Project Chthonic (New Heroquest-Based Board)

[sorcerersapprentice]

I have the ability to both design and publish a new 18 x 18" gameboard reminiscent of Heroquest* but of course, styled differently with a different arrangement of rooms, new floor tiles and hallways. I'd like to create larger rooms for a start, a row of rooms more reminiscent of a prison, but will also include room tiles that can be used to modify the baseplate.

Are there any suggestions on modification to base board layout?
And is anyone interested in this or have I missed the boat with all the hirsts, resin and 3d equipment around now?

Naturally, this won't be a 'Heroquest' board, but highly suitable to being used as one.

Also, thinking two boards might be a nice mod - make one a lower level dungeon, the other an upper level one.

Ideas?

[*HQ board is roughly 19 x 11"]

[sorcerersapprentice]

Here's my prototype.



Why these particular changes? Well, a few reasons actually.

- There was only one large central room where any large decent set-up (including all-out-warfare/brawling) could take place, my board subdivides the space to create three more whilst retaining that signature middle room.

-I always felt there should be more passages to connect the rooms to open up the board a little more.

- the two square wide hallways were nice, but not long enough. I've swapped them around so the left and right passages are now longer and wider, allowing more fighting, more traps, more surprises. (like back-to-back ravine tiles

- I always like the idea of the two 3 x 2 rooms together, but I thought there should be more of them to create a neat little row that can more easily represent a cluster of tombs, graves, prison cells, living quarters etc.

- where possible, the narrower rooms that measured 3 squares across have been made larger so that there are less poky rooms and more can be put into them. There are now rooms long enough to host a gauntlet to run through, hall of war, long table feast, library, sizable armed forces, armory and barracks, and generally more impressive layouts which (I felt) the smaller rooms hampered.

- Not many rooms could fit a lot of furniture except for the middle, which was often stuffed full of monsters, and which the furniture cut into available space TO stuff it full of monsters...

[StratosVX]

I'd say additional boards are nice, however I don't know how many people would order one. I've found many boards online that are free to download, you just have to pay to have them printed at a local print shop. This saves on money and people can print on whatever material they prefer. One piece of advice is to get your board into HeroScribe. A lot of people on here use that program because it makes great maps and it's pretty easy to use (once you learn how). I think that would help make your board get used more.

[sorcerersapprentice]

[edit] Hi StratosVX - I don't know either, just rolling the dice - and there are some nice boards to download and print for sure, and that should always be an option for people. I'm not reinventing the wheel, just having fun creating new bits and pieces and seeing what I can do.
My boards wouldn't be expensive and would have my special brand of art on them. They are professionally produced and I'd be adding a swag of modifiable room tiles and such to it to make it a stand-alone kit. And customizing the board might allow me to tweak the size to better fit my GTW tile cards and reclaim that few mm that is in the way of a perfect replica.
Thank you for the advice, Baylor recently showed me Heroscribe, its pretty cool, so I'll chase that lead up.

[StratosVX]

A lot would probably depend on the price of the board. If it is a lot cheaper to make your own (or to emulate it with modular boards, as a few people have) then I doubt there would be a lot of interest. If you could keep the price down, that would help.

[clmckay]

There's also square size to consider. Several make their own board from the images so they can size the squares to their choosing. I generally do 3cm squares printed on vinyl. Super durable, easy storage and great price.

In my humble opinion, Teldurn was right when he recommended Heroic Maps, awhile ago. That's the perfect method, they churn out a ton of hi quality graphics maps, then you print it how you like.

[sorcerersapprentice]

WOW! Just looked at Heroic Maps. Looks like that particular aspect's already in the bag. I will have to analyze these carefully to identify and exploit a niche - if there's any.
However, I will continue with project chthonic, even if sales seem bleak, lol, if only for technical practice.
Hm. could probably sell a 18 x 18" map for I dunno, $15 + postage.

[StratosVX]

If it isn't expensive to make, you can always make just a few to gauge interest and if it turns out there isn't much interest, you won't be out a whole lot. Hopefully there will be though.

[knightkrawler]

What you could do with that size would be a labirynthine structure like a cave with hallways alternating between one and two squares wide. I would buy that if a square is at least 30 mm.

[Anderas]

Or you just generate overlays.
An overlay that is covering an entire quarter of the Hero Quest Board: That leaves enough freedom to play with larger rooms, Hallways in odd places or odd sizes, labyrinth structures.
You can have some which would cover also the adjacent Hallways to allow for more design freedom, and some that leave the adjacent Hallways free.
And it allows for reuse with the original Board. You can sell it in two modes:
1. With rubber underside for shift-free modularity,
2. and as digital copy like Heroicmaps, as High Quality PDF: then everybody can print them fitting to their Board Size / Material.

The argument could go: "You can do that with modular single room tiles on the original Board, too".

Sure. But if you surpass a critical mass of modular cardboard tiles, at some time, it will start to shift around, losing coherency.

I recommend looking at the Forum Board/tile section, for "Prison Block"; that shows the principle pretty good.



Another Idea, if you want to go into production:

Modular Tile fixing door Counterbases. Some kind of clamp that would clamp modular tiles so they don't shift, but other than the plastic tiles you find everywhere, don't damage your cardboard because they'd have a soft inlay. They'd have a as-thin-as-possible underside so they don't lift the board too much, and a flat upper side that serves as base to place a door on it. With a door placed on top, they are more or less invisible.
I wouldn't do them, but if someone picks this idea, i'd spend some bucks on it. This my idea is under the lesser gnu license - you may reuse it to make money with it, but you're not allowed to reserve it for you alone.