OutLord
A strategic, satirical board game about capitalism, housing, and overconsumption.
Project Summary
OutLord was designed for my class "DES311 - Portfolio Practice". I wanted to explore player behaviour - particularly power dynamics between players. I chose to do this through the theme of landlordism and having each player be a landlord buying properties within a town. Their goal is to have the most money (incl. assets) by the end of the game.
This game acts as both a fun, competitive game between friends, and provides a social commentary on modern landlordism, capitalism, and the wealth gap.
The game is largely strategy-based, however, to reflect real life, there are aspects of luck that have a major influence on the game and its outcome. This required some very intense design - from concept development to intensive testing and iteration. The in-depth process of designing OutLord can be explored below.
Many thanks to Mona Bozdog, Lynn Love, and Alexander Tarvet.
Paper Prototype
This prototype is still a work in progress and needs much more testing. It has been shelved for the moment but I do plan on coming back to it.
Concept Development
The original game loop can be shown on the right. This was created very early on in the concept, before the prototyping stage, so that I could get the idea down on paper and form a critique to inform my next steps.
Critique
There was a lack of variation and strategic play opportunities, there was no solid "end" or "winning" point, there was no system of inflation (which was extremely important to portray the theming correctly), and there was no exploration of power dynamics.
One major issue was the practicality of this design for the players. There was a significant amount of variables that players would need to constantly be tracking, which, at this stage, made the economy impossible to manage without the assistance of a calculator or companion app (which I did not want to rely on).
Next Steps
From this analysis, I identified 3 significant problem areas within this design that required further development. These are Economy Design, Player Interaction Design, and Balancing.
Economy Design
I experimented with quite a few different options for the economy, most of which ended up being far too complex. I realised that I had been designing the economy with too much of a focus on being accurate to real life, leading to clunky design and unnecessarily convoluted game pieces. Instead, I needed to come at it from a much more abstract angle - I needed to ignore real-world values entirely and focus on creating an economy that accurately reflects the effects of the wealth gap, rather than focusing on recreating exactly how the wealth gap is manifested in the real world. I decided to do some research to see how other games tackle this.
Research
I came across the example shown on the right from Monopoly: Banking Edition. The black spaces on the top are the board itself and are how the property values are tracked, and the bottom card is a separate value index to be kept on the players' deck. It keeps all of the numbers separated from the board, and only used when needed yet still easily accessible, and it creates a variable fine amount based on how "in demand" the property is (how many times the space has been landed on by other players), simulating inflation.
Research Application
I pieced together different parts of this design and added my own adaptions to create Inflation Level Cards (prototype shown below). This is a numbered deck of cards that are displayed in view of all players, showing the current values of all variables in the game. When the inflation level is increased, the next card will be shown, increasing all values simultaneously.
Inflation Card 1
Inflation Card 5
Inflation Card 6
Player Motivation
After designing the Inflation Level Cards, I had no way for players to actually trigger these cards to be drawn, and no way to increase inflation. I saw this as an opportunity to implement some power dynamics between players by having the players themselves be in charge of inflation - either directly, or indirectly. This spurred the creation of Power Cards, as explained below.
The image above shows the basic game loop.
Power Cards
Power Cards are purchasable by players, and exist to create conflict, further gameplay progression, and provide some narrative to the game. See examples of all of these types of cards below.
Conflict
The majority of the cards in this deck either; give the player an advantage, give the player a disadvantage, or, give the player an attack to use on another player. Shield cards also exist to block attacks from other players, but they're rare so should be used sparingly.
Progression
Within this stack, there are 5 Inflation Level Increase Cards, which immediately go into effect upon being drawn. Every time a player draws a Power Card, there is a chance that it will increase global values. This can be used strategically to widen the gap between players.
Narrative
Most of the Power Cards have short narrative barks designed to provoke other players, provide some lighthearted commentary, and poke fun at landlordism.
Balancing
After designing the Power Cards, I felt it important to give some sort of external motivation for players to use these. If all players start out even, what spurs a player to crave power over other players - who throws the first stone? I decided to implement a system that gives each player a different starting point - it is reflective of real life, and, by setting up somewhat of a class system, it establishes a clear "enemy" within the players.
Inheritance Cards
Inheritance Cards are randomly given to players at the start of the game. Each card assigns Starting Money, Starting Properties, and and Ability. See examples of all of these types of cards below.
Balancing
Some of these cards are significantly better than others, and they were purposefully designed to give players an unbalanced starting position. For example, the "Nepo Baby" card is probably the best one you can get - you start off with the best property which immediately gives you guaranteed income, and, once initial rent is collected, you start with 9 money which gives you lots of different opportunities and ways to spend. Whilst the "Squatter" card is probably the worst option - you have three properties but none of them generate any income, you don't have enough money to upgrade them or buy new properties, so your only option is to use your ability early on and possibly waste it, or sell 2 of your three properties so that you can afford to upgrade. In each example, you can see a massive difference in how many choices the player has, and how easy it is for them to generate income. Naturally, this creates resentment and competition between players, and, in this example, the "Nepo Baby" player will become the enemy and victim of most attacks, spurring conflict.
