THE GAME I WOULD PLAY WITH MY FRIENDS!
When creating World Dumbination I wanted to make a game which I would like to play with my friends! I like strategy games but also like a lot of interaction between the players. When your friends are over for a game night, it should be no reason to just sit around the table silently pushing cubes! In World Dumbination you interact with your fellow players all the time.
I also wanted to create a game that starts off a bit unbalanced. Since players have different starting points it gives an extra edge to the game. It also makes it more fun to play over and over as you can change the nation and starting point and try some different tactics.
PROBLEM SOLVING!
Designing games are all about problem solving. You constantly make up problems that needs to be solved!
I like to show some typically problems that needed to be solved during the design of World Dumbination. If you don’t know anything of the game please take a quick peak at the main web pages to get an overview of the game!
I haven’t met very big problems on this game, and most issues have been solved in just an hour or two. But I have other games lying around that I needs quite the effort to solve a problem that has stopped the whole design process. All problems should be solvable, but it just takes a lot of time sometimes.
WORLD DUMBINATION GAME MECHANICS
The theme is fun, often players start laughing when they look at their newly drawn cards, and you wouldn’t find another war game containing Fake news or Alien groupies! But what about the game mechanics?
World Dumbination is an asymmetric strategy game where you use cards and movement on a board to get the most victory points.
Players have different starting points. It is not only the start position on the map that is different. The resource income players start with and the nation’s First goals are also different. This of course balances itself out after some rounds. It makes the game more fun to play more times since you can play different nations that demands some different strategies.
I didn’t want players to sit with too expensive cards in the beginning when their resource income is low. So by making Level 1 and Level 2 cards the game has a natural build up. Level 1 cards are mostly political and fun, and Level 2 cards are more military actions. Players move on to Level 2 cards after doing their First goal.
DESIGNERS BLOG – 1 YEAR UPDATE!
The last alien Jimi (that was out partying when the last spaceship left) is a big fan of the music from the 70s. But the question is if the alien hair style was inspired by rock stars from the 70s, or was the rock stars in the 70s inspired by the hair style of the aliens…
It is today one year ago since I started developing the World Dumbination game. I had the idea for the theme and story of the game when I was trying to go to bed early to get some sleep. I had to wake up 4 in the night to traveling all the way to Ecuador, where I was competing in the Paragliding World Cup. Instead of sleeping I started thinking of world politics and leaders that acted like small children. This was when Donald Trump and Kim Un-Jong argued of which one that had the biggest nuclear button, and many more things was happening. I thought someone should make a fun board game about this situation. I quickly understood that this should be me when the game title World Dumbination suddenly appeared in my head. I also got the idea to how these leaders could be the only leaders left on earth, making up a story where aliens travel to earth to “rescue” the “smart” people from the unavoidable future of our planet…