Garrett
Designer of Hollow Cell
Here is Part I for the history of Hollow Cell and how it came to be. Watch for future post in the weeks ahead.
Garrett
Designer of Hollow Cell
Here is a copy of the PDF in case some are unable to open it:
Hollow Cell Development
Part I
Hollow Cell has been in development since January of 2012 as my very first game design. The concept of the game was quite different than the final product as the design came together very organically. It was originally called Rusted Bullet. Each player began the game with a hidden identity that was a part of a race of beings that had been at war with one another for centuries. The races included:
Shifters (Shape Shifter Aliens)
Replicants (Terminator Like)
The Hive (Insects that can look human)
The Agency (Government Agents)
The Underground (Rebels that lived underground)
The Rim (Underwater Civilization)
The war began between the Agency and the Underground who rebelled. The Shifters secretly invaded Earth during the war as they felt is was the best time to invade. The Replicants were created by the Agency to fight on their side, but also rebelled with a desire to destroy all living matter. The Rim surfaced to destroy all dwellers above the Oceans as the waste from the war was destroying their waters. Lastly, The Hive came into being from the nuclear waste dumped during the war.
This war had been taking place for generations and the game would begin with a catastrophic event that was never explained. One day, everyone was knocked out unconscious and awoke with amnesia. No one knew who they were. All they knew was that they must fight. So the game began with everyone fighting on their own. As the game progressed, event cards would turn up until a certain one said that the amnesia wore off. At this point, a card would be drawn from another small deck that would determine how the races and roles of each player were handed out. So, in some cases, players had allies, and some did not. This card would also show how each race would win.
This sounds very different than Hollow Cell, but the core game play with the card play and dice rolling was similar. Players still played cards to equip their character and roll dice from a limited pool to fight.
I started work on this game in January 2012 and took it to The World Board gaming Convention in Lancaster, PA. It was played by 3 publishers in which one was not interested, another liked it and wanted me to continue play testing and the third loved it and took it with them. The third was Valley Games. They began playtesting it and about 2 months later, they ran into financial trouble and the company started to unfold. They returned the game to me and I started to continue to test it and show it to different people. The game slowly changed and I showed it to Lock N Load at WBC in the Summer of 2013. They took it with them, called me a couple of months later and eventually signed it. They have been a great help in the development of the game. Through them, we changed the name and the setting. It went from Rusted Bullet, which sounded too much like a western and went with Hollow Cell. Hollow Cell came about because the setting went from a post apocalyptic theme with players using leftover weapons from past Earth wars to a futuristic high tech environment on Cell Planet with weapons that use an energy cell for ammunition. Lock N Load also encouraged me to incorporate defensive dice as well as open it up for future expansions.
Stay tuned for more details on the development of Hollow Cell.
Hollow Cell Development
Part I
Hollow Cell has been in development since January of 2012 as my very first game design. The concept of the game was quite different than the final product as the design came together very organically. It was originally called Rusted Bullet. Each player began the game with a hidden identity that was a part of a race of beings that had been at war with one another for centuries. The races included:
Shifters (Shape Shifter Aliens)
Replicants (Terminator Like)
The Hive (Insects that can look human)
The Agency (Government Agents)
The Underground (Rebels that lived underground)
The Rim (Underwater Civilization)
The war began between the Agency and the Underground who rebelled. The Shifters secretly invaded Earth during the war as they felt is was the best time to invade. The Replicants were created by the Agency to fight on their side, but also rebelled with a desire to destroy all living matter. The Rim surfaced to destroy all dwellers above the Oceans as the waste from the war was destroying their waters. Lastly, The Hive came into being from the nuclear waste dumped during the war.
This war had been taking place for generations and the game would begin with a catastrophic event that was never explained. One day, everyone was knocked out unconscious and awoke with amnesia. No one knew who they were. All they knew was that they must fight. So the game began with everyone fighting on their own. As the game progressed, event cards would turn up until a certain one said that the amnesia wore off. At this point, a card would be drawn from another small deck that would determine how the races and roles of each player were handed out. So, in some cases, players had allies, and some did not. This card would also show how each race would win.
This sounds very different than Hollow Cell, but the core game play with the card play and dice rolling was similar. Players still played cards to equip their character and roll dice from a limited pool to fight.
I started work on this game in January 2012 and took it to The World Board gaming Convention in Lancaster, PA. It was played by 3 publishers in which one was not interested, another liked it and wanted me to continue play testing and the third loved it and took it with them. The third was Valley Games. They began playtesting it and about 2 months later, they ran into financial trouble and the company started to unfold. They returned the game to me and I started to continue to test it and show it to different people. The game slowly changed and I showed it to Lock N Load at WBC in the Summer of 2013. They took it with them, called me a couple of months later and eventually signed it. They have been a great help in the development of the game. Through them, we changed the name and the setting. It went from Rusted Bullet, which sounded too much like a western and went with Hollow Cell. Hollow Cell came about because the setting went from a post apocalyptic theme with players using leftover weapons from past Earth wars to a futuristic high tech environment on Cell Planet with weapons that use an energy cell for ammunition. Lock N Load also encouraged me to incorporate defensive dice as well as open it up for future expansions.
Stay tuned for more details on the development of Hollow Cell.
Jim Zabek
Member
I enjoyed playing Hollow Cell when I was at LnL a couple of months back. The gameplay was fun and it never felt repetitive. Instead, I looked forward to the possibility of gaining some of the more powerful cards I'd had before. Can't wait to see it released. 
