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Sternhalmayhem

Solo Project

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For this project, the given brief was to take elements from two video games and translate them into a physical game. Sternhalmayhem is a spin-off of the German board game Sternhalma (aka "Chinese Checkers"), implementing the concept of spacetime manipulation from popular video games Portal and SUPERHOT to create a chaotic gameplay experience, hence its namesake.

SHM Render Set Up.png

Portal is a platformer that sees the player armed with a gun that shoots two ends of a portal, forced to solve different obstacle courses in order to advance through progressively more difficult stages. On the other hand, in SUPERHOT, the player plays as a fictional version of themselves who is playing the game superhot.exe which involves killing enemies in a first-person shooter style where time moves only when the player moves. Both games not only manipulate space and time to the player's disadvantage by expanding and compressing spacetime, but also allow users to control space and time to solve each level. I chose to modify the existing Sternhalma as Sternhalma is a game that already has a large element of space manipulation in its gameplay, where players have to use each other's pawns to their own advantage to get across the board. Therefore, I decided to modify its gameplay through further enhancing the spatial manipulation and adding temporal manipulation as an additional factor to the game.

Mechanics of the original Sternhalma

  • Number of players: 2-6

  • Objective: get all 10 pawns from your triangular corner to the opposite triangular corner (aka home)

  • Turns proceed either clockwise or anti clockwise

 

Possible movements (refer to diagram)

  • A: Move to a slot adjacent to the pawn’s original location.

  • B: Jump over an adjacent pawn.

  • C & D: Leap a sizeable distance over a pawn. The intervals between the original location, said pawn and the target location must have the same number of slots.

  • E & F: Jump consecutively over multiple pawns. Consecutive jumps do not have to be in a straight line. The intervals between the starting location, said pawns and the target locations must have the same number of slots.

  • In each jump, the starting location and target location can only have one pawn in between Players cannot jump over two or more pawns for any single jump.

SHM Render Movement Guide Labelled.png
SHM Render Close Up (2).png
Space Time Card Cover.png

Mechanics of Sternhalmayhem

  • All aforementioned rules and mechanics in Sternhalma apply to Sternhalmayhem without change

  • The hexagon in the 6-pointed star is divided into 6 platform tiles (barring the centremost slot)

  • Additional items: random timer and Space Time Cards

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Random Timer

  • The timer starts when the game starts

  • The timer goes off at random times

    • Minimum 30 seconds, maximum 3 minutes

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Space Time Cards

  • 30 Space Time Cards in total

    • 6 cards positively impact players, 6 cards negatively impact players, 6 cards swaps two players’ pawns, 12 cards swap two platform tiles (card effects shown in gallery below)

  • During a player's turn, if the timer goes off, they must pick up a Space Time Card

  • Once a Space Time Card is played, the card goes into the discard pile

  • The timer restarts when the player finishes their turn and the actions on the Space Time Card

  • Once all 30 Space Time Cards are played, the deck is reshuffled and the process repeats itself

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The colors of the pawns are also inspired by the color schemes of Portal (blue, orange and white) and SUPERHOT (red, teal and black), paying homage to both games while being distinct colors to differentiate between players. The hexagon at the center of the 6-sided star is divided into 6 equal tiles, which will be moved depending on the effects written on each Space Time Card. The side of each tile has an extended grip to allow players to easily grab onto when lifting them up, without having to worry about the pawns falling out.

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