The short version is
that Showdown: Tactics is a miniature game I’m writing, designed to
cover small intense encounters between parties of 3 to 5 characters.
It’s written to be empowering to the kind of hobby I enjoy, while
also providing a good solid core game.
That is the gist of
it. But let me elaborate...
Gritty crunchy elegant flexibility
While there are many games in the ”fantasy skirmish” genre, I’ve yet to find one with just the right combination of grit and elegance in design that can cover the scale im going for. Ideally i want these small-scale engagements to feel meaningful and tactically interesting to play, without bogging down in too convoluted rules-mechanics.
The game should be tactically interesting but easy to get the hang of.
A big thing for me has been designing the rules to a certain level of abstraction. Players are free to build the characters they want, to fit with their miniatures, while still providing significant grit to differentiate meaningfully. It is fun to equip your warrior with an Axe and a Shield, and having that mean something in game terms.
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| A band of adventurers with a northern twist. |
Empowering Hobby
The other pillar of Showdown’s design has been making it empowering to hobbyists. Like myself!
I like paint miniatures and imagining the kinds of characters they represent. I like taking my time and painting what draws me. And I like playing games that are both fun and tense, and seeing how the mechanics, miniatures and terrain organically create stories develop the characters I've so meticulously collected.
I also like my games to have a bit of mechanical teeth: They have to stand up to actually being played!
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| A sorceress and her ghoul minion prowl the wilderness. What is she up to? |
That's why i came up with the small scale: It fills an itch i have for very character driven games, and it allows for very little distance between ”I'm painting a nice miniature” and actually getting it on a table in a meaningful way. It means less "filler" painting, and more of the stuff Im actually drawn to paint!
Every miniature you paint should expand the scope of the games you can play!
Showdown: Tactics is about enabling creative projects that are manageable, and encouraging hobbyists to also follow through on them.And then being rewarded by an engaging game that will inevitably spark inspiration for further hobby: Whether thats a new scenario, a type of character to plug a hole in your force, or a terrain-project that would be fun to game on.
Now the big question is how to achieve this.
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