I have been away from game design for over 3 years now, but something has finally drawn me back into it. And that something is my son who turned 6 this year and is started to get interested in "Daddy's games" and not kiddie board games. He is still a bit young to play most games on his own, but he is getting there. Forbidden Island in particular has been a big hit. Recently, he has really taken a liking to Dominion because of all of the different cards.
I have played my share of deckbuilding games since Dominion debuted back in 2009 (Dominion + Expansions, Ascension,Thunderstone, Eminent Domain, Nightfall, and Core Worlds). And my favorite of these is Thunderstone because of theme and feel of the game. I disliked Nightfall as I didn't care for the theme or the mechanics and Core Worlds was neat but a bit mathy and long.
Unfortunately, I don't wish to subject my son to Thunderstone yet due to the graphic nature of the cards and the complex game play. He likes Dominion well enough, but I want something more exciting for him. Cue my design idea - a deck builder that is geared more towards kids, that adults will still like.
I only had this idea like 2 days ago, but it has formed very quickly in my mind (and on paper). Similar to Thunderstone, players will command adventurers and can visit a market to purchase cards (I will call mine an outpost). Instead of a dungeon, the action takes place above ground with different terrain types yielding different monsters with three different paths to choose from. Unlike Thunderstone, players will have to travel along a series of cards (with the use of meeples), facing threats from monsters (determined by die rolls based on terrain types), and once they reach the end they will find a special artifact card that will grant special powers (unless someone else beats them to it!). Players who are defeating by monsters receive wounds (negative points) and their progress is halted until their next turn. Players continue to collect cards from the outpost, upgrade their characters, and collect artifacts (also worth victory points) until the game end trigger (TBD).
Another novelty to my game will be the addition of dice as a modifier. Cards will still have an attack value that will compare with an attack value of a monster, but aside from card modifiers, some cards will have dice modifiers that give players an additional chance to get a higher attack value.
I am going for a adventurer type theme but more for the younger set (no demons or hell creatures or the like). I also hope to keep the mechanics easy enough that an 8-year old can pick it up, but limit the luck as much as possible. That's the goal, let's see if I can pull it off.
The ironic thing about all this is that Castle Raiders (my dead design from 3 years ago) might have worked as a deck-building game (only the mechanic wasn't even invented yet!)
