| After the Cold War Came Some Plane Thinking | |
Tony McNally, creator of the game Plane Thinking, recently sent in some comments on the process of designing his game. A resident of England, Tony has put together a game that simulates the world of deregulated airlines. The object of Plane Thinking is to be the most profitable pilot over a 22-day period by flying into the busiest airports ahead of your opponents.
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McNally, a resident of the United Kingdom, recently sent in this analysis of how Plane Thinking came to be.
Simple, shouldn't take too long. First I would need a map of the area. No problem -- I thought. The only problem was this was the first problem of over a thousand problems.
(I shan't list them all as I'm sure you don't want to hear them, anyway, youve probably got enough of your own so I'll skip the next 10 years.) Game completed: The Cold War.
General comments about the game: Too big, too cumbersome, too specialised, too complicated, too this, too that. It doesn't matter! I've just spent loads of time and money making something that nobody wants. I'll just give it up and call it a day...
Except that I've enjoyed making it, even though not many people liked it. So why not make one that's not too complicated, too specialised, etc. I know all the pitfalls. It should be a lot easier.
New game new name: Plane Thinking.
Objective -- Make the game from components that are readily available and do as much of the work as possible in house. Keep in the good bits and chuck out the not so good.
The best good bit and the thing that makes the game different is the Disk. This rotates underneath the game board and changes the value of things. I like to think of this as revolutionary. Enough of my big head.
This system has created the majority of the work involved in developing the game. It has evolved from a normal board type game to two moulded vacuum formed plastic sheets sandwiching a rotating cardboard disk. I know... "Too complicated."
Anyway thats how it turned out. Now all I had to do was make a vacuum forming machine, then make the tooling which will make the games. Easy ain't it.?
A bonus from this was that I can also make the boxes out of plastic.
Objective achieved. Now that 75 percent of the game is made at home, it's a lot easier to change things when they go wrong. And they do go wrong, frequently. (Like using non-sticky glue.)
Three short years later, the Plane Thinking prototype is completed.
Next job please!
The game comes in a large, white plastic container (about 2 feet in diameter) and includes a number of parts. Despite the apparent complexity, however, the rules fit comfortably onto three pages (with a separate four-page explanation using diagrams). As of this writing, I have yet to play it, but everything seems in order for a fun game with some element of luck (a die roll determines how many spaces you can move in a given turn) mixed with a significant amount of strategy (which routes you should fly, given the direction other players seem to be going).
Questions or comments about designing a board game? Post them on the About Board Games Forum.
In 1987 a light bulb appeared, as they do in cartoons, above my head: Why not make a board game depicting my occupation so my wife could show our young son where I was when not at home?
Thanks to Tony McNally for taking the time to write this piece. For more information about Plane Thinking, contact Tony at tony@mcnally12lisle.freeserve.co.uk.
