Monday, June 11, 2012

Designer Diary: Overview of Space Hulk: XT


The purpose of this series of blog posts (Designer Diaries) is to give the world a look into the thought process behind my works. Over the years, there have been three official permutations of the Space Hulk board game. In addition to this, a number of added rules have been included in magazines, and numerous fan-made variants have also been made public. Several similar games have also been published by other companies.

Space Hulk: XT is my attempt to sort through all of the extra (and in some cases, highly conflicting) rules, charts, tables, units, weapons and missions that have appeared over more than two decades of Space Hulk. Ideally, the finished product will take what is best from the various versions of the game and update it to modern gameplay standards without modifying the core of gameplay any more than is necessary. Therein, however, resides the problem.

What are the “best” elements from each version of Space Hulk? If I simply make a cut-and-paste Frankenstein’s monster of a game based on what I deem to be “best,” there is little incentive for other players to view Space Hulk: XT as any more than another random variant. My goal, then, is not only to show what elements I have chosen to work with, but why I am doing so. Some game elements I find unnecessarily cumbersome, others simply do not seem to fit within the desired balance of the game. As such, many of these elements will not be included. It is my hope that by showing the thought process behind these decisions, I will be better able to convince others of the validity of the points I am attempting to make, and the gameplay experience that I am attempting to craft.

Coming this Wednesday: action card/fog of war decks in Space Hulk: XT.

-M

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