Snake Oil

My roll and move game has a snake oil salesmen theme to it.

The basic premise involves moving around a track and choosing the action that would be most beneficial for you while being careful not to help your opponents even more.

After rolling and moving your pawn, you may choose an action, perhaps from a limited set according to location, and receive a bonus for it, which your opponents can then follow (to help eliminate down time, one of the problems of classic roll and move.)

These actions may include collecting ingredients, brewing concoctions, improving potions and equipment for a variety of bonuses and combos, and selling your product for gold and reputation.

A Roll and Move Exercise

It's been while since I've posted, hasn't it?

It's not that I haven't thought about game design, although maybe I did think about it less.
My cardinal sins card game still comes up in my thoughts, with some variations on how it would play - sometimes it has a board, other times it's pure card based; Different ideas on what each card might do, etc.

I haven't been listening to the Ludology podcast over the past few months, yet as soon as I do, the ideas start flowing back.

This time it was a question directed towards the hosts - Ryan Sturm and Geoff Engelstein about whether any game mechanics are going to disappear in the future, or fall out of vogue .
Roll and move was mentioned as an unpopular mechanic amongst the hobbyists, and yet still prevailing amongst the general populace who expect it and haven't been exposed to better things.
So I've been thinking to myself how roll and move could be improved upon. The main problem is that it doesn't give any choice and the game ends up playing you rather than you it. You have no real control over which space you fall on in Monopoly or Talisman, while you can at least split the dice results in a game of backgammon.

What if we used this random element to determine our possibilities, the way the dice roll in Catan determines what resources are handed out (or whether the robber strikes again) regardless of who rolled the dice?

Roll the dice, move your pawn around the track, and from where you land have certain choices available to you, such as selecting a role you can play this turn? Would that work? I'll play such scenarios in my mind and look for more interesting ideas. Who knows maybe I'll combine it with earlier ideas in interesting ways, maybe even to an idea I could take to play testing.

Mechanics That Don't Make A Game

Drafting is still playing a big role in my pipe dream game ideas, I find the possibilities of completely changing how you play the game via the cards you are dealt exciting.

I have a problem though, it's not enough to make a game.

Trying to come up with a thematic reason to start a game with a draft has lead to the concept of a master and subordinate, one of your cards will serve as your main character, with powerful abilities to help you during the game. A second card would have more limited abilities, based on what it could have had if it was chosen first.

This idea has also lead to find uses for other cards from the draft: a starting building, currency or even a map piece.

From there I started thinking of settings. Starship captains for a sci-fi flair came first, but didn't seem to hold together very well. Wizards with apprentices came next and is a stronger idea, I think, but I also like the idea of demons vying for control until hell freezes over and the game ends, which is what I am playing with right now.

An Alien Defense Board Game

Been inspired to recreate the XCom: UFO Defense base building and financial engine aspects in a board game. If I ever take one of these games out of the idea phase, it would probably be something simpler, this is a good thought exercise and elements from it might pop up in other places.

The basic premise is for each player (2-4) to have start with a basic base, a few personnel - soldiers to fight, workers to build projects and scientists for research project. Each would start with an income as well as immediate finances.

UFO will pop up, players would need to intercept and shoot them down with fighter jets, then send in soldiers to grab artifacts.

Taking these artifacts back to their base, players would research them to gain money and special abilities that would make certain things easier, and give access to new buildings.

Eventually a game end event will occur, such as a mother ship showing up and players would have to work together to defeat it before checking who has made the most points, or something similar.

One of the interesting ideas that came from this exercise is the building / research mechanic: each project would start with a certain number, higher for bigger complexity. Each turn a worker/scientist on the project would place a counter, once the number is reached, the project it done.

Placing more workers would shorten build time, but increase cost, making it an important choice. 

Just another game idea

Go to game night, play a few games, preferably ones I haven't played before, and get inspired.

Walk on beach and hone the ideas.

The one floating on top right now is a dice rolling and manipulation game with an online dating theme.

In a nut shell, you would start by selecting a character card to give you an initial set of dice to roll.

Then you would go on "dates" with other character randomly pulled from a deck, and try to match as many of your dice rolls. Each failure will get you closer to your goal of being the first to match all dice results with your 'date' or getting enough cats to be a crazy cat lady.

It's a fairly simple idea, maybe I should focus on something like that and really push to bring one of these ideas to completion.

History Lessons

 History was far from my favorite subject in school, I saw little more than a series of dates and dry facts to remember so I can pass the next exam and then forget about it.
It wasn't until college that I enjoyed sitting through a lecture. Maybe it was because I completely stopped taking notes which I would never go back to, started listening to what was being said, and imagined how it could be.

Outside of school I enjoyed history from books, documentaries and from certain games. What boy doesn't like to watch a warbird strafe a convoy over remembering the date some politicians signed a pact?

I also wasn't a huge fan of learning about Israeli history. I haven't felt like I belonged here ever since I was 14.

These day I find myself thinking back about what I know about Israel's history, trying to think of what I can use to make board games.
The first such idea that came to me was a push your luck game about the clandestine immigration of aliyah bet, as the refugees of the holocaust crammed into old ships and sailed to Israel, trying to overcome the British blockade to realize the Zionist dream.
Just trying to leverage my heritage to my advantage. I also wonder if I could get support from the government to help with the creation process, the marketing and the finances.

Stray Thoughts

Can't escape from working all week at the day job, missing out on board game night. It's not worth it, I hope I find something better soon and it fades into a story to tell strangers.

A few thoughts about games have come up. The first is in the board game space, in which I'm currently thinking of creating multiple different games, but each a part of the same world, using the same characters and visual style to tell different stories connected together.

The Silicone Valley and the Reverse Galaxy Truckers come to mind as an example. What if one of the "Neckbeards" you can use in your recruitment agency turns into one of the crew members you can draft for your ship.

The second idea I'm occupied with is inspired by the success of Multiplayer online battle arena games. I never tried playing DOTA or LoL, but I suspect I would suck. I would feel much more comfortable with a turn based strategy game. I think this idea is an extension of older ideas for an online TBS, with the current incarnation involving building a team belonging to a faction (similar to miniature games.)  This team could be broken up and used in several simultaneous asynchronous games.