I'm still not sure how fun or playable my game is (not enough playtesting!), but I am proud of the ways in which the game mechanics relate to the theme. Before I started designing anything, I knew I wanted to make a game about life in the trenches during WWI.
The way shells fall on the battlefield represents the randomness of life and death in war times.
The way a soldier in the trenches can be replaced with a soldier from the deck with little consequence represents how the individual life of a soldier is undervalued. It is not important who fights and dies so long as someone fights and dies.
An able-bodied soldier, even when directly on top of a wounded soldier, is incapable of identifying the wounded soldier's allegiance without deliberate investigation. On all sides of war are people, and all people are destroyed by war equally.
After a set number of turns has elapsed, all wounded soldiers remaining on the battlefield perish. At this point, nothing more can be gained by either side, yet shells continue to fall. This represents how even after the fighting ends, war continues to destroy. Soldiers carry what they saw and what they did with them forever. For many, it becomes impossible to assimilate back into society after experiencing the horrors of war.
I like to think every mechanic listed was created for the reasons stated, but some of it might be bullshit with the help of hindsight. It's hard to tell.
There is a lot of room here for further iteration. For instance, I'd like to implement a mechanic that represents the lack of training young recruits frequently received. This lack of training directly influenced their chances of survival.
Later. Much later. I'm tired of thinking about this game.
Cheers,
Danny
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