Dev Log Post Mortem

These are design notes for the Tower of the Argent Moon submission for the AshQuest 2025 Quest Jam:

Despite the greater openness for maps on this contest I decided to stick with the original board for the submission.  Later in the process I decided to give guidance for an adjustable adventurous playstyle where both players and Zargon got to do something new and with more of a focus on framework than adherence to a static structure.

I like pinball and started playing around with how that could work in HQ.  The first and easiest part was thinking of some doors as flippers.  This took some revisions on how to make them a limited use thing to keep the game from running forever.  I tried to fit in a bit for placing them on their side to make the flipper inspiration more obvious but space was limited.  Also toyed around with doing a hand drawn version of the map as if done by the antagonist with little arrows and indicators like a pinball table but decided that might deviate too much and become unclear for Zargon.

The initial design was as a standard heroes vs Zargon game.  After I created the unsubtly named Archedes as an antagonist, he developed into my mind into a more rival type character where you would be compeating to beat a target score.  Fleshing out his character to taunt the heroes during play to mock them or insult/recognize them as pinheads (pinball fans in lingo) gave me the idea to have him more directly oppose the players instead of them just aiming to beat him on a scoreboard.

Using the monsters and furniture to keep score was a nice easy way to prevent a lot of book keeping, allowing play to move more quickly with only a final tally needed.  This also made it a more competitive option both against Zargon/Archedes and each other creating a limited number of available points.  As a fantastic benefit of this and using a native monster stat for scoring it opened up any expansion or homebrew content for being easily included.  Having score equate to gold was implemented as a driving force for the players with the 25 gold entry fee there as a nod to a quarter for a game, and to limit the extra gold players could accumulate with this quest.  Though not explicitly stated this quest was designed with the thought of replay in mind, so limiting the gold rewards for more skilled or lucky players could be important.  I had the approximate total score somewhere when I was working it out but can't find the notes.

The momentum mechanic developed out of emulating ball physics to some degree and changing the player perception on the danger that a given monster has.  Hence the goblins being set farthest away from the players entering the table from the launch corridor.   Pits being an easy parallel to a ball draining on a pinball table provided an interesting tug of war scenario with Momentum and recontextualizing some skills/spells as opportunities to score more quickly or move efficiently.  In retrospect a spell caster using pass through rock could become soft-locked in the center room if Zargon doesn't boot them toward the north pits when they are damaged or Tilted.

Tilt originally was going to be a mechanic of sacrificing skills or spells to add to your movement.  However when I thought about the angle of a table drawing the ball to drain at the bottom I figured it would be more fun to use it to more emulate pinball and create more opportunities for Momentum to come into effect.  I think Momentum would probably benefit from using expansion tiles to create bigger spaces for figures to interact and cause chain reactions.  In a bid to still make combat relevant (not just Momentum) and to better emulate some of the chaos of a pinball table when the ball gets away from you I added the Tilt if dead mechanic.  I had it so  there is a chance to recover and that the wizard has more opportunity play instead of sitting around while everyone else is still going.  Momentum also allows them a decent way to still fight when out of spells.

Monster groups were used as an approximation of drop targets on a table.  The chaos warriors give a little more direction and objective other than kill everything so there is a little more strategy encouraged.  An initial bumper idea to create a multiple scoring ricochet type thing was scrapped for being cumbersome and wordy to explain.  It became the 3 chest room as a great scoring objective.  I wanted their value to be greater, hence the double treasure when searched.  

The search function developed late in the design after monsters were placed and furniture feeling like fluff.  Using them as a way to track searches allowed me to make use of the treasure deck and easily track where searching has been done for Zargon.  It took a little while of thinking about how to handle wandering monsters, especially if Zargon is on the table before I came up with the idea of using their stat cards as a score tracker while also allowing a bit of surprise and score hunting.

At first conveying all this stuff to the players sounded like a nightmare.  Pinball came to the rescue though, as tables will have a lot of the relevant mechanics and scoring opportunities right on the play field.  Since I wanted everything visible at the start like a pinball table it made  limiting table traps and just making all the info visible to everyone easy.  Also a further argument for having a stylized map with scoring amounts or other pinball table aesthetics to spice it up.  

It gives players a look at something they normally never see (and in controlling some of the monsters a taste of what Zargon gets to do).  Having Zargon on the table also provides a bit different context for interacting with the heroes as more of a player or npc.  Once Zargon could be on the table I thought it would be too unbalanced if he could kill monsters with impunity and gobble up points uncontested so came up with the attack nearest rule so he is on more a more level playing field.  Still at greater advantage overall as befits the top player on the scoreboard but it should be more like just facing a more skilled opponent than the potential curb stomp when the monsters activate. Order of activation and placement of monsters will be pretty important but will hopefully not become too burdensome to resolve and stay a fun physics type challenge.  

(Excerpt from notes I made to the review video)
A lot of the refining parts of the process took place while typing it up.  Getting a feel for how much space I had and making adjustments accordingly to cut it down.  I think pretty far in when I was doing a pass of the board I made note that I had visible pits for traps to drain but no other traps on the board and a lot of text to modify to get the most important bits onto one page.  I was dealing with the issue of not knowing what to set for a high score for heroes to beat for a reward at the time and deciding if I should use Momentum in place of all damage.  I was considering what the play experience would be for the different characters both in the base game and beyond.  This evolved into the Tilt mechanic.  It kept damage relevant and allowed for low health heroes to keep playing by having a chance to recover.  With Tilt and the pits serving as an end game state I still needed to set a target score.  I didn't want to have to run the game several times to try and find a reasonable one with a brute force approach, and I wanted it to be something achievable and relevant regardless of the number of heroes, as each one added reduced the max score the others could earn.  I noticed that there was nothing on the board that was hidden from the players, and that there was a lot of information to convey that they would need too.  These came together to having Zargon as a player and just having it all visible.  They could be a direct challenge points wise, I didnt have space for a spell list for the sorcerer and he was a one off and boring without that and I already had the gargoyle as a better point target.  This also made it so zargon could effectively lower the amount of points available so it became a bit more like a race against time to up the stakes.  With the antagonist on the field however-it would be really tough to compete if they didnt have to worry about Tilting.  Also the base stats for the sorcerer didnt feel like they represented a challenge that a champion of a game would present.  Their stats were set at 4 for simplicity and to pose a decent challenge (and word count)  Movement was the same at first but that was sluggish and didnt feel like a threat so I evened the playing field in that regard so they could have the same explosive or middling movement as the heroes and it helps set them apart as also being a player of the game.  I set the monsters to be able to target zargon so it feels more fair- I figured the advantage could be reflecting the level of skill the heroes have to beat.  I also liked the way that this allowed all players a chance to experience both sides of the equation of seeing the quest book (that rat and candle inn art from the crypt of perpetual darkness had some small hand in that) controlling monsters and being targeted by monsters.  Really I think that by balancing the game both between play experiences of the heroes and available information, and not wanting to do a brute force finding the target score, is what led to the more shared experience.

I did consider trying doing the map up more thematicly but didn't have confidence I would be able to do that and maintain legibility which was more important.

If anyone reads these rambling words I hope they provide insight and inspiration on your own game development process.  Keep that ball rolling and keep questing brave heroes.

The Ashquest video where the quest was reviewed.

HeroQuest: Tower of the Argent Moon