The Board Game Design Course

Gabe Barrett is well-known in the world of board games and game design. He runs the Board Game Design Lab, a site filled with tons of game design resources, along with the huge Facebook group of the same name, and a podcast that has hundreds of episodes.

He also runs Best With 1 Games, a company that has launched a Solo Game of the Month every month since January 2024. So, when Gabe came to me in early 2024 asking if I would design a puzzly solo game for his Solo Game of the Month collection, I was both honoured and excited. Of course, I said an enthusiastic “yes!” when he asked. This would be the start of my journey designing Knight Moves, which I’m happy to share with you here.

In the Beginning

Gabe had some initial ideas revolving around moving your character through rooms with obstacles and enemies trying to prevent your progress. As soon as he spoke these words, the ideas immediately started to flow.

He also shared with me a cool gaming icons package that he wanted to use for the game.

I had previously found some success with my solo adventure game Relics of Rajavihara, so I used this as an initial starting point. The 8×5 grid board already existed and I knew I could craft another interesting puzzly game around this board, creating some new and novel ideas for gameplay.

The first version involved the Relics board, some enemies, and strange as it might sound, the bear pit tokens from Barenpark.  I didn’t have bear pits in mind for this game, I just needed some tokens with different values on them to indicate movement and this was the first thing that came to mind. Always use whatever you have on hand to test an idea early!

I placed the enemies in different spaces on the board and added some mini barrels that I had in my game component supplies. The mini barrels could be used to block enemy attacks. Then, I drew one of the tokens from a bag and set out to find ways to move through the room from a starting point to a far away door in that many moves or less. I could try to escape in as few moves as possible to carry over movement to the next room or try to defeat the enemies or grab a treasure along the way.

I had a character board from another game I had been working on that I used to track my health and extra movements as well. This functioned well enough to give me something to start from.

Gabe’s Feedback

 I made a version of the game, which didn’t have a name yet, on Tabletop Simulator (TTS) to show Gabe and get his initial thoughts. I just wanted to see if I was on the right track in designing the type of game he was looking for. When I showed Gabe how it all worked, he also thought it was a good start but felt there was something more interesting that could be done for movement. He suggested trying a movement system that relied on cards, moving like chess pieces perhaps.

This was the early breakthrough moment that I needed.

A Much Better Version of the Game

I set to work on making cards that allowed players to move in different directions. 3 spaces left, right, up or down; diagonally; 2 spaces in any manner; and a move that would later become the game title, a knight move (named after the movement of a knight in Chess).

However, I didn’t intend for players to simply use these cards from their hand one after the other to traverse the room. I wanted to give players interesting decisions about which moves to use and when.

So, I created each card to have 2 different options and the player would have to choose which option they would use on each card. For example, they might have to choose between moving up to 3 spaces in any direction or summon a crate to add to the board. Either move can be beneficial but which one you use and when you use it will be determined by your strategy, which was also an important part of the game.

The player would have numbered tokens they would place on one action or the other on each card, in the order in which they wanted to execute the moves. I allowed players to “plan” their move and try as many different strategies as they wanted to before committing to one plan they would actually execute.

Players could defeat enemies to gain experience, which would allow them to level up and gain or improve upon their abilities (as well as trash weaker cards from their deck). They could also collect a treasure chest, which would add a better card to their starting deck. They could also collect hearts to increase their health or just race through the room as quickly as they could. Each decision a player makes would really matter in the game.

I also wanted to give players different options for characters they could play. The champion starts off weak but levels up faster than the other characters and has the highest maximum health. The knight has more starting strength but levels up slower. The archer can hit enemies from further away but also levels up a bit slower. The bowmaster has more attack and range than the others but will need to defeat many more enemies to advance levels. All have different starting health and maximum health, and the differences in all these stats makes for interesting strategies for each character.

Adding More Replayability

I continued to tweak the characters, enemies, starting and upgraded movement cards, and stages until they provided just the right level of challenge and decision-making. A boss also faces you at the end of your 10-round mission.

But I wasn’t done yet…

While the gameplay varied nicely between the different characters, movement cards, and stages you’d progress through, giving the game a different feeling each time, I had a vision of something even bigger. I wanted you to become even more powerful and face bigger challenges the more you played, so I started creating some special item cards that did cool things that the other upgrade cards couldn’t. I added teleports, shields, dynamite, and a whole list of other fun items you could earn, then developed a campaign around this that you could go through to earn them.

Each time you beat an end boss, you will get to choose one of two special items to add to your deck. Then, you’ll run through another mission, facing a more difficult boss, and again earn an even better item. An entire campaign would last 8 missions and by the time you face the biggest, baddest boss, you’ll be incredibly strong as well.

Once you beat the campaign, you can always try again with a different character and/or choosing different special items to add to your deck.

The feeling of progression was something that was very important to me in the development of Knight Moves, both for the single play game and the campaign. Players have commented multiple times that they loved the sense of progression.

Wrapping it Up

It’s interesting to note that I’m not a huge fan of deck-builders, however, Knight Moves naturally moved in that direction as I was designing the game. I feel that this became an integral part of the game but feels very different than most deck-builders and has a lot of other elements, with the spatial puzzle and movement card selection, making it a truly unique game.

Sometimes you just have to go where the game wants to go!

I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the development of my latest game.

If you’re into puzzly games or just want to see how Knight Moves turned out, please check out the Gamefound campaign page. The campaign is in its final days, so you still have a chance to back the game.

Thanks for reading!