Must resist... new ideas... must not start new project...

Wow, second entry. This could be a habit...

I guess I'm not alone having much more trouble ending project (that is actually finishing stuff) than starting up new ones. My wife rarely misses an opportunity to point this out to me (as if I wasn't aware of it) and I guess I'm one of the more hopeless cases.

Bearing this in mind I try to restrain myself from starting up new board game projects, the process of producing a single game is long and hard, and new projects are always more appealing to invest time and energy in than the necessary follow up on an old prohject. In short, if I should ever stand a chance of completing a game I cannot allow myself to start up new projects all the time. Of course, new ideas pop up all the time, and it's a full time job to surpress them. It doesn't help that I have to little time to playtest and develop the main project (Steamtopia).

And now it happened again, and I don't know if I will be able to contain the thoughts this time, so I'll just throw it out here for comments. I've noticed that my game design process have turned pretty much from ameritrash to german style games (I'm quite pleased with that since I'm a eurogamer and consider those games much more elegant and fun) and lately I often get a certain mechanic on my mind that I would like to examine closer. I have a few of those waiting for a full scale game idea. However, quite often I don't have a theme for the game.

This time I thought of an auction mechanism. The players is dealt some cards, and some other cards will be put in piles on the table (sort of like coloretto, one pile per player, all cards visible face up). Beside each pile there's a counter going from 0 to 5 (or whatever appropriate numbers would fit, this is the bidding track). Each player will end up with exactly one of the piles, and the starting player put his/her marker on any free counter space for the desired piles bidding track. The next player may either do the same for another pile or make a higher bid on the same pile (if so, the first player get their token back). The next player without a counter on the board repeat the process and this continues until all players have their own token on a pile of their own (of course anyone can put his/her token on the bid 5 right away, making sure that pile is won if it's really really desired). A player may make bids on several different piles the same round if he/she has been outbidded, of course it could also be an attempt to simply raise the bids for the other players. The last pile to be picked will always be free, since that will end the auction phase.

The cards in each pile goes to the respective player and form their hand along with the cards they were dealt beforehand. I imagine some of the cards have actions on them and a priority for when to play them, I also think cards should be able to be combined (making some piles more interesting for you if you were dealt certain cards).

This is basicly were I am in this process. Since I do not have a theme to wrap this in I have no clue what the cards actually do. Resources? Military strength? Influence? Magic Power? I'm thinkin there should be a board with counters on it, perhaps resources. These should shift and move (sort of like the barrels in Puerto Rico) so timing should be important not to be cut out. I also think there should be active ways of controlling your money (so you could ditch it for other things but pay the price of not being able to battle for your favourite pile of cards in future rounds). But part from these thoughts, that are basicly just extensions of what I want my game engine to do for me, I have nothing.

And I know I should kill my darlings and I know I should stay focused on Steamtopia, but this idea is under my skin. So, I would welcome general feedback as well as suggestions on what theme to use.

Does any of this make any sense to you? Have you seen a similar auction mechanic anywhere?