Making of Disaster on Everest - Victory Point Games

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So, in the game, players take the roles <strong>of</strong> these “travel companies” who hire skilled climbers to assist their high-paying clients seeking to reach the Top <strong>of</strong> the World. Clients and guides use their movement points, but to add to the planning and strategy, not everyone can move each a turn. Additionally, clients have traits that can aid or hinder their climb, while guides have a variety <strong>of</strong> useful skills. These traits and skills add to the personality <strong>of</strong> the game, creating more strategic options and fascinating decisions for the players. With these variables, the gameplay is different every time, even if you try the same methods. The Hillary Step The first mechanic I tackled was how to handle the Hillary Step. The Step is a rock wall that is the one technical portion <strong>of</strong> the climb. Traditionally, Sherpa or other expert climbers scale the wall first, setting ropes for the others to use as they follow. While it’s not literally a queue or completely random, I thought that injecting a die roll here and making it a literal queue in the game would help capture that feeling <strong>of</strong> frustration <strong>of</strong> being caught behind slower moving people. There is randomness to it, and yet you can control things a bit by deciding when to put people into the queue and in what order. Going up and down the Hillary Step is ultimately handled in a very different way than moving on the rest <strong>of</strong> the mountain.
The Impending Storm The second mechanic I needed to come up with was how to handle the storm. For the purposes <strong>of</strong> this game, the storm IS going to come. But like in the movie War Games, the only real solution to the game is not to play at all. Everyone should stay back at High Camp or run screaming down the mountain, but that wouldn’t make much <strong>of</strong> a game. So we assume that not only is the temptation <strong>of</strong> wealth and fame pushing you to send people out on this fateful day, but that perhaps you really don’t know what’s coming, and you’re certainly not going to disappoint these high-paying clients. Thus, the conflict is writ large between people and the environment. So the mechanic <strong>of</strong> spending prestige and thus “selling your soul” to delay the storm, therefore exposing your guides and tourists to experiencing Events (both good and bad) felt like the right mechanic to capture this feeling <strong>of</strong> the impending disaster. As added incentive, the points earned are high for getting clients to the summit, and there are substantial penalties if they do not at least reach the Hillary Step. In the beginning, it all seems easy and players think that they’re going to get everyone up and down. But right around the Summit, they start to realize that there’s no way to get everyone down the mountain in time. That is the feeling I wanted to capture: an “Oh, crud! How are we going to get out <strong>of</strong> this mess!?” sense <strong>of</strong> doing your best in an increasingly desperate situation. The Events As in real mountain climbing, fate might supply good and bad events along the way. You’ll have control over some <strong>of</strong> them, while others are simply forced upon you. Each event adds to the story narrative, lending verisimilitude to the gameplay experience, and thus your team may narrowly avoid an avalanche or be slowed by a particularly icy ridge. The blocked ridges in the game represent places where things slow down because there are so many people on the mountain. These are actual occurrences when too many people try to summit on the same day. Blocked ridges can also represent where new ropes need to be laid to help guide the less skilled clients. In any case, they are frustrating bottlenecks that happen on Everest, and therefore happen in the game as well. Success in navigating around these blocked ridges <strong>of</strong>ten plays a large role in determining your overall victory.
Page 1: By Tom Decker Disaster</str

Making of Disaster on Everest - Victory Point Games

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