Today we have a guest post from our very own Justin Kemppainen, Supreme Adjudicator of Mirth. We’re taking a look at the design of Battle Monsters, in particular how it evolved from a beloved classic in Battle Masters into a newly restored tabletop behemoth.
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It’s a fascinating challenge to tackle a redesign like this. As fondly as we all remember the games of our youth, there’s usually a few elements of a design that are a little dated or janky. Working through what must stay and what can be tweaked is what “restoring” a game is all about: preserving the soul while polishing any rough edges.
Titanic Proportions
More than anything, Battle Monsters had to feel larger than life. Not just because we wanted to preserve the epic feel of that 4×4 floor mat covered in minis from Battle Masters, but because Godzilla and the other Titans of the Monsterverse deserve an elevated presence.
It’s no mystery then why we focused so much of the design process on the Titans themselves. While Masters had some very cool, powerful signature units, we wanted to make sure that Godzilla, Kong, and the rest had their proper time in the thematic and mechanical spotlight.
Starting with the massive “miniatures” (really stretching the definition there), we focused on giving players direct control over their favorite Titan to stomp around the battlefield, smashing buildings and opponents alike. All of their unique abilities and playstyles are tracked through a satisfyingly chunky dual-layer board that includes all of the stats, dials, and meters. A side deck of Rage cards rounds them out with additional opportunities to dominate.
Boots on the Ground
More down to earth, each faction is given a set of troops that players can use to shape their overall strategy. While similar to the rank and file from Masters, the troop types in Monsters all have unique stats and abilities. Additionally, the 3’x3′ maps in Monsters are full of buildings, energy sites, and objectives for the troops to compete over while dodging the thundering footsteps of the clashing Titans.
Maintaining control over the map with your troops is crucial to victory, offering resources to boost Titan and troop activations, energy to let your Titan unleash its most powerful attacks, and evolution, which upgrades your Titan’s capabilities for the rest of the battle.
Take the Initiative
The trickiest refinement from Masters to Monsters (and one the design team is quite pleased with) is the revised initiative system. We felt that the “Battle Deck” of Masters was an important feature of the original game; it keeps the pacing tight while creating a fun kind of chaos. Well, mostly; though somewhat rare, the deck could produce uneven results — too much downtime or too much “fun chaos.”
With Battle Monsters, instead of an individual activation, many of the cards in the initiative deck alternate activations between the two players. This offers a more consistent back and forth for players. It keeps a smooth pacing, reduces downtime, and keeps randomness from determining too much of the battle’s outcome.
Roll the Bones
Speaking of randomness… while we’re all… *eye twitch*… huge fans of dice chucking, we wanted to make sure that clever strategy gives a player the edge rather than pure luck. So, we fashioned a novel dice system to hone the experience and give a little more control over the math/odds.
When rolling dice during combat, you compare the highest results of attacker and defender (with the occasional bonus die or modifier), and the defender takes damage equal to the difference.
The end result is a system that minimizes “nothing happens” attacks while keeping plenty of “holy crap!!” moments of excitement. And bonus, it ends up being pretty fast to calculate, which keeps the game moving at a snappy pace.
Tweak and Test, Then Do It Again
These are the major highlights. There’s more to it, of course, in particular a lot of other adjustments to suit the Monsterverse setting, like the Classified Files cards to feature prominent characters from films and shows.
Then a lot of playtesting, trial and error, and more playtesting. Brilliant ideas that didn’t pan out and (seemingly) dumb ones that did. We’re quite pleased with the end result, and so thrilled to finally share it with you all!
Stay tuned for more behind the scenes info and check out the Kickstarter campaign here.