Neonimo
A downloadable game
Ben Costrell - Design & Programming
Chris WIlliams - Design & Programming
Jack Schlesinger – Audio and Programming
Edanur Kuntman - Art
Neonimo is a real-time puzzle strategy game for iOS devices. Players place tetrominoes to build a path to their opponent’s base, forming buildings, claiming technology, and cutting off their opponent along the way.
Design Thoughts:
Our goal with Neonimo was to make a deep but digestible competitive strategy game that would combine the strategic nuances of RTS games like Starcraft with the inherent aesthetic pleasure of forming shapes in abstract games such as Tetris. We were inspired by the game Blokus, a tabletop abstract geometric territory claiming game. In Blokus, each piece is imbued with strategic meaning based on its geometry. We wanted to hone in on this idea of geometrically embedded meaning, while expanding the strategic depth by incorporating economic gameplay elements inspired by RTS games.
In Neonimo, there are tradeoffs embedded into every play. There is a tradeoff between extending your reach and building up at your current location. Extending your reach allows you to claim structures, territory, and advance towards victory. Building up lets you form the shapes needed to place buildings, which improve your economy. You can also choose to extend your reach in several different directions: towards the different neutral structures, straight towards the opponent's base, in a manner that threatens to disrupt the opposing road, or circumvent it entirely.
The rule of connection in Neonimo is that every newly placed piece must connect back to that player's home base. This allows for players to cut each other off, creating the possibility of big swings that make for dramatic moments. But getting cut off isn't the end - your pieces remain on the board, and if you reconnect to them, you can reactivate them and turn the tides right back.
Neonimo straddles the line between turn based and real time play. Players are restricted in their play rate by the need for resources, so the early game leaves time to strategize. But as players' economies ramp up, their rate of play steadily increases, and they close in on each other on the map, leading to dramatic heart-pounding clashes not found in turn based games.
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