Jack Carson-Fox | Futureworks

I LIKE TO TALK ABOUT GAMES

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A REFLECTION BURNED

A REFLECTION BURNED is a first-person narrative-driven psychological horror game inspired by The Shining and P.T. In 1976, the renowned Ayahuasca Hotel burned to the ground with many lives lost, including those of the owners. However, their young son, Edward, miraculously survived. 20 years later, he is now a famous hotel critic and discovers a newspaper article about the grand reconstruction and…

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I'D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT | E3 PRESS CONFERENCES 2018 (Casual Event Review)

I’D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT | E3 PRESS CONFERENCES 2018 (Casual Event Review)

THE 2018 E3 PRESS CONFERENCES WERE LIKE NONE WHO HAVE EVER COME BEFORE. HOWEVER, THIS “UNIQUE” EXPERIENCE LEFT MUCH TO BE DESIRED.

Since E3 2018 has come to an end, with an oddball series of conferences, I thought I’d look back on those conferences in an attempt to understand exactly what the hell happened this year.

E3 2017 was a blast, and despite still waiting to play many of the games that…

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Kestral - Unreal Game Prototype Assignment - 5

In the end, the prototype I finished with wasn’t at all the prototype I had imagined at the start. However, I believe this prototype was better in quality than the prototype I had originally planned, which only goes to show that without the corruption of my previous prototype and carelessness with my time management, I could have created something even better. 

With that said, I am still proud of what I managed to achieve. I have learned more about Unreal, blueprinting, level design and how to make a white box prototype. I have experienced the struggles of Unreal’s systems and overcoming complex blueprints, with the help of others and most importantly, my tutor who really saved my bacon on the final day. Finally, I have the complete understanding of the importance of prototypes and white box levels and how they are vital to the game development cycle. 

Personally, I think I have managed to develop a working prototype that fits within my own prior concept that I was inspired by at the beginning of this assignment. It has the contextual user interface and mechanics, the stealth elements with the camera, and a synthwave/cyberpunk vibe through the use of lighting and audio. 

I now look forward to the bigger and better things I can create within Unreal thanks to this assignment. 

[jackcarson-foxfutureworks]

Kestral - Unreal Game Prototype Assignment - 4

With the plan on how to open the level now changed, I moved onto to finally piecing together the other parts of the prototype, mainly the stealth section and escape sequence. Using brushes, I created a mock server room and then created an in-game camera that would survey the room and spot the player should they be in its line of sight. Again, the finer details are explained in the demonstration video. I needed the help of a tutorial for this one, but with a few tweaks to fit within my systems. I even included a brush that acted as a monitor, showing the point of view of the camera to aid the player, as well as the glowing red light signaling its view cone. With that system fully functioning with animation and an endgame state then it was time for the end sector.

In this sector, I implemented lights that would change to a red colour upon the player hitting a trigger box, and an alarm would sound, prompting the player to run to exit which would then end the game. This all eventually worked out in the end, so now all I had to do was sew up a few missing aspects from the opening area, and the rest of the demo. 

Player movement had been added early on so there was already the sprint and walk capability. What I needed was the previously mentioned phone HUD mechanic. This was achieved by attaching a cube to the player character (this was also the same technique used to give the third person character a first-person POV by moving the camera), changing the look of it, and then adding both a text render and widget over the phone to give the impression of a phone screen.  This ended up with a phone that the player could toggle the visibility of, and see how the game was controlled and the health of the player. 

Finally, by using a sequencer, I created an opening cinematic which previewed the level, before switching to the player character’s POV as they woke up, which then gave control to the player. I then found someone to provide dialogue for the radio handler that spoke to the player. I have to credit my fellow student Jak Bishop for his help in giving me some much needed audio right before the deadline which gave this prototype that little extra juice that it needed. All that was left to do was connect audio to the appropriate trigger moments, such as the synthwave soundtrack changes and the radio handler dialogue, and I had a finished prototype. 

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Kestral - Unreal Game Prototype Assignment - 3

Thanks to a couple of old projects with similar blueprinting, the functionality of picking up the cube using physics and line traces worked rather easily. I could grab it, walk around with it, have it interact with other collision models and throw it around all using the aforementioned functions. The next step was making this cube useful in some way. I created what is basically two vats from brushes, one to put the cube in, and one where something would spawn in replace of the cube. The item spawned would be a sphere that would act as key to a nearby door, allowing you to progress through the level.

This system wasn’t too challenging, to begin with, as I managed to get the cube initiating the overlap which triggered the sphere key to spawn with only minor help. The part that caused the most frustration throughout the entire assignment was getting this sphere key to initiate a timeline blueprint which made the door open. It took me a while to figure out that the trigger box simply wasn’t considering the sphere key as the overlapping object it needed, but rather the player model. This problem proved to be unfixable for unknown reasons which prompted me to reconsider having this system in the prototype. 

Suddenly, through some bittersweet divine intervention, my prototype became corrupted and I had to revert back to a previous save just before I had created the vats and spawning key. While frustrating it was to lose work, it ultimately settled my direction on changing the opening to the level to simply just the function of picking up the cube and moving it, alongside some cinematics and other functions that I’ll go further into in the penultimate post. 

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Kestral - Unreal Game Prototype Assignment - 2

Having got some of the basic functionality of Unreal in my locker, my next task was to figure out how I could implement the concept of Kestral into this prototype. 

First off, Kestral was conceptualised as a first-person stealth/adventure game set in a cyberpunk world with a synthwave aesthetic. With that in mind, I was able to plan the necessary components of the prototype and the way the level would implement them. 

One of the big mechanics of Kestral’s concept was the use of a completely contextual UI which meant no traditional HUD or button prompts etc. and instead everything the player could see was real to the characters as well. One example was the concept of a mobile phone that the player character could check anytime for their health, stats, objective, map and other settings typically found on a HUD. The example I tried to implement first was the use of freely picking up objects in the world, carrying them with you and using them contextually rather than a simple ‘add to inventory’ mechanic and a button prompt to use the item at the designated area. 

So I started working on a system that allowed the player to pick up a cube and walk around with it. The finer details of how I achieved this can be found in the demonstration video I will be adding to the conclusion of these posts as with all the other blueprints. This was about the same time we started learning about blueprints too and how they essentially control the systems in the game. 

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Kestral - Unreal Game Prototype Assignment - 1

This assignment was our first foray into building a video game prototype within the Unreal engine. The objective was to create a short 2-3 minute gameplay experience in a white box format only by using all the techniques we had learned throughout the duration of this assignment. 

The first step was getting to grips with the Unreal UI, but having used it before, I knew a fair chunk of it to start with. However, I did learn a couple of neat little tricks to save myself some time when building my prototype including tool shortcuts and adding/changing geometry with brushes. 

Once I had the fundamentals of the UI and building a level down then it was time to think about what the prototype was going to be. For me, it was simple, as I looked back at my previous assignment and used that pitch and concept to inspire my prototype. That’s where Kestral comes in. 

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Tabletop RPG Assignment - METAL TASTE - Conception & Early Development

Moving on from the creative writing assignment, I have now been tasked with designing a tabletop RPG with a visually rich handbook with around 10 pages. The handbook is meant to contain information about the world and characters that the players will use. To do this, we first looked at how traits and archetypes worked, aspects of world building and the cliches of tabletop RPGs. Having played Dungeons and Dragons before, I had somewhat of an idea but still found some of these different styles of play to be interesting. Speaking of different styles, we then moved on to playing numerous tabletop RPGs, the most prominent being Lasers and Feelings. This was to give us an idea of how certain tabletop RPGs change up the go-to mechanics of generic RPGs to create unique experiences. I feel like that aspect is what lead to my main goal of creating a unique experience within tabletop RPGs. Another aspect I focused on from Lasers and Feelings is the emphasis on roleplay, or that’s how I saw it. I felt like the character creation really encouraged players to emulate that personality throughout the gameplay experience. I really did begin to feel like a dashing and cocky space pilot. 

That brings us to the initial concept of Metal Taste. I began my design focus on creating a unique experience with a strong emphasis on roleplay and a system inspired by the intense, in your face, and fast-paced action of the DOOM series. This brainstorm actually stemmed from reading the handbook of Apocalypse World and seeing a different side to tabletop RPGs which wasn’t a fantasy or a more friendly aesthetic. AW felt more like a harsh Mad Max than an adventurous Lord of the Rings take on the genre. 

Apocalypse World not only set my mind definitively on a hardcore/metal aesthetic, but it helped inspire further development into mechanics and language. What I did was look at how DOOM approaches mechanics for an FPS video game and then look at how AW uses mechanics as a tabletop RPG. At this stage, it was easier to figure out the best of both worlds, eliminating mechanics which wouldn’t work well in a TRPG environment and altering AW’s TRPG mechanics to fit DOOM’s style. Metal Taste needed constant action, powerful weaponry, useful gadgets, and badass marines to rain hell upon all that stand in their way. That’s why most of the systems within Metal Taste revolve around the player characters and their actions...after all, the player is the most important aspect. Moving on, I needed a foundation for these player actions, as it wasn’t enough just to say they are well-trained space machines who can shoot guns and bash in skulls. What the player needed was actual character, which brings me to my emphasis on roleplay. I started thinking about archetypes, the typical cogs within the wheel that is a squad of marines, and I looked at The Regiment, a TRPG based around modern warfare and marines. Using the typical soldier archetypes and morphing them into sci-fi variants laid the first stone to what would be the final five unique playable characters.

In my next post, I’ll be delving further into the development of these characters and more insight into Metal Taste’s no-holds-barred style. Prepare to meet Rhino, Rampage, Dynamite, Phoenix, and my personal favourite, Voodoo. 

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Creative Writing - The Monkey Wrench Tapes #3

I put a lot of consideration into even making this post due to what I’m about to explain and it pains me deeply to be writing this about my creative writing project so I’ll just cut to the chase.

I was working on my project a couple of hours away from deadline hand-in, and everything was going great. I was about half an hour away from completing and submitting. However, an unfortunate incident suddenly occurred where a fellow class mate inadvertently shut down my PC mid-work. Upon rebooting, I discovered over 10 hours of work done that day had been lost. Luckily, I hadn’t lost it all. To summarise, the project I submitted is not even close to my original concept, nor is it something close to what it was prior to the incident. This post aims to clarify what was lost and what my project was ultimately supposed to finish as.

To start off, my lost work picked up where the last post left off as I was setting up for Leon’s Vice case beyond the initial crime scene investigation. This included calculating the potential choices a player could make and creating multiple potential responses to those choices. An example of this can be seen in the previous post. Now, like in many detective stories, the protagonist needed leads, places to go in order to gather more evidence. I planned out one or two potential orders in which the player could approach this, with each order changing the narrative. For example, if you went to the Apartments or Convention first then a possible suspect will no longer be at the Warehouse location, meaning extra detective work.

I also aimed to pull apart character personalities in these moments, in an attempt to present clear distinctions in their character and responses that felt somewhat more dynamic to these characters while still pertaining to some detective cliches. The straight-shooting protagonist who has some hidden demons, the cynical sidekick who mask his inferiority with comic relief, and the hot shot rival who might not be as bad as he seems. Of course just giving them a personality is far from the reality of being human, it requires other things too. Things like Kingsley’s love for the band The Police and vintage cars, Ray’s tendency to use the phrase “you dig?” and the overall history between them. Knowing that these characters have interacted with one another and lived in this world definitely makes it more believable.

So where was all this heading before the incident? Well, I was on the cusp of setting up a chase sequence for the player that would present several obstacles that would eventually calculate the outcome of that chase. Then there’d be the expansion of the other locations and the interactions within them, then the all important continuity aspect of tying them all together, creating a cohesive case story of choices, exploration and interaction. Beyond that, the player would then experience a second chapter of Kingsley’s time undercover, where the gameplay focus would shift from playing detective by gathering evidence and solving conundrums to espionage and the concept of morality where Kingsley has less black or white decisions to make. Eventually, I would’ve ended the story with a big decision for Kingsley to make which you can find the canon answer to in my 1500 linear story which I’ll add to this post for your reading pleasure at some point. Then a short epilogue returning the player back to the interview tapes would close out the entire Twine aspect.

Ah, what could have been.

Overall, the project was enjoyable, I found that writing creatively with Twine, a foreign software to me, was a fun new challenge that I’d like to do again at some point. I believe my original concept transferred well into the two separate formats of choose your own adventure and linear story, and although it wasn’t 100% the same as I progressed, the changes I had to make were necessary in keeping a good level of quality. I’d be lying if I said that I was happy and proud of the “finished” project that I submitted but the submitted project was both unfinished in functionality and in the story I aimed to tell all thanks to a most unfortunate and disastrous incident that was no fault of my own. I was hoping to share it with you all as part of the assignment’s conclusion but I don’t feel comfortable releasing something right now that in my eyes is basically unfinished. What have I learned from this? The functionality of a new writing software for a start. Oh, and that you should always work alone in a solitary hut somewhere in the Desert, thousands of miles away from any possible evidence of humanity, with all windows and doors boarded up and nothing but bubble wrap to keep your PC safe from harm...and to keep you mildly entertained.

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Creative Writing - The Monkey Wrench Tapes #2

This post mostly revolves around the 1500 linear version of my Twine adventure story. Firstly, I’m going to describe the other research I have done prior to most of the writing itself. 

As this is a detective thriller/drama it only made sense that I played games of a similar vein, most notably, L.A. Noire. Not only was L.A. Noire set in Los Angeles just like The Monkey Wrench Tapes, but it gave me an insight into the investigation process of a detective, namely setting up a crime scene and allowing the player to explore it. With this experience, I was able to recreate a fitting crime scene investigation where the player can analyse various items within the crime scene in order to acquire evidence to help them solve the case. The rest of my research was again finding the finer details to make an authentic 80s Los Angeles, such as vintage Cadillac for Leon and more real locations in L.A..

For the linear story, I followed part of my original plan for the Twine story to include aspects of the FBI agent reviewing interview tapes and the time Kingsley went undercover. Due to the word limit, I had to severely condense some of these moments but thankfully it didn’t compromise its quality. It was actually less of a challenge due to my previous experience in creative writing and the lack of branching narratives. 

To finish off this post, I’ve made quite a few amends to the Twine Adventure Story, mainly filling in the cracks relating to the opening of the first chapter. Since this is where the choices and investigating truly opens up for the player, the struggle, for the majority, fell within getting the various passages of evidence to sync up with other parts of the narrative without breaking, especially in terms of continuity later down the line. Here’s an example of the ‘fan’ technique as I like to call it, representing the sprouting nature of an investigation scene within The Monkey Wrench Tapes:

And here’s an example of some of the narrative that can change based on your previous actions, with lines with an ‘if’ prefix designating potential options:

That’s all for now, there will be a final post about the conclusion of this assignment detailing the ups and downs and compromises I had to make. 

[jackcarson-foxfutureworks]

Creative Writing - The Monkey Wrench Tapes #1

Since November last year, I’ve been tasked with writing a ‘choose your own adventure story’ within a software called Twine and then writing a linear version of that story in around 1500 words. 

The story could be anything I wanted and so I decided to work from my concept of LA in the 1980s called The Monkey Wrench Tapes. It was a simple decision based on the somewhat established set of characters and story I had from the concepts of the video game version but now condensed into an adventure story format. The process of being a detective investigating crime also fit well within the format. 

At the very beginning, my initial research had already been done, thanks to the aforementioned early establishment of my characters, setting and story. I also had the advantage of writing creatively as a hobby for just over 10 years now. However, I did have to research into the workings of Twine as it was a software unknown to me until now. I had to check up on the wiki pages and tutorials the Twine site itself presented but I felt they didn’t offer enough and instead took to tutorials on YouTube which were more explicit and in turn more helpful in getting me to understand Twine’s functionality. Once I got to grips with Twine, the writing could begin. 

Since The Monkey Wrench Tapes had previous development on its concept, I had a jumpstart on the writing. I wanted to introduce the idea of the story being told through interview tapes and then you’d see it unfold through the eyes of the protagonist, Leon Kingsley. All I had to do was add adventure story functionality which again had been established in my original video game concept in the form of branching paths based on the choices you made as Kingsley, including relationships, reputation, and morality. I even had previous research and general knowledge into the 80s at my disposal. The last obstacle was creating interactivity for the player. Using the research on Twine I used the passage system and ‘if’ and ‘set’ statements which allowed me to change what the player could see or do based on their previous decisions. For example, the player could look at a glass of whiskey, analyse it, and then drink it, which would then change the ‘Glass of Whiskey’ option to an ‘Empty Glass’ with an entirely different description. By using these techniques I can create a sense of freedom for the player found in many adventure stories but still retain my own control on certain aspects of what I’d like them to experience. It stops players getting lost or confused, and to me personally, it alleviates the pain of game over choices. 

Once the writing and functionality were going smoothly, I moved onto the finer details. I wanted my take on LA, and more specifically, LA in the 80s (and early 90s), to feel authentic in more subtle ways than just society, entertainment, and fashion. I looked into real locations of police departments and areas where I wanted the player to explore. While in some cases this won’t be 100% accurate it still adds a level of realism to this LA. I even researched into the standard issue firearms of the LAPD in the 80s and 90s and the components of those firearms. Not only does detail like this help sell this world of LA as a close representation of the real thing, but it helps sell my characters. It would be strange for a distinguished member of law enforcement to not understand their weapons.  Other details included what technology was like, previous history of the world and society in LA, and the use of slang.

One more interesting aspect of the early development was the use of a site called 16 Personalities. A site where you answer a bunch of very specific questions which will overall determine your personality, and it works just as well for character building too. I used it on my protagonist, Leon, and the results were exactly what I expected Leon to be as a person.

To summarise my progress so far, I have a completely finished prologue to the story with an in-progress first chapter detailing an important case in Kingsley’s career soon to follow. There’s enough functionality right now to provide a basic sense of freedom and choice and an insight into how to play this adventure game. Besides a little blip of lost work, but recovered due to frequent backing up of plans and world-building, there haven’t been many issues. I’m slightly behind on my personal targets but the extra work to make an interactive detective drama that is both gripping and authentic will hopefully be worth it in the end.

Unfortunately, due to the complications of providing a test version publicly, there won’t be a playable version for readers until completion of the assignment.

[jackcarson-foxfutureworks]

TEN GAMES THAT NEED A COMEBACK!

[Edit] (Before we get stuck in, I just wanted to say that my original intention was to have this published before the New Year as a surprise and adjacent to the publishing of my last list of my Top Ten Most Anticipated Games. Clearly, that hasn’t come to fruition but it’s here now. Oh, and I’ll definitely try to get started on my best of 2017 lists, comprising of the best games of 2017 and the…

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I'D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT | THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (Casual Game Review)

Decided not to post on the scheduled time so here it is now 2 HOURS LATE!

FREEDOM HAS NEVER TASTED SO SWEET IN BREATH OF THE WILD’S AUDACIOUS YET EXPERTLY CRAFTED WORLD AND MY EXTENSIVE JOURNEY WITH LINK IS FAR FROM OVER. My experiences with The Legend of Zelda began way back in the 90s with Ocarina of Time, shortly followed by Majora’s Mask, and as a young child taking their first steps within a virtual world you can probably imagine the scale of wonder and adventure…

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Avalanche - Cooperative Game - Images

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Avalanche - Cooperative Game - Design Statement

The summary of Avalanche is that you and your group must escape a resort in a mountain range and escape before you either freeze to death or get killed by the avalanche. The entire game is based around time management where you must use your turn wisely as you are limited by the dice roll that you roll at the beginning of you turn, adding a sense of risk and also luck to the game. The initial concept of the was based on playing cooperative games like Pandemic and Forbidden island which are all games that make sure that the player uses their turn wisely, and punishes them later in the game for not doing so, we also liked the character mechanic in Pandemic that makes sure that each character has a distinct role that they must fulfill. We implemented the mechanic of character roles into the game so that players would know that they have a certain role to fill and make sure that they commit to in the game, like how the mechanic must fix any machinery or the survivalist must find clothing and any resources in the surrounding area as they have a warm already to combat the cold. Another mechanic that we implemented in the game is the time wasting karma mechanic that is the snow storm that slowly increases in severity by 1 after each turn, making sure that players wouldn't waste their turn, we also implemented the avalanche mechanic that would happen after a dozen of turns that would slowly start to cover the map, restricting the players in playable area and also places where they’ll be able to escape. But with the snowstorm increasing the players would have to find better ways to combat the cold from filling their freeze meter, so a rarity system was added where the higher the rarity of an item the better is would reduce the amount of points added to the freeze meter, but the catch is that they are harder to find as there are only a small number of them hidden around the map, so the group better get looking.

After we made the changes and made a prototype of the game, we did a quick playtest to see how a game would play in its early stages. We followed the rules that we had set to make sure that they were easy to understand, we did this test if others could read the instructions and understood what we stated. The game started out pretty well as the movement system was easy to understand as the whatever side the dice landed on was the amount of actions we were allowed to use for the turn, but we then realised that we needed a way to keep track of which containers we had opened and which we hadn’t, so we quickly teared ups oem tokens and used them to signify which had been opened so we weren’t wasting action on moving towards an already opened chest. Another problem that we came across was the fact that the characters were getting too cold on the freeze meter too quick, so we decided to cut the amount of turns it takes to get one token to 2 moves outside as the max amount of cold that you would get from moving outside would be 3, meaning that you could easily get around the board easily without worrying about the cold and losing your character, and then losing the game. Another problem that we came across was the number of caches that were on the map, as you could move 3 spaces on the outside and come across a cache with items in, so if we were to make the board again then we would have to change the amount of caches on the map, just to make the rarity of items a little more rarer. There is also too much information on the board as you have to worry about the entrances of buildings, locked doors, caches, points of interest that the players would have to interact with, and the different items on the map specific to some occupations like Generators, so we may have to dull down the amount of this on the board just to make it clearer to some player who are new to the game.

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Avalanche - Cooperative Game - Rulebook

Requirements to Play

2-4 players 2 6-sided dice

Game Summary

You and a group of strangers are stranded at a ski resort and have no way of contacting the outside world, you must find a way to survive and make your way back to society, but be quick, you are limited with time as an avalanche is soon arriving and will wash the resort and you down the mountain pass.

Set Up

Place the game board in the middle of all players and add the open/locked tokens where applicable, then place the Avalanche and Snowstorm meters beside it.

Shuffle the Occupation cards and then hand one to each player, discarding the rest.

Then you reveal your occupation and take any necessary starting gear as well as a Freeze meter and Freeze token each.

Shuffle the Common, Rare and Super Rare gear cards into separate piles face down.

Place all Occupation tokens in the Lodge.

Shuffle the Escape Plan cards and then take the top and bottom cards without revealing them and then vote on which to reveal. The revealed card becomes your escape plan.

Then each player rolls a die to determine who goes first. Highest number goes first.

Taking a Turn

To start a turn you have to roll a die to determine your action points. These action points allow you to move, search the environment or perform other actions.

When you have your number of action points you can choose to spend them however you like as stated above. Each action costs 1 point.

When moving, you can only pass through open doors or open plan rooms such as the Lodge lobby, you cannot pass through locked doors (unless stated otherwise), walls. Moving outside will increase your Freeze meter.

When searching, you roll a second die and this will determine what kind of gear you find. Rolling 1-3 will give you a Common, 4-5 will give you a Rare and a 6 gives you a Super Rare. You then keep the gear as part of your inventory.

Your turn is over when you either have no more action points or skip any that remain. Turn passes clockwise.

Understanding the Board

Question marks designate locations of interest where you can search. Exclamation marks designate locations of interest where an event can occur. Stars designate locations where you can complete objectives. Purple squares are buildings which can only be entered through open doors. Blue squares are unreachable locations either blocked by snow or thin ice and cannot be occupied. White squares are the outside, each move made out here increases your Freeze meter. Open and locked doors are indicated using the open and locked tokens.

Avalanche and Snowstorm

The Avalanche and Snowstorm are threats that increase at the end of every round of players. When a round is finished, increase both meters by 1. The current number indicated on the Snowstorm meter designates the intensity of the storm and how it affects you. For example, level 1 on the meter means your Freeze meter increases by 1 for every move you make outside and so on with every level increase. Once your Freeze meter reaches the max level, you are dead. The other players can then find your corpse and salvage it for gear. The Avalanche has the possibility to end the game resulting in a loss for the group. Once the meter reaches the maximum level the avalanche begins to fall across the board 1 lane at a time from the left at the end of every player’s turn. The group becomes trapped when the Avalanche completely stops necessary progress. Avalanche progress is indicated by the token moving alongside the board.

Gear

Gear allows you to complete objectives, access otherwise inaccessible locations, fight the snow storm and survive the avalanche. Gear is obtained by searching on Question mark squares and by rolling a die to determine the rarity. Rolling 1-3 equals a Common, 4-5 equals a Rare and 6 equals a Super Rare. Most gear is clothing which increases your resistance to the cold. Each piece of Common clothing increases resistance by 1, Rare clothing increases it by 2, while Super Rare clothing increases it by 3. Keys allow access to locked doors in the building related to the key and only this building. The person holding the key is the only one who can access these doors. Other gear is used depending on the description given.

Winning the Game

To win the game, the group has to find a way to escape and complete objectives allowing their escape before the Avalanche traps them or they freeze from the cold.

Each escape has a number of objectives to complete but each objective might require certain gear to complete.

All players have to meet at the escape point which is any square within the building with the escape point. Once all remaining players are there then you escape and win the game.

Written by Jack Carson-Fox.

Project Team: Jack Carson-Fox | George Beswick | Lewis Green

This is just one of four projects as part of a whole assignment.

‘Rixa’ - Abstract Game and ‘The Horde’ - Narrative Game can be found over on George Beswick’s page.

Avalanche - Cooperative Game can be found on my page once it is completed

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Avalanche - Cooperative Game - Materials List

Materials List 1 Game Board 4 Occupation Cards 4 Occupation Tokens 2 Dice 1 Escape Plan 4 Freeze Meters 1 Spare Snowstorm and Avalanche Meter 4 Blank Tokens Open and Locked Tokens 49 Gear Cards 12 Super Rare 16 Rare 21 Common 14 Event Cards

Written by Jack Carson-Fox.

Project Team: Jack Carson-Fox | George Beswick | Lewis Green

This is just one of four projects as part of a whole assignment.

‘Rixa’ - Abstract Game and ‘The Horde’ - Narrative Game can be found over on George Beswick’s page.