Beast's Cavern Final Print and Play!

Heres the actual board, pieces and cards!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxwl_SqCAtF_bkdMXzdkVkgzRmM/view?usp=sharing

Here are the rules!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxwl_SqCAtF_NkxPYzVPMmU0ZTg/view?usp=sharing

The goal of the game is to escape from the cavern while avoiding the monster. You must work together with your fellow archeologists to assemble the radio pieces, but beware! Only one of you may leave!

Adventures in board game sketches

some box art sketches!

Adventures in board game thumbnails

SOOOOO we did some thumbnails for our board game.
to be honest, I was surprised about how many ideas i didnt have. towards the end I was really scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
but from these i'm the biggest fan of #2, #11, and #13

Questions for the games

In order to have good feedback for our games, we choose questions that should be asked after every play through. 

How would you describe the directions? Were they understandable?

1. terrible             2. pretty bad             3. so-so              4. Good           5. excellent

Constructive criticism

Did you understand how to play?

Yes       No

Constructive criticism

How was the game set up? Was it easy to understand how to do it?

1. terrible             2. pretty bad             3. so-so              4. Good           5. excellent

Constructive criticism

Was the game fun to play?

Yes        No

Constructive criticism

Is the game fair?

Yes        No

Constructive criticism

Were you ever bored?

Yes      No

Constructive criticism

Were you ever confused?

Yes     No

Constructive criticism

Frustrated?

Yes    No 

Constructive criticism:

Are there any bugs?

Yes      No

Constructive criticism

Was the gameplay too long?

Yes     No

Constructive criticism

What part(s) of the game are the least fun?

What part(s) of the game are the most fun?

Was the game mostly chance or mostly skill? How can it be changed to be more skill based?

Adventures in concepts and stuff

So out of the 20 ideas that was listed a post or two ago i've decided on #8.

The concept I want to work with is the idea of players being forced to work together when they know its not guaranteed to end in their favor. To achieve this, I plan to have four players working towards a goal that, while only one can achieve, all four must participate for it to happen. I want players to have to deal with the conflict of having to work with players while knowing that in the end everyone is working for themselves. The biggest challenge will be choose the right time to turn on the other players; If a player acts too fast, he'll risk the other 3 players turning against him, and if they act too slow then he'll end up losing.

Theme statement: "Teammates are only temporary"

As for the setting, It has to be a environment where:
A. adventurers can be trapped in,
B. adventurers have to be rescued from via some form of transportation (like it couldn't be a forest, because then question of "why doesn't the player just run out of the space?")
C. a place adventurers could logically get stuck in (like a cave or...yeah a cave)

So heres the pitch: A team of 4 archeologists descended into a cave researching the existence of an ancient Mayan (or any other ancient civ) mythical beast. However, on the way down their lift malfunctions and they end up falling down a part of the way, scattering themselves and various equipment around the cave floor. Normally, this wouldn't be too much of an issue, as they could just radio back up to the surface for an extraction, but their radio was broken into 4 pieces and scattered with the rest of their stuff. To make matters worse, the Mayan beast wasn't so mythical at all, and is now trying to kill them. So the archeologists must find the pieces to the radio and assemble it, all while avoiding the beast trying to kill them. To make matters worse, the rescue can only save one of them before flying off, leaving the other two behind for multiple hours, dooming them to the monster. (as the helicopter thats coming to save them only have enough room for two and would have to drop them off and refuel)

As for the art style. I'd like to avoid any high detail work (as its simply not in my skillset) but would also like to give it a dungeon crawler feel to it (think World of Warcraft)

Some examples:

 Heres an already existing board game, Cave Troll, that somewhat captures the look i'd like to go for.

As for a color palette - I feel like my options are somewhat limited to a earthen dungeon. However, this tetrad captures the look i want to go for (maybe i'll add some more yellow, but i doubt it)

Adventures in game design

In class today we were given the task of taking two existing games and, while using pieces from both games, invent a new one.

We were given Settlers of Catan and pass the pigs and with it we created, the board game of a generation: Pigs of Catan.

Pigs of catan

up to 4 players max

SET UP

set up board: leave board as is, but place the same number of tokens as the danger level in each of the terrain tiles. 

Danger level:

grasslands:  1

forrest: 2

mud lands: 3

mountains: 4(house)

deserts:  5(grey token)

player starts with 4 food cards (wheat or sheep cards)

You can only have 4 or less in your hand at once.

You can buy additional food tokens during your Harvest phase (see below)

each player starts with their pig player piece in the farm land tiles

roll to see who goes first, clockwise after 

move along the edges of the terrain tiles, land on a blue stick to enter that terrain to try and collect the coins. 

You can move less than the amount you roll for if you choose.

In terms of counting moves, moving from 'inside' a tile to the blue entrance edge does NOT count as one of your moves.

game  is over when:

1. a player gets 10 tokens
2. if all the other pigs are eliminated
3. the board is completely wiped of tokens, the player with the most tokens wins. if there is a tie the player with the most food cards wins. 

phase 1: movement phase

roll die to see how many spaces you move. 

the number you roll is the amount you move, in three sections:

If you roll a 1 or a 2, you can move one spot.

If you roll a 3 or a 4, you can move two spots.

If you roll at 5 or a 6, you can move three spots.

You move along the edges of the tiles, and you may enter a tile if you land on the blue entrance piece. Going from inside a tile to the blue entrance piece does not count as movement.

combat phase: this occurs before harvest phase if 2 players are in the same tile. if you are on the same tile as another player you must each roll to see who wins, if you tie then you roll again. if you lose the roll you give the winner one of your food cards and leave the tile.

phase 2: harvest phase 

roll to see if you harvest the tokens on the tile you occupy. If you are not in a tile/the tile you are in has no tokens, you cannot roll for tokens. if you roll lower than or equal to the zone's danger level, then you give up a food card. You can choose to stay in the tile and skip your next movement phase if you want to try again next turn. 

Alternatively, if you want to buy food, you may skip your harvest roll and pay 1 TOKEN and get 1 FOOD. You cannot buy more than one food a turn, and you cannot have more than 4 food in your hand.Surprisingly, the game worked out quite well, and while it ended up being significantly worse than either counterpart, it had some unique cost and effect choices as well. The assignment gave a good example of how versatile a board and pieces can be.
Some pictures.

Adventures in brain storming.

Game design ideas

Board game involving water pipes

1. Stealth Mechanics
1. A game where you dont know whats infront of you
2. Randomized map
1. a game where you’ll never know what comes next
3. Trap setting?
1. being able to set traps for other players to walk on or avoid
4. Each player gets to set up the path/map for the opponent?
1. Players creating the map for the opponent.
5. A game timer?
1. The player must reach the end/objective before something gets them
6. A monster ?
1. The goal is to avoid him while trying to get the other players eaten
7. A game where the goal isn’t to win, but instead not to lose?
8. The goal of the game is to not be the slowest?
1. A game where theres a monster who's movement is controlled by chance, and players must fight to not be the slowest?
1. The monster will have his own turn, moving in the direction of the closest player (via dice roll?)
2. Players will go turn by turn, rolling for movement (hopefully away from the monster)
3. Cards will be pulled by landing on a tile? (or each turn?)
1. cards will have effects like, double dice roll, slowing enemy player movement, laying traps that slow players, items that lure the monster away/towards other players, items that let you swap places with a player?
9. Same idea as before, but the monster is player controlled?
1. Cards that force him away/too another player to keep someone from focusing just one player

10. A game puzzle like game about water pipes/flow? (With a more fun mechanic? Replace water with magic or something?)

1. 
   
   

   The strategy is to control the flow of water via strategic placement of tiles?

2. 
   
   

   Rival plumbers fighting for control of a pipe system.

3. 
   
   

   Winner is whomever can direct the flow to their end pipe first?

4. 
   
   

   Drawing cards and/or tiles for pipe pieces

1. 
   
   

   cards could be items like bombs, hammers, saws (which destroy pipes) , drain clogger, poison, fish[?]

11. Game about protecting cows from aliens

12. A game with a rotating map
1. the goal is to get to the center of the map
2. every few turns the maps rotates, forcing players to adapt to the changes
13. 3D Game?
1. players build structures for some purpose?
1. maybe a defend the castle sort of game?
14. Defend the castle board game?
1. one player plays as king, the other as the citizens
15. Game based around colonies of insects, goal would be to keep your colony alive via resource management
1. think settlers of catan with bugs, tile confrontation and environmental effects.

16. Detection game?
        16.1. Goal is to cheat on a test or steal something, avoiding detection of    teacher/guards

17. Explorer game

        17.1 Goal is to reveal/explore the most of a map, certain tiles net more points player with most points at the end wins

18. Pirate game
1. goal is to get to the treasure first while avoiding non player controlled boats
19. Sport game built like portal
1. a repeating map (like pacman warp) where the goal is to navigate a ball to a goal via tiles that change the movement of the ball and a looping map
20. Chaotic card game?
1. a game like “worst game ever” where the fun of it is random tasks and player interaction

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The surprising thing about this was how quickly I abandoned my fog of war tomb raider idea, despite being so sure that it was the game I wanted to make.

Out of the 20 my favorite 3 are 8, 10 and 15.

In regards to 8, i plan to look into the monster being player controlled instead of based on chance and situational rules. The challenge with this is balancing it so the monster can’t just pick player A to hunt for (because he just doesn’t like him as a person) and must adapt to hunting the most available player instead

In regards to 10, as fun as it seems to me, its not a very appealing idea (rivaling plumbers just isn’t hip anymore I guess.) So i plan to look into another theme for it while keeping the mechanics and goal the same.

As for 15, i like the idea of each player being their own colony of insect (like ants/bees/wasps/moths all with their own benefits) But i fear that it’ll be too close to an already existing game. With different starting “races” you also have the task of heavy balancing so ones not overpowered compared to the other.

Yeah fun stuff.