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Game using Rubber Ducks

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Discord
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Been thinking today about a small game involving rubber "bathtub" ducks, as my girlfriend collects a variety of different themed ones.

Don't know if anything similar has been done before...I'd imagine kids would like the theme, and you could use the pieces as bath playthings when you were finished. I don't think anyone owns copyrights or anything on rubber ducks either.

Duck Pond (working title) 2-6 players.

Two boards: a big blue pond board with 11 schools of fish drawn on it, and numbered(2-11). a smaller blue sky board with 6 flocks of flying ducks drawn on it and numbered(1-6).

12 Rubber Ducks, each one different(my gf owns angel ducks, chef ducks, pirate ducks, etc.)

25 Fish Tokens(using 5c coins at present)

2 Six-sided dice

Players divide the ducks among themselves, leaving 2 ducks unused in a 5 player game.

Play alternates between the Pond board and the Sky board until all the Fish Tokens have been captured, or there is only one player left with any ducks.

Play goes around the board in circular fashion, rolling to see who goes first.

Pond Board

Players place ducks, one at a time, upon the numbered(2-12) schools of fish. Any number of ducks can be placed over the same school.

Fish Tokens are distributed onto the board by rolling 2D6 per token, to a maximum of 12. (late-game there will be <12 fish left)

Fish are then divided amongst the ducks feeding at that school. If there are more ducks than fish, then the fish gets away. If there are more fish than ducks, the ducks get all the fish, with any remainder getting away.

So 8 fish, 1 duck...the duck gets all 8 fish.
3 fish 5 ducks...1 fish each, 2 fish get away
2 fish 3 ducks...all the fish escape

Play then moves to the Sky Board

Sky Board
Players place their ducks, one at a time, upon the 6 different Flocks numbered 1-6. Any number of ducks can go with each flock.

Once all ducks are placed, roll 1D6. All the ducks with that flock are shot and are removed from the game.

Play then returns to the Pond Board

Victory Conditions

If a player is the only player with ducks still alive, they win.
When all the fish tokens are distributed, the player with the most fish tokens wins. If there is a tie, then the player with the most ducks among the tie-holders wins. If ducks AND fish are equal, then both players win.

Comments

I don't want the attrition rate too high, so a smaller number of fish tokens might work...17 or 19 perhaps.

Obviously a very luck-based game, with some gambling/playing-the-odds
involved both with fish-diving and being shot at. You could put all your eggs in one basket so to speak, but that could have dire consequences.

Any opinions/critiques? Or other ideas that could be used to implement a simple game using rubber ducks?

jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Game using Rubber Ducks

Do ducks really eat fish?

Brykovian
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Joined: 07/21/2008
Game using Rubber Ducks

jwarrend wrote:
Do ducks really eat fish?

Yes ... most ducks are omnivores -- eating plants and animals ... and fish tend to be handy where they usually hang out. ;-)

-Bryk

Hedge-o-Matic
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Joined: 07/30/2008
Game using Rubber Ducks

I was actually a bit shocked at the "shooting phase". Before this, it was al cutesy-cutesy, and suddenly... Blam!

A Bambi moment, if ever there was one.

Might small kids find this sort of disturbing? Perhaps the ducks in that flock bed down for the night, or something.

Brykovian
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Joined: 07/21/2008
Game using Rubber Ducks

Hedge-o-Matic wrote:
I was actually a bit shocked at the "shooting phase". Before this, it was al cutesy-cutesy, and suddenly... Blam!

A Bambi moment, if ever there was one.

Might small kids find this sort of disturbing? Perhaps the ducks in that flock bed down for the night, or something.

I had the same reaction.

What about "head south for the winter"?

-Bryk

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Game using Rubber Ducks

I tought your game was actually played in a real bathtub! It would give something to do while taking a bath. But it's just a board game, I am a bit deceived (^_^)

lego
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game using Rubber Ducks

well actually i once used that childrens game (Lucky Ducks), where ducks rotate on a conveyor belt and the players pick ducks at random trying to get three of a kind (three ducks with the same coloured sticker on the bottom). I once used this game to make a very simple diversion that was far too strategically complex to be played by kids in the same age demographic. As i recall there were twelve ducks and they were placed in a specific order, all players knew what this order was. The objective was still to get three of a kind however because the original order of placement was known and because you could record what you beleived the order was, it could now be played on an almost purely strategic level. The main twist to the game was that on your turn you could pick any one duck then shift all the remaining ducks either clockwise or counter clockwise as many duck places as you wanted to, declaring the direction or amount of places to your opponent. After this your opponent would pick a duck and keep it only if it matched his color card. If it didnt then this would be the duck he would have to use on the duck shifting phase of his turn and if it did then he would pick a seperate duck and regardless of its color use it only for this purpose.

I originally saw Lucky Ducks in my cousins basement and we decided to play it just for the heck of it. however it turned out we were actually playing it wrong, as you were supposed to put wrong colored ducks back to their original positions and also you werent allowed to keep ducks that werent of your color. Somehow by disregarding these two very fundamental rules, we had accidently turned lucky ducks into a Fast paced strategy game where the only two rules were to lie and decieve and the objective was duck sumpremacy.

Discord
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game using Rubber Ducks

Hedge-o-Matic wrote:
I was actually a bit shocked at the "shooting phase". Before this, it was al cutesy-cutesy, and suddenly... Blam!

A Bambi moment, if ever there was one.

Might small kids find this sort of disturbing? Perhaps the ducks in that flock bed down for the night, or something.

This is true, though I was aiming for something that my girlfriend and I might play for some tres-light entertainment.

I could I suppose, have the best of both worlds and just say:

How strange! That flock of ducks never made it back from flying south. I wonder whatever happened to them?

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