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Battle of the Aces - The Introduction

Hello everyone, I have been a part of this community for sometime now; on and off, mostly to express my ideas and also gain some wisdom and insight from other game designers.

For about three years now I have been developing a card game called "Battle of the Aces" or "BOTA" for short. To give you a little history, this game was originally developed (a much watered down version) in the fellowship hall of my church when my Mom and Dad used to have worship practice. I was about eight or nine at the time and had the nack for creating games. It wasn't till I moved to Pennsylvania that I grasped the passion for creating and playing board games.

BOTA was originally a playing card game where each player had the objective to eliminate the enemies Ace (hence the name Battle of the ACES). It was extremely balanced at its core and it took about five ten minutes to play. It was so advanced and had a lot of strategic potential, but there is only so much you can do with playing cards.

Eventually I started to brainstorm and realized the potential of the game.

To give you a quick run down of how the game was played, you had 13 cards all with specific movement, abilities, prey (what the card could kill), predators (what cards could kill the card) etc. You then used these cards on the playing field to outwitt your opponent to gain the most kills and eventually end the game by killing the enemy Ace.

The game played a lot like Chess. Land on a space with and enemy card that was included in your prey and it was removed from play and added to your points.

My creative juices exploded when I began designing new cards for the game. After that it just took off and I haven't given up on it since (even though there were plenty of breaks in between).

I am nearing the prototype/blind testing phase one that will make the game presentable. I am extremely excited and will be trying to update as much as I can.

Comments

What does the "playing field"

What does the "playing field" or board look like? What are the rules for predators and prey? I am trying to get a better idea in my head of how it would play.

Allow me to elaborate...

The playing field looks like this...

T/H T/H T/H T/H
T-----.T----T----T.........T = Territory
B-----B----B----B.........B = Battle Grounds
B-----B----B----B.......T/H = Territory/Home Base
B-----B----B----B
B-----B----B----B
T-----.T----T----T
T/H T/H T/H T/H

(I do have a much better illistration but it will not allow me to add the picture in this reply)

To further explain the Predator Prey System I will have show you how the cards are characterized...

Value: When killed how much points the enemy will gain

Abundance: How many of the card is allowed in the deck

Mobility: How the card can move on the board (diagonal, forward, left, right etc.)

Abilities: A specific perk or enhancement unique to the card

Special Abilities: When a special occurance or space is occupied the Ability will be triggered

Predator and Prey: What the card can kill and what it can be killed by

...

So take the Engineer for example (not the final name)...

Engineer
Value: 8
Abundance: Common (5)
Ability(s):
o Can activate two cards around the Engineer
Special Ability(s):
o Can trade any card in your Home Base with the card on the top of your deck when in the Battle Grounds
Move: diagonal, left, right, forward, backward
Predator: Abundant (6) cards
Prey: Base (4) cards

So for the Engineer he can kill cards with the abundance of 4 ("Base" cards). But the Engineer can be killed by cards with the abundance of 5 ("Abundant" cards).

Heres another example...

Denier:
Value: 10
Abundance: Scarce (3)
Ability(s):
o Negates any enemy Abilities and Special abilities and protects your cards from any Abilities and Special Abilities
Special Ability(s): N/A
Moves: diagonal, left, right, forward, backward
Predator: Base (4) cards
Prey: Rare (2) cards

The same applies to this card...

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