Hi, don't know if this is the right place for this kind of thing, but it appears as though it might be. I've been trying to come up with a simple-ish (heavy on the ish) game that involved a direct way for players to affect each other, with no one player ever having supreme control. This is what I came up with, a game called "Red Light, Green Light."
http://www.bgdf.com/files/My_Uploads/nlyons162/Red%20Light.txt
It came to me just last night, so I've not had a chance to playtest it yet, or anything. I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd give it a look and tell me what you think in regards to:
- Number of spaces on the board
- Number of players
and
- The option of running the red light and the probability of movng forward/risk-reward
Thanks in advance!
-Neville
![Syndicate content](/misc/feed.png "Comments for \"Game Idea - "Red Light, Green Light"\""){kind=small}
Thanks for all of the positive comments AND the criticism! It came in so quickly, I couldn't believe it!
You can make the race track bigger, but that takes up MORE
table space.
I think that the length's just going to have to wait until playtesting to be determined - I think it will have to depend on how long the game takes timewise. So I suppose that's a bridge I'll need to cross later :)
After 7 turns you will have 1 green light and 7 red lights.
Turn 8 you will have 2 G, 8 R
Turn 9 you will have 1G, 7R
That thought also occurred to me. I thought about it this way as well:
- Some players will not wish to quickly make enemies by flipping lights, and will therefore opt to not begin the game by doing that
- Other players might form alliances to protect each other from the other players
- Similarly, a "One good turn..." theme occurs, where a player (might) realize that he (might) be able to get other players to change his color to green by changing theirs
But I agree that a reward/bonus for flipping to green would be nice, and would help red lighted players move forward additionally. The only problem I see with that is as follows:
At the start of a 4-player game, Adam, Beth, Carrie, and David (playing in that same order) each shows a GREEN light.
- Adam flips David to RED, rolls the die, and advances X spaces.
- Beth returns David to GREEN, collects a bonus, (of moving two spaces, say?), rolls the die, and advances X spaces.
- Carrie turns David back to RED, rolls the die, and advances X spaces.
David is still red-lighted, but another player was able to collecta bonus off of him. In an 8-player game, 3 players could profit off of the eighth player, and he'd still have a red-light.
Perhaps, I could have it where one players light can only be flipped twice between his turns in a 4- or 5-player game, and thrice is 6-, 7-, or 8-player games. But that might make it a bit more complicated than I'd like. Still, I like the idea of a bonus of some sort, maybe not additional spaces advanced, but I'm at a loss as to what else would benefit the player. I suppose that in a good playtesting session (as soon as I have some friends over to play Settlers of Catan, as they always enjoy trying out my self-created crazy games) I can figure out what else might be of value to the player... If you have a thought on the player's currency or something else to improve this game, please don't hesitate to let me know!
-Neville