Western Roundup is a 4-player party game set in a far west environment and inspired by the Mario Party franchise. It was developed over 8 weeks by a team of 20. It features a game board phase with unique mechanics, along with 3 minigames.

For this project, I took the lead on designing the gameplay loop, and the board game side of the experience. The board was designed to cater to the wide range of player types usually found in the genre by providing a high level of expectancy while offering a deeper but optional level of strategy through its looping design, akin to lanes in a MOBA.

Leaning into the theme, players aim to get richer by exploring different environments, each with a different balance of risk/reward: explore the river for slow but safe gains, go through the mine for huge but uncertain rewards, or gamble it all at the saloon. This materialized in thorough design considerations of tile mechanics and placement. Replayability, variations and player interactions are supported by a series of optional items acquired randomly in-game.

The board and items design are based on a 34-page research on board phases in minigame compilations I did for this project. Excerpts from my documentation package can be found below, along with a download link for the complete documentation (all elements present are my work). Kieran O’Neil was responsible for engine integration on the board level. See the itch.io page for full credits.