Break of Kartopia (BoK)

Producer: KaRong
Developer: KaRong
Programmer: KaRong

About me- KaRong

Hi, I am KaRong, a high school senior student studying at SHBS.

Personally, to begin with, I love gaming. Gaming meant a lot to me growing up, and it is a big part of my life. I found myself in games. I enjoyed myself when I’m playing games, but it was also more than just the pleasure. When I am often alone at home, I found friends whom I could accompany me in games. When I felt depressed, game world was my release. Games also broadens my imagination. I used to imagine games as a magical world. In games, I have been able to imagine things that I have never imagined before in real life.  

I have extended this interest further. As my imaginations grows, I have dreamed of making my own world in games. Nowadays, after learning more about games, I dreamed of making my own games, and producing the best games, and have people around me play my game.

Essentially, there are three main things I expect from my games - originality, fun, and expressiveness. On the one hand, I wish to continue to promote and develop original games. But I also want to more fully express myself through the games I produce. I believe that a good game represents its producers, just like arts and music do. I hope to really speak to my future audience. 

About this game

Break of Kartopia (BoK) is an original 2D digital board game that I’ve been making since the past few months on my free time. It is originally designed for iOS users (resolution of 2366*1080). 

The idea of the name for this game is originally inspired by 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. Break of Kartopia, is short for ‘Break of KaRong’s utopia’. KaRong is my online nickname. Break of Kartopia is supposed to mean a land of idealism, or purity that lives deep inside one's heart, and the ‘Break’ signifies the players, whom enters and influences the land that was originally pure, peaceful and lovely. 

The gameplay mechanics of this game were originally inspired by Catan. I’ve known Catan since my summer school for game design at Stanford in 2018 summer. During this period, I enjoyed many board games that I’ve never even heard of. Catan was definitely my favorite one to name.

Game mechanics/rules

BoK is a game designed for 3 players, whom would act as pioneers from three different countries that has discovered this new island. Players need to earn coins by building different constructions. The aim is to become the first player to reach 12 points in order to dominate the island and win. 

In the game procedure, at the beginning, each player would start with 10 coins, and then each player will randomly roll a dice to get a start area (on the outside of the circle, labelled 1-6). Then, in each round, the current player gets to toss 2 dice. Whenever the number on a single dice matches the current player’s starting point number, the player receives one coin. Once the first city (an upgrade from a house) has been constructed by a player, players could no longer receive coins from their start points. Whenever a player rolls a double (two of the same number), this player can draw a chance card from the deck.

There are four different constructions for players to build- a road, a house, a city or a defense tower. The road will help a player to connect from one point to another point. Houses, cities and defense towers can only be built on a red point after being connected by a road. A house supplies the player one coin when a number that is a neighbor to the house has been rolled, while cities will supply two. A defense tower produces no income, but it could block off an intersection point (so no other player could cross it). However, the center point is immortal. Whenever a player dominates a building or intersection point , this player receives one point.

The game contains a total of 12 intersection points (excluding the center), 24 building points. There are also 4 impermanent points that flows after calculating data from every round. 2 extra points are given to the person with the most coins and 2 extra points are given to the player with the most constructions. Moreover, there are also 4 hidden points in chance cards. The game has a maximum of 44 points available, whereas a player needs 12 points to win a match.