About

Overview

Shadow of the Sun is a collection game where players race against each other to finish first. In addition, there is an objective reversal by allowing players to change between Night and Day Cycles. As a result, certain paths and doors open and close depending on the Cycle while the collection aspect changes to a different set of cards. Players will find this game fun because of the changing nature of the game as well as the subtle strategy involved.

Game Mechanics

Players needed: 2-4 players.

Rules:

• The game starts with all player tokens in the center.
•  Players then roll a die to determine who goes first. The player with the highest roll goes first and then it proceeds clockwise from there.
• From the center, players may exit through any door.
• The cycle that the game starts on is always Day.
• Players can only move the token respective to the current cycle.
• If a player lands on a Change Cycle tile, the cycle changes.
• If a player lands on a Draw Card tile, they then draw a card from the respective cycle deck.
• To enter the artifact room, you must have two cards of the same sun color/moon phase as the room of three sun/moon cards.
• Sun cards may only be used during the day and moon cards may only be used at night.
• You must enter through the door of the respective cycle.
• Yellow paths may only be used by day tokens, blue paths are only used by night tokens.
• You may not move through the middle space unless you have all 4 artifacts.
• One artifact per player per room.
• You may not enter artifact rooms again unless you are sent back.
• You cannot reverse the direction of your token mid-turn

Interaction:

• Players have the option of stopping on a space occupied by another player if they pass them. If a player lands on another player’s token from the opposite cycle: If they have less than 4 artifacts, they are sent back to start. If they have all 4 artifacts, they are sent to the closest artifact room.
• Tokens of the same cycle do not interact with each other.
• If another player is already on a space that is a cycle switch or draw card, nothing happens. If a player lands on the same space as their opposite token, they are immune to being set to start/artifact room until the next turn.
• In order to win, a player must collect the 4 artifacts from around the board and have one token return to the center.

Scoring

Scoring in “Shadow of the Sun” is not achieved through standard points-based scoring. Rather, players can gauge their progress via the amount of artifact cards that they have in relation to the other players. By observing how many Sun and Moon cards a person has in conjunction with how many artifacts that they hold, one can gauge how well that player is doing.

Prototyping

We prototyped the board on paper first. The group came up with several designs and then decided which ones we liked the best. After figuring out which design we liked the best, we then created a prototype to scale and began to playtest. During these initial tests with the group, we determined where the best places to put card aquisition points and flip switches would be. Once we were fairly pleased with the board, we then began to get outside playtesters. During this period of prototyping, members of the group printed out a mock up of the board for the purposes of the session. The board continued to be tweaked with each session until we arrived at a board that was balanced yet provided a challenge. For example, the board size changed from 23×23 tiles to 15×15 and became symmetrical. As a result, the number of die utilized dropped from 2 to 1. The number of cycle and card tiles were doubled. During the final bit of playtesting in class, we printed out a mock up with the final version of the board. The only complaints that this generated was that this prototype was rather small. However, the testers had an enjoyable time overall.

Role

I was the team lead on this project. As such I led team discussions, organized playtesting, and compiled the GDD. I also did the board art seen above.

Teammates

Wendi Kirker, Patrick Brown, Jesse Salcedo , Ryan Miczynski