From Pan Fire to Sharks with Lasers

Want to know how Sharks with lasers ended up being a game without zombies after all? Here it is … Initially, the idea was to create a game around the event of a pan fire. At a random position on the board, a pan fire would start and threaten to burn down an entire apartment building. The fire would spread every round and you would for example play a fire brigade that is trying to rescue old ladies and families from inferno. The only thing was, we did not have a base mechanic for combating the fire.  Also, who would want to play a game where sweet old ladies and families may be swallowed by flames??? Really… would you???  We each took the idea and tried to think of ways how the mechanic for the game could work and how we could make the theme more appealing. Along the way new ideas were  sparked, like changing the setting to be a graveyard with zombies popping out of the ground at random locations, that go and move according to some player determined settings.  One of the ideas that arose out of the Pan Fire ashes was Sharks with Lasers. It instantly felt right for us, so we started making early prototypes…

Amazing how the palm trees from Santiago look like sharks with lasers with a little imagiation and the grid was about right for our purposes.