Game Design | Quality Assurance
September 2017 - November 2017
Chris Schickler
Game Designer
Leslie Leung
Asset Artist
Kait Chen
Card/Branding Artist
Julian Basso
3D Artist/Construction
Heated Steel is a miniatures board game where two pilots battle it out against an opposing team, utilizing both their environment and inventory to become victorious. Players will take the role of either a mech or drone, draw cards, gather resources, and initiate combat in this exciting strategy game!
The original idea for the game was to create something that felt like a strategic tabletop miniature game without the expensive cost. We felt Heated Steel accomplished this at the cheapest and most original way possible. We took a lot of inspiration from material such as Mech Warrior, Pacific Rim, and Armored Core.
In the ideation for Heated Steel I was looking at games like Warhammer and how cool it was to play with little figures. I felt that the immersion of the pieces in the boxes were as important as the the rules themselves. I didn't want players to feel like they were playing a board game, I wanted them to feel like they were pilots. This philosophy carried over to everything, from the figures to the rule book. My personal favorite asset to design was the blueprints.
The game requires four people to play. Players split into pairs; one pilots the mech and one pilots the drone. Here are the some of the rules:
- The object of the game is destroy 3 of your opponents mech parts.
- The game has three phases - a movement phase, a drone phase, and a mech phase.
- Movement is decided and committed before the round starts by holding up movement cards and showing the other players. Players can opt to not move at all or only move once.
- Fuel is the power source that lets players use cards. There are seperate cards for mechs and drones that have different strategic effects.
- Only the drone can pick up fuel, from supply truck tokens, and use it for their own cards or deliver it to mechs. Mechs can not pick up fuel.
- Mechs get cards by smashing buildings (landing on them). Drones get cards by landing on their home base (helipad) at the edge of the map.
- During the mech phase, the pilot may choose to attack with one of their cards. If they meet the fuel requirement, and the enemy is within a straight path of the player, they may attack. The player rolls a special d6 that contains a different mech part on each side. The side rolled is the part that is damaged on the enemy. 6 or more damage to a part destroys it.
- Fuel and damage is tracked on the blueprints.
Drone cards focus on supporting the mech with things like EMPs and repairs. The mech cards focus on combat with things like fireballs and swords. The game's goal is to promote meaningful decisions, by working together to manage fuel distribution and card use.