Tabletop Game Theme - 9/30

PALEOZOICA (working title)

Concept Statement - "Consume your competition"

In my game two or more players will control multi cellular, primitive creatures that are constantly trying to evolve. However growing and becoming more complex requires energy that can only be found on the creatures your opponents control. If you wish to become the superior creature, you must take all you can from the others and destroy them in the process. 

My game takes place in a small tidal pool, on a long lost beach, on an adolescent planet Earth, half a billion years ago. Being a simple, single celled organism is a thing of the past. Now life is becoming bigger, more numerous and far more complex. Perhaps life will find a way onto land in some not-to-distant era, but until then, it's about surviving in the tidal pool you call home. Unfortunately you are not the only organism in the pool that has learned to rapidly evolve and the once peaceful tidal pool is about to become a dangerous ecosystem. 

I want to be fairly accurate in what I show, for example, the players control a cluster of individual cells. I would like these cells to be accurately represented, so they will be illustrated to have all of the parts real living cells need to survive. At the same time, I want to game to be very colorful and appealing to the eye. We know what existed in the Paleozoic era and we can try to visualize what the environments and creatures looked like, but since we have never seen it ourselves, a lot is left to the imagination. I also want the game to be fairly stylish and even minimal, I do not want to clutter the art with too much high detail illustrations. 

Board Game Ideas

1. A grid based game that involves the theme of traffic/traffic jams. The objective could involve,working your way through gridlock traffic before your opponents, without disrupting the other cars too much and causing "road rage". Name ideas: 1.Gridlock, 2. Rush Hour, 3. Stop N' Go.

2. Game that has a theme centering around a after school fight. The fight takes place at 3:15 (after school) and the objective of the players are to successfully get out of the fight.

3. Something like Nukem from Robocop. Examples: Cold War (Red Scare), MX Stockpiles, military aid, threatening borders.

4. A game where you start out as a small creature and the goal is to consume and evolve into a more complex creatures. The game could involve consuming other player's creatures to advance your own creature.

5. A game about being a 19th century Luddite. Somehow the players must dismantle as many machines before the other players can rebuild it.

6. "Convert", a game where players assume a religion (either actual or made-up). The goal is to proselytize more converts than your opponents as peacefully or violently as possible. Clashes with other players can take place.

7. A game that involves players hoping around the end of "queues" to try to be int he fastest moving line.

8. A game that involves the strategic placement of traps throughout the board. Players have to thenn navigate through the board without knowing the placement of the other player's traps.

9. A slasher themed game that involves murdering ridiculous teenage stereotypes in creative fashion.

10. A game that involves the same players moving the same piece. Moving the piece all the way to one of the players edge's of the board wins you the game.

11. A game that has a theme where players assume the role of garden spiders. the key is to build the most dynamic web. The better your web, the more prey it will be able to capture and the more points you get.

12. A game that involves trading things with players (spices maybe?) but the real objective is to sneak "contraband items" within your trades, without other players noticing.

13. A game that has a theme where you have to clean up the after effects of a party before the parents arrive. The players work together with each other against the game (parents).

Stop the Germs!

In Stop the Germs, two players assume the roles of two different types of germs, represented on circular tiles pieces. The goal is to grow your own germ colony while preventing your opponents from surpassing your own. Each germ tile displays a single germ on one side, but if the player chooses, this germ can be flipped over to reveal that the germs have multiplied into a higher number (2 through 6). The more germs you have, the more points you have and getting a larger number of points wins you the game. There are also special cards that can be played that have the ability to hinder your opponent’s progress or advance your own, depending on which one is used.

Since the game is tile based, it can be played on any flat surface. Everything is pretty small and even when all the tiles have been placed; it takes up a little amount of space. The circular tiles are placed connecting to other tiles at any two or more points. This creates a very connected space to play, although cards never overlap.

Players are each given 7 double sided germ tiles and three special tiles that have a different attacks or defenses on either side; so even though only 3 specials can be played in a game, the player has a total of six possible ones to choose from. Some examples include, the “Ick” tile, which adds 2 points for every germ tile of the same color adjacent to it; and the “Antibody” tile, which can be placed against you opponent’s tiles to reduce the number of germs in them. All of the germ tiles have a single germ on one side and multiple germs on the back, indicating the number of germs that the single germs can multiply into when the player chooses to flip the tile.

Players are only allowed to take a certain amount of actions during each consecutive turn. Although the specific actions amount and order vary depending on the type of game you play (there are 2 different types). All of them basically involve the player adding a germ to the tile space and flipping or moving tiles you already placed around to more strategic places. Enclosing tiles in 5 or more other tiles prevent the inner tile from having the ability to move around the board space, although it can still be flipped. Players can not flip the tiles over or move them during the same turn that they are placed on the board. This is interesting because you do not really know the number of germs you placed until the following turn when you can finally reveal it by flipping the tile over.

A very interesting thing that you quickly learn about the game is it not always in your best interest to gain the most points possible, as quickly as possible. For example flipping a germ tile will multiply the number of germs you have, but if it is revealed that it is a high number of germs, that tile will probably become a target for your opponents special attacks. Another thing you learn is that creating tight spaces leaves less space open for your opponent to attack a great number of germs. Leaving a pocket open in your germ colony could allow the payer to place a special attacking tile in there that will effect all your tiles touching it. The same can be said for the opposite situation, if your opponent has a pocket where they can slip a special tile that wis beneficial, it will be touching a high number of tiles, therefore maximizing the effect of the special has on them. The game involves pretty careful observation of both your own actions, as well as your opponent's.

There is very little role of chance in this game. Choosing who goes first involves flipping one of two tiles over, a 50/50 chance for each player. The only other chance comes from the amount of germs your single germ can multiply into, since all tiles have to be flipped over (single side up), you will not know how many germs you have until the tiles have already been placed onto the space. Beyond that, the rest of the game involves a good amount of gaming skills. It is a very solid game in almost every aspect, although it's definitely not the most exciting game I have ever played. The presentation of the game is probably the aspect that really sets it apart the most. The art is simplistic but very nice, it is colorful and the rules are very clearly written out (there is even a 2 cards that tell the rules for each payer, so they don’t have to constantly glance back at the rule page while playing). The game is even designed to fit into an empty pill container if you have one.

I played three pnp (print n' play) games in total for research of my own board game that I will be making. When I was researching the games with a classmate, we focused on choosing games that were not too long or complex but instead, were in the realm of what our own board games will need to be. At the same time, they needed to be fun and engaging and this means having a good level of strategy, being somewhat intuitive, having replay-ability, etc.

1. Swords and Sails - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16196/sword-and-sail

The first game we played was Swords and Sails. This came with an easy to read and understand, Two page rulebook. There was also several pages of materials to print that contained the board, small tile pieces and cards. I played this with one other person and the game was simple to construct, set up and understand.

One thing that really helped us both get right into playing was the fact that it was similar to Risk, a game that both of us had played in the past. The general concept was familiar because of this, but the rules were different enough to keep it from feeling like some sort of "knock-off" of Risk.

The players command units that are placed throughout a map that is divided into regions. The objective is for the player to gain control of an entire region, however drawn cards tell the player where pieces can be placed. Each player has a certain number of "actions" that can take each turn. Placing units, Moving units, upgrading units and even drawing new cards all count as actions. Thinking of the best set of actions to take was where the challenge came from.

One thing I especially enjoyed with this game, was the fact that you can upgrade your units. They start out as foot soldiers printed on small tiles, that could only move about land areas printed on the board. However, with the right card and an "action", you could upgrade that unit from a soldier to a naval ship. The ship could move around on both land and water. The moment That we started to upgrade our units, the entire game seemed to change and it become a lot more challenging and interesting.

In the end, this was the best game we played. It was so easy to understand and get right into playing but the game could play out in so many ways that it holds your attention and keeps you interested the whole time.

2. Triles - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34306/triles

The second game we played was Triles. Triles was like a traditional puzzle mixed with a strategy game. It came with two pages of rules and several pages of fairly large, triangle shaped tiles. The presentation was very impressive, cause the illustration printed on each individual tile fit together with other tiles, creating many different possible variations of black and white tube like squiggles.

Each player gets half of the tiles and chooses a color (black or white). The objective is to place the tiles together and keep the color of "pipes" corresponding with your own color in connected paths. Forming circular shapes with the "pipes", creating dots (by connecting the ends of 2 pipes) and inserting "wedge" pieces onto the board, rewarded you in different ways.

The concept of the game seemed very interesting to us and the general objective of the game was easy to understand, however, the rules were not clear on some of the more specific aspects involved with the game play (like how the pipes can or can't be connected). We were never really able to settle on how these unclear rules should go and as a result, gave up on the game.

3. Light Speed - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5534/light-speed

The final game we played was with another person (3 total) and it was a card game that involved a unique aspect where the surface you play on becomes the board. The game came with several sheets of cards that were easy to print and cutout. We forgot to print the "hit tokens" that the game uses to tally points, so we made some out of paper that worked just fine.

In terms of gameplay, this was the fastest game so it really lived up to it title. It starts with the placement of asteroid cards which will determine how your board will play out. Then, as fast as you can, each player paces ships cards from a deck they have throughout the table. Each ship is different, firing lasers in different directions, having different amounts of health/shields and having numbers that indicate how quickly they take their turn. After all the cards are placed, each player determines which enemies they hit with their lasers/ which players hit them, how much damage is done and ultimately which ships are destroyed and which survived. On top of all this, hitting one of the asteroid cards gave you a point as well and since many of the ships fire lasers in multiple directions, strategically playing the card to hit both an enemy player and the asteroid could be to your advantage. The person that has the most points by the end wins.

One thing I really enjoyed about this game, was the many possible ways a game could play out. I think you would have to play many thousands of games to ever have any two that played out the same way. This kept it so interesting and that fact, paired with the fact that it was such a brisk game, made it very engaging.

The only shortcoming of the game, was the amount of time it took to tally up the points of each player. Determining all of the lasers missed or hit, how much heath each ship has, etc. was one thing that was actually pretty time consuming. While not as well thought out as Swords and Sail is, I do think Light Speed is a far more unique pnp experience and it was very refreshing.