A Walk in the Dark A look in to the mind of an RPG designer

Cartographer’s Guild Mapping Challenge

A few weeks ago I decided "this was the month I was going to do it," and by "it" I meant participate in the monthly Mapping Challenge posted by Cartographer's Guild. Kind of thankful I didn't think that way last month; it involved making an actual, physical diorama.

So today this month's challenge was posted:

This months challenge is to take an existing board game and give it an update and maybe a cool twist as well. Battle Ludo, Orkish Chess, Steam Punk Monopoly, Lizards and Stairs - what ever fun idea you can come up with - just remember to use an existing game as "base".

In the beginning, there was concrete...

I was worried for a bit, but I decided to roll with it... And have decided to use the game "Clue" (or "Cluedo" to you non-Americans) as the basis for my version of "Dungeon Clue". I assumed it existed - actually, while I was writing this very post someone pointed out the existence of Clue: Dungeons and Dragons - but that's not stopping me.

My goal is to try and document the process in some sort of tutorial format as the map progresses. It will not be easy since I do not have any drawing ability, so the map will have to be created entirely through the use of ProFantasy Campaign Cartographer 3 clip art and whatever visual effects I can pull off inside of the Adobe CS5 Master Suite (Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc...).

I will of course have to make some adjustments. For example, I don't know of many dungeon lairs that will have a "Billiard Room" (then again, I'm sure one of you out there has had one at least once), so I will be choosing rooms to fit the theme and decorating them accordingly. I don't know what they will be yet.

Whether I go as far as making actual game mechanics I cannot say, but if I do I will try to make said rules game neutral: they won't be D&D, Pathfinder, etc... I don't want to start a whole new wave of Edition Wars for a board game.

Now, in and around all the other crap I have going on these days, let's see if I can pull this one off...