In 2017, I bought "Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game" as a birthday present for my sister. That was my gateway game and she never got it back.
From there, my love for the hobby grew and naturally led me to want to design my own board game. And so, inspired by games from my childhood, I set out to create a tower building game. While I was googling "how to design a board game," I came across the Game Artisans of New Zealand (GANZ) community on Facebook. I went to the first meet-up that month and have been going to them regularly for 6 years now.
On and off over the next several years, I trialed countless concepts and core mechanics for the game at those meet ups. Inevitably, as a first-time designer jumping in at the deep end with this game, I got pretty stuck. And boy, was it frustrating. But it was also one of the best lessons I had to learn about the process of game design and figure out what works for me.
In 2021, I came across a post on the GANZ Facebook page about a design contest - the Otto Awards held at Fastaval, Denmark's largest role-playing and board game convention. At that point, I didn't have a working game. But, unlike some of the other contests, the requirement was only a 1-page pitch of the game idea, no rules or video required. And so, with nothing to lose, I submitted High Rise Hustle (it was actually called Tower Architect at the time). Two weeks later, to my surprise, the pitch was accepted. We had 6 months to deliver the game.
The following months were intense to say the least. We had to turn a malfunctioning game idea into THREE working prototypes. It also coincided with our second Covid lockdown here in New Zealand, so playtesting was a huge challenge. We even submitted a very early version of the game to the Ion Awards that year to get some feedback. The whole process was a vicious cycle of fixing one thing, which always broke another. At the time, I was pulling my hair out but now, I see that it was a really important lesson on how to be more holistic and mindful about making tweaks. Through it all, I was incredibly grateful for the support Fastaval provided us. They assigned each designer with a mentor and also built an amazing community among the contestants to share and connect. I seriously cannot recommend Fastaval enough for all the designers out there. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I learned so much about game design and also a lot about myself.
Anyway, fast foward to April, Fastaval kicks off and feedback for the game starts to trickle in. This was my first experience of a proper playtest with structured feedback. And let's just say, it's a tough but truly invaluable lesson. On the last day of Fastaval, I woke up in the morning (New Zealand time) to a congratulatory message from my mentor - the game had been nominated for Best Innovation. I was speechless. While the game still had a long way to go in terms of development, the nomination gave me hope, drive and determination to see this through.
Over the next year, I took the game to local conventions and participated in (a little too many) contests, while continuously learning from feedback and tweaking the game. In 2023, the game was a finalist for the Ion Awards, which was so amazing to know that we've made good strides in the past year. It was also a finalist for the 2022 Boston FIG Best Hobby Game and a semi-finalist for the 2022 Board Game Workshop Design Contest.
We've learned so much on this journey and are so proud of our progress. We look forward to sharing more soon!