Game Mechanics Overview

I've finally finished my first run of posts on the game design. To wrap it all up (and provide a TLDR version) here's a quick summary of each game mechanic with links to the full articles. These summaries are quite brief - if you have a question or want a more in-depth writeup, click the links for the full versions. And if you're new to the blog, click the Introduction and Overview links above for more information.

• Heat, Endurance, Health: your three core resources. You lose heat every night in the cold; you lose endurance if you have no heat left, and you can also spend it to move more or to re-roll; and you lose health if you have no heat or endurance left. There are other ways to lose endurance and health directly. If you run out of health, you fall unconscious and return to town.
• The Board: divided into three zones - green, blue, and black - with the spaces of each zone randomized at the start of the game. The black zone is the north end, and the zones get progressively more dangerous as you move north. There are a few unique locations in each zone with special encounters and rules.
• Enemies: hostile bandits and monsters (called coldbringers) wander the board - bandits move randomly, coldbringers move towards town. If you lose a fight with a bandit you discard items; if you lose a fight with a coldbringer you lose heat.
• Skills: the conflict resolution mechanic. Roll a 20-sided die and add your skill modifier. If the result is equal to or higher than the difficulty score, you succeed. There are 5 skills, each of which can be added to with items or other bonuses: combat, evasion, perception, stealth, and survival.
• Encounters: when you end your movement on a board space, you draw an encounter card and do what it says. Usually this means rolling a skill check. Some encounters give you a benefit on success, some a penalty on failure, and some provide both.
• Items: give you various types of bonuses - increase a skill modifier, resistance to a damage type, special abilities, etc. Obtained in encounters or by buying from traders.
• Winning and Losing: you win by rescuing all the people from the coldbringer lairs by working together on difficult skill checks. You lose if everyone dies (permanent death occurs if coldbringers have destroyed the town and you hit 0 health).

And that's all for now. I'll try to work on playtesting, and I should have news on a logo very soon. Exciting!