My board game, Evoke, has been the most exciting step of my designer journey yet. You know when you have a board game that you want to play with your friends and family, but then just end up defaulting to play a much easier game instead... because it's just so quick and it always seems to deliver fun?
Evoke has become my family's default game. I've played it almost 300 times (as of 12/20/24) and I am still not tired of it.
The premise is that you are wizards in warring guilds locked in a dungeon for illegal magic and someone cast a spell that wiped everyone's memories out temporarily. The goal is to escape the dungeon by not being chained up at the end of the final round. And you win by escaping with more guild members than the other guilds.
So during the game, you will learn about your own history and allegiances as well as the other players'. What happens when you gain info about players that they don't even know??? You get to tell the truth. Or bluff. Or really say anything you want.
These mechanics lead to really interesting scenarios, similar to social deduction style games.
But there was always something about social deduction games that bothered me that I aimed to fix with Evoke. In most social deduction games, the stakes are very high to not be caught in a lie. Say something wrong and the game is over. They know that you are the werewolf. Etc, etc.
That's why in my game there are:
Multiple cards (memories) that add up to the "loyalty" of your guild / faction
Cards can be added to the tableau of memories
There are spells that can remove cards or switch cards between players
It allows players to take bluffing risks without feeling too intimidated that they will lose the game or that they let their team down. If they don't like where the game is going, they can try to manipulate the game to switch teams (or put someone else on a different team).
Since it is nearly impossible to have perfect information, or reliably swindle people into divulging information, it keeps the wonder until the very last reveal. Most games of Evoke end with a cheer, or an, "Awwwww!" People stand up in anticipation when someone is about to reveal a card.
Here is a fictitious example of an end-state (which also explains some edge cases in ties)
OK, so this is technically a diary, not an advertisement. So let's answer the question: How did I come up with this game?
Well, as I alluded to earlier, I love social deduction games and so do my kids. But, I don't love everything about the genre. I started to ask the question: "What if information is revealed as the game goes and steadily starts to ramp up, rather than suddenly climax and end abruptly?" I started to think about how to build in traitor mechanics and other ways to achieve this, but was falling short. However, that line of thinking made me think of Boromir from Lord of the Rings and Judas from the Bible. How did the rest of their groups who had a common goal not see the traitor coming? Well, each person in the fellowship and each disciple had their own personality and level of devotion / loyalty. Hmm... Judas didn't even know he was going to be the traitor. Boromir was pulled by the power of the ring.
Boom. There would be memories that each player has, but they don't even understand all of their motives themselves. And then it came to me: There could be amnesia or some reason why player's memories were temporarily lost.
I started to think of scenarios where players would need to work together but then second guess each other. Here were my scenario brainstorms:
My instinct led me to slip back into the Social Deduction traps and tried to assign roles to people in the "Criminal" theme. Here were my initial thoughts:
But... I REALLY struggled to meet the original vision with this approach.
So, I decided to go with Rebels / Vigilantes AND use the scenario of being locked in a jail cell. I procrastinated trying to figure out the mechanics and instead wrote out a detailed background:
I stared blankly at the scenario and tried to put myself in the shoes of the characters. How will I know that I am a Rebel or a Vigilante? I could deal out bits of information about each player to each other player, and then they would have to negotiate information? No, that would be too volatile. What about partial roles that mash together, like Smash Up armies? How would that even work?
Then it hit me that there could be cards with varying loyalty points that would be handed out to each player. THOSE COULD REPRESENT MEMORIES!! I was excited with this breakthrough. I immediately started to prototype the cards. Ugly... I know.
Then I thought I could add memories that give players abilities. These would take up a memory slot, but it would be thematic, because players are gaining their skills back:
What other actions can be taken in the game... I wondered. People need to be able to break out of the jail cell, so they should have strength. But they will need to work together with a released person to help them break out of their jail cell. Also, there should be intelligence, which will help them break out of the jail... which could be locked by a puzzle. Dexterity could be another stat, which will help them run from the guards and survive.
Each player could have Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity, PLUS I love asymmetry, so I can give them player powers as well.
Here is an example player card:
In the end, I made a playable prototype that seemed to work decently well on the first try. I received feedback that the player stats and the breaking out of jail was clunky and it was hard to keep track of the memories.
It was time to go to work on improving this idea!
To Be Continued....
(Looking forward to making a Part II in a couple of weeks!)
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