Kadim Savaş – Board Game

Kadim Savaş (“Ancient War”) is a strategy board game that we developed as a team at Yıldız Technical University together with Yasin Çakır and Mohammed Şems. We built the story and the methodology of the game together; I developed its mechanics, design and strategy and built the prototype. Yasin Çakır worked on the story and game mechanics, Mohammed Şems on the print production. In the turbulent days of the Middle Ages, six great powers compete for the cities of an ancient map: the Karaçura Khaganate, the Kingdom of Aquila, the Kingdom of Nordheim, the Heian Shogunate, the Ahura Sultanate and the Volga Tsardom. A player picks a kingdom and one of its three rulers; the 18 commanders each carry a unique ability (crossing forests, mountains, deserts or seas, gaining extra soldiers, a dice bonus in defense and so on). Every turn dice decide which cities can be conquered and the army grows; each kingdom’s geography (steppe, mountain, sea, desert, snow, forest) grants both movement and defensive advantages. 30 positive and 30 negative event cards plus 8 secret mission cards keep shifting the balance, so every game calls for a different strategy. Our aim was to combine a historical game mechanic with storytelling into an experience that is both fun and educational. On the design side we created the game’s logo, map, kingdom emblems, the fronts and backs of the cards and a print-ready rulebook; the visual language evokes the Middle Ages without leaving board game conventions. To test the game we first built a prototype on a sketched map and playtested the rules. The character sketches were prepared with AI assistance, only for general appearance and clothing style.