Today I made some progress with Lords of the Under-Mountain, yay!

I got a spark of an idea when listening to the newest episode of the Game Design Round Table podcast. Soren Johnson was there as a guest, talking about his newest game the Old World.

The inspiration

Soren Johnson described what he did not like or did not think works in the Civilization game series. One of the things he mentioned was dealing damage as the defender of an attack. He said he was not a fan of that and its effects, leading to some super-defensive tactics.

The line that really gave me a new insight was (and I’m paraphrasing): if you want people to be active in these kinds of strategy games is to reward action, to reward attacking and lessen the risks.

That made me think the attack mechanic of Lord of Under-Mountain in a new light.

The Tweak

Before, both the attacker and the defender of an attack could deal damage to the other party in LotUM, depending on who was stronger.

I decided to try a change to that, where the attacker would not be damaged when attacking regardless. The attack would just be not successful if the defending party would be stronger.

First I did a little thinking exercise of how this change would affect the different factions and their powers in the game. After realizing that most of the effects could be positive or neutral in the grand scheme of things, I continued to playtest the changes solo.

And it pretty much did what I thought it would. The change made attacking much more viable option and made the tactic of tortoise defense a bit less appealing.

So this change has made the cut to stay in the game. I will probably need to tweak a few things because of it, but it will be worth the effort.

Where you get your inspiration?

I’ve been listening to The Game Design Round Table podcast for years. It is one of those things that help me get new ideas. I also got a couple of other podcasts related to game design that I follow regularly:

• Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games podcast discusses the more artsy and indie games and their design, mostly digital games. Great podcast to get inspiration on more novel game design ideas
• Board Game Design Lab podcast has a large archive of pods with numerous themes and guests. The quality and amount of inpiration you get can very a lot from episode to episode, but browsing the library can provide very helpful.

Where do you go to get your inspiration? Let me know on Twitter :)