Planet Fulcrum: Designer Interview
You awaken on a planet unlike your own and you find that this planet has bestowed upon you new powers and abilities. As you move through the world and preform actions your morality changes and this can have the knock on effect of changing your faction. Evolve your character on Planet Fulcrum and become the champion.
Today I present an interview I had with Paul Dellow the creator of Planet Fulcrum. Planet Fulcrum has a very interesting take on character development. The more you do in the game the more your character's moralities change on the player tracker. As your character's moralities change your faction changes to one of three factions in the game and this allows you some special interactions on the game board. I recomend getting a group of four together and battling it out on the Tabletopia demo that Paul has put together. This game is going live on Kickstarter April 1st, 2021.
How did you get into game design, what led you here?
This is a long story that I’ll try to condense for you. I’m a digital designer by trade and originally “Planet Fulcrum” was going to be an online comic book store. I wanted a side project and had over 2000 comic books doing nothing in my attic.
One evening, whilst scanning the covers to upload to my site I started to imagine a place where all this different genres could gather and do battle, I remember thinking “but superman would wipe the floor with a TMNT... so how could it be a fair fight? What if the battle location was the equalizer? That was the start of the journey and was almost 10 years ago!
I am a sucker for comic related games
What is your favorite game to play?
It’s hard to call a favorite game to play, I tend to enjoy most and what I play really depends on who is round the table with me. I am a sucker for comic related games (Marvel Champions, Thanos Rising, Gotham: Under Siege). I am a Marvel/DC fanboy.
What inspired the theme of the game?
You’re starting to see a pattern here but the theme of the game is based on an entire graphic novel my talented Bro-in-law wrote for me. Way back when, I wanted to play test my idea and roped him into joining. I explained the idea of a planet that provided powers to all inhabitants and how the planet reacted to good and evil. And before I knew it he had written an entire back story of how the planet came to be. All the characters featured in the game exist in the graphic novel.
What’s your favorite mechanism?
For me the killer mechanism is the Morality Tracker, if used correctly it forces players to break out of what may be their usual playing style. For example, passive play styles will only get you so far. I’ve consciously attempted to encourage conflict, which may not sit well with many gamers but hey, we are talking about the fate of the universe here!
"Game design is hard, very hard, like all things that are worthwhile I guess."
What is the most interesting thing you have learned?
There are so many interesting things learned. I consider myself to be the eternal student, so as long as I am learning, I am happy. Game design is hard, very hard, like all things that are worthwhile I guess. But if I had to pick something it would be game psychology. When you dig into it, you discover just how fascinating we all are.
Players: 1-4
Year Published: Kickstarter 2021
Recommended Ages: 12+
Time to Play: 45-90 minutes
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