Where to Begin?

Well, that was a tough one. I had a ton of ideas running around in my head, so I grabbed one of those small 4x6 notepads and began collecting ideas. I filled the thing in two months or so. I then had to start putting all my ideas together in order to get a mental picture of what this would look like. I decided to start with the major areas of my layout and what I needed them to include.

• Player Areas

I knew I wanted some kind of shelf that would pull out from the side of the layout and be big enough for all your character sheets and items. This was simple enough to take a few measurements and find the minimum amount of height and width I could use.
I also wanted drink holders, either with-in the pull out shelf or somewhere secure on the game board.

In each player “seat” I would also like to find a way to have all the character pieces in a small drawer or something, so that they only have to pull out the things they need. The idea is similar to a suggestion on the Arkham Forum to a beginner player to make up some Pre-configured Investigator Packages. Things that need to be available for each player are:

3 Sliders
10-12 6-Sided Dice
1 Red 10-Sided dice – Stamina
1 Blue 10-Sided Dice – Sanity
1-2 Green 10-Sided Dice – Clues
1-2 Black 10-Sided Dice – Money
(We use D10's instead of the cardboard chits for the previous 4 items.)
1 2-sided object like a coin or elder sign – used for abilities that can only be used once per turn. The player simply flips the object to know they have used that ability that turn and “refreshes” it at upkeep.

• Rolling Areas

The game is heavily dependent on rolling various quantities of six-sided dice. I would need a place to do so with-in easy reach of the player rolling. The two options were either a community, centrally located, area, or individual areas located near each player.

Currently, I am planning to use “Rolling Alleys.” Basically these are green felt lined 4” wide and about 1-2” deep alleys that span the length of the board sides. Each player will have their own and a wall to throw against at either end of their alley. These will be especially good for giving the side walls of the board some strength and will work as guides for the opposite piece to clamp onto when closed. (this will be explained in a future section in more detail with diagrams and pictures.

• Mythos Area

This would need to be a large storage bin as well as a place to display all the cards and items used to progress the game. I created an extensive list of these items with all their measurements and decided, based on game play flow and item size, the best way to place them.

What I came up with was basically a storage box with many layers inside. The top of the box, when closed would be used as space for the AO card, and a herald or guardian (if one or both are used). The extra space from the herald/guardian could then be used as a Final Battlegrounds at the end of the game for player tokens. Inside this bin would be the topmost layer and would contain a tray to store all the Investigator cards, as they needed to be stored somewhere and were the same size as the AO cards. The next layer would contain the AO cards, and under that would be all the “special” items used for each AO chosen, maybe separated into small containers labeled by the AO name.

Next to this box, I could place a similar sized box to be used as the Monster Cup. Around these two main boxes I would place the other items needed during the Mythos Phase:

Mythos cards – Draw and discard piles
Current Mythos Environment in Play space
Gate Token box and Gate limit track or indicator
Doom Token box
Clue Token Box
Stands box
Terror Track
Monster Limit track or indicator
Outskirts Area and Limit track or indicator
Sky Area
Lost in Time and Space Area

• Game Board

This leaves us with just the meat of the board where all of our 3D models will reside. This section can actually be broken up into 2 separate areas: Arkham and Other World (OW) Areas.

The current Board has the OW areas located to one side of the game board all in a line. Added expansions continue this trend by adding 2 more OW areas along the same side on the new board, therefore making a nice, seamless transition when adding an expansion.

I wish to work this a bit different as players on one side wont be able to reach the OW spaces on the opposite side. Also, I need to maintain the transition of OW areas when adding new boards.
Currently, my idea involves putting the OW areas in a line like the original game does, but moving it to the middle of the board and sinking it down a layer into the base. This would give me some “walls” to extend the OW areas up onto as a forced perspective. Adding the new OW areas in the middle of the new boards would continue the seamless transition also. My concern though is the way it breaks up the Arkham area into 2 separate sections. Not terrible, and possibly workable, but so far I haven't come up with anything better. I do not wish to have a separate piece for the OWs, as one of the objectives is to have everything (or most everything) attached and secured for travel within the board itself.

Now what?

Well, defining the major areas helped and allowed me to start some basic diagrams of the layout ideas. Although I still have some things to work out and the layout can be changed in the future, I felt I had enough to start some basic sketches. Look for a future post about the layout to learn more.