RolL Player Adventures Promotional Puzzles

About

1 Player | 10-20 minutes

Category: Fantasy, Promotional Material

Mechanisms: Puzzle, Dice Manipulation, Hand Management

This was a unique project where I was hired to create puzzles to use as part of the Kickstarter promotion for the game Roll Player Adventures, designed by Keith Matejka, Peter Andrew Ryan, and James William Ryan and published by Thunderworks Games. Roll Player Adventures is a co-operative storybook board game for 1-4 players set in the world of Roll Player. This is a “choose your own adventure” type game, where players read the story while making key narrative decisions and solving dice manipulation challenges through an 11 book campaign.

This project involved creating puzzles to be used as part of a promotional mini-story that was released over several updates during the Kickstarter campaign. This mini-story was reflective of the actual board game experience and had its own original story, semi-branching narrative, and dice puzzles. For each update, Kickstarter backers would vote in the comments which direction they wanted the story to take next. At two key places in the story, players were presented with one of my puzzles and asked to answer how they would solve it in the comments.

SERVICES PROVIDED

• Puzzle Creation

PROJECT OVERVIEW

For this project I created several puzzle variations and their associated answer keys. Due to the Kickstarter schedule and to accomodate all branching story paths, I had to complete all puzzles even though only two would ultimately be used.

There were two puzzle types: skill check puzzles and combat puzzles, with one of each being used. Each puzzle was a single large image consisting of a setup (player board state, set dice faces, available cards, and any special rules) and a specific goal players had to match by manipulating the elements of the puzzle. Players had to use the game elements provided to reach their goal in one simulated game turn. Certain changes and restrictions had to be put in place for the puzzles, noticeably no randomness nor allowing players to roll dice, as that could not be controlled and would lessen the engagement of the carefully crafted experiences.

The two types of puzzles had to be unique and feel very different, utilizing different setups, cards, and different goals. Crafting puzzles was challenging. I had to create puzzles that were the right difficulty, yet did not have an obvious answer. Due to the combo potential of cards and nature of the game, there were multiple times I crafted what I thought was a fantastic puzzle only to realize there was a workaround solution that could be done fairly easily.

Project Highlight: Promotion Through PUzzles

I had to do more than create interesting puzzles representative of gameplay, I had to do so in the best way to promote the game.

My only real requirement on the project was it needed to be tied to the exisiting mini-story which was already written. It was important for the Kickstarter that players understand how integrated the dice puzzles and narrative of the game would be tied together, as well as how their choices may lead them to different dice puzzles. For the skill puzzles I created, this theming requirement determined the end state goal players had to reach with their manipulated dice. For the enemy encounter puzzles I created, there had to be an Owl Bear and Kobold involved.

Beyond the theming, things were largely left to me. Being a playtester of Roll Player Adventures and knowing the developer, I had a good understanding of what made the puzzles of the game fun: non-obvious tough choices and cool combos of cards. I also wanted to highlight some of the new effects seen in Roll Player Adventures that differed from the core Roll Player, like Strike cards that could be used multiple times, enemy modifier cards, and the unique Class Ability cards. I worked these into my puzzles so they were used in creative ways.

My puzzles generated a lot of comments in their updates and were shared on social media, engaging viewers and generating more traffic while giving a strong idea of the game’s dice puzzle interactions. It was a small but meaningful part of the game’s Kickstarter marketing, with the Kickstarter going on to earn over $670,000.