SQUIRREL ISLAND

A strategy card game

SUMMARY

As a squirrel on squirrel island, you don't scurry to survive, you do it to win.

Manage your resources and collect more nuts than your rivals in this engaging strategic card game.

This project has been under development for over 7 years. However, we haven't worked on it constantly it's more been something on the shelf we worked on in our free time.

In 2022 we decided to release the game on Tabletop simulator as well as a print-and-play file.

PROJECT BREAKDOWN

Board game
Developed by me and my brother Robin
Placed 4th and 3rd in Swedish Nationals in board game design in 2017 and 2019
Free to play through Itch.io
learn more at SquirrelIslandGame.com

Note:

My contribution is in game design, managing social media, and developing the game together with my brother Robin.
All artwork is made by Robin.

HIGHLIGHTS

THE RULE BOOK

HOW TO PLAY VIDEO

DESIGN CHOICES

WHY SQUIRRELS?

I started this project without a theme. Instead, I focused on game design and particularly interactive game design.

After many iterations, I felt that the main mechanic I liked was the Loop mechanic and I felt that adding a theme to the game to highlight this collection of resources would help sell the mechanic even more and also create more fun gameplay.

I believe having a strong theme helps players understand its mechanics because it makes sense for them and feels logical to play.

Me and Robin (on the right) getting 3:rd place in SMIBD 2019

FEEDBACK FROM OTHER DESIGNERS

Getting feedback from anyone is the most crucial part of developing a game.

Thanks to participating in the Swedish championship in board game design (SMIBD) I learned that feedback from professionals is a tremendous opportunity to get better.

we competed in both 2017 and 2019 with Squirrel Island and both times we changed our game a lot as a result for the better.

PRINT AND PLAY

We planned on doing a Kickstarter but decided to release it as a print-and-play and a MOD to Tabletop simulator instead.

The reason being neither of us had the time or budget needed to make a successful Kickstarter and instead wanted to focus on getting the game out to as many people as possible.

We have been getting much positive feedback for our game and it's been a very special feeling to get pictures sent to us from other board gamers around the world, printing them out and play at their home.

BALANCING

Balancing Squirrel Island has been done through many different steps. In the first few years, it was only done by feelings and intuition. As we started to compete with our design and talked to other designers we realized our decisions for the cost of a card and abilities needed a rework.

We started to give our mechanics numbers and did a very easy formula for how much value a card should generate depending on its cost.

We also mapped out how many cards we had in each cost to increase the likeliness of a player being able to play a card early and how many they would be able to play in the late game.

PLAYTESTING

FINDING OUR AUDIENCE

After we reached a point in our game design we started to travel to events to showcase it.

This was a great opportunity to find out who liked our game and what types of players specifically found it interesting.

We also made questionnaires for players to fill in anonymously since sometimes people can avoid saying what they feel when the designers are in front of them.

GOING DIGITAL

Eventually, we reached a point where we stopped trying out new mechanics and focused on balancing what we have and how to polish the design the best we could.

It was around 2020 when we started to work on Tabletop simulator since it was faster to make small changes there.

We are also working on a version to be released on Board Game Arena.

FULL GAME PLAYTHROUGH

lessons learned

Squirrel Island holds a special place in my heart and I know Robin feels the same.

It's always been there on our shelf growing up and finishing it and seeing people from all around the world enjoying our game means everything.

During our process, I learned a lot.
Listen to feedback and then analyze the feedback you want to make action towards. We playtested Squirrel Island with around 100 different people and everyone has their own opinion on how they liked the game and what is working and what isn't.

I do feel very strongly that it's important to not only listen to them but also understand why they feel the way they feel.

Only then we can discuss if we want to change things to make it better.

I'm also well aware that it's been a very long process and

that deadlines are essential to finishing a product.
We talked about it a lot and since we didn't make squirrel island to

make money we made it to learn and to see people play it, I feel

our long process has been with it.

Thanks for reading