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Mecha Game

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saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013

So I've been asking questions around the board for a few weeks now and I think I've got a solid game idea I'd everyone's opinions on. A Mecha-based board game that players work together to fight off an invasion.

Here's a summary of it:

Players each are an anime stereotype (cool guy, hopeless romantic, always screws up, etc) that pilot a mecha.

Players can upgrade their mecha and form relationships with other pilots.

Relationships grant bonuses if morale is high. Poor morale can force a player to discard relationships or leave the game if no relationships are left. Relationships also provide a method to improve morale.

Each turn consists of the players spending actions at their base (Logistics phase), players accomplishing assigned missions (Mission phase), and the Enemy phase.

In the Logistics phase, players can upgrade and/or repair their mecha, form new relationships, draw or use a story card (provide random bonuses), find new gear for the mechas, or build new building that improve the base (either defences or open up new actions). They could also scout enemy plots to see which missions are easier.

During the mission Phase, players choose a location to go to and attempt to thwart the plot at that location. All of the dice each player rolls are added together to determine how successful they are: players together have a higher chance of success, players working apart can complete more plots and more rewards. Players who fail missions lose morale and have to repair their mecha. Some failures may result in a defeated pilot who is then captured and interrogated by the enemy, resulting in a base invasion.

The enemy phase deploys enemies (depending on which invasion boss the player drew, each one has different rules to change how the game plays) and deploys more plot cards. Some plot cards that have been in play long enough become active and hinder the players until thwarted. The number of enemies on a plot card increase the difficulty of that plot card.

Players win when they thwart a certain number of plots or defeat the invasion commander. Players lose when a certain number of plot cards are active, they lose half their team, or whatever condition is set on the invasion boss's card.

My worry is that I have too much happening. Base Management, mission completion, relationships for morale, mecha gear for individual improvement. Relationships seem a bit of a unnecessary add-on, but I wanted to capture that Robotech/Macross feeling where players interacted with one another as much as they fought the enemy.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Maybe

Perhaps it is too much, perhaps it isn't. I'd say prototype that thing and start playtesting. Only playtesting call give you the answers for these questions in a definitive manner.

zedword
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Joined: 10/27/2013
You need a "relationship"

You need a "relationship" phase that will allow players to re enact the dramas of Anime shows, and get relationship bonuses based on their archetype.

I would play this game.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Creeper!

zedword wrote:
You need a "relationship" phase that will allow players to re enact the dramas of Anime shows, and get relationship bonuses based on their archetype.

I would play this game.

Is there a creeper or is this the hopeless romantic? Because there is ALWAYS a creeper. Pokemon had Brock, Inuyasha had the monk (I forget his name), etc.

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Quote:So I've been asking

Quote:
So I've been asking questions around the board for a few weeks now and I think I've got a solid game idea I'd everyone's opinions on. A Mecha-based board game that players work together to fight off an invasion.

Hmm interesting,

I wanted to make a mecha game but it seems that tactical battles like battletech was not conveient and fast to play, while player vs player made it more complicated to manage.

But player VS AI could be interesting.

Now you just gave me ideas of designing a deck building game where you build up your mecha and where players needs to face invasions of monsters.

Else I was thinking about a deck building game as a campaing mode where you deck remains teh same fro a game to another, and whre you deck build between games. But it could probably be done as a simple deck building game.

Maybe players can add card to their deck between invasion wave. A lot of inspiration could also be taken fom "Rune Age", my favorite deck building game, where you could have various scenarios which different objective and BG story.

You could use an idea I had for a rune age scenario where you have gates where monsters attack from that appears as a stack of cards, and X cards are flipped from each deck indicating the number of monsters that appears on the board. Players must fight cooperatively to destroy the stacks of monsters before there are too many in play.

I have not read through your whole thread, but your idea of relationship between players could be how player interact directly with each other through support. Else every player does something on his own each turn.

There could be some potential in here.

saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013
Cool.

Good to know it's viable. I'll try making a playtest soon to get a working version of what I'm thinking.

In the meantime, I was originally thinking that mechas would get a generic combat die. I'm now considering breaking it up into ranged and melee dice. Melee dice get criticals more frequently. Ranged get more generic hits more frequently, and maybe a result that reduces damage taken.
I was also thinking of piloting dice (reduces damage taken by avoiding hits, also can be used for speed checks, etc) and covert dice (sneaking and remaining undetected). Missile swarms may be a done with a token that's discarded, an equipped shield can be discarded to ignore damage dealt to the mecha.

Any other mecha skill ideas?I'd like to have it that players could choose from a moderate selection of builds (ranged and combat, piloting and covert, covert and melee, etc) that would give a different playing it.

To note, my idea for the dice it to have most apply to more than one skill. Melee and Ranged dice could also have a pilot hit on a 1, meaning they can be used as pilot dice (although very poor pilot dice). Pilot dice reduce damage and can occasionally hit a wildcard side, meaning the result can be one of anything you want. Covert may have some combat hits on them as well as sneaking hits.

saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013
Need Criticism

Been dwelling on the combat idea for a while and I'd like some feedback on my resulting idea:

Players have to defeat plots, which are card placed on the gameboard. Each plot will spawn enemies on top of it (normal 1-hit guys, heavy 2-hit guys, and elites who increase damage players take at that plot). Most plots will continue to spawn enemies or move enemies from their card to other adjacent cards.

Players choose which mission they are going on and pay the cost to attempt that plot (if required). Players then each roll their dice to try defeating as many enemies as possible and note any armor results, pilot results and covert results they get in addition to killing guys. If enemies are defeated, the players resolve the plot card as per the plot's instructions (a final combat check each, some may not have any additional requirements, etc).

If players fail to kill all of the enemies, they take damage as per the plot card (+1 if Elites are still left) and can choose to retreat (depending if they got a covert result or enough pilot results) or start another round of combat. If they fail again, they take damage and can either retreat or remain there for the next turn.

As for combat, I'm thinking I'd like a variety of dice players can use by customizing their mecha. There would be regular ranged dice (deals one hit 50% the time), Laser dice (deals criticals that can one-shot heavies with 66% odds), melee dice (deal crits and more hits at the cost of also dealing damage to the player), improved ranged dice (deals two hits at 50%), and missile dice (weakest hits of all, can spend any amount of missile tokens to add missile dice to a roll). Dice can be customized with mecha components, which can also provide energy shields (ignore first point of damage per turn), issile pods (increases number of missile tokens you can have), boosters (increases pilot dice) and other goodies.

does this sound like an interesting combat mechanic and would it do well to drive players to customize?

baberahamlincoln
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Joined: 08/28/2012
Dice

I'd be more inclined to work with generic dice (such as regular d6s or d10s), but the context in which they were rolled would have different results. Context would be defined by weapon cards, which could be bought and equipped by each player (perhaps taking up a number of equipment slots / tonnage / requiring heat sinks / etc). For example, attacking with a regular laser would hit on a 1-3, missing on a 4-6, while attacking with a super mega auto target laser might crit on a 1, hit on a 2-5, and only miss on a 6. Using numbers would also allow for the possibility of roll modifiers, allowing for a mechanic that allows a near miss to become a hit, or a solid hit to become a crit (adding / subtracting numbers from a roll). This could work with the idea of pilots having the ability to increase skills in certain things (stealth master, rocket dude, kick puncher guy), or could tie into your relationship mechanic, whereby you can modify a roll when in combat alongside a loved one, or a loved one is in danger / injured / dying, or something like that.

Things like pre-reqs, ammo, usage, cost, etc could also be identified on these cards.

EDIT - something I've bounced around is the idea of cards corresponding to body parts, so players could literally build a mech out of cards, that are arranged to represent arms, legs, shoulders, heads, etc. May be adding a whole other level of detail to this though.

saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013
baberahamlincoln wrote:I'd be

baberahamlincoln wrote:
I'd be more inclined to work with generic dice (such as regular d6s or d10s), but the context in which they were rolled would have different results. Context would be defined by weapon cards, which could be bought and equipped by each player (perhaps taking up a number of equipment slots / tonnage / requiring heat sinks / etc). For example, attacking with a regular laser would hit on a 1-3, missing on a 4-6, while attacking with a super mega auto target laser might crit on a 1, hit on a 2-5, and only miss on a 6. Using numbers would also allow for the possibility of roll modifiers, allowing for a mechanic that allows a near miss to become a hit, or a solid hit to become a crit (adding / subtracting numbers from a roll). This could work with the idea of pilots having the ability to increase skills in certain things (stealth master, rocket dude, kick puncher guy), or could tie into your relationship mechanic, whereby you can modify a roll when in combat alongside a loved one, or a loved one is in danger / injured / dying, or something like that.

Things like pre-reqs, ammo, usage, cost, etc could also be identified on these cards.

EDIT - something I've bounced around is the idea of cards corresponding to body parts, so players could literally build a mech out of cards, that are arranged to represent arms, legs, shoulders, heads, etc. May be adding a whole other level of detail to this though.

Good point. I could even just have a failure symbol on natural 1s and a crit symbol on natural 6s.

saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013
Playtested

So I've ran a short game with some playtesters (I didn't play, just observed) and got some promising results:

-dice that have symbols instead of numbers had a better feel. Combat still felt a bit bland, but I have a few ideas to resolve that
-Relationships were initially detested by the players, but the players loved them afterwards. Didn't use them very much though: I didn't give them a good reason to worry about them.
-made players choose what to do on the enemy phase, worked quite well.
-turns went pretty quick once we got the hang of the rules

I'm making a Print and Play version if anyone is interested.

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