What is The Dexterity Game System™?
Elzra Corp’s Dexterity Game System™ is our industry leading game framework applicable to both physical tabletop games and digital video games. It was developed as part of Elzra’s innovative and award winning tabletop game, Catacombs™ (now in its Third Edition). The Dexterity Game System provides a common framework for many of our game titles, by standardizing the rules and component interactions that make our disc shooting games enjoyable to play. As such, many of our games have a high level of compatibility that allows them to naturally expand upon each other. The learning curve for players who have already played other Dexterity Game System titles is reduced.
Third party publishers may display the Dexterity Game System logo on their packaging, if their game implements the System. As the original developer, Elzra is expected to be responsible for helping to design products for third parties that implement the System on their behalf. This helps third party publishers leverage the years of experience that Elzra has accumulated in developing dexterity based games and encourages the adoption of what is hoped will become an industry standard.
Components
In physical, tabletop games, wooden discs are the core component in The Dexterity Game System that players use to play the game. The discs can represent a character, item, obstacle or ranged shot type, some of which must be skillfully flicked across a game board. These discs vary in size and colour depending on who or what they represent. In some special circumstances other shapes may be used other than circular discs. Each item or character that a disc represents has a set of rules, summarized on cards, that define how they move and what effect they may have when interacting with others discs on the board.
The Dexterity Element
In many tabletop board games, players roll dice to move their character(s) and progress through the game. In a Dexterity Game System compatible title, players instead shoot the disc that represents their character they are moving or attacking with. This creates a greater sense of immersion for the player. Players can get creative by using obstacle pieces to bank their shots, or by using various placement tactics to put themselves in strategic positions. With practice, players will become more skillful at aiming their shots and using different levels of force to put their discs right where they want them. The room for improvement and potential for various creative trick shots adds a high degree of replayability to Dexterity Game System titles and is part of what made the original Catacombs game so innovative and popular.
Shot Icons
Different shot icons are consistently represented on cards by icons. The core shots are the melee, rush, missile, and fireball shots. Some of these shots (missile, fireball, etc.) are used by placing the appropriate shot disc beside the attacker’s disc and flicking the shot
at a target. Other shots (melee, rush, etc.) are used by flicking the character disc itself. Most shots inflict one point of damage on a target. Shot modifiers represented by different colours produce additional effects such as fear, poison, and regeneration. All actions and effects in Catacombs employ the Dexterity Game System where possible.
Implementations
At this time, the Dexterity Game System is exclusive to Elzra’s award winning line of Catacombs™ game titles; however this is expected to change. Here is a list of some games that employ the System:
- Catacombs Third Edition
- Cavern of Soloth
- Catacombs & Castles
- Various Catacombs Expansions
It is expected that the Dexterity Game System logo will be used by both Elzra and third party publishers across the tabletop and video game industries to identify products that are compatible with the System.