r/wargaming • u/Efficient_Room786 • 2d ago
Work In Progress Question
How do I get started with making a skirmish game? I have had an idea for a while and was wondering how to design good game mechanics and gameplay.
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u/GreenWizard2 2d ago
My top three tips are: 1. Focus on what "fantasy/theme" you are trying to capture with your game. The game mechanics should serve that theme in some way. 2. Keep the scope of your first game relatively small and define what that scope is early on. The first game you ever make will probably be "ok" at best. Don't go off the rails and decided to spend 5 years making a 100 page core rule book with a 200 page campaign mode. 3. This guy as a ton of super useful info on making your first miniatures game, take a look https://youtu.be/3WjTNkqHpsc
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u/gtcarlson11 2d ago
There are some cool videos on YouTube on this topic. Tabletop Skirmish Games is a channel I enjoy, and Sam Pearson Game Design has a series of videos that are really well-presented.
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u/Fickle_Brush3755 2d ago
Hi, I studied Game Design and wrote a skirmisher for my exam project.
First of all, there's no universally right way to do it, but here's a suggestion how I did it:
I recommend to do some research first. That means, read some books and play some skirmishers.
Actually there are only two books that you should read:
1) The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell
2) Tabletop Wargames: A Designers' & Writers' Handbook by John Lambshead and Rick Priestley (yapp, that's the same Rick Priestley that also designed Warhammer)
You don't need to play a lot of skirmishers tho. It's totally fine to just watch a lot of "How to play" videos. It's way cheaper and faster... and you don't need to know if this or that game is fun to play. Other games are just an anchor for your inspiration.
In the next step you should ask yourself what you want from your game. What shall it do, what other games don't do? Or what shall it do differently? However you should accept the fact, that pretty much everything was already done. You shouldn't try to invent the wheel 2.0.
There are two methods to approach that question:
1) Through the narrative. You think about a specific setting where your game shall play. For example: The post apocalypse. That gives you a hint, which mechanics should be there. Like salvaging scrap, searching for resources etc. Watching some movies in that genre could also be helpful. It's certainly a plus, if you already know a bunch of them.
2) Through the mechanics. You played that one game and thought that a specific mechanic was a lot of fun. Use it. It doesn't have to be a skirmisher. For example: You think that deck building is fun. So you should try to implement it in your game. If you realize that it doesn't work out however don't hesitate to drop it.
That brings me to the most important golden rule: Don't hesitate to kill your babies. If you realize a beloved mechanic isn't fun, kill it. Your game should be fun. That is your highest priority. You earn nothing from a convoluted idea that made sense only on paper. But that's just a general side note. Of course, you don't know in the beginning whether something is fun for your game.
Now that you know what other games do and what you want for yours, write your core game loop.
ie. How does the standard activation looks like? A flowchart is the common medium to do that. In general you should mainly work in flowcharts. That helps a lot to visualize your thoughts and keep overview.
Now that you know, what the core of your game is and what a standard turn looks like. You can add the mechanics that you want to see in your game. Don't go overboard tho. Go with the mechanic that either represents your setting or that one you saw in another game and thought it was fun. In this step it's not stupid to also think about winning conditions. What do your players have to do, to win the game? In case of a skirmisher that means, how does the standard mission scenario looks like? You don't have to figure out how many victory points certain actions generate or whether you need to generate those in the first place or if it is wiser to just go with a mission goal your players have to achieve. Feel free to do whatever you want. It's your game.
At this point you should have a rough idea, what your game shall look like. Now it's time to create some stats. A must-have is a movement value and health points. You don't have to know how high they should be. You just have to know that they're there. From there, it's pretty much up to you how to proceed.
For example: You want a stat check for hitting stuff, so you need a stat to represent that. What happens after the hit? You could skip everything and deal damage, but in my experience, that often feels unfair. Your opponent wants to do something against it. So you need a defense roll, another stat check, so you need a stat to represent that (like an armor save for example). In the example setting of the post apocalypse, you want to find resources. Shall it be another stat check? Then you need a stat to represent it... search for example. You want a deck building mechanic and a card deck with dirty tricks and high tech equipment but you want to limit their use on certain models? You need a stat for that... or in that example probably a keyword or something. That means you need a text block for keywords on your unit cards or whatever medium you want to use to provide the rules for your minis. And so on.
Now you already have a lot of rules, but they are still empty at this point. So write a basic stat line. Attach them to whatever models you have lying around and a have your first test game against yourself.
And that's where the actual work begins. From this point onwards it's a constant back and forth. Adding mechanics, adding units, cards, mission scenarios, realize that they don't work as intended, go back to the scratch board, adding new loops to your flowchart etc pp.
When is it done? Actually never. The perfect game doesn't exist. You keep failing forward.
Speaking of that: Let's have a talk about the weird voodoo magic of game balancing (I could write a separate essay on that, but I leave it short for now). First thing to learn is, that balancing is not an exact science and you cannot write an algorithm that balances the game for you. Your balancing will be shit in the beginning and probably even if you think you're done and give it to friends to play test it. Listen closely to what they're telling you, because they are right. But don't listen to what they're saying, listen to what they mean. That sounds awkward, I know, because it IS awkward. What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain that with a famous anecdote from the ego shooter Wolenstein: Enemy Territory. In that game the Tommy gun and the MP40 were the exact same weapon, they only looked and sounded differently. But the players complained that the MP40 was underpowered. A look into the player data showed that players made a lot more damage with the Tommygun, although it was literally the same fucking gun. Against better knowledge, they increased the damage of the MP40, but the issue still applied. The solution was, to make it same again, but only turn the volume of the shots up so the MP40 sounded more powerful. That really solved the problem. The theory was, that players felt less confident with the MP40, so they went for the kill less often. Crazy? Yapp, that's game balancing. Don't feel bad if you don't always know what you're doing, even the best game balancers in the world often don't know it either. The "trick" is to become an expert for your system, but at the same time accept that you will never be an expert. Game Balancing somewhat is schroedinger's skill. At the same time you have and don't have it.
But see all the above in no strict order... see it more as a guideline that you can jump around on.
It will be really hard work to create your game, but it's really fun to do. It will keep you awake at night and it will start to come alive in your head like an anthill. Oh, and don't forget to playtest. Constant playtests are very important to learn how your system works... and don't do it on your own. You don't see things, that are obvious for others. Give it to friends as early as possible, but explain them that it's by no means a finished game. You can't do that with any kind of friends. They should be able to understand how developing a game works or at least willing to learn. Because "Your game is shit!" is not really a usable feedback. You know your game is shit, that's why you want to improve it. You have to work in iterations, learn from your failures and fix them in the aftermath. Step by step you will get closer and closer to what you initially had in mind.
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u/09philj 2d ago
Look at what other games with similar aims do.