Vostok is a first year school project that I worked on for 10 months (Sep 2017 - Jun 2019) with a team of 5 students: 2 game designers and 3 game artists. I worked as a game designer / level designer. I also did a bit of narrative work and project management.
Vostok is a board game that was inspired by rogue like games where every playthrough is a bit different. The whole board is made up of 49 tiles that form 4 zones. Every time the players start a new game, the board will be semi randomly setup. The players can also choose between 4 unique characters that each have their own useful ability.
The players all play as a team versus the monster that is controlled by a card based AI. The aim of the game is to venture into an abandoned Russian nuclear base in the Antarctic, to gather 3 pieces of a nuclear weapon's blueprint. But the players have to be very careful, as a fearful beast has awakened from the Vostok lake due to nuclear tests.
The three pieces of the plan are scattered in three of the four zones. The players have to search every tile to find them. But each tile has a specific room / effect. For example there are frozen rooms where players will slide and not be able to stop until the next room.
Others, like the fire rooms affect the tiles around them, like the frozen room, that become water rooms when adjacent to a fire room. Each time a player walks over a new tile, that tiles' room is discovered and directly affects the adjacent rooms. But the players can use them to their advantage; each turn, a player can move a room in a straight line on the board. The players have to use their environment to their advantage to avoid the monster and gather all the pieces of the blueprint. But they have to be very careful, if a single player dies, the whole team loses.
Vostok
A Rogue-like co-op board game
