Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
materiality within the paratextual board game world leads to the ninth principle
of paratextual board games:
Principle 9: he materiality of the game pieces in paratextual board games facilitates
fan interaction with the game as a system while also externalizing the game as an
additional episode within the media franchise.
In the case of Expeditions, the igures of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Uhura (and
Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu in the expansion pack) ofer an opportunity for players
to interact with the world of the game while also expanding the storyworld
via external identiication. Like “feelies”—video game artifacts, and collectibles
described by Ian Peters—these HeroClix igures “serve as an extension of a
game's ictional world.” 5 Using the igurines allows players to see Kirk, Spock,
McCoy, and Uhura on the planet, and to perform new episodes within the Star
Trek franchise. In contrast, the numerous HeroClix model ships in Fleet Captains
(there are 24 ships in the base set, with an additional 24 included with both
the Romulan Empire and Dominion expansion packs) not only give players the
chance to try out diferent combinations of ships, but also encourage a sense
of collection: as Geraghty describes of fan collecting, the value of a particular
object may not be “based on quality, condition or rarity but is found in the fact
that such items can help to complete [the fan's] collection.” 6 At the same time, the
very materiality of these pieces lends tactile and sensual pleasure to the game:
opening the pieces and clicking the bases becomes pleasurable in and of itself, in
contrast to the ethereal and emotional pleasures the original media text might
generate for fans.
Second, in contrast to their material components, both games also use highly
mutable elements as an aspect of their game play. he replay value of the games
is high because of the randomized nature of the game board (in Fleet Captains )
and the missions (in Expeditions ). In Expeditions , for example, each of the
three missions the players attempt to complete have diferent narrative paths,
potentially leading players in diferent directions each time the game is played.
In Fleet Captains , the entire game board is constructed by laying hexagonal cards
at random, producing diferent pathways through the game that can radically
change the engagement of players with the game play. he mutable elements of
each game suggest randomization within the play, and lead to the tenth principle
of paratextual board games:
Principle 10: Mutable elements randomize game play while also reinforcing the
paratextual game structure.
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