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VCR Prototype

VCR (pending title) is my main current project. I've gotten to the "planning phase" on a number of games and even began construction on the first iteration of this game a few months back. The original theme for this game was a pick up and deliver/stock market game where players raced around the galaxy buying and selling to accumulate wealth in order to build their own successful restaurant on one of a number of planets. The theme changed recently. Drastically. Now the game centers around VHS movie rental stores in the 1990s. With this change has come a drastic decrease in component complexity, which I think is a good thing. Below is my current write up on the game, sans the finer rules details before I actually start putting ink on index cards.

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VCR (pending title) puts players in the owner position of their own VHS video rental store in the 1990s. On their turn, players purchase “shelves” for their stores in the form of cards. Cards are purchased from the table face up using a mechanic similar to pyramid solitaire and 7 wonders Duel (Cards are staggered and can only be chosen when they are not partially covered by another card). The shelves are representative of 5 different film genres (5 suites, essentially). Each player can have a max of (8) shelves in front of them at any given time. These shelves can be of any mixture of genre, tailoring their store however would benefit them the most. At the end of each round players will earn money depending on what genre of shelves they have in their store. Throughout the round, players can use money or the special abilities on the shelves in their stores (promotional material) to manipulate public interest either positively or negatively for each genre. In doing so they will try to increase their own store value and decrease their competition.

Throughout the round, pieces representing customers will be manipulated into the “+” or”-” section of one of the five genres. Once the round is over the pieces will be counted and a track representing the current monetary value for each genre will be altered to match the current location of the general public's interest. (Example: If there are [3] pieces in the “-horror genre” and [4] pieces in the “+ horror genre” the total change in value for each player’s “horror” shelf at the end of the round would increase by $1) Players will need to manipulate the public to be interested in the shelves in their own store and less in the shelves of their opponents.

Also at the end of the round players will pay rent for each shelf they have in in their store. Each of these shelves will have an ability to sway public interest, bring in money or alter the game in another way. These abilities are activated by the player on their turn by paying the cost of the shelf to pay for the promotion. (example: a player first must buy a shelf from the pyramid, then pay the same cost each time they want to activate the special ability).

Players can auction off shelving units to other players, trade or sell (for cost- 1) back to the pyramid. When selling back to the pyramid players place the card face up in a way that would block other cards from being available.

At the end of 10 rounds whoever has the most money wins. This makes money both a resource and a victory point within the game.

Comments

Man, I hope this comes

Man, I hope this comes packaged in a VHS box. It looks like they are still being made, without the hubs even, and retailing at under $1 each.

You may get a kick out of this guy who makes VHS art for modern movies: https://www.instagram.com/offtrackoutlet/

He may be worth contacting for illustration work.

This may be a handy resource for inspiration: http://www.critcononline.com/video_companies_cover_art.htm

Thanks! The components in

Thanks! The components in mind would certainly fit in a chance sized box, so I was strongly considering doing that. I think I'll do it for the final prototype at least.

Sounds interesting

This sounds interesting, though the number of people that will know what a vcr & video store are decreases with every year.

I also can't resist suggesting that if you do a Kickstarter that you offer a better quality, but limited run, called the BetaMax version (not many people will own one but they will all claim that the quality is better than the mass market one)

plumpythimble wrote:Thanks!

plumpythimble wrote:
Thanks! The components in mind would certainly fit in a chance sized box, so I was strongly considering doing that. I think I'll do it for the final prototype at least.

I feel it is almost mandatory. You are riding the nostalgia train here, after all. If the components feel right then the game itself is almost irrelevant to the product's success. There is definite potential for selling to customers outside of the core gaming market, although you missed the optimal release date by about a month when they ceased producing VCRs. That would have been golden timing. If you get everything done in a year, I'd shoot for the anniversary.

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