The Begehr Mines: Game Design and Machanics

This board game was a concept for my first year Games Design course, to be made during the 3 week Christmas break. Initially we only needed a paper prototype and working mechanics, but I enjoyed the game design process so much I produced a finished playable prototype of the game within the deadline.

The title "The Begehr Mines" is a play on words from the German word "Begehr", which roughly translates to the sought after/want of material goods. The game is tile based, with normal resources and specialty resources.

Game Story: You are a Dwarf stuck in the mines (each dwarf has their own story and personality, though special abilities are not added in this version- currently this is just for fun) looking to find your way to fame and glory. You do this by finishing "Job Cards", and collecting resources to complete your jobs. The first player to 5 completed jobs wins.

Mechanics: The entire game is made without words, besides the Job card titles which are not important to game play. this is so the game can be played without a language barrier, or with children who cant read yet. living in a Multi-language environment has stressed how hard it is to find games that aren’t language reliant to everyone can play, so i was determined to make my game as language free as possible to allow everyone to play (as long as someone can initially explain the rules of course)

Production:

All of the art, production, game mechanics, and printing were done by myself with the exception of the resource cards. These were printed in a rush shipment from customstuff.co.uk.

(These guys were really a joy to work with, given the timing of the project they really went all out to print and get me the card in a two-day rush, the day before Christmas eve. They're amazing and I cant recommend them enough.)

The graphics were made in a combination of photoshop and Mstudio. the tiles were all laser cut out of a thin wood, with the illustrations then being printed on high quality matte paper and glued to each tile. A rulebook is included to describe game play, as well as having the dwarfs profiles just for fun. As with any proper game prototype, The bottom of the box lists the concept, the box contents, and a couple snarky jokes snuck in for those that pay attention.

I am currently planning an expansion to allow for 6-8 players and two additional resources, as well as other specialty changes.

#boardgame #gamedesign #toy #toydesign #graphicdesign #machanics #prototype #TheBegehrMines