Game Modification :
"Rapina Topo"

"The little mice have turned to a life of crime! These cunning thieves are planning to rob houses filled with delicious cheese and valuable treasures. But there's just one problem: the police cat has caught wind of their criminal activities and is hot on their trail! Will the thieves be able to pull off their heists and escape to the promised land of Cockaigne?"

Rapina Topo

Game Concept: Players control mice racing around a circular track to steal cheese from houses and escape to safety, while the police are hot on their tail. Manage your stamina carefully to keep moving, bribe your way out of jail, and collect the most valuable cheese without getting caught in this race to cockaigne!

Prompt

The prompt was to modify the board game Viva Topo by changing the game's mechanics and/or theme.

Design Process

I worked independently on this project, taking on all aspects of the game design process myself, from initial brainstorming and concept development through the iterative process and playtesting.

Challenges and Constraints

-There was a limited amount of time to complete the process, with deadlines for each iteration. Good planning was necessary to ensure each iteration was completed on time.
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- Finding playtesters outside of class, and collecting comprehensive feedback from relatively quick playtests in class was challenging, but more manageable across subsequent iterations.

- Knowing when to add/refine mechanics based on feedback proved to be more difficult to balance than I had initially thought. My trip mechanic, for example, was added on the basis of feedback but was barely used if at all across playtests. If i had more time i would have reworked mechanics like this and refined them further.

Idea Selection Process

I underwent a divergent brainstorming process, followed by a convergent brainstorming process wherein i gauged rough ideas for mechanics i could implement/modify on the basis of interest, "modification factor" (I deemed this to be the extent to which the idea would be different to the base game of Viva Topo) and ease of implementation. I ultimately decided on a modification of the game wherein the mice were robbers, as this also served to thematically overhaul the game. I was initially worried it would not be a big enough modification of the game, but once i thought about how to tie in the theme more with the mechanics it ended up being extremely different even from the first iteration.

Background

My journey in game design, including education, cultural influences, and professional experience.

Resume

A summary of my skills, roles, and achievements in game design and production.

Contact

Get in touch via email or LinkedIn for collaboration, feedback, or networking opportunities.

Media & Links

Find my work on GitHub, itch.io, and other platforms for more projects and code samples.

Game components:

  • 1 game board
  • 1 police cat
  • 20 mice thieves in 4 colors
  • 20 pieces of cheese/loot (4 of each size: 1-piece, 2-piece, 3-piece, 4-piece cheeses and 1 whole cheese wheel per house)
  • 1 special die (faces showing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and a cat symbol)
  • Stamina tokens (recommended: small coins or counters)

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Playtesting

Playtesting was instrumental to completing this modification of Viva Topo. The final version of Rapina Topo is the third of multiple iterations, each of which was the direct result of feedback garnered from 2 playtesting sessions conducted before each iteration  was finalized.

What I Changed From the Playtests

I implemented a jail system with multiple recovery options (bribery and conditional jail breaks) to replace permanent elimination, transforming a moment of potential frustration into one of strategic tension. I clarified and documented my "cat police's"  movement mechanics, especially teleportation behavior and rotation counting. The stamina system underwent significant rebalancing, that is removing or reducing penalties for cheese collection, while adjusting costs for jail breaks to make them more accessible. Throughout iterations, I focused on making mechanics align with player goals rather than punishing them, ensuring that resource management enhanced rather than contradicted the core objective of collecting cheese and escaping.

What I Learned From the Playtests

The playtests demonstrated to me that permanent consequences without recovery mechanisms create  experiences for players that actually undermine engagement. Players consistently wanted more strategic agency and opportunities for interaction, but the mechanics needed to feel purposeful rather than punitive. Balance issues emerged around high-value rewards (cheese wheels dominating strategy), resource costs that contradicted core objectives (stamina penalties for collecting cheese), and accessibility of key mechanics (expensive jail breaks, random exact-landing requirements, under-utilization of the tripping mechanic). The way the clear (or unclear) communication of complex systems, cat movement and teleportation rules for example, affected the game was not something I had initially thought about but it proved to drastically affect the flow of the game; ambiguity disrupted flow and caused frustration amongst some playtesters.