We made City of Shadows for a client. This client had been working on the game's design for some time before working with us. They also already had some game design layed out for us. I was tasked with reading this document and keeping true to as much of the design as possible while the other designer made his own design based on the meetings with the client.

When the other designer was done we layed both designs next to each other to see what differences there were. It was actually pretty close design-wise. Then we just condenced the design to the bare minimum and built from there.

With the game being a turn-based strategy game, it is fairly easy to prototype as a board game. We condenced the game to it's bare minimum and started testing. First internally with the Artists and Developers and later with external people. I was on and off "game master" to lead the game and announce the different stages of the game. With these tests we could clearly see what mechanics worked and which needed work or could be scrapped entirely.

Colin de Coninck (artist, left) and me (right) testing the paper prototype

To explain the design to the developers and artist I made various game design documents. In addition to a large Wiki we used in our Git repository, I also made these "One Page Design documents". These are visual documents to explain certain mechanic. These documents in addition to the Wiki needed constant updating. A sample of the documents are shown below.

I was responsible for the initial wireframes of City of Shadows. With a complex game like this, clarity is very important. I tried to segmentise each phase of the game so it's clear what the player is expected to do. In the top right hand corner of each game screen you can see which phase currently is active. According to these wireframes, the phases were: Pre round, Upkeep, Draw, Fence and Raid.

Pre round is where the players get all information regarding this round. What the City Eventis and which player is the Raid target.

In the Upkeep, players get paid, actions that take one turn get resolved etc.

Draw is the first phase where the player actually takes action. The player draws five Opportunities and decides what to play: An Action or an Opportunity

Fence is where the player can launder their money from Dirty money to Gold (usable money). Later this step was changed to an Action which could be played during Draw

And the last phase is Raid. Here the Nobles look which player did the most harm to the city (played the most aggressive Opportunities) and punishes them by raiding their establishments. This means destroying all the Dirty money they are laundering there.