Bodysnatchers!

I still can’t quite believe that my game is now a real thing that people are playing. It’s ticked off a huge personal goal for me, and I really enjoyed the process. I enjoyed it so much that I’m working on another 2 games, and writing my own RPG.

The process of finding publication was quite daunting at first. A lot of the big companies are so busy that they can’t even consider new projects for years. Others aren’t quite the right fit when you think about themes/mechanics etc. Eventually, I came across a great little company called Fights and Fancy, who already produce their own range of RPG companion products, and who wanted to branch out this year into boardgame publishing. They came to test play my game and liked it. We met up to discuss what working together would look like, and they shared with me some artwork concepts they’d come up with. I felt they were on my wavelength completely, and we signed the deal. They manufactured the game in-house and launched it at Airecon. I have them on the shelves in the shop. It’s all still a bit surreal, and exciting and terrifying in equal measure, and I feel as though this is a start of a whole new direction in gaming for me. As well as the next boardgames and the RPG, I would love to develop my own miniature based game, as I adore painting and modelling minis.

So, I love the whole creepy-cute aesthetic, and wanted to design something around that. The first thing I thought of was adorable skeletons running around looking for a new body. I decided to start by taking element of games that I particularly liked, and combining them together to see what I got. I’ve always been a fan of games where you build your own map as you go, as well as the mechanic of set collection, and I like cards to add extra dimension to your turn.

I mixed these ideas together and came up with Bodysnatchers! Basically, you play a skeleton in a race with up to another 3 skeletons, to collect (by any means necessary) all your body parts and enough gold to pay the dodgy necromancer for a ritual to make you human again. You build a town as you go, with good locations and bad locations, trying to avoid being seen and attracting the attention of Burke and Hare. The cards you draw as you go can really swing the game in your favour, or backfire spectacularly. You can steal your opponents arm, ship them off to a hostile location tile, or nick all their gold, but its just as easy to lose everything and end up without a leg to stand on (pun intended).

Overall, I want it to be a fun, fast paced, noisy game. The kind you see people laughing and being animated when they play it. I’m about to embark on playtesting, which is equally exciting and terrifying. Fingers crossed it works!

I managed to get salmonella poisoning and was out of action for a whole week. What better time to sit in bed, feeling sorry for myself, and get the prototype designed? I’m not too disappointed at how it turned out, considering it was created during a food poisoning fever dream, entirely on Canva, by someone (me) with zero artistic talent.

Next stop, playtesting!