A 2-Player Board Game by Terry, Emery, Kyle and Cory
The Goal of this project was to create a table top version of the sport of hockey. Taking inspiration from many of the classic hockey video games like blades of steel, and grid based strategy games like the XCOM series, Brawl Starz captures the essence of a real time chaotic sporting experience that is fun for all ages. The game utilizes a neutral referee feature to allow for more exciting games where the rules of hockey can be broken to put your team ahead at the risk of getting put in the penalty box.
About
Rules&
Gameplay
General Rules
Two players are put head to head in a hockey match with teams of 6 players. Each team has one goalie, one center, two wingers and two defensemen.
There is also a referee neutral player who is moved by both teams as the game progresses. All units are placed in their labeled starting positions in the center of the ice mirroring each other.
The center is in the middle, the wingers are on the left and ride sides of them, the two defensemen are in the back near the blue line, and the goalies are placed in the middle of their respective nets.
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Both players can roll the dice to determine who is the home team and receives the puck first, the puck is given to the center of their team.
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Players alternate moving their units to try and score the puck in the opponents net. Each turn a player gets 5 actions to use. A single unit cannot use more than two actions per turn.
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As in traditional hockey the rule of offside also applies. A unit may not cross the
opponents blue line before the puck does or else they are considered offside.
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Once a goal is scored all units are returned to their starting positions, including the
referee, and the player who did not score gives their center the puck.
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The referee is a neutral unit where players outside the radius of them can
perform more powerful actions for multiple action costs.
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The first player to score 3 goals on their opponent wins.
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A more detailed guide can be found here.
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The Puck
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When a puck is shot or passed it is given a momentum that determines the speed at which it slides across the ice. The puck then travels the amount of spaces each one of the player’s turns who passed it in the direction that the player chooses. This direction is denoted by an arrow on the puck unit that is turned in the appropriate direction when used.
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Another unit may try and grab the puck by moving next to its current position and rolling the dice against the puck's speed. If they roll higher than the speed of the puck, the puck loses all momentum and that unit takes control of the puck. Otherwise the puck keeps its momentum. If the puck hits the crease the goalie automatically picks it up.
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The Referee and Cheating
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The referee is a neutral unit controlled by both players. On a player's turn they may use the units appropriate “cheating action” (listed under unit
traits section) if they are more than two spaces away from the referee.
At the beginning of a player's turn they may move the referee up to
two spaces. Players may perform any action through the referee
although they cannot move onto their space.
Although cheating actions cost 2 they only count once toward a units two actions available per turn.
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Actions
Each Unit can move once per turn for free for the number of spaces listed under their “unit traits”. They can spend an additional action to move 1 extra space.
Cost: 0 or 1 Action(s)
Movement
A player may shoot the puck if they are within the opponent’s defensive zone (over their blue line).
Cost: 0 or 1 Action(s)
Shooting
Passing
Cost: 0 or 1 Action(s)
Passing the puck gives it momentum in a direction of an allied player. That allied unit will automatically pass the “grab the puck” action. The puck can be passed through units although if it does not travel far enough and lands on an enemy player, they can roll to pick up the puck.
Cost: 0 Action(s)
Once the puck reaches the net the goalie rolls the dice to try and save it. Goalie must roll higher than (Shot speed + Spaces away from the puck – distance table value). The distance table value is shown on the shot table based on the shooters distance away from the net.
Saving
Checks
Cost: 1 Action(s)
Body Check​
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Range of 2 Spaces, if successful it knocks the opponent back 1 space and the checker moves forward 2 spaces while the puck moves to the other side of the checker.
Poke Check
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Range of 1 Space, if successful the puck is stripped from the opponent and given to the checker. Must be adjacent to the puck to poke check.
THE
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click an emblem to see a description of a position
TEAM
Development
Version 1.0​
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A Basic board with different sided dice used
For pawns. Referee mechanic not yet implemented. Colored tiles represented the power of shooting on goal. The further away, the easier it is to save.
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Playtest thoughts: So far it is very likely that breakaways will occur in the current set up. The shooting system also seems very clunky and the colors make the ice kinda crowded.
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Version 2.0​
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- Offensive zones changed to a circular grid
- Momentum now added to puck
- Passing and Shooting now apply Momentum
- All players movements are now 2 (base)
- Special Ability Tiles Added
- Crease changed to 3 tiles
- Tile Size increased to 1x1 inches
- Paper Units Created
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Playtest thoughts: Offensive zones feel much more fluent. Checking after being buffed now is very overpowering and causes a mosh pit to occur in most games. Will pull back changes to allow for more passing and movement overall. The transition from square to radial spaces feels exciting to move closer to the net. Strategic depth is on point. Defensemen due to “mosh pits” feel the strongest.
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Version 3.0​
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- Removed unit specific spaces on the board.
- Added in referee unit and converted special abilities into cheating actions
- Changed checking types to be unique to units
- Increased checking rolls by 1
- Decreased defensemen movement, added backwards movement trait.
- Allied players can now take the puck for free, grabbing a puck gains 1 free movement
- Created final board with full rink and units.
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Playtest thoughts: Passing and shooting are now much more encouraged rather than always checking the nearest opponent. Puck entering the offensive zone much more often. Chaining several actions together feels very rewarding as it should. Feels very feasible to score several goals in a game. Scoreboard is fun to use as well. The final board feels nice to play on and the aesthetic of the board also matches the feeling of hockey.
playtesting
We were able to bring in a friend who we asked to help us play test the 2.0 version of the game. Here are some things we noticed:
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- Tester likes to learn through playing and having the rules explained as she plays
- Asks if a knowledge of Hockey is needed.
- Learns to check pieces without the puck.
- Often takes recommendation on what move to make from Emery and Kyle.
- As the game does on, she eventually learns priorities, objectives, and strategies of
the game.
- Asked for clarification on rules when she comes up with a strategy to see if it is a
legal move.
- Swarming tactics are the obvious tactics for first timers.
- Critique: Believes there should be more Action Points
- Once all the units became all bunched together, the game got slower.
- High emotions when getting a good or bad roll.
- Becomes very comfortable with the rules and makes moves with a lot of agency.
- The game gains a very Chess-like feeling later on as pieces as positioned throughout
the board.
- Critique: Offense feels very restricted. Or she's just not clever enough.
- Moshpit defense is strong
Research
no idea comes from thin air
almost everything has been
inspired by ideas from the past
here are sources that
we based our game on
Blades of Steel is an NES/Arcade hockey game released in 1987 by Konami. It is an Isometric hockey game replicating the sport in a very simple fashion.
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Player Interaction: Player vs Player or Player vs AI
Objective: Capture
Two players are trying to take the puck and put it into the opponent's net using several units at their disposal.
Procedures: A player can select one unit at a time who will flash white. While selected the player may move this unit with the d-pad. If you have the puck you can either pass it to another unit on your team or shoot the puck at the net. A red arrow will oscillate back and forth in front of the crease determining where your player will aim the puck. The trick of this game is that at all times moving a unit on the d-pad up or down also moves the goalie. This adds an element of multitasking on defense making it tricky to save shots. The player without the puck can ram into the puck holder to try and check them away from it. After several bumps they will fling the puck in a direction and lose it.
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Blades of Steel
Resources: The management of your units and your goalie in real time. All units a player doesn’t control will be automatically moved by the AI in the generally correct direction. However players can switch back and forth to quickly command their team properly.
Conflict: Players can also get into fights if two units bump into each other enough times. In a fight players hit buttons to try and punch their opponent and deplete their health bar. Once a player loses a fight their player is sent into the penalty box and are down a player for a couple minutes and giving the winner a power play.
General Observations: This game does a wonderful job at making the game of hockey look very chaotic though the juggling of the goalie and the (sort of) randomness of the shooting which a main goal of the project. The fighting also adds one of the best elements of the sport in an entertaining way. The AI moving the other units is also very unnoticeable as usually there is always a good pass to make to an ally. It is a game very far ahead of its time.
Blood Bowl 2
Blood bowl is a game developed by games workshop in 2015 and is set in the Warhammer universe as a parody of the sport football.
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Player Interaction: Player vs Player or Player vs AI
Objective: Capture
The goal of the game is to run or pass the ball into the opponent’s end zone using the many units on your team.
Procedure: Each player picks a team out of the different classes from Warhammer each with their own strengths and weaknesses and hits the field with 9 players to play a game of football. The game begins by both players setting up their initial positions and one team kicking the ball to the other. The other team catches the ball and it is their goal to get the ball to the end of the end zone and not turn it over to the enemy. Each unit can choose to move (distance based on unit type) or try and push an enemy unit adjacent to them. The tackler rolls two dice and gets two possible actions they can do usually either pushing the opponent back a space or knocking them down meaning that unit loses a turn. The player on offense typically is trying to block the other units from getting to their guy with the ball or trying to pass it to another player by throwing it several spaces and getting it to the end zone to score.
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Resources: Units are the major resource in this game along with mulligans. In any roll to push another unit there is always a chance that 1 or both of the players are knocked down for a turn so playing your odds wisely will give a greater chance of scoring. Each half players receive mulligans that allow them to re roll any dice roll if they fail. These do not replenish till the end of the half so it is important to leverage whether using them is worth it.
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General Thoughts: Football makes a great game for a slower tile based strategy game which makes it perfect for the Warhammer universe. Each unit type having tons of different stats really makes it feel like a tabletop game with a much easier learning curve and lower play time. It never really feels like the game is determined through the randomness of dice rolls even though they play a big part in the play of the game. Having tons of units also helps improve the strategy of the game making it much more complicated to get the ball to the end zone.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM is a series of turn based shooter games where you take a team of soldiers with hundreds of combinations of weapons and gear to give them in order to complete the specific levels of the game. The newest edition XCOM 2 was released in 2016.
Player Interaction: Player vs AI
Objective: To upgrade your units and complete the various levels and challenges usually revolving around tactically killing all of the enemies.
Procedures: Most missions begin with your units at a start point where they are undetected by the enemy. (Stealth missions). Each turn you move your units on a grid-like system and have several actions at your disposal depending on your unit like shooting or throwing a type of grenade. Depending on your units specific loadout the terrain can have a huge impact on the outcome of the mission. Having a sniper on a higher elevation gives the player a big advantage. Each mission’s objectives are typically more involved than just kill everyone. They range from protecting a specific area for a certain period of time to a more story oriented objective like retrieving some data or capturing an object.
Resources: Your units are a huge resource as once they die, they are dead for good. The game makes sure to make you feel bad for your tactical misplay by some sort of cutscene and the “permadeath” goes very deep. Sometimes it’s even necessary to evacuate certain soldiers mid mission to save their life so your next mission isn’t compromised. It even emphasizes this by allowing you to name your troops whatever you want. Most people would end up choosing people they know which forces them to get attached and really feel when they end up dying.
General thoughts: The game does a fantastic job at making the turn based grid system feel implicit through its detailed terrains and mid battle cut scenes when enemies are shot which is always a main goal for these types of games. The perma-death feature also forces the player to really think about their loadouts and the missions they go on. Normally in games you just select the next mission and continue playing but now you have to stop and think if you can even do it without losing your team. Really puts a lot of depth into a game with a simple concept.
Super Blood Hockey
Super Blood Hockey is an indie PC hockey game released on the steam platform in 2017 by Loren Lemcke.
Player Interaction: Player vs Player or Player vs AI
Objective: Score the most goals in a 3 period game of Hockey
Procedures: The game takes influence from the early hockey games like Ice Hockey for the original Nintendo Entertainment System yet with a very clean and modern aesthetic with an emphasis on the violent aspects of the sport. Instead of simply checking them out of the way players literally punch each other and swing their sticks in order to get their point across spreading pixel blood across the ice with every swing. As expected the hockey fight mechanic is also emphasized in this game. Instead of a simple 1 on 1 fight to the death the entire team has an all-out brawl until 1 team is left standing who is declared the winner. Typically in hockey games the winning team gets a power play as the loser of the fight sends one member to the penalty box. In this game however if beaten badly enough players can actually just die for the remainder of the period making such fights really fun and intense, with a fun and gory (as gory as a bunch of red pixels can get) animation to accompany their passing. For the rest of the mechanics super blood hockey simply uses updated versions of party hockey games from the past with a simple pass button and a shoot button that you can hold down to increase your shot power.
Resources: Managing your team can be very important. Besides some of your players being removed from the game in fights, but simply switching between the players on your team while keeping them in optimal positions is challenging. It’s not always ideal to have your defensemen rush the net since there is then no one left to defend if the other team takes the puck.
General thoughts: This is probably the best party hockey game that I have played to date with how fast paced and exciting it feels. The game does a fantastic job at identifying the key aspects of a brawly hockey game needs to succeed and that’s the checking and fighting. By aiming the aesthetic toward a violent yet cartoony feel, it feels like you’re playing an old arcade game with a modern polish on it. It also gives the game much more depth than its predecessors where a three button hockey game isn’t always enough these days.
Text research
Hockey Strategies
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http://www.esthockey.ee/basics-ice-hockey-strategy/
The basis for the strategy in Brawl Starz was based on real hockey strategies used in the NHL. Some of these include cycling which involves the offensive team moving the puck along the boards further into the zone giving them a better chance at scoring. Keeping the puck near the boards eliminates the possibility of stealing the puck easily allowing them to get it near the net much easier.
Another example of this was the designing of the checking mechanic. The goal of a check is to separate the player from the puck in order to transfer control to your team. The mechanic was designed around displacing the puck from the unit holding it rather than trying to simply hurt the player involved.
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http://www.thehockeysource.tv/sectionsourceknowledge/tactics.php
Another few tactics that were considered include screening the goalie which makes it harder for them to save the puck as well as tipping the puck with one of your own players to change it’s trajectory, making it much harder for the goalie to predict where the puck is headed.
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http://ingoalmag.com/features/goalies-101-cutting-angle/
A defensive strategy that factored into the decision of making the offensive zone movement arc based was the notion of Cutting off the angle. When a player shoots the puck they have an arc in front of them in which they could possibly aim the puck. If a defending player stands very close of them a great amount of this angle is cut off since the puck will most likely hit the defender. The circular field of play in the offensive zones encourages both players and the goalie to want to stand directly in front of the shooter to take advantage of this.
Role of Players in a Team
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https://sites.google.com/site/hockeyinterestinginfo/roles
http://www.youthhockeystuff.com/hockey-positions-roles/
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The Center position in real hockey usually focuses on the center ice, hence the name. Typically the center is the “quarterback” of the team, usually the strongest skater and shooter. This was emphasized in brawl starz through the 1 timer special ability given to them. This encourages players to keep the center towards the middle of the ice to utilize their strengths.
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The wings are typically more physical compared to the center, hence why they are strong at both types of checking in Brawl Starz. Since they generally play toward the boards they a strong at passing techniques in both the NHL and this game. In real hockey they are known as right and left wings as they usually control their respective side of the ice. In brawl stars this was not restricted to allow more freedom of movement.
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The defenses main goal is to stop the offense men from shooting on the goalie. However some defensemen also have the ability to take the puck into the offensive zone which is shown in brawl starz since there is no restriction on position. The primary way of stopping players from shooting involves displacing them from the puck, which is why defensemen are the strongest body checkers. Typically when on offense they stay near the blue line to keep the puck inside the zone and to stop the other team from advancing if it’s turned over. Typically a strategy is to pass the puck across the ice to the other defensemen to “reset” the tempo of the play. This is shown through their passive ability to pass quickly between other defensemen, as well as their slap shot ability encouraging them to stay back.
Role of Players in a Team
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https://sites.google.com/site/hockeyinterestinginfo/roles
http://www.youthhockeystuff.com/hockey-positions-roles/
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The Center position in real hockey usually focuses on the center ice, hence the name. Typically the center is the “quarterback” of the team, usually the strongest skater and shooter. This was emphasized in brawl starz through the 1 timer special ability given to them. This encourages players to keep the center towards the middle of the ice to utilize their strengths.
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The wings are typically more physical compared to the center, hence why they are strong at both types of checking in Brawl Starz. Since they generally play toward the boards they a strong at passing techniques in both the NHL and this game. In real hockey they are known as right and left wings as they usually control their respective side of the ice. In brawl stars this was not restricted to allow more freedom of movement.
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The defenses main goal is to stop the offense men from shooting on the goalie. However some defensemen also have the ability to take the puck into the offensive zone which is shown in brawl starz since there is no restriction on position. The primary way of stopping players from shooting involves displacing them from the puck, which is why defensemen are the strongest body checkers. Typically when on offense they stay near the blue line to keep the puck inside the zone and to stop the other team from advancing if it’s turned over. Typically a strategy is to pass the puck across the ice to the other defensemen to “reset” the tempo of the play. This is shown through their passive ability to pass quickly between other defensemen, as well as their slap shot ability encouraging them to stay back.
scoreboard
The scoreboard has a digital number display corresponding for each player's score. Tapping either of the numbers will increase their score by one when a goal is scored. A goal horn sound effect is also played upon making an action. The app was created using the online app hosting service: App Furnace
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Download AppFurnace Player from your appropriate app store
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Hit the + button in the upper right and click “Scan & Add”
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Use the QR Code Listed on our Website and down below to access the app
Gallery
