R

Ghost Hunters is a 2-3 player board game prototype created as a project in university.

The challenge was to create an analogue game that can be played without a computer.

Design Process

Whilst brainstorming, I thought it about how to make a board game that the player could interact with in a way to would help them feel immersed in the game.

My first ideas utilised visible light, such as using light and mirrors in some way, or using light to play some kind of hide and seek in a structured way similar to Battleship.

After bouncing around ideas, I liked the thought of hide and seek and proposed a new idea - that focused more on the hide and seek and lines of vision. The seeker would search for the hiders on the game board using their phone camera. The group liked this and we began to develop the idea further.

Initial hide and seek concept utilising walls and the player's phone.

Fleshing out the idea - added a grid for the game board and walls the hiders could place.

Early layout concept - considered doorways, moving walls and treasures for players to collect

I drafted a very barebones set of potential rules as a starting point - 2 or 3 hiders would move along the board to hide, and after both players had moved, the seeker would get a chance to take a picture from a point outside the board to catch them in the photo. There were clear gaps that we didn't know yet (such as the hiders' goals) but that was fine for now.

We started by making a paper prototype, and as we made windowed walls to take photographs through, I was reminded of viewfinders and where I first learnt about them - during a school trip to Barbara Hepworth's sculpture museum in St Ives. Our game was quickly becoming as much a viewfinder game as it was hide and seek, and I loved it.

We experimented by taking pictures through the windows, making internal walls, and placing Lego figures as the 'hiders' on a grid made of 2cm x 2cm squares (luckily, the horizontal dimensions of a Lego block!). At this stage we got pretty excited because the pictures looked better than we expected. The miniature scale worked so well, and with the walls we made, taking a picture through a window viewfinder really made it feel as though we were taking a picture of the inside of a building, especially when a Lego figurine was in the shot.

Testing the window concept

View through the paper window

Testing for scale

Testing with more windows

Once we felt happy with the concept, we needed to build it using cardboard. That was when we realised the first glaring gap with our design. Our tests had been done in the open, and the Seeker needed to not be able to see where the Hiders were. The game board would need to be fully enclosed otherwise the game wouldn't work. Additionally, would the game board be as visible in darkness? Would the phone's flash be needed? Would the phones be able to focus in low light?

We realised that there was an easy solution - rather than breaking the cardboard box to make our game board, the box itself could be our game board. By placing the paper grid inside the box, we'd have our board, walls and a roof to completely hide what was inside from the Seeker. We tested the light and focus conditions and found that our phone cameras were perfectly fine to take the photos, even without flash.

Cardboard walls and lightning test

Windows cut into the box

With this, I then planned out exactly where the walls and windows would go. It took me a few iterations, but I wanted to ensure that each window had a limited view, and that every hiding place was visible by at least one window, but never more than 2 or 3.

The game rules at this point were that the two Hiders would be able to move an undecided number of spaces, in order to pick up treasures that were laid around the board. After they had moved, they would close the box and the Seeker could choose a window to look through to try and catch the Hiders. We also determined at this point that some of our earlier ideas (doors in the walls, moveable/placeable walls, etc.) were unnecessary. The core loop was fun enough as it was.

I felt like the Hiders gameplay was fun and interesting, but I was worried that the Seeker's gameplay would be too monotonous and their fun would fall off quickly. In addition I was worried that the windows that could see more space than others would be abused by the Seeker. We found a way to solve both problems at once.

I considered trying to get the Seeker to use a dice or something to add some chance to which windows they could open. A team member suggested colour-coding the windows, and that the dice roll could select which colour windows the Seeker could open. I loved this idea, and planned out which windows would be which colour.

Our box had three windows on the long sides, and 2 on the short, totalling 10 total. I split them into 4 colours, ensuring a few rules:

• No duplicated colour windows on any sides of the box.

• No colour had more than 3 windows, or less than 2.

• Each window have vision of a Treasure (increases the risk for the Hiders, and the chance of being

• The windows with the best sight lines (can see the biggest areas) could only be a colour with 2 windows, not 3. If the Seeker rolled this colour, they would have less windows to choose from, but more vision. (I had to rearrange a few walls to ensure this was possible).

Coloured window concept sketch

Colour coded windows

The final board layout

With this the game was nearly complete! We did some playtests and decided on a definitive ruleset. There was just one piece missing... the narrative! Who were the hiders and why was the Seeker trying to find them!?

Inspired by Disney's Haunted Mansion, I thought of the hiders being ghosts, and the seeker being a hunter trying to catch them on camera to prove their existence. The toughest part was deciding what the treasures the ghosts were searching for - and I decided on them being lost fragments of their memory. Once they had found them all the ghosts would disappear/pass on, and the ghost hunter would lose his chance.

Close up image of the board's internal layout

The final layout of the game map + Ghosts!

All that was left was for me to write up the final ruleset and present our game for other to play. For our demonstration we took photographs using a Polaroid camera - and that might just have been the best decision of the lot! Seeing the ghost figurines on the polaroid images brought a level of immersive satisfaction none of us were prepared for.

We got such good feedback from everyone that played it, that that we're considering developing it further - to possibly release to the public!

You can find the final ruleset for Ghost Hunters below.

Ruleset

Ghost Hunters is a board game for 2-3 players.

One player is the Hunter, and the remaining players are Ghosts.

The Ghosts are wandering the mansion, looking for their lost memories, while the Hunter wants to capture proof of their existence.

The goal of the Hunter is to capture the ghosts on camera, while the goal of the Ghosts is to collect all of memory fragments in the mansion without being seen by the Hunter.

ADDITIONAL GAME REQUIREMENTS

• 1 x camera (ideally with flash) can be a phone camera.

GAME SETUP

·         Place the Memory Fragment blocks on the map squares marked with a Circle.

·         Place each numbered wall on the map in the allocated position as shown on the map.

·         Place a Ghost for each player on the map squares marked with an X.

TURN ORDER

1.      Ghosts’ Turn

2.      Hunter’s Turn

3.      Remove any discovered Ghosts from the map

4.      Start new round

HOW TO PLAY

1.      While the box is open, all windows must be closed, and the Hunter cannot look inside the box.

2.      Taking it in turns, at the start of the round, Ghosts can move up to adjacent 10 spaces. Moving diagonally is not allowed.

3.      Ghosts can pick up items they ‘hover’ over, taking the piece from the board after their turn.

4.      After all Ghosts have played their turn, cover the board, by closing the box.

5.      The Hunter then rolls a 4 sided dice to select a colour.

6.      The Hunter must pick a window to look through that is the same colour they rolled.

7.      Opening the window, the Hunter takes a photograph (flash is allowed) through the window.

8.      If any ghosts are in the photograph, the Hunter must reveal the photo to the other players.

9.      Ensuring the Hunter cannot see inside the box, any ghosts revealed in the photo are removed from the board.

WIN CONDITIONS

If all the Memory Fragments have been collected by the Ghosts, and any Ghosts remain on the board after the Hunter has taken their photograph, the Ghosts win.

If all of the Ghosts are removed from the board, the Hunter wins.