Hi guys,
I'm designing my first board game, I'm very excited and I want to share my project with you guys.
Players; 2-4
Playing time: 30-50 min.
Object tokens: 96
Gold tokens: 23
Pawns: 4 (RED, YELLOW, BLUE, GREEN)
Dice: 2 (3 faces dice)
Inventory board for each player (4): 3 slots for weapons, 6 inventory slots, one big slot for gold;
Board: 10X10 units(grid - one unit = 2.5cmx2.5cm) + 6X4 units in each corner (representing players' castles)
Object tokens:
- resources: CORN, WINE, ROPE, BOLT;
- weapons: spear, shield, helmet;
- "power-up"/"power-down" (attack, defense);
- action tokens: trade, attack player (of your choice), attack certain player/castle, loose gold, loose your turn, have another go;
- gold;
Game objective:
Explore the map, stock at least one of each resources in your castle and owe some gold (don't know yet how much!?), and return to your castle to win the game.
Playing the game:
All the tokens are places on the board face down.
The players sets their pawns in their castles on the "start" square.
Each player moves on the map with the use of two (3 faces) dice: one die will indicate the horizontal movement and the other one the vertical one (which is horizontal and vertical is up to you). You can't add the numbers together and go just in one direction!
When you move on the map and end up on a token you can take that and store it in your inventory. Whenever you want (or when you are force to - lack of space in the inventory) you can go back to your castle and store some of your items there (REMEMBER: storage room in the castle is limited as well, to 6 slots!).
Each turn every player has the opportunity to play an action token (if it has one of those in his inventory) before trowing the dice.
Fight:
- knights vs. knights:
When two or more players are in the same square they have to fight. The last one who got in the square is consider being the attacker. Each player throw one die; the player with the higher number on the die wins. If the players have weapons or power-ups or power-downs they can use those as well increasing their fighting powers or decreasing the powers of the opponent.
The winner can choose one token or one gold from the loser's inventory;
- knights vs. castle:
Castles have always +1D (defense);
Players can store defensive weapons or power-bonus in the castle and use them in fights;
To attack a castle, the knight has to be inside the castle (it doesn't matter on which square of the castle as long as he's inside);
I'll keep it short and I won't enter in too many details about the game.
I'll update this thread with some pictures later on.
Please let me know if you think. Do you think it would be an interesting game to play? I'm still testing it. This is a much more improved and complex version of my early game.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
Andy
Comments
Seems intersting enough
I like the dice movement mechanic with the dice giving the player the choice is crucial or it just becomes a game based on luck.
Did you mean to say you "can" add up the dice to go in one direction?
What does "owe some gold" mean?
If you are out on the board are you able to use tokens that are in your castle?
How big is the board?
Are the tokens randomly distributed by players or are there specific places for them?
Seems like there arent many weapons :/ could there be different types?
It would be cool to have multiple Knights per team. This way you could cover more ground and possibly decrease the amount of time to play.
Could there be neutral Knights that you could capture? or fight? even steal from? that could add some interesting push your luck mechanics. Stealing is easier to accomplish than fighting and fighting is easier to accomplish than capturing but of course capturing allows you to use the unit and its inventory.
Good Luck
Tbone
cheers!
Did you mean to say you "can" add up the dice to go in one direction?
No. You can't add them. I mean, if let's say your dice are 2 and 3, you have to go 2 in one direction and 3 in the other direction. You can't add 2+3 and move 5 just on horizontal. That's what I wanted to say. :)
What does "owe some gold" mean?
I haven't figure it out. I'm still testing it to see how much gold you have to have in order to be victorious. I still need to figure out its importance and how to balance it within the game.
If you are out on the board are you able to use tokens that are in your castle?
If your castle is getting attacked yes you can. If your knight is out of the castle you can't swap items from the castle to inventory and vice versa.
How big is the board?
The playing area is 10 by 10 units. Each unit is 2.5cm by 2.5cm.
Are the tokens randomly distributed by players or are there specific places for them?
All the tokens cover all the squares on the playing board.
Seems like there arent many weapons :/ could there be different types?
The weapons have one purpose: spear used for attack (bonus when attacking), shield for defense and helmet who'll give bonus in attack and defense.
It would be cool to have multiple Knights per team. This way you could cover more ground and possibly decrease the amount of time to play.
That is a very cool idea, but I have no idea how to implement that in the current mechanic of the game.
Could there be neutral Knights that you could capture? or fight? even steal from?
On the board, some tokens will have on them "thieves" who are stealing partially or all of your gold.
Minor changes...
After some feedback, thinking and reading stuff, I've realized that I have to take out everything that's not essential to the game. So I did just that: I've got rid of the gold in the game and everything related to that: thieves and gold/objects, objects/gold tokens, But, I've introduced VP (Victory Points) instead.
So, you are not required to collect gold, but VP. You may say that nothing changed, except the name of the item (instead of calling it gold it's called VP). There is a difference though: you get 1VP every time you defeat another player in battle (and also you can find VP under some tokens on the map).
My problem is what happen with the VP you owe? Can you loose them? Can some other players steal them from you? It's a little bit strange in a situation when you defeat another player and get a VP from the pile (VP pile on the board - that allow each victorious player in battle to receive a VP) and also can steal one from your defeated enemy. Add to those the VP you'll find on the map and you can quickly have all the 15 VP needed.
I've set the winning conditions for:
1x Corn, 1x Wine, 1x Rope and 1x Bolt stored in your castle,
15 VP (stored in player inventory),
Pawn parked in player's castle.
After a few games I've realized that the average playing time (for 3-4 players) is 90 minute. It seems like a lot of playing time.
I've identified 3 stages in my game:
First stage (I)~30min : players are interested in exploring the map and finding useful items (resources, weapons etc);
Second stage (II) ~30min.: players are interacting (they fight using their weapons and power-ups, they trade);
Third stage (III) ~30 min.: this is the last stage where most of the players already have the resources in their castles, but need more VP (victory points). The trouble is that the map is empty and they can't find each other easily to start fighting, and that's a serious problem since the best way to win VP is to fight another player and win.
My SOLUTION to stage III problem is:
Divide the map into "zones" (let's say of 4 square units) and if one or more players are in the same zone they have to fight! (you don't have to be just in the same square - this rule remain active - with another player, but in the same zone).
In this way players can fight other players easier, also they can place their pawns in strategic zones waiting for other to attack, or to block other from reaching their castle in time. All of this still require trowing the dice, so can be difficult to achieve. The zones will have free spaces in between them, allowing players to avoid them.
The thing about zones is that they are inactive as long as they still contain tokens on them. They get activated and the rule comes into play when all of the tokens in the zone have been removed from the map. In this way the zones are becoming active towards the end of the game, when are most needed.