Chessnomancy
by: Team Mulligan

Encounter Design Work

Key Contributions

Throughout Chessnomancy's development period, I was the sole encounter designer for the game, creating a total of 51 unique encounters.

Before Encounters

Early into development, the game didn't have encounter variance because enemies would also summon units. Removing this feature however made encounters too simple and easy.

before and after the feature was removed

After the core systems were finalized, one of the programmers created a custom editor which allowed rapid design expirimentation and testing. Using it, I was able to:

Rapidly prototype new ideas
Synergize unit positioning
Repeatedly test encounters for flaws

the game's level editor

Encounter Pacing

The encounters were each designed to scale in complexity over time.

Early encounters act more like sandboxes for players to expiriment in, yet still providing some challenge.
Later encounters were designed akin to chess puzzles, built to limit player actions for creative solutions.

This was further complemented by the enchanted pieces, allowing more complex board states while keeping the board easy to read.

An example of an early and late game encounter in different stages of development

While designign the encounters, I also ensured that:

Each encounter felt distinct
Each encounter never overwhelmed the player
Each encounter had a core theme

all 51 encounters found in the game

Boss Fights

My favorite expiriments however were the Elite and Boss Encounters. Unlike normal encounters, the enemy King was either given a unique movement pattern, had a second king, or both.

Because of the increased challenge, the enemy plays more defensively giving the player the offense compared to normal encounters. And to help the stronger kings stand out, they are given a golden model instead of a glowing one as seen below.

Examples of Boss & Elite encounters

Systems Design Work

Key Takeaways