Introducing Yore, a Board Game Adventure!

Several friends and I have been making board games as a design challenge. I am far enough along -- and playtesting has been so rewarding -- that I want to share the process of building and developing the game with you.

Introduction

As upcoming graduates of the School of Applied Dungeon Crawling at University Adventuros, you have one more challenge -- and opportunity -- before you snatch your diploma scroll and your sword and head for the wild.  The ancient island of Biblios once contained the greatest library and museum in the conquered empire.  Now in ruins, the island is ripe for adventuring.   Chief of its former treasures is the Compiled and Unabridged Encyclopedia or the Beasts and Magicks of Yore.  The university has generously offered to waive all your student loans if your party can retrieve the ancient tome from its hallowed pedestal.  In your way to greatness and a reduced debt stands an army of the undead and other creatures of darkness and illiteracy.

Design

Yore is a hybrid card and board game.  My goal is to create a robust exploration board as well as a unique, choice-driven combat system.  The board itself has been designed, so I've made the combat system the major force of playtesting.  The next few blog posts will be dedicated to how that testing turns out: the tears and blood that are shed, the exhalations, and moments of deep sorrow and regret.  As a spoiler: it's mostly tears.

Style and Art

As I hope you can glean from the introduction, the game is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek RPG based on old dungeon crawling games.  The board features randomized tiles you flip over, and those tiles determine where you can go next.  Here's an example of one of the tiles:

And one of the cards in it's most recent implementation:

I look forward to telling you about the myriad adventures we have in the lands of Yore.  If you are ever in town and want to help playtest, send me a message!

Note: The placeholder art in Yore comes from Lorc's icon pack and  Lost Garden's handdrawn texture pack.  They both have royalty free Creative Commons licenses, but I'll probably replace the art with my own (or other's) original work.