows progress in each area (like energy, waste, green spaces).
Add More Interaction: I’d introduce a few cooperative elements or give players the option to form temporary alliances to make the game feel more dynamic.
Next Steps:
Refine the Climate Event System to make it challenging but not too disruptive.
Simplify Resource Management to reduce complexity early in the game.
Clarify Victory Points by improving the tracking system and the connection between actions and rewards.
Test Cooperative Elements to see if they increase player engagement.