I have mentioned that I have a game prototype in its third or fourth version, and I guess it's proper to describe the game itself. Although I've been working on it for a few years I've had to little time playtesting and fixing it, so the real age is not that old.
The game is called STEAMTOPIA and is placed in the underused genre steampunk/fantasy (that is, fantasy creatures combined with steampunk, if you've played the wonderful computer game Arcanum you will know what I mean).
I honestly think the game is fairly easy ruleswise, but I can see if you doubt that when you here the desription... ;)
In Steamtopia each player is an entrepeneur trying to earn as much fame as possible while helping out constructing the city of Steamtopia. At the start of the game the board is only a city core with some actions on it. As players construct new buildings more and more actions become available to the players.
Each player have a player board with the current stats (a bit like the one you have in GOA) and a deck consisting of 11 start minions (goblins to be precise). You draw three minion cards and use them to gather resources. Obviously, the starting minions are not very good. When the game starts you can harvest one type of resource from your minions and perform one action anywhere on the board. Beside the board are four buildings available for purchase, and if you can afford a building you can in your turn chose the build action and place it in the city (get VP for it) and mark it as yours. If other players use your buildings on later turns you will get a small fee for it. Beside gathering resources you can spend money to hire better minions (yes, this is a deck building game as well, though this is a much more downplayed mechanic than a "real" DBG), upgrade your player board to allow you more actions or more minions each turn (or even upgrade the number of VP you get for constructing buildings). Some buildings have no action at all, but grant their owner some sort of perk (like a discount when buying minions or constructing buildings).
There are four special buildings mixed in the building deck (the buidlings are split in three groups, G1 are fairly cheap and not so powerful, G3 are VERY expensive and powerful), and when three of those special buildings have been exposed the game ends.
So, where is the game right now? Well, quite a few of the problems have been rectified, but it is far from finished. It still takes to long to play, and I'm thinking a random subset of the buildings should be used each game to make it faster (though I doubt that will be enough). Also, the testers have mentioned that they feel it is hard to plan for longer than the current round. So those are the primary things I'mworking on. Also I try to build a more distinct prototype where it is easier to find what you look for on the board.
The prototype I made use all sorts of images I found on the Internet, so in the unlikely event that this could ever be released "for real" it would need a complete makeover. I make no claims to own ANY of these images and have simply used them to make my prototype look more like a real game. Also, I do not actively spread these files.
So, feel free to ask questions or have opinions. And yes, I realise it sounds like much to chew on to have a deckbuilding/worker placement/resource management/upgrade/develop game. But the rules and gameplay is not as hard as they sound when you describe them... ;)
