Help with idea/mechanics please!

I like the idea you mention of creating hyperlinks on the board. I sounds to me like the board represents the Internet, and hyperlinks are allowing you to move to different "places" with more efficiency.

Have you tried creating different types of chits? Teleportation, capture, +VP, movement barrier, etc.? Effects occur when a drone moves onto the space occupied by the chit, and/or a one-time instantaneous effect. This allows for the players to customize the board in a more extreme way, as well as combine the effects of the different chits for interesting effects.

Draw the chits randomly out of a bag, or have all players start with an identical supply of chits to work with in the game. Random draws will allow dramatic differences from one game to the next, while a set of chits per player allows for developing strategy and tactics from one game to the next.

It sounds to me that sticking with the chit placement and then moving drones is enough information to wrestle with for this game. Personally speaking, the thought of managing a hand of cards, a supply of chits, and drones on the board adds an excessive layer of complexity. Whether you want your design to take that on is a choice you would need to make.

Movement Barrier: yes, I was thinking of blocking a specific square/area where no drones could enter.

Capture: a chit that either captures an opponent's drone that moves on to it, or returns a captured drone to the player who placed it. I suppose this works best only if chits are placed on the board face-down, and only flipped face-up if a drone moves on to it.

Control Points: I realize now that earlier I suggested players gaining VP by claiming a chit, but upon re-reading, I noticed your game ends when someone enters that opposite end row. My apologies. However, you could also implement a "king of the hill" mechanic, maybe a "file interface" where the player's drone will win them the game if they complete the file download (claim that spot for a certain number of turns). Additionally, if an area of the board is completely surrounded by one player's drones, that player wins the game. It might incentivize players to attack or set up a defense against one another. Maybe this could be just a game variant where the file needs to be discovered when moved into, just like any other chit.

Adding Chits at the Start: By adding the chits to the board at the start of the game, it might add some analysis paralysis as the game goes on, but it reminds me a bit of the setup phase of Stratego so there could be some attraction to it.

Is this a typical chessboard setup? From the way you've described it, that's what I pictured in my mind. In any case, to accommodate random and player placement of chits, you can have a row of randomly-determined chits at every other space in the center row(s) and players have a choice to fill in the rest, and they alternate turns filling in those spaces.

Here's a quick diagram of one possible setup for the middle two rows of a chess board:

http://www.let-off.com/bgames/chit-face.png

Players could place drones across the row closest to them, giving them 8 drones to play with in the game. Since the random chits are randomly selected and randomly-placed face-down, there's a high probability that games will be at the very least slightly different from one another for each play.

Adding in the player choice about what chits they want to add from their supply will add a bit of balance to the makeup of the random chits, as well as those placed by their opponent.

PS: I may be going overboard a bit with these puns... My apologies. :)

ok so your concept is some form of cyber battle as the theme

What kind of game are you making: abstract strategy, area control etc.

In regards to some ideas here are a few of the top of my head.

Have different character hackers available with some sort of ability that helps in a specific area. This is not entirely necessary but this is a simple element to implement that will give players more options and the game a bit more depth.

Missions: This will be another way to implement more choices for the players by giving them different ways to win. I.E: Infect your opponents host computer, retrieve x before the opponent, take down x servers and so on. Having different ways to play will increase depth.

In terms of more players you could have a tile system to create the server were you do battle and just increase the number of tiles based on the number of players.

Tiles: Tiles are used in a lot of games and can be used in a variety of ways and can be used to create random maps that have walls, programs and the tiles can be used to determine were the chits are placed.

That's all i got for now.

What I liked about your initial description was the simplicity of it. Like Chess, the actual rules are pretty simple, but implementing those rules against an opponent on a playing area creates endless complexity.

I would suggest that the 'chits' become a permanent part of the board. You create different points on the board that confer different effects to pawns around it. You could have a "hyperlink" with the jump ability you describe, a "haven" zone that protects any adjacent pawn from capture, and so on. This could create a permanent playing environment. You could design different boards with different point layouts to present players different strategic challenges.

Another idea that comes to mind is the ability to upgrade your pawns. Perhaps when you capture another piece, you can upgrade 1 pawn on your entire team. I'd limit the number of advanced unit types. Again, let the complexity come from player interaction, not the game design itself! A "Shield" which has +1 health and can absorb attacks to any adjacent pawn. A "Neutralizer" could neutralize the special ability of one nearby unit. A "Speeder" could move two spaces instead of 1. An "Attacker" could attack twice in a turn, but if so, cannot move the next turn.

If you define different unit types, perhaps that will give your game the variability it needs and you can eliminate or simplify the idea of chits or points.

Another idea is you could do a chinese checkers-type thing and allow all 4 sides to be occupied by players. So it could be a 2 or 4 person game, with the potential for teamplay or free-for-all.

Sounds really neat! good luck.

With a tile approach you can have some tiles you can have fixed obstacles, bonuses, etc. You could have two server tiles that are always placed the same way and the rest of the board generated from random tiles the board would change as the tiles offer different things.

This is just a suggestion mind you hope this explanation helps.