The point of the City Accelerator is workflow: how do you construct a really cool space to set your game in the shortest possible time? Shotgun! For a city, where do you start? Well, you probably consider people first–as in “who lives here?” Alternatively, you could first ask “what can I see?” This is the … Read More
Qualifiers are really just metadata for your four axes; like absolute rankings they’re optional. Their role is mainly visual cues when you present your whole city as a single overview–then they can be used to hilight points of clue, attack, barriers and so forth. Most of these qualifiers are binary; they are either Active or … Read More
The simple version of ranking each axis is entirely relative; that is to say, all that matters is one axis is prioritised over another. You could also interpret the rankings as absolute numbers, if that’s useful. A sample scale might be: Rank 1 – either no consequence from the property, or a complete absence of … Read More
Location Axes Each location in a game will have parameters that define its usefulness and how it fits into the game or plot. I’m going to use an elemental model–because I like elemental models, and because they resonate with people generally. We will have four axes of significance for a given location. 1. Catalyst (Fire) … Read More
This is the first instalment of a series that considers a new tool: the City Accelerator. At some point there may be a game that uses this tool directly. But for now, the intention is to have a tool that can be applied to any and every game. Well, any game I care to run … Read More