Years ago, I read that Jake Solomon prototyped the Firaxis reboot of XCOM by making a simple board game version. Something rudimentary that could be played in the office on scrap paper to get ideas across and figure out where the fun would be, without having to commit. But it’s surprising to hear the same idea being used for a game as different from XCOM’s turn-based tactics as Star Wars Galactic Racer.
As Fuse Games’ creative director Kieran Crimmins told Eurogamer, “You can’t know if you can feel the system until you can play the system.” And so the early prototype of this high-speed arcade racing game was indeed a board game.
“You know, modern engines are so capable that you can do a lot of it in-software,” CEO Matt Webster said, “but there’s still something [about that which is] not as fast as getting a written idea down. From a board game perspective, you sort of decouple yourself from a particular prototype and you’re talking about moment-to-moment.”
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Specifically, the board game simulated Galactic Racer’s progression system. Its rewards differ based on the event, but typically offer tuning points to spend on one of three random stats, and maybe a part for your speeder that will affect its abilities or grant a bonus related to a specific status effect. After several races you get to go shopping, and spend the credits you’ve earned on more upgrades and parts, or a whole new ability.
It’s a progression system right out of a roguelite, with new unlocks added to a pool so they might appear in future runs, and each run handing out tuning points that can be used for permanent upgrades that carry over between them. Not something you expect in a racing game, and a system that presumably needed a bit of road testing to find the fun.
“There’s a prototyping tool for every kind of system that you want to prototype,” Crimmins said, “and the one that you pick should be the one that gets you there the quickest, and gets you to validate the emotion the quickest. So when it came to upgrades and meta progression, I can do a board game in a day. I mean, I say ‘board game’. A lot of it is Post-its and a scribble and some dice. But we’re trying to validate those feelings as quickly as possible. So you just pick the best tool for the moment.”