Quazo’s Gambit

4-Player
Board Game

July 2024 | Lead Designer

ABOUT

A 2-4 player An arena-style board game where players battle over jewels scattered across randomly placed ‘biome’ tiles on an 8×8 board.

A game of luck and strategy, roll the dice to win battles and plan ahead to gain the most of your three movements.

Additionally, players control one of four characters, each with different abilities and playstyles. Each character benefits from one of the four ‘biomes,’ or ‘domestic tiles,’ gaining extra movements and strength in battles.

Take advantage of your character’s abilities and placement on the board to collect as many jewels as possible, and store them in the bank for safe-keeping.

At the end of the 10th round, the player with the most jewels in the bank wins.

How to play the game:

My Role

As the Lead Designer of this project, I was responsible for overseeing the development of game pieces, prototypes, and rules.

Throughout the three weeks we had to complete this project, we relied on playtests and an iterative design model to continually improve on balancing and mechanics. I coordinated playtests, assembled prototypes, and kept notes on how players responded to each iteration of the game.

Other Contributions:

  • Created the Tabletop Simulator mod by porting the Quazo’s Gambit assets into TTS and making the version accessible through the Steam Workshop.

  • Authored five of eight unique character abilities and was responsible for balancing these abilities through our iterative design model.

  • Designed the ‘mana token system’ which introduced a new resource that players would need to collect to use their abilities. This led to more balanced gameplay.

  • Designed the physical game board and cut it so that it could be folded three times to fit in a small box, which was required by the instructor.

  • Developed the movement mechanics in which all players have an equal and predictable number of movements per turn but can gain more by moving strategically.

  • Proposed and designed the ‘jewel replacement’ mechanic, which used a D4, each side corresponding to one of the four tile ‘biomes,’ to randomly return jewels to the board after a failed ‘bank robbery’ attempt. This solved a balancing issue where ‘gambling’ jewels during robberies would lead to unfair jewel distribution among players and a reduced incentive to gamble.

The Team

Gameplay Design: Matthew Kassorla, Mateo Salazar

Assets & Game Pieces: Matthew Kassorla, Mateo Salazar, Qixuan Wang
Art & Character Design: Alvin Shi