The Process

For Honor or Infamy was born as a passion project when I looked for a way to share my love of role playing games with my wife. We enjoy board games together, but RPGs are a step too far (though she’s a good sport about it). I sought out a light version in the genre that could be played in a single session and also leaned on some of the game mechanics from strategy games that I know we both love, but I came up empty-handed.

In this absence I started imagining a game that combined the problem-solving puzzle mechanics of strategy games with the narrative sandbox of RPGs. With these needs in mind, I weeded through the systems and mechanics that didn’t support my vision, and developed a puzzle supported by two pillars: a resource-collection system that embodies the player’s attributes, and a hybrid deck- and tableau-building system representing the player’s narrative journey through the world. I followed an agile philosophy of keeping my early system executions small in order to playtest and reiterate quickly. Once these condensed systems started to hum, I was able to scale them and create a vaster world waiting to be explored.

UX Challenges

The first and largest obstacle was distilling all of the elements of a RPG down to a much smaller form factor: a game that could be played in around 90 minutes. And within this smaller window, the player still needs to tell a meaningful story.

I started by narrowing a player’s many attributes down to just three: bravery, cleverness, and spirit; matching the three major character archetypes of warrior, rogue, and mage. Players choose how to build up their three tracks by earning experience and resources on the tile-based board. Because player choice is core to the RPG experience, each track connects to a morality compass as well: each of the three player attributes can push towards Honor or Infamy; good or evil.

Narrative discovery comes alive through a market deck of Journal cards, made up of characters, locations, and relics. Players use their resources and attributes to engage with this market and add Journals to their own deck, which can be played for temporary bonuses or eventually added to their tableau for permanent powers. The wide range of cards empowers a real sense of discovery, and the thematic flavor of tracking encounters in a Journal captures the player’s journey coming to life.

Production

To visually express players building their own quest journals, each character, location, and relic card is formed to look like a journal page. The illustration style I chose was very intentional: approachable, to meet players hesitant or averse to RPGs; colorful, to express a whimsical, quirky and often humorous tone; and fresh, to clearly define this world as my own and as something new. In For Honor or Infamy, I’ve been free to color in a brand new world, full of original factions, creatures, magic, and a wide cast of characters.